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Or Atari will come up with multiple consoles, with stripe variations. And maybe 2600 Vaders and Jrs. 

Edited September 5 by Thomas Jentzsch

I'd like to see a six-switch, actually. But I doubt they'd fragment the market that much, unless there are more completists/collectors out there than I think there are.

Why not? As long as they use the same hardware and software. People who already have a 2600+ are now buying a 7800+ too.

The different form factor would mean new injection molding and circuit boards, plus the packaging would be different as well. So even though the underlying system is the same, there are still considerable costs in bringing variations to market. I'm quite surprised Atari brought out a 7800+ at all, since that console was *never* popular with consumers. Clearly, they're just playing to the fan crowd, but even that has limits. While there are people buying both (there always will be), Atari can't rely on that being the norm if they keep putting out more of the same product. If there's a steady influx of new buyers, then Atari changes the 2600+ and discontinues previous ones I could see variants working. That's what happened with Atari originally: they weren't manufacturing variants all at the same time - the product evolved from a heavy sixer to a light sixer, then four-switch, Vader, and Jr. The only concurrent variants were from Sears, but that's because they re-branded almost everything they sold at the time. Even with Sears, the form factor stayed in lock-step with Atari. Only a couple of trim pieces changed, and that was all just how they were painted after being molded.

 

I can only guess the reason Atari brought out a 7800+. Maybe they want to sell more games specifically for the 7800, and this makes it clearer to the consumer that this is a "different" system than the 2600+. (Of course, it's not, but the original systems were, and if you're looking at the 2600+ on the surface, you wouldn't think of it as being a 7800 under the hood.) Or maybe they think this will help sell consoles to people who think of the 2600 as only capable of playing Combat and Pac-Man, and have a negative association with it - so this would change the consumer perception that this was more "advanced".

 

I really don't know Atari's actual intent with any of this. Of course the goal is to always make money, which they've failed spectacularly at over the years with other strategies. So maybe they think this approach will be more successful. We'll see how long Atari's board of directors will let Rosen operate the company at a loss, with the amount of debt they've amassed. I wish they'd gotten the 2600+ (and now the 7800+) right the first time (and by right - I mean 100% compatible). But the mandate for both products was probably "This has to be shipping in time for Christmas, and it has to cost no more than such-and-such to manufacture". Atari is, in the end, a business, and that takes precedence over everything else. That said, I'd like to see Atari succeed as a retro game company, *if* they can get the "plus" consoles working, *if* they emphasize quality in future products, and especially *if* they properly compensate developers like Bob who are providing new games for them to sell. If they're just wringing the AtariAge community dry for whatever scraps of money they can get out of it, then they can go bankrupt themselves again for all I'd care.

 

Speaking of Atari collapsing - there's an amazing history of the end of the original Atari here: https://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/jt_storage.html

 

This chronicles Atari's sale to JTS, and its subsequent dismantling by Jack Tramiel, until all that was left were the handful of IPs sold off to Hasbro on March 13, 1998. The whole thing is really shady - with Atari (as a subsidiary) loaning $30 million to JTS. I can only presume Tramiel was making money off that. Especially telling is what happened on September 10, 1996: Tramiel was picking Atari's carcass clean, and ended up with their real estate holdings for $10 million. Wonder how much those ended up being worth to him? Anyway - this is where the remnants of the original Atari went to die.

 

There are more histories of Atari on that site as well, including the death of the other half of the original Atari - the arcade division: https://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/at_games.html

 

Really interesting stuff I'd never seen before. Well worth the read. https://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/index.html

 

- Nathan

The Atari 7800+ is kind of similar to THEVIC20. Both are products based on the same hardware platform that already exists, pre-loaded with a slightly different selection of games and in a somewhat different packaging. The 2600 and 7800 differ more in look than the C64 and VIC-20 did of course. Another difference is that the Commodore machines weren't backwards compatible until RGL decided to release their remakes that emulates both (and possibly more, if they wanted to).