Welcome to another episode of the 8-Bit Guy.
Now, a lot of people are always asking me what is a good vintage game console to get
started with.
Now it might seem obvious to some.
A lot of people will just naturally go to whatever they are nostalgic for, whatever
they grew up with.
But, a lot of the people asking the question didn't even live during the 1970s or 1980s
so they didn't really grow up with any of these things.
So, I've constructed a little mini-series here where I want to kind-of pit these systems
against each other in a little contest and judge them by different criteria.
In this episode, I'm going to be looking at classic arcade games.
These are basically arcade games from the late 1970s to around 1984.
These kinds of games are what started the video game industry and remain iconic to this
day.
So, let's take a look at the systems I'm going to be comparing.
Now, some of these are dedicated game consoles, where they were meant for games and nothing
else.
And, some of these of course, are home computers.
Now, I'm only going to be comparing computers that their games could run off game cartridges
just like a video game console.
So you don't need a disk drive or anything like that in order to experience them as arcade
consoles.
So that's going to kind of rule out a lot of systems, for example the Apple II and the
IBM PC.
So the contenders are The Atari 2600.
This console should require no introduction, as everyone knows about it.
The Atari 7800.
This console has the interesting feature that it can play its own games, but can also play
the older 2600 games as well, increasing the size of its library.
The Atari 8-Bit Line of computers, all of these computers will play the same game cartridges,
but keep in mind they will NOT play Atari 2600 or any other console's cartridges.
The Commodore VIC-20.
The early predecessor to the Commodore 64.
And, of course, the Commodore 64 itself, which includes both the original and the revamped
version, as well as the Commodore 128 because all of these systems can use the same game
cartridges.
Next up is the Coleco, which by the way could also play Atari 2600 games, but that was only
with the use of this large clunky adapter, which basically contained an entire Atari
2600 inside of it.
So we'll only be looking at the Coleco for its own game library.
Next is the Mattel Intellivision, which I do not have in my collection, but I thought
it was important to show here.
As well as the Atari 5200, which I also don't have in my collection but will be showing
here.
And last, but not least is the Nintendo Entertainment system.
I won't be including any 16 bit systems in this particular competition.
Those machines came way too late to be into the arcade games.
I also thought about including the gameboy, but really this needs a video all of its own
for the handheld market, where I'm really focusing more on video game consoles that
would connect to like a television.
OK, so the first comparison I want to make is with software selection.
So I spent some time and came up with a list of 40 of the most popular arcade games of
the era.
Now, I'm sure this list will be controversial.
But I can assure you I tried to be objective.
There are some games on this list that I don't even like.
And there are some other games I do like that are not on this list.
In fact, part of what was required for a game to be on this list was that it must be available
on many different platforms, everything from the actual arcades to home consoles.
So, let's start with the Atari 2600.
Despite its huge library of games, it is actually missing 8 games from this list, which surprised
me.
I was sure the 2600 would be the winner in this category.
However, the Atari 7800 does even worse.
It only has 13 of these games available.
Of course, let's not forget that we can add in all of the 2600 titles that it is missing.
So that certainly makes it look better as now it is only missing 4 titles.
Of course we have to keep in mind that only these games with the green plus will have
the better graphics of the 7800 and that all of the rest of these games will look crappy.
Still, this console is a good contender for the software title champion.
The Atari 5200 shares most of the same hardware with the Atari home computers.
Despite that, it doesn't have nearly as many titles available as you would think.
And it will not play any cartridges from any other platform, not even the 2600.
It supports 26 of the 40 titles I've selected.
Next up is the Commodore VIC-20.
It only has 17 of these titles available.
I actually was surprised, to be honest, that even had 17 of them.
I never really thought of the VIC-20 having this many mainstream titles.
I only really remember it having a lot of proprietary and unusual games for it.
And next up is the Commodore 64.
It does better than its predecessor with 26 titles available.
Now this may come as a shocker from the machine with one of the largest libraries of available
software from any 8-bit system ever made.
I was really expecting it to have all of the titles.
However, part of the problem is I'm only looking at cartridge games.
So technically if you include disk based games, then you could add 5 more to this list giving
it an impressive 31 titles.
So, I mean, yeah.
If you have to include a big, heavy, bulky disk drive and all of the associated power
cables and data cables in order to run the game, that kind of takes away from the living
room arcade experience.
I mean, it's okay if its sitting on a desk, but not for your living room.
Ok, next up is the Nintendo Entertainment System, another console known for having a
large library of games.
Unfortunately, the NES only ends up with 11 titles out of this group.
I was really surprised by this result myself, but now that I think about it, It does occur
to me that Nintendo had kind of a harsh licensing system when they first came out.
They didn't really allow a lot of 3rd party software development and those that did had
to be licensed and manufactured by Nintendo themselves.
So, I think that limited a lot of the Activision and Parker Brothers games and stuff that were
really popular.
And not only that, but I think by the time the system came out and by the time they finally
started allowing more 3rd party games, I think people were tired arcade games.
Those types of games were now considered obsolete.
Next up is the Mattel Intellivision.
And, well, I'm not terribly fond of this platform and this is certainly one of the reasons.
There really just wasn't much software available on this platform at all, and it shows here
too.
It only has 13 titles available.
And the graphics on this platform aren't all that great, so it's sad to say that even the
little VIC-20 wins out over the Intellivision.
Next we'll look at the Coleco.
While it certainly does better than the Intellivision, it still has a rather depressing library of
games, coming in at 20 games.
Of course, I'll mention the Atari adapter one more time, even though I really don't
think it should count.
And the last system is the Atari 8-Bit line of home computers.
And this is what really surprised me.
It takes the crown with 38 cartridges being available of my top 40 list.
So, I honestly wasn't expecting this.
I found it a bit hard to believe that Atari's home computer systems were better supported
with arcade games than, you know, their proprietary game consoles.
So, here's the final score, and you can see which systems really win out.
I'd honestly say that any of these systems have an acceptable library and are winners
in my book, where these systems here are the losers of this category.
OK, now we're going to switch gears and we're compare the systems based on graphics and
sound capabilities.
Now, I don't think that inferior graphics is necessarily a deal breaker when it comes
to these sort of arcade games.
In fact, to be honest, I had an Atari 2600 as a kid and it never even occurred to me
that the graphics on it were inferior.
But, the thing is, I really didn't have any frame of reference.
I never got to see the games played side-by-side with another game console for any kind of
comparison.
However, today we're all a little more picky.
And the Atari 2600 graphics were just really primitive.
The 2600 was limited not just by its graphics and sound, but also by its minimal amounts
of RAM and ROM.
That meant there wasn't any room to store or deal with complex graphics or musical scores.
So the 2600 definitely falls at the bottom of this category.
The Atari 7800 was a vast improvement on graphics, however they kept the same crappy 2-voice
sound left over from the 2600.
But with a vast increase in both RAM and ROM sizes, the games that did come out for the
7800 were definitely on par with the better systems for these games.
It's just too bad it was never more popular.
The VIC-20 has very primitive graphics and sound, and worse it has no hardware sprites
at all.
Some games really suffer as a result, such as Q-bert that has black spaces around the
players due to this.
However, some programmers managed to work around it surprisingly well, and many of these
games actually look and sound better than the Atari 2600.
But let's face it, the VIC-20 isn't going to win this competition with its graphics,
and beating the Atari 2600 is not saying a lot.
I would have to say that the Commodore 64 and the Atari 8-Bit line of computers are
really neck and neck on graphics and sound when it comes to these games.
Both systems look really good and usually compare really well with the actual arcade
versions that they were based on.
In fact, I'm going to throw the Nintendo and the Coleco in with this group as well.
The intellivision had somewhat inferior graphics, due to poor vertical resolution, making everything
look blocky.
So, ultimately, I would say these systems are all in the same league and the average
person won't be able to tell the graphics apart.
These systems have inferior graphics and may affect the quality of your arcade games.
Now we have reached the 3rd and final comparison that I want to make about these systems.
And that would be how easy are they to obtain and how easy are they to actually use in the
modern world?
How convenient are they?
And so, there are many things to consider, so I'm just going to throw some things out
there.
For example, the VIC-20 has a big disadvantage because it only has a single joystick port.
So games are one player only.
However, some games can be two player if they use paddles, but none of the games on my list
even support paddles to my knowledge.
On the opposite end, the Atari 400 and 800 actually have 4 joystick ports.
So not very many games actually made use of the 4 joystick ports.
In fact, I suspect that is why they got rid of two of them in subsequent models.
As a matter of fact, out of the list of 40 games, only one of those games, Asteroids,
actually supports all 4 joysticks.
Another consideration that I think is pretty important is, does the computer have composite
or RF output?
So, that rules out the Atari 400, 2600, 5200, 7800, the Intellivision, and the Coleco.
So, if you want composite you can do the Commodore VIC-20, the 64, the Atari 8-Bit line of computers,
except for the 400, and Nintendo.
However, keep in mind that most of these systems use this old style DIN connector so you need
a break out cable to go to composite and audio.
However, two of these systems, namely the Nintendo and the Atari XEGS actually have
standard composite and audio outputs right on the machine, which is a real winner, in
my opinion.
I can also mention that it is possible to do modifications to these machines to add
a composite video port.
So if that's something you're willing to do, then that may change your opinion on the system.
So, who are the winners?
Well, I'll start with 3rd place.
This was the hardest place to decide.
But I eventually picked the Atari 7800.
There was really no reason to consider the 2600 since this machine can play all of those
games too.
Second place was easy to decide, and that's the Commodore 64.
It's a very capable machine, they are super easy to find in working condition, considering
how many were produced.
It has composite video and a nice library of game cartridges.
And the winner is the Atari 8-bit line of computers, and more specifically, the Atari
XEGS.
This system can have the keyboard detach and it literally becomes a game console at this
point.
It has composite video, and the largest library of arcade games available on cartridge.
I would like to mention that I'm only including systems that were popular in North America.
I know there were systems like the BBC Micro and the Sinclair Spectrum, but those are really
hard to get here in the United States, and so I'm not including them, not because I don't
like them or because I don't think it's fair, I just don't have 'em and I don't know much
about 'em.
So, I just wanted to throw that out there.
I'm sure a lot of people will be asking why I did not include the TI/994a.
Well, to be honest, the machine only supports 10 of the 40 games on my list, making it rock
bottom as far as software support.
And also technically speaking it is a 16 bit system, but not a very good one.
In fact, it would have been appropriate for the era.
But, I really think the biggest reason I didn't include it is just lack of software support.
Well, I hope you found that entertaining.
This is just the first episode.
I'd like to come back and compare these systems again from different perspectives and using
other criteria.
And, I think the results will be very different when we compare them in different ways.
In fact, you can leave a comment in the descriptions and tell me what criteria you think I should
judge them on next, and maybe that's what we'll do in the next episode?
So anyway, stick around, and as always, thanks for watching!