YDKF Episode 125: The Video Game Crash of 1983

On this episode of You Don’t Know Flack I talk about the Video Game Crash of 1983: what caused it, and why Imissed it.

[Links]

The worst arcade conversion I’ve ever seen.
A couple of other converted cabinets I’ve owned.
A quick plug for the book Racing the Beam

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A mirror copy of this episode is located at the Internet Archive.

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2 thoughts on “YDKF Episode 125: The Video Game Crash of 1983”

  1. Tex-Hogger

    The crash of ’83 really affected the Texas Instruments and their TI-99 series. TI tried to market against the Commodore 64, and was loosing money so badly they pulled out of the market. IMHO that is where it all started. Commodore drove everyone’s prices so low, they couldn’t compete, even though some of the systems were far superior to the C-64.

    I was a teenager at the time, and of course I had, (and still have) a TI back then. While all my “friends” had C-64’s. Like you mentioned, it was actually good for most of us, because it dropped the price of a lot of the consoles, games, software, etc. for these systems. That is how my dad was able to get the expansion box with the 32k card, rs-232, disk controller, and a SS-SD floppy drive for dirt cheep back then. And yes I still have my system, granted it is not set up at this time, but still long for it, and do “play” with it in MESS and a few other emulators.

    I also believe the NES is what “revived” the video game market. And if you really look at the way Nintendo, Micro$oft, and $ony market and produce software for their systems, is the same way TI did for their home computer systems. Maybe they were too far ahead of the “times”. Even today Apple is doing the same thing with their iOS systems. Keeping them “closed” and controlling what and how is ran on their systems…..

    Tex-Hogger

  2. Earl Green

    I’ve heard of Turtles in Time, but never Turtles from A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away. Sheesh! Talk about a conversion job practically designed to boil the blood of people with even the slightest passing interesting in arcade collecting.

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