Why didn't pong carry over into modern era?

[marvelvscapcom2]

Hello Everyone .  I am not sure if anyone knows of a really amazing pong collection or pong game for a post 1990s console. .  It almost seems like their was the huge surge of Pong consoles and pong for Atari and everyone was a pong fanatic in the late 70s and earlyy 80s and then all of a sudden gaming just forgot about pong and left it in the 70s to die.  A lot of the trends from the 70s got revitalized one way or another,  like pinball and things. Most other gaming staples that sell that well always get a second go.  It really confuses me why people forgot about our friend pong. I hope someone can please let me know of a modern pong console so i can back it or buy it .   I know a lot of more complex games came that were way more eye catching and flashy for the youth.  and sure mario was so much more intricate and had more depth but a lot of us still love tetris and all these other simple party play quick fun type games.   A NES release of pong never came,  SNES pong never came.  Then PS1 has a pong but it wasn't promoted well and the youth had already forgotten about the legendary staple of pong.   

I love pong a lot, it's so fun and it has so much potential to be even funner.  It's an 8 bit atari 2600 game that can actually be binged in 2017 by most gamers.   Imagine adding trophies, special metal knob controllers,  tournamnets,  online face offs,  rumble feedback,  power ups,  mini games.  it would be sooo fun and unique .   i think when we discuss gaming staples we should always have pong somewhere.  It made bringing games home cool.   It's so simple yet so fun.   It had so much potential to carry over and become a legend but now it's kinda like the  "Member when we used to play pong"  type game.  We should be playing pong now .       

Why do you feel pong didn't survive the linear progression of gaming.  Do you think pong will ever make it's remarkable return? 

[indenton]

You make a good point here.  We hear a bunch of reinventions of some really old IPs, Pac-Man got Championship Edition 2 late last year.  Puyo Puyo Tetris just speaks for itself.  But that Pong on PlayStation is the only later iteration of Pong that I've heard of, regardless I've heard it's a pretty good game as well. 

[maximo310]

The main problem was every company back in the day made pong clones, which killed interest in the game within 2-3 years ( similar to Space Invaders) bc of an oversaturated market. That being said, considering how simplistic pong is even compared to something like pac-man, you'd need to invest a bunch of changes in order to make it marketable for the modern era.

Besides, just play windjammers. It's pong on steroids.

[badATchaos]

Wii Sports?

[indenton]

Wii Sports?

No no, it was Wii Play, it DID have a Pong game! 

EDIT: It was laser hockey but they're pretty similar

[xsuicidesn0wmanx]

Went to a game night hosted by a buddy of mine who has a larger and vastly different collection than mine this past Saturday. One of the games he pulled out for us to try was Bit.Trip Beat which is very obviously inspired by Pong. If you're looking for something like Pong on crack, Bit.Trip Beat will fill that need.

[guilty0fbeing]

We have Disc Jam now. 

[aliensstudios]

It's an interesting query. I myself have fondness for the simplistic old school games because they don't require any commitment, you just pick 'em up, and play, I like it when a modern game has that same kind of ease of access and I like collecting games like that because it ensures I will actually play them.

[zenimus]

Windjammers got remastered for PS4 recently.

Sure, it was originally a Neo Geo game from 1994, but Pong is still alive in 2017. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56qWYT2-H1g

[guilty0fbeing]

Windjammers got remastered for PS4 recently.

Sure, it was originally a Neo Geo game from 1994, but Pong is still alive in 2017. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56qWYT2-H1g

That looks fun!

[brazbit]

Pong is great. The biggest problem is it is a two player game and most people play online now. Single player is possible but with AI it is not the same and without AI you get BreakOut/Arkanoid etc...

Another problem is the lack of paddle controllers. Pong sucks with a joystick. No ifs ands or buts about it. Analog sticks are slightly better but the twitchy ones we have these days are not up to the task, the 5200 was the only analog stick that could almost pull it off.

Many people think that if you want simulated tennis/ping pong you should just render full environments and play the proper game... but Pong was something else. It wasn't a true simulation it was abstract to the point of becoming its own thing.

The other day I introduced my 18 year old nephew to paddle controllers and pong, video Olympics, Circus Atari, Warlords, Kaboom... we had a blast, for hours. Once he bought in to it he didn't mind the primitive graphics and saw the beauty of a proper paddle controller for these games despite having no idea what it was when I handed it to him. So these games still have appeal and value. It's a matter of presentation and control.

Pong translates poorly to phones and other small screens, your finger covers too much of the screen and forget two players. Playing online dies due to lag.

Pong however plays beautifully on a Microsoft Surface or other mid to large sized tablet. They are big enough to play two players and also big enough to still see the paddle under your finger. I have a version on my tablets at all times, just in case. I have had many takers over the years and they all enjoyed it.

That is also another problem with Pong. It's so simple that it can be used to teach beginning game programming and few are going to pay for a game that could easily be knocked out in a few lines of code. Heck even BASIC for Atari 3600 had a pong game as a lesson and that was input using the keyboard controllers in just a few minutes.

Pong tournaments though... it marketed right or done trivia night style at bars could find a niche following.

[matimo]

Pong would be at best a 99 cent app now, and the game is honestly just plain boring to modern audiences.

[matimo]

Windjammers got remastered for PS4 recently.

Sure, it was originally a Neo Geo game from 1994, but Pong is still alive in 2017. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56qWYT2-H1g

That looks fun!

Great game but it's not exactly fair to compare that to something as basic as pong....

[turf]

You know why Pong didn't carry over?  You know why there is no Pong today? 

It's simple. Pong sucks.  It's too simple.  It's just not fun compared to games today.

[guilty0fbeing]

You know why Pong didn't carry over?  You know why there is no Pong today? 

It's simple. Pong sucks.  It's too simple.  It's just not fun compared to games today.

#Truth

Honestly, our imaginations and creative/created worlds are beyond Pong.

"But it's fun."

Well, what fun Pong gave us is now replaced by better fun. Pac-Man, Galaga, Mario, and so many other classics had to evolve with the technology and time; Pong leaves little to be reimagined and technically reconstructed into a creative endeavor.