E.T. was basically the &quot;straw on the camel&#x27;s back&quot; moment for consumers. It wasn&#x27;t just that the game itself was an overhyped blunder, but that by the time it came out, the market was already flooded with truly awful third-party games for the system. Seeing the manufacturer themselves turn out such an underdeveloped hunk of garbage (and E.T. is truly bad, even for a system with such terrible games) basically torpedoed what was left of consumer confidence.<p>At the same time, home computers were starting to nip at the game consoles&#x27; heels. Computers weren&#x27;t just &quot;toys,&quot; you could sell them on their practical applications as well. It was easier for little Timmy to get his parents to buy him a computer &quot;for school&quot; and then sneak games on it anyway, than just plonking down for a piece of hardware that only played inferior crap like E.T.<p>E.T. was the flashpoint, but the crash of 1984 had a lot of causes.