Sonic didn't jump the shark. He was mauled by it, with a few junks spat back, which are repackaged at 60 dollars a pop every 2 years.
Cronus Invictus: An Alternate Console Wars (Something a bit different)
- Thread starter Thande
- Start date
No it wasn't (withdrawn for that reason). It was withdrawn for a year and a half because after Atari collapsed and Tramiel bought the consumer division to form Atari Corporation, there was a question between Warner and Atari Corp. as to who owed GCC for development of the MARIA chip. Jack had initially frozen all projects while he evaluated what he had all purchased, what still belonged to Warner (since they kept all "open accounts"), and what needed to be canned. About 9 months later (Spring of '85) it was finally settled that Jack would pay and then get ownership. Work started up again on it and excelled that Fall under pressure from Warner, with the 7800 being brought out again in January '86 at the CES show in Vegas.
Also, I'm not sure if this is supposed to be POD or OTL -
"Meanwhile in the United States, Atari slowly begins to dig itself out of the abyss with the release of the Atari 7800."
If it's OTL, it's wrong. Atari continued to go down in to the abyss even up through the test marketing of the 7800, until it finally collapsed. It ceased to exist in 1984. Many people are under the misconception that there was one Atari through the 80's in to the 90's. There were two - Atari Inc. and Atari Corporation. Atari Inc. (the company founded in '72) ceased to exist in '84, with it's properties split and sold off. Jack Tramiel bought the Atari Consumer Division properties (which covered the consoles and computer divisions), folded them in to TTL, and created Atari Corporation. The stuff you're talking about with regards to the 7800's reception and performance is actually in relation to Atari Corporation's release of the system ('86 onwards).
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Don't be silly, two years ago we got Dwarf Fortress, this year Prospector looks interesting and we have Majesty 2. Next year we are getting Avernum 6 and Elemental. There is Victoria 2 in the pipelines
Thande
Donor
Atari's not my area of expertise so that was an error on my part. Not that it's particularly important to this TL but thanks for the correction.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Those are incredibly niche-interest. Nowadays you never get any PC-exclusive high profile games, everything is ported to the Xbox 360 at least and usually the PS3 as well.
I was a PC gamer myself after Sega jumped the shark, i.e. from about 1995 onwards, but I've had to throw in the towel since last year because the market is collapsing. Go into any game store nowadays and see how much space they devote to PC games: half an aisle compared to two each for the Xbox 360, PS3/PSP and Wii/DS. Sad really.
Oh, not always quite true... the 'old games' bin is sometimes larger for the PC games, and WoW sometimes has a fourth of an aisle for itself, apart from the half-aisle for PC games and the third of an aisle for new games, including PC games.
But, overall, I agree. I mean, I take a look at what games I own, check how many of the more recent ones are PC exclusive, and come up with none (more or less- I have one which was released in 2007, but that is an expansion to a standalone expansion to a 2005 game, and it is, indeed, quite niche).
EDIT: Actually, I can think of a quite recent, currently PC-exclusive, at least somewhat high-profile game: The Sims 3. Ports rumoured, but not confirmed.
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the_lyniezian
Banned
Now if someone could do a TL where these two don't get pushed to the sidelines, or better still if neither Acorn nor Sinclair end up getting bought out, that would be great.
Maybe if Sinclair avoids or isn't too hasty with the QL, and the same for Acorn with the Electron (too many pre-orders and production problems sunk it I think). And no C5...
Interesting TL.
So the Sony PS is now the Sony-SNES-CD Playstation
or is there a cooler name you'll be using?
So the Sony PS is now the Sony-SNES-CD Playstation
or is there a cooler name you'll be using? Agreed.
At first I was hoping for a British computer wank (history was horrificly unkind and unfair iotl) but this is interesting too.
I am not being sarcastic. I am mostly content with the selections of games avaible to me. I would like to play Fable 2, but I am not losing sleep over not having it. For the last few years there have mostly been at least two interesting games in a given year and with a library of games dating back to early 1990's what more do I need?
EDIT: Thanks Thande, I actually looked into some older games on wikipedia (to make sure of dates) and found remakes of some old Siera adventures in SVGA and with mouse support!
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Have Richard Branson buy Sinclair Research and run the financial part of it?
As a Nintendo fanboy, I'm pleased to see what you've done with the PS1
As a Sony fanboy I say, you bastard you destroyed the greatest achievement of the 20th century!