History MediaNotes / The8BitEraOfConsoleVideoGames

* ''VideoGame/BionicCommando''

What would be the KillerApp for the NES, however, was ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1''. The project, headed by soon-to-be legendary game designer, Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto, was meant to push the Famicom, which in Japan was on the cusp of receiving a serious upgrade in form of the Famicom Disk System, to its limits. Miyamoto and his team put all their previous experience with developing for the console into achieving this task, and it would show, with the finished product proving to be revolutionary. ''Super Mario Bros.'' was released in late 1985, and was by all means a GenreTurningPoint that would set the gold standard for {{Platform Game}}s for years to come. In the Western market, it can be credited with having reestablished video games as an acceptable form of entertainment to a new generation. Nintendo would follow this success up with several other games that would come to define home console games from thereon and forward; mainly through the 1986 release of Miyamoto-headed fantasy game ''VideoGame/{{The Legend of Zelda|I}}'', which would come to define much of the ActionAdventure genre. Later that same year, Nintendo also released the sci-fi game ''VideoGame/{{Metroid|1}}'', which, along with Creator/{{Konami}}'s ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania|1986}}'', would come to codify many of the conventions for the {{Metroidvania}} genre. Konami's ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' and Creator/{{Capcom}}'s ''VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins'' and ''VideoGame/{{Commando}}'' set new standards for arcade ports, bringing the coin-op experience home with the fewest compromises possible.

* ''VideoGame/SpyHunter''

What would be the KillerApp for the NES, however, was ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1''. The project, headed by soon-to-be legendary game designer, Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto, was meant to push the Famicom, which in Japan was on the cusp of recieving a serious upgrade in form of the Famicom Disk System, to its limits. Miyamoto and his team put all their previous experience with developing for the console into achieving this task, and it would show, with the finished product proving to be revolutionary. ''Super Mario Bros.'' was released in late 1985, and was by all means a GenreTurningPoint that would set the gold standard for {{Platform Game}}s for years to come. In the Western market, it can be credited with having reestablished video games as an acceptable form of entertainment to a new generation. Nintendo would follow this success up with several other games that would come to define home console games from thereon and forward; mainly through the 1986 release of Miyamoto-headed fantasy game ''VideoGame/{{The Legend of Zelda|I}}'', which would come to define much of the ActionAdventure genre. Later that same year, Nintendo also released the sci-fi game ''VideoGame/{{Metroid|1}}'', which, along with Creator/{{Konami}}'s ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania|1986}}'', would come to codify many of the conventions for the {{Metroidvania}} genre. Konami's ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' and Creator/{{Capcom}}'s ''VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins'' and ''VideoGame/{{Commando}}'' set new standards for arcade ports, bringing the coin-op experience home with the fewest compromises possible.

* ''VideoGame/KidIcarus''

The 8-bit era, or Third Generation, started when UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 ended. During the crash, console video games fell in popularity, due to several factors such as no sense of censorship or quality control, leading to a lack of effort in certain high-profile games. Creator/{{Nintendo}}, having found success in the arcades with ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'', wanted to break into the console game business. In Japan, they had put out their cartridge-based Family Computer, or just Famicom, in July 1983, featuring ports of their most popular arcade to great commercial success.

As for this era, it introduced a revolutionary aspect of game design, the scroll. Throughout UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfVideoGames, games either only had a single screen or [[FlipScreenScrolling flip-screen]] gameplay, which created, respectively, a constraint in the size of a level and a disruption in the flow of the game. Scrolling graphics was a big leap in game design in that levels could now be much longer and flow a lot better than in the Golden Age.

Meanwhile, back in Japan, Creator/{{Sega}} had tried challenging Nintendo's hold over the console market with their own home gaming computers. The first of these was the SG-1000, which had been released on the very same day as the Famicom, but had failed to make a big impact. A year later, in July 1984, Sega put out an upgraded version of the console, called the SG-1000 II, but things first truly got interesting when the third iteration of the console, the Sega Mark III (which would be redesigned and branded as the UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem for the Western market) was released in October 1985. The Mark III/Master System was technically more graphically powerful than the NES, but due to Nintendo's rather iron-fisted licensing policy on the domestic market, namely that they required that games for the Famicom could not be ported to other consoles, Sega faced an uphill battle from the start, despite their technological advantage. Inspired by Nintendo's success in the North American market, they also took the Master System to that region in September 1986, and even made an attempt at countering the popularity of Nintendo's Mario with their own mascot, ''VideoGame/AlexKidd'', thereby firing the first serious shot in the console wars between the two Japanese companies over the Western market, which would really heat up throughout the late 1980s.

When it came to the domestic American market, Atari, despite being hobbled by the crash, made their own entry into the 8-bit era with the UsefulNotes/Atari7800, first released in a limited capacity in North America in June 1984. However, as this was following the crash, Atari's struggling Consumer Division was sold to the businessman Jack Tramiel (who is perhaps most famous for being the founder of Commodore International) the following month, which led to payment negotiations with the designers of the console, the General Computer Corporation, getting caught up in deadlock for months on end, until a deal was finally struck in May 1985. As a result, Atari 7800 consoles languished on warehouse shelves, until the console was re-introduced in January 1986. This re-launch happened with relatively little fanfare, and many of the games and features that had been planned for the console were QuietlyCancelled during its absence from the market. The 7800's rather shaky distribution story also led to a persistent myth that Tramiel had ordered the console mothballed in accordance with the popular perception of video games as a fad, and first re-released it after the breakthrough success of the NES.

Though the 7800 did end up selling fairly well, in spite of everything, it still ultimately failed to really drag Atari out of the hole it had ended up in due to the crash. Under Jack Tramiel's leadership for the next years, a crippled Atari struggled on, to decisively mixed success, only managing to make sporadic and limited headway on the home computer and handheld markets. When it came to the console market, it would take almost a decade for Atari to actually throw in the towel, and while it would make a couple of attempts at a comeback, it would never be a truly serious competitor on that front again. In fact, it would be more than a decade before any other Western-based company would enter that market [[UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} as a truly significant player]].

* UsefulNotes/{{Atari 7800}} (1986-1992)

* UsefulNotes/SG1000 (1983-1985)
* UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem (1985-1991)

The reaction told Nintendo that they had to do something more to get past consumer skepticism, and so they redesigned the console to closely resemble and operate like a VCR machine, and disguised it as a toy using the peripheral called the Famicom Robot, which would later be released worldwide as R.O.B. (''VideoGame/RoboticOperatingBuddy''). R.O.B. would be the sales pitch; being a cool, marketable eyecatcher for the system, that would convince the hesitant toy companies to sell the console (while the consumers would hopefully notice that only two games were actually made for R.O.B., and there just so happened to be quite a few ''other'' games that could be played on the same system they had just bought). They also settled on a final name for the console, to emphasize the idea that it was more a general toy than a video game machine, the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem. While the peripheral itself was not well-received, they did succeed in getting the console to the market, and after a limited test release in October 1985, the full-on North American launch happened in February 1986. With Nintendo partnering up on the latter with the recently formed Worlds of Wonder, a toy company formed by former Atari sales manager Don Kingsborough after the company's failure to acquire the Famicom in 1983. The partnership would end a year later, after the popularity of [=WoW=]'s biggest hit toys Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer tag dwindled downward (the company initially used those products to [[{{Blackmail}} leverage]] NES sales), and a string of failures including the infamous Action Max console. Resulting in Nintendo to take back the rights and start releasing the system themselves, taking most of [=WoW=]'s sales staff with them.

* UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem (1985-1995)[[note]]The Japanese lifespan of the Famicom was 1983-2003.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/ElevatorAction''

* UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem (1985-1995)[[note]]The Japanese lifespan of the Famicom system lasted from 1983-2003 in Japan.[[/note]]

* UsefulNotes/{{Atari 7800}}
* UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem
* UsefulNotes/SG1000
* UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem

** ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles''

What would be the KillerApp for the NES, however, was ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1''. The project, headed by soon-to-be legendary game designer, Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto, was meant to push the Famicom, which in Japan was on the cusp of recieving a serious upgrade in form of the Famicom Disk System, to its limits. Miyamoto and his team put all their previous experience with developing for the console into achieving this task, and it would show, with the finished product proving to be revolutionary. ''Super Mario Bros.'' was released in late 1985, and was by all means a GenreTurningPoint that would set the gold standard for {{Platform Game}}s for years to come. In the Western market, it can be credited with having reestablished video games as an acceptable form of entertainment to a new generation. Nintendo would follow this success up with several other games that would come to define home console games from thereon and forward; mainly through the 1986 release of Miyamoto-headed fantasy game ''VideoGame/{{The Legend of Zelda|I}}'', which would come to define much of the ActionAdventure genre. Later that same year, Nintendo also released the sci-fi game ''VideoGame/{{Metroid|1}}'', which, along with Creator/{{Konami}}'s ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania|1986}}'', would come to codify many of the conventions for the {{Metroidvania}} genre.Konami's ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' and Creator/{{Capcom}}'s ''VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins'' and ''VideoGame/{{Commando}}'' set new standards for arcade ports, bringing the coin-op experience home with the fewest compromises possible.