> How many Nintendo Entertainment System games sustained themselves with in-app purchases and microtransactions? What more did the console ask of you after you bought a cartridge? Maybe to buy another one later if it was fun?
True, but unlike the Apple II, the NES was not an open system. The NES had hardware DRM, which allowed Nintendo to control what games were published for the system and to charge licensing fees (much as Nintendo, or Apple, do today). Nintendo also tried (unsuccessfully) to shut down Game Genie.
In 1992, you more options. Your friends could tell you for free, you could stumble on them yourself, or you could get them with a magazine or book (which you didn't necessarily have to buy, you could just flip through it at the store and memorize the cheats.)
> you'd call the Sega Hotline on a premium phone number
I remember the ads for that but I've never met a single person who did that. (Or whose parents would be okay with it.) Cheat codes were either shared by word of mouth among friends or in magazines. Or you bought a game genie, but that was more for messing around with a game's mechanics than actual, blatant cheating.
Tbf, very few Switch games "sustain themselves with in-app purchases and microtransactions". Especially relative to the number of games which is an order of magnitude greater.
True, but unlike the Apple II, the NES was not an open system. The NES had hardware DRM, which allowed Nintendo to control what games were published for the system and to charge licensing fees (much as Nintendo, or Apple, do today). Nintendo also tried (unsuccessfully) to shut down Game Genie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo)#10NES