Yeah, when I said games were much cheaper, I was obviously referring to tape games, not cartridge. Plus the fact that copying was extremely common and easy for tape games. I did however buy quite a few cartridge games back in the day. I had amongst others Nemesis (Gradius), Penguin Adventure, Vampire Killer, Maze of Galious, Metal Gear, F1 Spirit, Usas, Salamander and Game Master 1. Pretty much all MegaROM games for a reason... I also had a MT-Base cartridge, and got myself a FM-PAC as soon as it was available.
Yes, casettegames where around 10 - 15 gulden ( 5 to 7,50 euros), a few exceptions.
I remember having games on tape, Narco Police, Astro Marine Corps, Chopper, Space Shuttle, Frogger, After Burner.
On-topic again.
Those tapes are sometimes really expensive on ebay, they seem to be in pristine condition. But I do have to admit, there are tape sellers which sell them in good condition for a fair price as well.
Oh yeah, I especially remember the loading time of "filght deck" and a music program that played "the bolero" during loading. They both took about 15 minutes to load on tape. What a miracle the diskdrive was for me later on
I did not know anyone at the time that actually had a game console, other then the Atari 2600. Everyone bought a home computer, most popular was by far the C64 which most of my classmates had. I remember my nephew had a Plus/4 with disk drive and was very proud of it. My first computer was a ZX81, followed a year or two later by a Sanyo MPC-100.
The reason for the popularity of the home computers was, I think
- parents were more easily convinced it had 'educational' value
- games were much cheaper, or could easily be copied from a friend or classmate.
oh yes, definitely... consoles were just entertainment, computers were educational. Good thing MSX had great games, you just have to guess what we used it the most for.... still, the idea worked to some degree.
And I think everyone copied games? I didn't really even realize what was "illegal" or not at the time (kids eh)... like TheKid we also had an address where you could order a cracked version of a game for cheap. Maybe it was the same guy, I don't know. I don't think there was a lot of risk doing such a thing at the time.
