IGN Top 100 Games of All Time

[Sik]

The original PC was actually intended for the home market, hence the built in BASIC, support for tapes and CGA having TV output, which is what IBM assumed would be the most common setup. It flopped there (and IBM got mocked for it by the press). What happened instead was small businesses that couldn't afford a mainframe saw the PC had IBM's name on it and started ordering PCs with all the goodies (floppy drives, dedicated monitor, printer) to the point that IBM couldn't meet demand and had a shortage. In other words, they accidentally succeeded in the "wrong" market (whoops).

"Wrong" between quotes because we all know how that ended up long term. And yeah, PC Jr was another attempt at the home market… and then they managed to do some absurdly baffling decisions. Tandy 1000 was pretty much a PC Jr without the bullshit parts and that one fared much better.

[gamevet]

The original IBM PCs were never intended for the home market, they were built for small businesses that couldn't afford to drop in excess of $30,000 for a mainframe. They had monochrome displays and were priced in excess of $2,000, which would be around $5,000 today. CGA and the like were more in line with the consumer marketed IBM PC Jr., which was a reaction by IBM, when they'd noticed that home computing was a segment that they could sell to. Companies like Wyse and Digital equipment continued selling more affordable dummy terminals running off of the less expensive server, well into the early 90's.

[Sik]

Except because MDA and CGA were made available at the same time (MDA used those expensive monochrome monitors you mention while CGA could use either a composite monitor or a TV, and later a dedicated RGBI monitor). PC Jr used an upgraded version of CGA that could do twice the color depth and hence 16 colors in graphics mode (why EGA didn't inherit those modes and went with its own thing is beyond me).

Incidentally the development of the original PC was kind of messy. The executives at IBM didn't want to risk their mainframe business (since they rented those) and it got to the point that the staff making the PC had to move to a different building just to avoid executive meddling. I admit I'm surprised they didn't straight up cancel the project given the case, I suppose the problem weren't them in general but just a few ones.

[axel]

In retrospect I'm surprised how well the IBM PC did in the home market considering the price tag and that most people back then could have gotten by with an electronic word processor for 1/10th of the cost. I had an IBM XT awhile back but only with the terminal display, it was fun, I wish I'd kept it.

On the topic though there's no way to come up with a best game of all time, it needs to be like film and music where you separate titles by genre or year or something. The IGN author does make a few good points, there are some features in SMW that are still lacking in the newer games. But overall I think games have gotten better with time, game designers have learned from past efforts and the bar is set much higher today.

[gamevet]

It was the clones that did well. The Tandy 1000 was doing so well, that some games had an option for Tandy Graphics. PC really didn’t come into its own until the end of the 80’s, into the early 90s.

[sull56ivan2010]

No list is ever perfect. I don't know if opinions would differ if lists were done on a smaller site like Hardcore Gaming 101 (nice site that's full of information) or Video Game Critic (guy does not try hard enough) With that being said, the lack of Sega related stuff is a joke. No Sonic, no Phantasy Star, etc... Only three arcade games. PC is an afterthought, and I say that as someone who isn't the biggest fan of computer games (though Doom is my number one game of all time) Half of the top 10 being Nintendo games is a joke in itself. (The original Super Mario Bros. is not better than 3 and does not deserve number 6.) With that in mind, I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over this, but it is a disappointing list.

In reply to post 13: If it weren't a big name website, I don't think it would be a big deal. But it's IGN. People will take their opinions as fact.