North American Video Game Crash Of 1983
The North American video game crash was a massive recession of the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985. Revenues that had peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. The crash almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles in North America, including Atari. It lasted about two years, and many business analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles. The video-game industry was revitalized a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which was released in North America in 1985 and had become extremely popular by 1987.
There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was supersaturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality games which resulted in the loss of consumer confidence. The full effects of the industry crash would not be felt until 1985.
Read more about North American Video Game Crash Of 1983: Causes and Factors
Famous quotes containing the words north american, north, american, video, game and/or crash:
“We might hypothetically possess ourselves of every technological resource on the North American continent, but as long as our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be “revolutionary” but not transformative.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Ah, how shall you know the dreary sorrow at the North Gate,
With Li Po’s name forgotten,
And we guardsmen fed to the tigers.”
—Li Po (701–762)
“In Africa I had indeed found a sufficiently frightful kind of loneliness but the isolation of this American ant heap was even more shattering.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art ... is merely romantic fiction.... The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not to bar
Our passage to our journey’s end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)