Nintendo NES vs Atari 7800! 28 Games Compared!
Вставка
- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- There are at least 28 games that appeared on both the Atari 7800 and the NES/Famicom platforms. Which ones do I prefer? Let's do this...
Games Featured: 1942, Arkanoid, Ballblazer, Beef Drop, Burgertime, BonQ, Castelian, Choplifter!, Commando, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Froggie, Galaga, Ikari Warriors, Jordan vs. Bird One on One, Joust, Karateka, KLAX, Kung Fu, Kung Fu Master, Mario Bros, Ms. Pac-Man, One-on-One, Pac-Man, Pac-Man Collection, Popeye, Q*Bert, Rampage, Tower Toppler, Ultimate Frogger Championship, Winter Games, Xenophobe, Xevious.
-
I hope you enjoyed the video. Please check out the following links:
/ @gregsvlog
/ 1252321131587915
/ gregsgameroom
www.ataritimes.com
#videogames #retrogaming #retrogames #classicgaming #classicgames #classicvideogames #vintagegaming #vintagegames #arcadegames #atari #atari2600 #atari5200 #atari7800 #atarilynx #atarijaguar #nintendo #nintendones #nes #nintendosnes #supernintendo #nintendowii #sega #segagenesis #megadrive #segasaturn #segadreamcast #turbografx #pcengine #colecovision #intellivision #arcade1up #arcadegames #playstation #sony #xbox #microsoft
So I apparently messed up the scoring... Not to give it away, but the final score should be 11-15. Not really worth re-uploading just for that...
5 Minute History - Nintendo NES: ua-cam.com/video/k_oNjfOVB0E/v-deo.html
5 Minute History: The Atari 2600 ua-cam.com/video/H8vaXOKJxKQ/v-deo.html
10 Things You Don't Know About Atari: ua-cam.com/video/IPP-OBCxWMU/v-deo.html
Actually pal Dig Dug did come out for the NES, not just the Famicom, as did the less than impressive sequel for it.
What is interesting to see and to note, is what, the flickering on the NES. In some games is notorious the laziness of the programmers for the ATARI 7800, but also, the 7800 is clearly superior managing sprites without flickering. In fact, there are some games like karateka which are better on the ATARI XE, comparing with the 7800 version, but the 7800 is more powerful than the XE, sometimes, the developmet for the 7800 was not optimized.
@@ulisesgomezd.3405Absolutely. There are a LOT of games that were better on the 1979 Atari 8-bit computers and the 1982 Atari 5200 (which have the same ANTIC-controlled chipset as the entire 8-bit line (an 800’s CTIA GPU could be switched out for the newer GTIA that appeared in later 8-bit Atari computers, still several years before the NES or 7800). The 8-bit Ataris debuted in 1979 and included _the first graphic and audio coprocessors ever_ used in a retail computer, and that chipset was installed in the 5200.
Despite that the 7800 is a bigger number than the 800 or 5200, developers had worked with what were essentially 1979 Atari 400 computers actively for three years before the 5200 was even released, and so they knew well how to program it, as opposed to the NES and 7800, which (although the 7800 again used the near decade-old POKEY sound chip) both required learning the machines, from the ground up - and why the sound is usually the best part of the 7800’s games.
Not only that, but a large number of 5200 games had already been made, years earlier, and they were re-worked from the Atari 8-bit computer game cartridges to 5200 carts that _sometimes_ saw a slight upgrade or parts of the screen moved around (where the score was, etc.) but were generally re-made to take into account that the “Select,” “Option,” and “Start” buttons were on the 5200 controller, not the machine, itself - from _Pac-Man_ to _Ms. Pac-Man_ (which were awesome on the 5200 (especially as compared to the 2600 (ugh... )), to all four screens of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. (which didn’t all make it onto the NES until its remake, around 1990, _Joust_ (especially considering the control mechanics that made your bird take awhile to screech to a halt, before turning the other way, as in the arcade) which is a flat-out better game on the 5200 than on BOTH the 7800 and NES - as is _Donkey Kong_ by Ocean,_ perhaps ironically. Mario Bros. is pretty much a draw, between the 5200 and the NES, with the 7800 being the worst of the three versions.
Overall, in terms of the consoles, themselves, the 7800 is the most powerful (as can be seen in the recent homebrew of _Popeye,_ - which isn’t a fair comparison, because of the time the 7800 was out, before the homebrew were made. However, the OG 8-bit/5200 _Popeye_ from three years earlier has as good of graphics and better sound than the NES game. _Popeye_ is another Nintendo game on Atari, BTW),is the most powerful, and the 5200 is more on-par with the NES. The 7800 programmers just sucked, as you mentioned - but who’s gonna put a lotta time into games for a system that sold 150,000 units, like the 7800? There’s a good reason Atari went _back to_ the 8-bit computer line for their next console, the XEGS, which was an Atari 65XE computer split into component parts - the computer machine/console, and the keyboard that allowed it to work like a 65XE, which was a better machine than the NES, from the start - and it already had over 1,000 games, when the XEGS hit shelves.
When it comes to computing power, Nintendo could never compete with Atari, which put out the 520ST computer the same time the NES was released (and was among the most advanced and coveted MIDI machines, becoming the first DAW, with Cubase, until nearly the 2000s), and which put out the 16-bit color Lynx that was in every way a better machine than the Game Boy, only months after the Game Boy-and SIX YEARS earlier than the 16-bit SEGA Nomad, based on their 1989 16-bit SEGA Genesis-and with _California Games_ that looked and played better than *any* version other than the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga computers.
However, when it comes to creative ways to play games, 1980s/1990s Ataris couldn’t hold a candle to the NES - which Nintendo made up for, by releasing R.OB., the biggest P.O.S. ever to be connected to a console (even if only physically, in the controller holder).
Quick note on Xevious for the 7800: It’s the difficulty switch on the console that determines whether one button shoots both projectiles or a single shot. Maybe mess with the difficulty switch setting on your emulator, if that is supported.
Really, the choice that Nintendo made to make the display resolution compatible to many arcade games (256 pixels across), and the ability to have sprites (and BG tiles) with 4 colors (while still being 8x8 tiles), across four active palettes, made for excellent arcade conversions.
The 7800 has a lot more flexibility in display resolutions (both 160 and 320 pixel modes, and a few variations of each, with their own distinct constraints), and the flexible display list method of outputting objects can surpass the 64 object limit in the OAM on the NES in certain cases, because you have a lot more control over what you can output. The 7800 also has a much larger color palette. :)
Lil' kid.. I dunno the !@#$ you just said. But your're special. You reached out and you grabbed me by the heart.
@@stmboat Why would you assume that they're little?
Another great comparison video. Joust is my favorite arcade game ever and the NES version, especially with 2 player, creates such a different experience. Some friends and I got crazy good at the bounce "physics" and at the high levels it became insanity.
I was really surprised by the 7800 versions of Ballblazer and 1942. Looks amazing. Thanks Greg!
NES Joust isn’t terrible, but it does feel a lot different than the 7800 version!
Have you seen the Donkey Kong PK/XM 7800 homebrew? That one has tweaked graphics, Pokey chip sound, and all four screens.
No, I’ve only seen the 2600 homebrew.
This is the definitive version of Donkey Kong released for any home console. Definitely check it out!
Great job as always, Greg. I think we agree on almost all of them.
So many great 7800 games and homebrews make this closer than it used to be!
Thanks. So many of them could have gone either way. There probably should have been more “draws!”
The Famicom/NES version of Arkanoid natively support a unique dedicated 'Vaus' paddle controller made by Taito that differs per region (Famicom version used 15-pin expansion port, NES standard controller port, supports just one other game Taito Chase HQ) and is practically required as later levels of both Arkanoid 1 and 2 are pretty much unplayable using standard d-pad.
The 7800 homebrew I think now supports the paddle controller that's available via 2600 backwards compatibility, but a control comparison between them is really needed for a decision on authenticity/playability of each to the arcade original that used a spinner.
Tower Toppler was known as Nebulous in the UK and was released on a lot of the micro computers. I've never heard of it being called Castellan.
Same. Never heard of Castellan. Nebulous was a great game on the Amiga.
Tower Toppler is the greatest, I let my nephews who are die hard gamers try it, they get a little upset, tell them they have to move before they need to move from the slight lag from controller to the monitor
For 7800 it uses something called "Artifact Color" .. as long as the system is un modded with original RF out, those lines in the walls completely dissapear and instead has nice color shading.
5:10 I didn't know the NES had Rocket League!
I thought that about it too.
Great comparison! Might be worth picking up a MiSTer for capturing since the emulators were giving you so many problems with glitching/not working with artifact color. Tower Toppler looks much better with composite blend enabled in the FPGA core, in example.
Also worth noting that Nintendo originally looked at the ColecoVision, and used its 9918 chip as a baseline for what they wanted in the PPU, basically doubling everything, number of sprites per line, number of total sprites, number of bits per tile, number of tiles that can be actively addressed, etc.
Nintendo management explicitly wanted to be able to do pixel perfect conversions of their current arcade hits (Donkey Kong, DK Jr, Popeye) onto the Famicom, so it's no surprise that their first three releases were pixel perfect renditions (with some gradient of perfect) of their arcade games.
Great comparison video, it was awesome to see a bunch of homebrews in there. You'll have to include the recently revealed Bubble Bobble for Atari 7800 in your part 2! ;-)
Sounds good, maybe for an individual game comparison?
Great video! I really enjoyed this! I didn't get to play a 7800 back in the day. It's nice to see how it would/could perform!
I used to have both systems. It was still fun to play.
They both are…
You didn't have these homebrews that must have come years later.
Since we're mostly talking about arcade ports and we're judging based on arcade accuracy..... Why bother with any of these when you have MAME?
I had/have both. Got my 7800 before my NES and still continued to play 7800 regardless.
@@anonamatronWhat’s MAME?
@@SumDumGy If that's a serious reply I would google that ASAP.
I only knew one other name of tower toppler - that was nebulus (on C64). It seems to have had quite a few different names!
Nice comparisons! Interesting that the 1942 Homebrew uses FM sound. I know that they put the Pokey chip into the cartridge itself on the games that used it, so maybe they did the same with a YM or OPL chip. I just wasn't aware that this was done. Pretty cool! They should do the same using the SID chip. ;)
Commando's flashing is not an emulator problem but how the game is on the NES. The 7800 could move way more sprites around than the NES. Commando on the 7800 is simply superior, with no flashing. There's no contest there.
Brah you got some beer goggles on for those Pac-Man games 😂. Fun video thanks
yeah. wasn’t even close, NES owned it
Man, I gotta get an Atari 7800. If you told me Ball Blazer was a Super Nintendo launch title meant to show off the pseudo 3D mode 7 style, I'd believe you for a second there.
Great vid - thanks for all the time and effort you put into this! And hey - a comment from one of my fav podcasts - into the vertical blank! (Just check your score tally from Karatika into Klax. It… changes.)
I don’t even think I knew the 7200 existed until the UA-cam era. I never knew a single person who had one. Everyone I knew went directly from the 5200 to the NES. I personally had Colecovision with the Atari adapter, it still amazes me that even existed. Once we saw an NES, getting anything made by Atari was out of the question.
I have never known anyone in my life that owned a 5200. I jumped from Coleco/2600 to 7800 to NES, personally, but that was a choice - I could have had the Nintendo but was expecting a lot more out of the 7800 that it provided. I had no idea that it was a shelved, older system at the time.
If 7800 had come out when it was supposed to, it would have been much more of a competition here.
The Bentley Bear homebrew Crystal Quest shows that it could handle a Mario style platformer.
I’d like to see ColecoVision versus something. 🕹
Fun video. Thanks for sharing. I only ever played Popeye on the 2600, and that version is also very fun.
Thanks for the segment, enjoyed it.
28 mins in (up to Ms Pacman), have stuff to do now - but agreed on every single game so far! :) Subbed
LOL, you’re probably the only one!
It's too bad the Atari 7800 and Sega Master System were ignored by 3rd party developers in the mid to late 80's because of Nintendo's monopolizing policies. That really hurt competition.
The biggest problem that Atari had back then was Jack Tramiel, when he took charge of the company, all the plans that Atari had for the 7800 were put on hold, and it was not until he saw the success of the NES when he tried to do something, but he did everything in the most clumsy way and saving money as much as possible. If the Atari 7800 had come out in 1984 as Atari had planned (including the pokey chip in every cartridge) the story would have been very different.
I feel like you broke a lot of hearts with your Commando comments! That's a title 7800 fans (at least on atariage) really like to hold over NES fans' heads.
Nice comparison. Thanks for this video.
Good comparisons, but I'd accept it more if you did more 1-1 comparisons; so many of the games compared are modern homebrews and not standard released games which downplays the authenticity of the comparisons.
I wish Atari would have properly succeeded, imagine if we had NES vs Atari like we have Xbox vs PlayStation now.
That’s a whole ‘nother video! “Fixing Atari’s Mistakes” might be a hour long!
I think we would've had worse games because the developers would be trying to make games for two different systems at once, and that means less dev time.
There are sooo many divergence points though..... releasing the 7800 on time is one - but they also turned down distributing the NES itself.
Then there is the Coleco/Sega connection, and the fact that the next model Colecovision would have been more or less the Master System to begin with.
If things had gone different, Atari and Coleco would have been the frontmen for the Nintendo/Sega war.
And would that have made the PSX the original CD attatchment for the Super Atari 9900 or something? Lmfao.
Maybe do a comparison between the Atari 7800, NES and Master System? I mean, Choplifter on the NES and Atari 7800 are quite decent, but the MS version is simply waayyy better. Double Dragon would have been interesting as well...
Commando on the NES looks like that on original hardware.
Plus the Famicom version of Choplifter is based on the arcade port released by Sega.
Xevious in 7800 supports both two button 7800 controllers and one button 2600 controllers. The physical difficulty A switch on the 7800 itself is what determines if the game will be in single button mode. Your emulator must have been set for that.
It really should have been an option o the title screen but they went with using the switch on the console like how the 2600 did it.
I had the 7800 as a kid. The reason we got it was because we lived in a very small city and you could order everything from the sears catalog. Plus it played alm the 2600 games. Then i went directly to the super nintendo. I took my 7800 to college with me.
This was a cool post to watch. It was nice to see the 7800 hold up so well.
Great content. Thank you for this! Very entertaining.
Xenophobe on the Atari 7800 still represents the best "gaming" Christmas of my childhood...
Nostalgia is truly a powerful lens to peer through.
As a kid in the 80's I didn't know anyone with an Atari 7800. We all talked about the NES.
That's because you were 10x more likely to encounter someone with an NES than a 7800, the latter system not seeing the same commercial success as it's predecessor
Comparing original nes games to Atari 7800 homebrew games is not fair comparison
I have this video on my watch list..looking forward to viewing this!
Thanks, hopefully not too many surprises…
I'm sorry, but I can't see or hear about Ikari Warriors without thinking "Where did their hair go? Ooooo! Where did their hair go?"
Good video overall and I agree with most of the choices. However, I am really dropping into this comment section to say props on still using your CUTTLE CART II! That is true dedication! My own CCII has moved into a safe retirement since the advent of the Concerto and Dragonfly but it saw many, many years of trustworthy and dedicated service up until that point. 😀
I've seen more than a few posts on a few sites comparing the 7800 and the NES on a technical level. Many posters seem to feel that the "7800 was definitely behind the NES in terms of power". It is argued that the 7800 was "older technology" because it was intended for release in 1984 while the NES was released in 1985. That argument doesn't really hold because the NES was based upon the famicom, which was released in 1983.
Going by the specs, it seems to me that the problem was less to do with the 7800 hardware than the programmers and Tramiel cheapness.
Let's compare:
----------------------------------
CPU:
The 7800 uses an 8-bit 6502C. The NES also uses an 8-bit 6502. Their clock speed and processing capabilities in the core CPU seem to be fairly similar, both running at 1.79 MHz.
It has been argued that the NES has an edge because its Picture Processing Unit took some of the work off of the main CPU. Looking at the 7800's specs (without a programming background), it appears that the 7800 workload was also helped by it's MARIA graphics chip as well as the 2600 TIA chip.
In the tech specs on this site, there's a quote, which comes to mind:
"The 7800 mode is DMA driven, so the processor is free most of the time
to do other things, as the graphics chip runs 4 times faster than the CPU."
I don't have the official developer docs handy, but I also remember reading that the TIA chip in the 7800 were used to control things like joystick control, sound etc, also taking work off of the 6502C.
Any programmers out there want to clarify? It seems to me that the argument of the NES being helped by additional chips would also apply to the 7800.
------------------------------------------------
Memory:
As with most consoles, neither the 7800 nor the NES contained a lot of onboard memory. The 7800 contained 4K, while the NES contained 2K. This set both ahead of the 128 bytes that the 2600 had.
In terms of cartridge sizes, the NES appeared to be ahead, though the 7800 seemed to be deliberately crippled by Tramiel cheapness.
The NES appeared to initially be able to have game cartridges that were 128K without bank-switching. The 7800 appeared to be able to have game cartridges that were 52K without bank-switching. This put the NES ahead of the 7800, though both were beyond the typical 4K-8K games on the 2600.
What put Nintendo over the top was that they investigated how to use the cartridges to their fullest potential. The Tramiels were cheap.
Nintendo developed memory management chips to get around the 128K limit and create 256K, 384K and even 640K games for the NES. Atari didn't do this and the 7800 games never got beyond 144K.
Nintendo added RAM to the carts. Atari told developers that this was a "no no" unless they received approval in writing from the Tramiels. Nintendo added other elements like save-game batteries to the carts. The Tramiels were too cheap.
-----------------------------------------
Graphics:
This gets dicey because each system seems to have certain advantages at certain functions.
On paper, the 7800 has higher resolution and more colours than the NES.
NES: 256 x 240 pixels. 13 colours on screen out of 52 colours in total.
7800: 320 x 200 pixels. 25 colours on screen out of 256 colours in total.
In practice, this advantage didn't always seem to show up. Many 7800 games used the 160 x 200 pixel mode, giving them a black bar around the edge instead of a full screen appearance, like many NES games. Many NES games seemed to have brighter colours (despite the 7800 having a larger palette to choose from) and often used more colours (despite the 7800 having the ability to display more colors onscreen).
Was this a function of bad/inexperienced programming or other issues?
In terms of moving objects, I've heard arguments for each system. It has been said that the NES was more adept at tile-style graphics, hence the prevelance of Super Mario type games. The 7800 game library didn't have many games of this type, though SCRAPYARD DOG seemed to be programmed in this fashion.
On the other hand, I've also heard that the 7800 was significantly more adept at manipulating moving objects at the same time than the NES. Hence, the NES is often riddled with flickering graphics, whereas flickering almost never exists on the 7800. This seems to suggest that MARIA did indeed help out the CPU after all. Compare DARK CHAMBERS which often moves 20 or more characters with NES GAUNTLET (which flickers with only a few). One area were the NES stood out was in terms of boss creatures, though i have to wonder if this was also an issue of bad programming on the 7800. Few 7800 games featured bosses, though they did exist - MIDNIGHT MUTANTS, PLANET SMASHERS, NINJA GOLF and ALIEN BRIGADE come to mind.
The 7800 seemed to be a bit better at animation overall, as demonstrated by games like Tower Toppler and Ballblazer. MARIA was built to animate and it showed in these titles. On the other hand, the 7800 is often criticized for having more sluggish scrolling than the NES. This does seem to be a problem, though the system appeared to be able to scroll quickly when required (witness DESERT FALCON on a power up or SCRAPYARD DOG with a running jump). Neither the NES nor the 7800 were designed to do parallax scrolling (this was a big thing when the Genesis and TG-16 were released) though both demonstrated the ability to do this at times. On the NES, games like TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES showed that it could be done. On the 7800, games like TOWER TOPPLER also showed this.
SOUND:
This is the big area where the NES obviously stands out. The 7800 wasn't even up to par with the Intellivision in the area, using the 2600's 2-voice RIOT chip from 1977 for its sound. On the other hand, the NES reportedly has a much more advanced 4-channel sound chip. Anyone who hears 7800 games automatically notices the problem.
Some 7800 games seem to create relatively inoffensive sounds and music on the limited chip (witness JINKS and its digital sound, the title music from DARK CHAMBERS and the music from MIDNIGHT MUTANTS). A few also made use of the POKEY chip in cartridge to get NES-quality sound ... Ballblazer and COMMANDO come to mind.
The original problem with the sound was a GCE design flaw. The problem with the sound in the games was a Tramiel cheapness issue as they almost never included a POKEY chip.
--------------------------------------------
When you compare the systems side by side on a technical level, it almost seems as though the 7800's real problem was that it didn't have the good developers pushing it to its limits and trying out new things. They were quickly porting games from systems with lesser colour palettes, weaker animation capabilities etc. They weren't being paid to develop complex games and they weren't allowed to use additional RAM, Pokey chips etc.
And because the 7800 was never a "big system", we never got to see third, fourth and fifth generation games that showed what the 7800 could really do once programmers got familiar with the system.
Like most other post-2600 systems, some 7800 games had hints of what the system was capable of but these elements didn't tie together into a strong library of games overall. Most 7800 games didn't have Ballblazer's animation, Scrapyard Dog's depth, Midnight Mutants boss creatures, Fatal Run's passwords, Tower Topplers graphics or Commando's sound.
In the end, this crippled the system.
Great video. I am still amazed how good 7800 looks. Come to realize the Nes has terrible color pallet. I am thinking your emulator was stretching your games I just play on my orginal hardware using rf to my crt and they were not stretch vs nes.
Unfortunately I don't have everdrive cart like for my nes so I only have ms pac man and dig dug to compare and they were not that stretch on my crt
Also there were 2 versions of Ms PAC Man for NES. The Tengen version scrolls up and down while the other version doesnt
Ballblazer looks darn sweet on the 7800 wow
Unfortunately as someone who likes the 7800, the nes won 28-0. The sound chip on the 7800 was absolutely horrendous
Great video, but have you ever actually played the arcade versions of Pac Man or Ms. Pac Man? I'm not saying the game play on the 7800 isn't great and perhaps better enough to give the edge to that system, but the graphics are certainly not "dead on" when compared to the arcade. The NES graphics look a lot more similar to the arcade.
Did you see my caption on 7800 Ms. Pac-Man?
Wasn't Tengen's Mrs. Pac-Man an unauthorized version somehow? I seem to remember it not hzving the Nintendo Seal of Approval and I think it had some crazy levels too.
Great comparison!!! The 7800 and the 5200 were underappreciated systems.
I don't know I grew up with both of these systems. I enjoyed my first Nintendo but the first thing I noticed was slowdowns and incredible flickering. Are these comparisons on emulators or done on actual hardware?
When I was a kid in the late 80s everyone had a NES. However, I had a NES and a 7800 so my friends would always come over and want to play my 7800.😅
Commando on the 7800 also had dungeons to explore and rescue prisoners.
Why the 7800 version in 16:9 stretched video vs 4:3 of the NES?
Just the ProSystem emulator default.
I'm an atari fan. Nintendo had many more good games, but atari is special to me.
This is an interesting comparison video. I think your criticism about the size of the horizontal viewport vs. the vertical viewport is unavoidable because of the 7800's resolution. It's just so much lower... Also, your capture of the NES footage is in a 1:1 aspect ratio which makes the vertical space look that much more extreme. Additionally, your 7800 capture is at 16:10 (for some of them)! It might be better to compare both at 4:3.
It’s just the emulator (ProSystem)’s default.
I didn't know there was a homebrew arkanoid on the 7800.
Can i see a super mario bros 1 2 3 and megaman 1 2 3 comparison on both systems ?
And ducktales, chip n chap, probotector , turtles 2 , punchout , darkwing duck , super worldcup, little nemo, metroid ……..
7800 had the power to compete, but it would have been interesting to see what those homebrews would have looked like if they were officially made games when the system came out. I am pretty sure they would not have been as good due to programmers not understanding how to get the most of out the system. All in all I agree with your list, great job! I would have personally gone with the NES Pacman.
Nintendo was styled that way to look like a front loading VCR to differentiate it from toys such as the Atari and colecovisio. after the great video game crash
Great video
the home brew qbert hurts my eyes with that 15 fps
The NES version of Commando was notorious for being incomplete. The 7800 version is the clear winner there. Also it has more of the in-between cutscenes and it also has the secret areas.
Sega Master System's Rambo was better than NES version too. Both Commando and Rambo were popular Schwarzenegger and Stallone shoot em ups .
Rampage on the Sega Master System looks like a 16-bit arcade port. It blows both the Atari and NES version out of the water.
You know the glitches in Commando on the NES are the same on a real machine! No way does the NES win due to that alone.
Great video, how about a NES vs Master System video
That’s a good idea. Haven’t played a ton of SMS games.
Two things I disagreed with: that Mario Bros on NES is nearly arcade perfect. I played a lot of the arcade version and the NES one actually looks and plays a lot differently. But I do agree it's excellent and much better than the 7800 version. (2) - Ms. Pac is way better on the NES.
the rest I agreed with! And I'm amazed that there's Ballblazer on NES!
I think you stiffed the NES here just to give the Atari a semblance of a chance... and in proper form the NES still came out way ahead.
00:52 Entex developed the first non- connected d-pad for its Select-A-Game. Nintendo's looks suspiciously similar.
You're absolutely right. What Nintendo invented (and patented) was not the DPad itself, but a cross connected version of the pad with a fulcrum in the center, under the pad.
This fulcrum let you "roll" the pad without being able to mush all the directions at once, creating the ability to move smoothly between directions.
@@danieldavis2055 I love knowledge!!
The US version of galaga is called galaga demon's of death and xevious the avenger
Not sure why they would call it though.
Double Dragon NES was incredible, it's on another level completely than the 7800, especially the audio. It's hard to believe the two would be part of the same console generation.
Do the Atari games look stretched horizontally displayed by the real console on a CRT, or is it an emulator thing ?
Grass-fed cows make the Nintendo beef.
The 7800 was 4 years old upon release. No high score saves. The 7800 was impressive when compared to the 2600 or 5200. The NES and SMS reigned supreme.
Any idea where to get the 7800 versions of 1942 or Arkanoid? I have not seen them on cart (yet).
Not a surprising result. Having to use the low res mode on the 7800 to get a decent color palette and the 2600 sound chip put it way behind out of the gate. Even if it had been released on time I think it still would have lost to the NES due to the crash and 5200 disaster.
Just found your channel. Excellent Content. Another Sub For You Sir!
It's kinda crazy how many options there were for Pac-Man/Ms. Pac. Nintendo had two Ms. Pacs, the Namco (famicom only? Not sure.) Which doesn't scroll the screen, and the Tengen, which does. 7800 has the classic Ms. Pac, Pac-Man Collection homebrew, and later Anniversary Pac Man Collection, which has higher res graphics and scrolls the screen like the Tengen NES game.
Actually surprised there are NES Ms. Pac-Man games considering GCC would get the profits then.
U got any love for the master system?
am curious when the homebrews were made, and what a comparison would look like if there were no homebrews included. I almost got a 7800 off marketplac earlier, and if I do eventually get one, wouldn't mind a few homebrews for it either.
Good stuff. It is a tough call to compare the new unofficial "ports" being put up against a 40 year old game. I think the emulator you are using for the 7800 makes the graphics look much blockier. Ms. Pacman, Commando, etc... Just don't look like that on my real 7800. They are substantially better.
Even when I was using an 7800 emulator, some of the games didn't look like they did in this video. I know there are a couple 7800 emulators out there; maybe he was using a different one than I've used, or didn't have it configured properly.
Klax ..... wasn't that game created for the lynx handheld? ... I am probably wrong. But it is a cool puzzle game.
Yeah it was on Lynx and it’s one of the best versions.
I remember back when I was a kid, and for Christmas one year my one BIG 🎁present🎁 was the Atari 2600. Then a while after I got the Atari 5200 for a 🎁🎁present🎁🎁. I loved the Real Sports Series. ⚾️🧢Baseball🧢⚾️ and 🏈🏉Football🏉🏈 were my favorites. Then another Christmas a few years later my Mom and Dad had gotten a divorce, but they actually remarried. Anyways they got me the Nintendo NES for a 🎄Christmas🎄🎁present🎁. I remember playing Mario and losing my mind! Then I popped in Duck Hunt and for the next few hours my Dad showed my his skills as a duck hunter and we had a blast! We had so much fun that night. Again a little while after that, my Dad and I had stopped at Toys R Us. I wanted to pick up a game. My Dad ended up buying the Atari 7800 for himself, which he rarely played unless I was there. It was a way for my Dad "ask" me to spend more time with him. We had a few issues earlier in our lives. Alcoholism was the main issue, but he was my Dad. I ended up taking care of him, once after he went in for the last rehab stint, he ended up in a coma for over 2½ weeks. I helped him to regain his walking abilities. The other was the last one. He was diagnosed with inoperable and terminal lung cancer. I had long since forgiven him and those months we spent after he got his walking ability back, we spent the summer playing Mini-Golf. The last 18 months we spent watching Baseball, and every minute was special! Games were a huge part of my life growing up. My Mom learned how to play Tetris on the Nintendo Gameboy and she ended up beating my High Score. She actually got extremely good at it. Games, both Arcade and Home consoles were again a major part of my life, but my FAMILY was the most important part of my life. Thankfully the two overlapped a few times and it gave me some epic memories!
The NES version of 1942 is awful because Capcom outsourced it's development to Micronics who were notorious for their subpar work in the 80s and 90s. SNK made the same mistake when they contracted them to do the NES port of Ikari Warriors.
In general 7800 looks and sounds like upgraded Atari 2600. NES feels younger by a generation, even if it isn't.
I have both systems, no doubt the 7800 could of done better if the system had been pushed more. But when you have games like Contra C, Gradius 2, Crisis force, Castlevania. All pushing mapper chip enhancements in the carts the Nes is the clear winner. Those games are amazing.
The strength of the Atari 7800 was that it was supposed to be released about 3 years before it saw a wide release, and the NES wasn't even out in America at that time. Electronics Games magazine had a great multi-page article with photos of the Atari 7800 and some of the games. At the time, there was no home version of Galaga or Xevious and those were 2 hugely popular games and alone enough of a reason to buy a 7800, and the other games looked interesting too.The 7800 hardware sounded impressive had it come out on time.
The 7800 could have saved Atari if it had seen a wide release on time. Home computers and the out dated 2600 were killing Atari and Atari's own computers were too expensive (but great) vs a C-64. By the time of the NES in America, I already had an Amiga 1000 computer which blew away the NES, although way more expensive in 1985 and the Amiga was really in the lineage of the Atari 2600 & 8 bit Atari home computers designed by some of the same people.
The NES games as said are often dull in color. Being an older teenager by the time of the NES and a huge fan of visiting the arcades, I found often the kinds of games targeting little kids on the NES unappealing to me and it was my love of home arcade ports why I liked Atari's stuff generally, up until Atari got sold that is.
I think the American version of the 7800 controller was way better than the NES controller. That was enough of a reason not to like the NES. D-Pads are terrible.
Oh yeah, that Electronic Game Article on 7800 made us want it so bad and we got it in X-Mas 1986, before we even knew what an NES was =)
The 7800 was a great system with a lot of untapped potential. Atari could never get out of their “arcade game” style mindset though.
@@GregsGameRoom I'm glad, because the arcade style mindset was totally what I was into, and 45+ years later, is still what I'm totally into.
But the biggest problem with the Atari 7800 was, by the time it got a decent release too many years too late, the real Atari was dead and the new Atari was very unlike the original Atari. Everything was just leftover and would have been great if released on time.
Does the 7800 version of Arkanoid let you use the paddles? If you can't find an NES Vaus controller, maybe the 7800 would be an easier a way to get arcade accurate controller.
Not sure. It probably does. These homebrew programmers are pretty through.
I'm really enjoying these .VS videos, and I think it's great comparing the overall graphics vs gameplay aspect that often gets overlooked. Like the Intellivision video, sometimes the controller makes all the difference in the world, and here with the 7800, I'm not all that fond of the ProLines or the UK gamepad. To me, the issue is breaking a perfectly good game simply because the controller begins to hurt after a few minutes of playing, i.e ColecoVision, Intellivision, and sadly the 7800. Of course, with modern day controller hacks that's not really a deal-breaker anymore. Truth be told, I still love both of these systems.
This was a good one my friend! Real good!
They're both great systems and fulfill different niches!
I think the NES was intentionally designed to look like a VCR.
The NES design is iconic LOL
I had my interest rather piqued when I saw this video, but I was rather disappointed that seven of the 28 games compared - a full 1/4 of them, a rather significant amount when comparing so few games - were homebrews on the 7800. I understand that the 7800 doesn't have a big library in the first place, and there are even less games to compare without homebrews, but it's rather disingenuous to compare a game made within a couple years of the Famicom/NES being released to a game that was released a decade or more after the 7800 stopped being supported.
I grew up in the 90s, didn't touch anything older than an NES until the mid 2000s, and quickly became a big fan of the 2600, 7800, and Atari 8-bit computers just by their own merit of what was able to be accomplished with them at their times of manufacture & release. It's just my opinion, which honestly doesn't matter much, but I think most people that have nostalgia for one system or another are going to be pretty set in their views on these old systems, but those who have no nostalgia for them and this would be a first look at them, I think it would be better to present the games on the system in these comparison videos as though they're still on the market, not 30+ years removed with huge homebrew communities. I think the homebrews are a big plus to these systems, but the games that came out in the original time frame matter a lot more when showcasing and comparing. If people today are looking 30+ years into the past at games with no nostalgia to check them out, I don't think a lot of the hardware and software limitations are going to be a massive turn-off to many of these people. Again, this is just my opinion, so take it for what you will.
The bland boxy design of the NES is solely the problem with the mentality of Nintendo America. To the rest of the world, the "NES" was known as the Famicom, featuring a diminutive, red and white design that broke the mold. There was never anything like it. The same problem was found later in the NEC PC-Engine, which was so compact and so light, most American consumers wouldn't believe what that thing was capable of. The American mindset was to "fix" it by adding more plastic and weight.
What is a homebrew?
Resolution aside (hahaha right, some of these 7800 games look like they were made for a mid 90s handheld ffs), the colors are much more of a difference than i ever realized. Nes games look almost muddy when compared like this. I never saw that before. Legit point to the 7800.
Best gaming console from the 80s was the 1982 Commodore 64 with a 480p monitor. NES, SEGA, and ATARI are 240p. Super Nintendo is 480p and Genesis. So Sega and Nintendo owners didn't get 480p games for another 9 years in 1991. Look up Skate or Die on NES and C64 and you can see a difference between 240p and 480p and their both 8bit games just ones higher resolution in 1982. Smash TV was also on C64. Games were on C64 five years before 1987 Nintendo release in America. TVs were 240p in the 80s and the 1982 C64 monitor is 480p. Consoles were made for TVs so they had lower resolution than a PC. 480p TV didn't come out tilll about 1990. So the C64 offered the best gaming experience from 1982-1991.
I will never understand why the 7800 doesn't have a POKEY chip, or why the 5200 wasn't compatible with the 8-bit computers.
Man. They could have had some great 7800 games if anyone had bothered to make the investment
Interesting that the NES is 1983 tech while the 7800 is 1984 tech so in theory, the 7800 could have been more powerful. But by that point Atari was probably not home to the best of the best hardware designers
Technically NES was 1985, Famicom was released 1983, Famicom is RF only, NES is RF and composite output!
@@jescis True, IIRC composite is a better picture but the hardware was the same. What I didn't know is fairly early on, game cartridges would include chips to enhance the base NES' ability.
I'm glad the NES was so successful as it really did save the America home video game market but it really was amazing that even in 88 and 89, it was running on half a decade's old hardware.
I appreciate the time and effort for home brews, but I would always prefer a real cartridge to authenticate a format that it is for.