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Consoles in Europe - dark story of the past

Joined
Apr 5, 2013
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Please share your experience about console history in Europe, especially the eastern one, history that's so different from japanese or that showned in AVGN's episodes. In Poland, as far as I'm concerned there was 100% computer domination in gaming 'market' (used comas because of piracy and lack of copyright regulations) of the 80'. Consequences are easily seen even today - common term is 'computer games' instead of 'video games'.

Story starts with early 90' when some strange Atari2600 clone called Rambo hit Potatoland.


rambotvgame.jpg



Besides cartridge slot (dedicated for games that were nowhere to be bought) device had some nice packet of built-in games like Pacman, Sneak'n Peek, Keystone Kapers, Pitfall etc.

Then there was Pegasus era...

220px-Pegasus_console%2Bpad%2Bgame.jpg


...a gloriuos Famiclone being sold with violet 168-in-1 cartridge (Contra, Popeye, Hoogan's Alley,
Mappy, Donkey Kong, Field Combat...) or so called Golden Four and Golden Five carts full of Codemasters games.

168%20in%201.jpg


images


Pegasus%20Golden%20Five.JPG



It's funny cause no one in Poland knew about NES/Famicom so Pegasus was commonly considered as the original console, while the following storm of cheap asian/russian crapconsoles was tought to be his clones. Which games were popular? Potato taste was formed in 100% by eastern bootlegers, there was a rule the more the better, quality didn't matter. Any carts with built-up save-game battery was non existence. Legend of Zelda? Metroid? Final Fantasy? Dragon Quest? All of this games meant NOTHING then, they were completely unknown. Instead we had pirate Mortal Kombat ports (1&2 basedand were suprisingly good for a Nes games, especially due to small amount of fighting games, 3/Trilogy and the one with redrawn characters were barely playable), Codemasters' masterpieces like Fantastic Adventure of Dizzy or Mirco Machines, Duck Hunt, Galaxian, Galaga, Baloon Fight, Warp, Ice Climber and tons of Super Mario Bros.' hacks.

16 bit consoles? It's a big black hole. Their role was of minor importance. I met literally no one who had SNES or Megadrive and I probaply know why - Famiclones were so cheap, famous of being 'gaming system for poor people', then the IBM and Amigas were high-class hardware, especially PC's in the beginning of 3D-era - there was no place was 16bit consoles. Ther were way too expensive and there was lack of piracy, few people could afford to such stupid gaming toy... Magazines like Top Secret and Secret Service tried to promote this stuff around'95/'96 but failed miserably. Emulation is what brought Snes and Genesis games here...


At least with 5th generation of consoles Poland left the third world countries and chose Playstation. N64 suffered the same fate as his ancestor - high prices, no piracy. Saturn gained a bit of popularity but it was short lived.

Portables was far from my interest but I remember primitive cool stuff from Russian bros, 1game handhelds suchs as Nu-
pagadi! or some duck-hunting, was proud of it until found that they were only clones of Nintendo's Game&Watch... really sad, soviet technology equals bullshit.

1_400x300.jpg



How about you? You polish dudes too, maybe our version of history differs.
 

grdja

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Srbija here, same shit really. Kids who had relatives working in Germany or Canada were the few proud owners of actual Segas and Nintendos. For rest of us, even that "Rambo" was something to strive for. And ofc even looking at huge price disparity, going to parents with "please buy me a PC, I need it for school and like... stuff" worked so much better than "buy me a video game console, so I can play games , on TV".

Also lol at that stupid wolf gathering eggs. Its been a long long time.
 

warpig

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I dont' know the statistics but as far as I remember, early 90's were mostly about c64/Atari/Amiga and to some extent PC. Up to mid 90's consoles were looked down upon by the "gaming culture" in Poland, magazines rarely even mentioned them. First console that became popular was the PSX (when it got pirated).

N64 suffered the same fate as his ancestor - high prices, no piracy.
I recall N64 was also scoffed for having mostly "kid games", even some reviewers made fun of it (especially in PSX-centered magazines).
 

Luzur

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i dunno, being part of the Capitalist Satan West gave me access to the big boys, like NES, SNES, Sega and Playstation, most of what you guys have posted ive only seen in documentaries about computer piracy in the USSR or as oddities in fellow collectors hoards.

but i do own a SNES arabic/balkan pirate console and a few asian 10 in 1 carts.
 

Regvard

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Pretty much the same thing happened in Turkey.

Though I've been a member of the PC master race since I was 8 or 9 so I don't know what happened afterwards.
 
Joined
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Up to mid 90's consoles were looked down upon by the "gaming culture" in Poland, magazines rarely even mentioned them.

It's because of all the consoles before 5th generation were introduced a long, long time after their western/japanese launch time and became already outdated when hit Poland. Atari26k, a machine of late 70' arrived here in early '90, Nes-clones done it even later, SNES/MGDRV were mentioned only in dedicated console corners of PC-to-the-bone magazines in mid 90' - I blame these magazines for they promoted mainly platform, action or puzzle games, presenting 16-bit systems as something barely different from their 8-bit counterparts. All jrpg-hype was out of range until 1998 when Final Fantasy 7 PC port was released.

Damn it's so funny to watch after years those western Nes commercials, presenting these games as new, fresh, highest-quality products with people paying 60-80 bucks for single cart with shitty overhyped Double Dragon game. Out of potato imagination, in our minds such games will remain forever as the symbol of social poverty and cultural backwardness.
 

mondblut

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We had Dendy, which was a Genesis clone IIRC. Who needed that crap when we were of the glorious PC Master Race? (and before that, not so glorious ZX Master Race)
 

ghostdog

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When I was youngster I went with my dad to buy a NES console. But the store manager told us "don't get the original console, it's not worth it. I have this great clone here that can play these imported games, which are cheaper than the official regional imports and some of them aren't even imported in europe". The console was called crazy boy and was indeed better than NES since it could play the standard NES cartridges and the smaller imported ones, with an adapter.

crazyboy1.jpg



metroid_cartridge.jpg
micrones.jpg
 

Minttunator

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It was pretty much the same here in Estonia - in the early 90s, when I started gaming, we all had NES clones and those yellow multi-game cartridges that the OP posted. One of my wealthier friends had a Mega Drive and one had a SNES - everybody else played on their Famiclones pretty much until the second half of the 90s when we started moving to PCs.

Personally, I haven't played on a console since. On the whole, however, the Playstation did also enjoy some popularity in the late 90s - mainly due to the high availability of pirated games, like the OP also noted.
 

Outlander

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When I was youngster I went with my dad to buy a NES console. But the store manager told us "don't get the original console, it's not worth it. I have this great clone here that can play these imported games, which are cheaper than the official regional imports and some of them aren't even imported in europe". The console was called crazy boy and was indeed better than NES since it could play the standard NES cartridges and the smaller imported ones, with an adapter.

crazyboy1.jpg



metroid_cartridge.jpg
micrones.jpg


I had a similar one, called Turbo Game:

cceturbogame1.jpg


Both original NES cartridges and the smaller ones worked on this. By then I was also using a PC but I still got the SNES when it came out, really enjoyed it and I still emulate but it was my last console ever since.
 

mondblut

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We had Dendy, which was a Genesis clone IIRC.

Wasn't it a Famiclone?

Beats me, but the only game I remember playing on it was FIFA International Soccer, and I don't think it was ever released for NES.

Or wait, my father probably already had real Sega by then, not Dendy.

Who needed that crap when we were of the glorious PC Master Race?

Gamerz who couldn't afford PC or even Amiga.

They could afford ZX Spectrum. Consoles are for subhumans.
 

FuelBlooded

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i was very little so I couldn't even read my own language. though some of my friends told me they had a terminator console and after a quick search on google, I confirm I had the same console!

Joc-pe-televizor.jpg


I don't know which console close it was - probably NES? Not sure and the controllers broke like nothing. I remember my mom buying them fairly often again and again.
 

grdja

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i was very little so I couldn't even read my own language. though some of my friends told me they had a terminator console and after a quick search on google, I confirm I had the same console!

Joc-pe-televizor.jpg


I don't know which console close it was - probably NES? Not sure and the controllers broke like nothing. I remember my mom buying them fairly often again and again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis

Genesis, in Europe known as MegaDrive II
 

Bahamut

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Hah i have these three somewhere, that 168 pack was badass (but most of them where same games with various hacks)


It's funny cause no one in Poland knew about NES/Famicom so Pegasus was commonly considered as the original console,

I actualy known one person who had the original one

I met literally no one who had SNES

And, again a friend of my brother actually had one, he even borrowed it to us one time, had a blast with Super Mario World
 

Hamster

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Dendy was awesome, but anyone who has not swithced to PC after it is a faggot. :smug:

junior_5.jpg


90351bea5004.jpg
 
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