What If, back in 1990....

In 1990 a young computer programming whiz that worked for a company called Softdisc by the name of John Carmack created a new PC gaming engine and screen refeshing method he called "adaptive tile refresh". This allowed the 386 PC's of the time to produce character-point free scrolling games, like those seen on home consoles, but at higher resolutions and with a larger color palette. It was something never seen before on PC's and a huge leap in home PC gaming tech.

Carmack and two other Softdisc employees John Romero and Adrian Carmack (no relation), over the course of one weekend in Shreveport, Louisiana, coded and a pixel perfect port of Super Mario Brothers 3 playable on the 386 PC. They sent the disc to Nintendo Inc. as a demo of the new engine, and requested a partnership under the name Idea's from the Deep to port and publish Nintendo games on the surging PC gaming platform.

Nintendo replyed that they where very impressed with the technology, but had no interest in pursuing a market on the PC. Nintendo turned down a partnership with Idea's from the Deep and went on their way.

3 years later, Carmack, Romero and the rest of the team, now called ID Software released a game called Doom. Doom changed everything about gaming, and even today ,some 15 years later, the ripple effects of Doom still drive a huge portion of the gaming world.

So... WHAT IF....

What if Nintendo had picked up Carmack, Romero and the Id team back in 1990 as an in house developer? How do you think things would be different, for Nintendo, PC gaming, and the industry as a whole?

Nintendo would have been the creator of teh cell and would then take over the universe.

Hmmmm who knows.

Maybe Nintendo would be completely owning in the handheld, console, and PC markets.

TC, these kinds of threads don't really pop off here in SW. Too much text. :P Try General Games Discussion.

But, if events turned out that way, I highly doubt that the Wii would exist.

This topic is too smart for System Wars, get off my internetz.X360PS3AMD05

lul.

I think Valve and the Half-Life series were derived from ID in some way, that's pretty big.

STEAM, Counterstrike all that came out of Halflife. I'll look for the section in Wiki.

Knowing Nintendo, they probably wouldn't have allowed Doom to be made as it would have clashed with their 'family friendly' image. This wouldn't have sat well with John Romero and especially Adrian Carmack (judging from the book 'Masters of Doom'), so I image they would have left (along with John Carmack, most likely) and formed another studio.

Long-time Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington founded Valve on August 24, 1996.[4][5] After securing a license to the Quake engine (through the help of friend Michael Abrash of id Software) in late 1996, they commenced working on Half-Life. Originally planned for release in late 1997, Half-Life launched on November 19, 1998. Valve acquired TF Software PTY Ltd, the makers of the Team Fortressmod for Quake, in May 1998 with the intent to create a standalone Team Fortress game. The Team Fortress ****cmod, essentially a port of the original Team Fortress mod for Quake, was released for Half-Life in 1999. Gearbox contributed much after the release of Half Life. Gearbox Software is responsible for the Half Life expansion packs, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift, along with the home console versions of Half Life for the SegaDreamcast and SonyPlayStation 2.

There was some affiliation, enough to change the future, I'd say so.

Nintendo Would've published Doom? Im_single

Long-time Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington founded Valve on August 24, 1996.[4][5] After securing a license to the Quake engine (through the help of friend Michael Abrash of id Software) in late 1996, they commenced working on Half-Life. Originally planned for release in late 1997, Half-Life launched on November 19, 1998. Valve acquired TF Software PTY Ltd, the makers of the Team Fortressmod for Quake, in May 1998 with the intent to create a standalone Team Fortress game. The Team Fortress ****cmod, essentially a port of the original Team Fortress mod for Quake, was released for Half-Life in 1999. Gearbox contributed much after the release of Half Life. Gearbox Software is responsible for the Half Life expansion packs, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift, along with the home console versions of Half Life for the SegaDreamcast and SonyPlayStation 2.

There was some affiliation, enough to change the future, I'd say so.

HavocV3

Yes, without a doubt.

This is a good example of the far reaching effects that id and Doom had on what the entire industry is today. In many ways, id's exsistence as a company and the ripple effect of their games and tech has done more to change the industry as a whole then Nintendo ever has.

This is why its interesting to ponder in System Wars, among the fans of the various PC and gaming formats, what would have happened back in 1990 if Nintendo was a little more forward thinking when approached by Carmack and company with what was obviously a huge leap in PC gaming tech.

I would put forth that if Nintendo had picked up Ideas from the Deep, nothing right now would be the same.

Doom would have most likely never been made. Many reasons why, not just the "nintendo image thing" To much to list.

Valve would probably not exist... even it if it did, there would be no Half-Life, No Steam.

Epic would not exist.

PC gaming would be much smaller then it is now, and gaming as a whole would be much smaller.

Nintendo would have been much faster to embrace new tech in their home consoles. The N64 would have been a completely different machine. Most likely a CD ROM based system.

Depending on what Nintendo did, Sony may not have ever even got into the console market, or would be a partner with Nintendo as orginally planned.

Microsoft... hard to say if they would have put a foot in the console door.

There would be a LOT more small time, third party companys making console games. The giant mega-gaming houses like EA and Activision would be much smaller 3rd party studios.

The Wii would not have ever been made at all. Whatever for of home system Nintendo would have out today in this "alternate" timeline would look a lot more like the PS3.

Everything would be drastically different. I think things worked out for the better because Nintendo did not realize what it had in its hands. I know PC gaming is much better off now than it would have been if Nintendo had picked up id.

I thought it was just something interesting to throw out there to people.

We would all be living under the Nintendo Global Empire and it's strict regime.

And I for one would like to welcome our new overlords.

My solution, to threads like these. Is that it's best not to think about those kind of things too hard.

Nintendo always could've used another brand, much like Dinsey used the 'Touchstone' brand to release more darker films in their library. Nintendo always could've done the same, using a psuedonym or alias as another company and publish Doom on the PC for their own gains. Either way, we'll never know.

Well it would probably men that Romero would have stuck with id which would mean: 1: There'd be no Daikatana which would be a plus 2: There'd be no Deus Ex which would be a negative 3: We'd have seen much more of Romero's magnificent hair, which could be both good and bad.

Knowing Nintendo, they probably wouldn't have allowed Doom to be made as it would have clashed with their 'family friendly' image. This wouldn't have sat well with John Romero and especially Adrian Carmack (judging from the book 'Masters of Doom'), so I image they would have left (along with John Carmack, most likely) and formed another studio.

hypoty

This topic is too smart for System Wars, get off my internetz.X360PS3AMD05

Hurry, m8, drag him back to pc section before he gets slaughtered by system wars people.