Why did Atari ditch the 5200?

[+Allan]

Well, it is a fact that the CV pounded the 5200 in sales. Otherwise, again, why would Atari have dropped it when it was finally getting somewhere? This would only have destroyed any consumer faith in Atari. In the post-1984 era, they apparently did this with their computers, too. But the 5200? Even someone as cynical as I am just can't believe anyone is that idiotic.

 

Simple. Jack bought the company and he wanted to make computers to squash Commodore. He didn't want to make game systems. He only went back to game systems when he realized he could never compete with the asia PC market.

 

Allan

[DracIsBack]

Simple. Jack bought the company and he wanted to make computers to squash Commodore. He didn't want to make game systems. He only went back to game systems when he realized he could never compete with the asia PC market.

 

Game systems were key to his strategy to fund computers. They were taking off and he wanted to use 7800 & 2600 jr profits to fund the ST line and hoped that having an "XE Game System" would re-invigorate the dying 8-bit computer line.

[Retro Rogue]

Simple. Jack bought the company and he wanted to make computers to squash Commodore. He didn't want to make game systems. He only went back to game systems when he realized he could never compete with the asia PC market.

 

Allan

 

A) He got back in to the computer market after about a month and a half of a vacation because he felt nobody else on the market had what it took to compete against the Japanese. It had nothing to do with "quashing Commodore", that just would have been a bonus. He's stated this in plenty of interviews, and Leonard told me such as well. Jack always had a fear of Japanese competition, going back to Commodore's calculator days. b) He intended on using Atari's back stock of game systems that he inherited from the get go and would have gone with releasing the 7800 at that time ('84-'85) as well. The issue (from their viewpoint) was on again and off again negotiations (i.e. price and cut) regarding the 7800 that finally cleared up by '86.

[+Allan]

Simple. Jack bought the company and he wanted to make computers to squash Commodore. He didn't want to make game systems. He only went back to game systems when he realized he could never compete with the asia PC market.

 

Allan

 

A) He got back in to the computer market after about a month and a half of a vacation because he felt nobody else on the market had what it took to compete against the Japanese. It had nothing to do with "quashing Commodore", that just would have been a bonus. He's stated this in plenty of interviews, and Leonard told me such as well. Jack always had a fear of Japanese competition, going back to Commodore's calculator days. b) He intended on using Atari's back stock of game systems that he inherited from the get go and would have gone with releasing the 7800 at that time ('84-'85) as well. The issue (from their viewpoint) was on again and off again negotiations (i.e. price and cut) regarding the 7800 that finally cleared up by '86.

 

That's not what the Atari employees said. I was just listening to I think the 2006 CGE panels and one of them (I forget his name) said that was a big motivation for Jack. They also mentioned about the asian competition but that wasn't until a bit later. Sure they could be wrong but I'm going to guess they had a pretty good idea since they were working with them. I'll see if I can find a link to the recording and post it.

 

Allan

[Retro Rogue]

That's not what the Atari employees said. I was just listening to I think the 2006 CGE panels and one of them (I forget his name) said that was a big motivation for Jack.

 

What "Atari" and what employees? There's nobody on the 2007 speaker list (there was no 2006 show) from Atari Corp., there are Atari Inc. people. They're all from the previous company, and wouldn't have a clue as to what Jack was motivated by since they didn't work with him - they're just surmising.

 

Jack's need to compete against the Japanese goes all the way back to the Commodore days with typewriters, calculators, and even when first getting in to computers. The Vic20 and C64 were actually designed with competition from the Japanese in mind.

 

They also mentioned about the asian competition but that wasn't until a bit later. Sure they could be wrong but I'm going to guess they had a pretty good idea since they were working with them. I'll see if I can find a link to the recording and post it.

Allan

 

Again, none of the people listed worked with him. And very specifically, point blank, Leonard told me Jack started TTL because of the Japanese. He had decided to watch the market while he was on vacation, and felt none of the current computer manufacturers, including Commodore, would be able to successfully compete. There's also several print and video interviews from the time where he discusses the need to compete with the Japanese market. It was not something that came "later".

[+Allan]

That's not what the Atari employees said. I was just listening to I think the 2006 CGE panels and one of them (I forget his name) said that was a big motivation for Jack.

 

What "Atari" and what employees? There's nobody on the 2007 speaker list (there was no 2006 show) from Atari Corp., there are Atari Inc. people. They're all from the previous company, and wouldn't have a clue as to what Jack was motivated by since they didn't work with him - they're just surmising.

 

It's a panel with Al Alcorn, Steve Meyer, Phil Rebock and John Scrotch. (I'm guessing on the spelling) I just listened to it this weekend. I believe it was John Scrotch who was talking about Jack. I wish I could find a link to download it. I'm guessing it was on the Digital Press site but I'm not sure. Unfortunetly I don't have the year on it either but it is diffinetly not older than 2005.

 

Allan

[Rik]

Although Jack didnt have anything to do with ditching the 5200,was more Ray Kassar's decision,I think Jack tramiel wasn't a game console type of guy, since he did come from home computer background with Commodore,he seemed to be way more into the home computer.I always get that vibe from him when watching and hearing interviews by him.I think he wanted to get rid of atari's console line,and that was his intention before he took control.Some of that decision was probably due to the fact that he felt home computers were really taking off,and where the future,he was right on that one.But consoles are still relevent today,he was interested in a more profitable venture,but he did a good job of discouraging console gamers,especially what he did with the 7800,by compromising on quality,i mean giving a supposed superior system 2600 sound capabilities,doesnt make sense,i mean the 7800 is 2 consoles after the 2600 of course,and it had 2600 sound?,the 5200 had better sound than the 7800.And another thing,the 5200 is basically a 400/800 in console form,why?

Edited May 7, 2008 by Rik

[CV Gus]

Well, it is a fact that the CV pounded the 5200 in sales. Otherwise, again, why would Atari have dropped it when it was finally getting somewhere? This would only have destroyed any consumer faith in Atari. In the post-1984 era, they apparently did this with their computers, too. But the 5200? Even someone as cynical as I am just can't believe anyone is that idiotic.

 

Simple. Jack bought the company and he wanted to make computers to squash Commodore. He didn't want to make game systems. He only went back to game systems when he realized he could never compete with the asia PC market.

 

Allan

 

 

But then what made him think that he could possibly compete with the Asian console market? If computers were a dead end, then it must have been obvious to a dead trout that the NES was at that point invincible. It would've made more sense to try and make whatever deals were necessary to bring back the ColecoVision and put it up against the NES and SMS, rather than the trying it with the 7800, which at the beginning had no base, just mostly rehashes, and was not really much better than a ColecoVision. Joust certainly illustrates this, and you know the sound was better on the CV!

Hell, if they could have gotten Sky Jaguar, Xanac, Yi-Ar Kung Fu, the Nemesis games, and Lord of the Dungeon out in 1986, then it might have worked.

 

But not long after I bought an Atari 7800 in 1988, I could see that the whole thing was doomed to failure.

 

I just don't get it. Didn't the Tramiels have any real business plan? Did they think they could be so cheap on R&D, and match the NES? So cheap on EVERYTHING? Were they just trying to make a few dollars off of people like me? If so, then all they managed to do was ruin their reputations completely, which may be one of the biggest reasons the Jaguar didn't make it in 1993/1994, even.

 

Look- if you really try, and it's obvious, you will at least have people's trust; you don't think they're saps. The Tramiels should either have gone in guns blazing no later than early-early 1986 (again, I never saw a 7800 in stores until 1988- in a populated and more affluent area), and have really TRIED.

 

Then...who knows?

 

Then again, maybe my CV idea was better. With the Tramiels controlling the fate of the 7800, the Odyssey2 would've had a better chance...

[+Allan]

But then what made him think that he could possibly compete with the Asian console market? If computers were a dead end, then it must have been obvious to a dead trout that the NES was at that point invincible. It would've made more sense to try and make whatever deals were necessary to bring back the ColecoVision and put it up against the NES and SMS, rather than the trying it with the 7800, which at the beginning had no base, just mostly rehashes, and was not really much better than a ColecoVision. Joust certainly illustrates this, and you know the sound was better on the CV!

Hell, if they could have gotten Sky Jaguar, Xanac, Yi-Ar Kung Fu, the Nemesis games, and Lord of the Dungeon out in 1986, then it might have worked.

 

Your talking about a three to four year time span as if it all happened at once though. Remember things change REALLY fast in computers even back then. Early 84' Jack thought he could come out with an another C64 with Atari. By about '86, after the ST was out, things started to look bad for any non-PC platform. (I could be off a bit with the timing.) They just thought they could get back into the console market for more cash. They pulled out the 7800, bought the Lynx, and get IBM to develope the Jaguar.

 

Yes Jack was crazy when it came to marketing. I guess he thought stuff would just sell itself. Obviously he was wrong. Plus pissing so many people off and having Warner Atari not having a good reputation didn't help things.

 

Coleco had their own problems such as the Adam and their lack of focus on the Colecovision to push the Adam out the door. Plus if I remember right there was a little trouble with management being a little corrupt. Something about a little insider trading or something. I forget most of the details.

 

Allan

[Retro Rogue]

It's a panel with Al Alcorn, Steve Meyer, Phil Rebock and John Scrotch. (I'm guessing on the spelling) I just listened to it this weekend. I believe it was John Scrotch who was talking about Jack. I wish I could find a link to download it. I'm guessing it was on the Digital Press site but I'm not sure. Unfortunetly I don't have the year on it either but it is diffinetly not older than 2005.

 

Allan

 

 

John Skruch, he was at CGE 2004. There is a section where Reebok discusses not being able to compete against the Taiwanese with computers and they should get out of it and focus on consoles again, which was the early 90's. The bulk of Skrutch's discussion is on the Jaguar years and transition to JTS and then to Hasbro. I didn't hear anything regarding the transition from Atari Inc. to Atari Corp. period except for a short discussion on the Stormtroopers comment and on the Amiga situation.

 

They got the whole Atari check thing wrong as well. There was no check given back to Jack, it was never given from Jack in the first place and it was returned to Atari Inc. just before Jack bought Consumer. The didn't discover the canceled check until the "evaluation period" in late July and early August, when they had frozen everything and were going through projects and products to see what they wanted to keep and what would be axed.

 

Here's the page with the panel discussion, entitled "Atari: Beginning to End":

http://www.digitpress.com/cge/2k4_mp3/index.htm

 

And frankly, I wouldn't expect Skruch to know much about why Jack formed TTL - he wasn't with TTL. He was at Atari Inc. and then transitioned directly to Atari Corp. After walking out in the middle of the boardroom meeting on January 15th and leaving Commodore, Jack had taken about a month and a half off to travel with his wife on vacation and leave everything to clear his head and decide if he wanted to remain in the industry. Then in mid March he decided the Japanese still posed to much of a threat and that none of the current companies would be able to compete. So that March he formed TTL to begin work on a next generation computer, with the same goals in mind he had with the Vic and C64. By the time the ST hit the market in the second half of '85, Jack now saw his direct competitor as Apple. The Japanese never manifested in the US market like he feared the year and a half before that, mainly because of how he was able to keep them out with the Vic and C64. And his target by that time had moved to Apple and their Macintosh, whom they considered their only direct competitor according to an interview he did in '85.

Edited May 8, 2008 by wgungfu

[DracIsBack]

but he did a good job of discouraging console gamers,especially what he did with the 7800,by compromising on quality,i mean giving a supposed superior system 2600 sound capabilities,doesnt make sense,i mean the 7800 is 2 consoles after the 2600 of course,and it had 2600 sound?,the 5200 had better sound than the 7800.And another thing,the 5200 is basically a 400/800 in console form,why?

 

This is often misunderstood.

 

First, the 7800's design had nothing to do with Jack Tramiel. It was all Warner and it was released under Warner then pulled back by Jack.

 

Second, the sound issue needs to be understood in a broader context.

 

Atari had taken a shit-kicking for making the 5200 incompatible with the 2600. While I question whether people would actually have used the feature had it been implemented, nonetheless, they got roasted over the coals for it and made 2600 compatability a key part of the 7800's design.

 

HOWEVER, technology was not at a point then were the 2600 would be emulated. Instead, they achieved this by including 2600 hardware (TIA, RIOT) in the 7800 motheroard in addition to 7800 specific hardware. This made for a motherboard that was both expensive and limited on available space. The 7800 included a unique graphics processor (MARIA) but this meant that sound had to be implemented by the existing TIA.

 

What Jack did scuttle was GCCs plan to get around the sound issue. They had intended that the 7800 would have better sound via game cartridges when it needed it. Out of the gate it took POKEY and they were mostly done developing a low-cost chip (GUMBY) to be shipped in the carts. Jack killed GUMBY when he took over (along with other GCC projects) and almost never allowed a POKEY into a cart.

 

POKEYs are used in exactly two 7800 games: Ballblazer (which was already largely done when he took over) and COMMANDO (an experiment in response to criticism).

[Rev]

becuase it sucked?

[Rik]

becuase it sucked?

In a nutshell,yes,thats basically it,from Kassar's point of view anyway.

[Rik]

but he did a good job of discouraging console gamers,especially what he did with the 7800,by compromising on quality,i mean giving a supposed superior system 2600 sound capabilities,doesnt make sense,i mean the 7800 is 2 consoles after the 2600 of course,and it had 2600 sound?,the 5200 had better sound than the 7800.And another thing,the 5200 is basically a 400/800 in console form,why?

 

This is often misunderstood.

 

First, the 7800's design had nothing to do with Jack Tramiel. It was all Warner and it was released under Warner then pulled back by Jack.

 

Second, the sound issue needs to be understood in a broader context.

 

Atari had taken a shit-kicking for making the 5200 incompatible with the 2600. While I question whether people would actually have used the feature had it been implemented, nonetheless, they got roasted over the coals for it and made 2600 compatability a key part of the 7800's design.

 

HOWEVER, technology was not at a point then were the 2600 would be emulated. Instead, they achieved this by including 2600 hardware (TIA, RIOT) in the 7800 motheroard in addition to 7800 specific hardware. This made for a motherboard that was both expensive and limited on available space. The 7800 included a unique graphics processor (MARIA) but this meant that sound had to be implemented by the existing TIA.

 

What Jack did scuttle was GCCs plan to get around the sound issue. They had intended that the 7800 would have better sound via game cartridges when it needed it. Out of the gate it took POKEY and they were mostly done developing a low-cost chip (GUMBY) to be shipped in the carts. Jack killed GUMBY when he took over (along with other GCC projects) and almost never allowed a POKEY into a cart.

 

POKEYs are used in exactly two 7800 games: Ballblazer (which was already largely done when he took over) and COMMANDO (an experiment in response to criticism).

Okay,thanx for correcting where needed,I'm not trying to confuse people,theres so many misunderstandings with this stuff.

Edited May 8, 2008 by Rik

[Retro Rogue]

becuase it sucked?

In a nutshell,yes,thats basically it,from Kassar's point of view anyway.

 

 

Kassar was gone long before, it was Morgan who stopped production of the consoles.

[phonedork]

Because of the terrible non centering controllers malfunctioning. I can say this because I have both the wico and the competition pro. MUCH BETTER! Atari should have pushed for self centering analog controls. They also should have also made it backward compatible. This is my opinion! So all you guys who love the stock controller can love it on your own.

[CV Gus]

Don't forget that Atari 2600 compatibility was not nearly as significant during the NES era as it was back in the days of the 5200/ColecoVision.

 

I know how much things had changed in those years- I was there. The Atari 5200 was abandoned by Atari itself in 1984. The ColecoVision continued on, one way or the other, after 1984. It had a loyal base of three to six million. It lasted into the NES era- somewhat. Which was more than the 5200 could claim. Stores still had games for it on proper display through 1986 where I was- even into 1987.

 

If someone had decided to get the rights to the ColecoVision in say, 1985, and release some MSX games for it- as Opcode has done with Yi-Ar Kung Fu and the splendid Sky Jaguar- we would've gobbled them up. Add in Lord of the Dungeon, and more RPGs, as well as some side-scrollers like Nemesis, or whatever, and the fact that the CV was established and popular would've given it a better chance than the 7800. Esp. since the 7800 was not that much better than a CV, and the CV had better sound.

 

Ultimately-

 

1) The 7800 was released too late,

 

2) The initial batch of games were mostly rehashes, several of which were there are coming for the NES (Xevious, Joust, Galaga...),

 

3) There was no R&D to speak of,

 

4) The Tramiels were CHEAPSKATES!!!!!!!!!! :x :x :x :x

 

5) People still felt betrayed by the 5200 fiasco,

 

6) Nintendo had grabbed up the arcade rights by then.

 

7) Yes, there's more, but I don't have all day. You get the idea.

 

By the 1990s, Atari-Tramiel had such a bad reputation, the Jaguar was doomed, too.

[Retro Rogue]

3) There was no R&D to speak of,

 

Huh? The entire development process of the 7800 under Warner was based on focus groups and R&D. Is this another one of your non-researched claims like there was no support for the 5200 after 1984 yet there were games released for it by Atari Corp. through 1986?

 

4) The Tramiels were CHEAPSKATES!!!!!!!!!! :x :x :x :x

 

Actually, no. They spent a lot more on advertising, R&D, etc. then people generally give them credit. I believe Curt had put out a number of documents related to that and mentioned even he was surprised. The issue with Jack is often that he had different views than some over what was more important to effect overall sales. And for a while (mid 80's) he was right. He actually turned the image and company around against the massive debt and bad reputation among retailers that he had inherited from Warner.

 

6) Nintendo had grabbed up the arcade rights by then.

 

Nintendo grabbed nothing. They locked the dev studio's that had the rights (Namco, Konami, etc.) in to exclusive contracts for their console. Unless you're mistaking the appearance of the Nintendo Seal of Approval on all games to mean that they owned the rights to all those games.

 

By the 1990s, Atari-Tramiel had such a bad reputation, the Jaguar was doomed, too.

 

Ehh, that had little to do with the Jaguar's failure. That was due to poor management and support of developers, besides the dev bugs in the system.

They had strong support with retailers from the Lynx, whose main failure was because of the high cost of its color LCD. From my talks to Leonard Tramiel, they wanted to drop the price of the unit to compete more directly with the GameBoy but couldn't negotiate with the LCD manufacturer to the promised price point, to which Sam sued the manufacturer and actually won - but it came to late. And if Sam wouldn't have had the heart attack, the Jag II would've actually been stronger placed to compete against the Sony PS, they had upgraded the system for actual hardware based polygon and texture support. Instead, Sam had the heart attack, Jack came back out of retirement and did the merger with JTS - giving all the money they got from the SEGA lawsuits to them instead of using it to support the Jag II.

Edited May 10, 2008 by wgungfu

[Goochman]

From the outside it def seemed like the Sam heart attack was the finale - He was the only Tramiel left that wanted to keep moving forward and it almost did him in!

[Ferret75]

-No end labels

-System was too big (the back part really wasn't needed)

-Akward controllers

-Controllers stopped working easily

[tyranthraxus]

And the Jag shared the no end label problem!

 

As a teenager at the time of the Jaguar release I would agree with the statement that Atari had a bad rep at that point. The Saturn and new Sony system were the ones we talked about. I remember Atari still had a bit of an arcade game rep in those last glory days of the arcade (of course we were ignorant of Atari Games being its own company) but no one really thought of Atari as a home video game player anymore, they were a bit of a joke having supported the 2600 for so long. You'd go to the store and see the NES demos and the Atari 2600 demo side by side, damage done.

[cryinglion]

My opinion? Rather several...

 

1. Poor marketing. Sort of like Sega. The Genesis was a huge success because of the heavy ads and software support. However, the much more powerful Dreamcast had limited success when Sega

did the opposite.

2. They focused more on the Atari 2600 system. They should have dropped support for it within a year of the release of the 5200, and focused heavy on the new system developments (keyboards,

disk drives, self-published hits).

3. The system should have been made smaller in size, self-centering controllers right off the bat, built-in 2600 adaptor.

4. More games that made use of the keypad (Casino?), more third party support (imagine Coleco making games for the system as well?)

 

I'm sure there are others. The 5200 had so much potential. Just poor decisions by Atari.

[DracIsBack]

Actually, no. They spent a lot more on advertising, R&D, etc. then people generally give them credit.

 

There's two pieces to the advertising component. They did seem to invest in retail based advertising (ie. department store flyers, POP etc) which is quite expensive. While many who aren't in retail think the stores foot the bill when something appears in a target flyer, its actually usually the manufacturer that pays a mint for that.

 

Then there's the national advertising. Stuff like ads in newspapers, ads in video game magazines, commercials on network television etc. This is where Jack always seemed way cheaper than the competition. Nintendo and Sega were always willing to fork out tens of millions to run commercials on TV. Jack had a few commercials but you typically didn't see them in prime time, across the country or running with any frequency.

 

In terms of R&D, they seemed to get better at this. During the initial 7800 days, Jack seemed to hire the cheapest outfits he could find. With the XE, he focused on getting the rights to disk based games at bargain basement prices. With the Jaguar, he definitely spent more (those are the docs that Curt shared). At that point, the Jaguar was the focus of the company and they realized that they needed to fix some of the issues they had with the 7800, XE and Lynx. The Jaguar had more ads, more commercials, more support (a 1-800-number, a game line), more 3rd party recruiting, bigger licenses (Doom, NBA Jam, Myst) and bigger dev budgets than the others. They spent a lot more time trying to get reviews in magazines, doing interviews with the press etc. Remember what it was like to even see a 7800 review in a mag? They seldom even sent out review cartridges because they seldom made prototypes.

 

Ehh, that had little to do with the Jaguar's failure. That was due to poor management and support of developers, besides the dev bugs in the system.

 

Not sure I agree here. I do think Atari's reputation caught up with them as well. Atari systems had continuously diminishing sales. The 5200 sold less than the 2600. The 7800 sold less than the 5200. The Lynx sold less than the 7800. The Jaguar sold less than the Lynx.

 

As mentioned about, Atari spent more promoting the Jaguar than they did any other Atari system except the 2600 and 5200. They put way more effort behind it than they did the other systems as well. Yet it sold, by far, the least number of units. That has to count for something.

 

 

They had strong support with retailers from the Lynx

 

I remember the Forbes article noted that Nintendo had something like 6 times the number of retailers carrying the Gameboy compared to what Atari had for the Lynx.

 

 

whose main failure was because of the high cost of its color LCD.

 

Cost was one: I remember the price going up twice between when it was announced. First it was $149, then $169 then hit at $179 due to the screen cost.

 

There's also the other issue. Available games (they couldn't get the big licenses initially due to Nintendo's clauses) was another. Size and batter life was also an issue.

 

And, of course, advertising. People often didn't know what it was. I used to see GameBoy ads on TV every few hours. I had to look to see a Lynx commercial and only happened on them by chance every few months. Hard to compete with companies that blitz the market like that and that's a risky proposition for a company. Heck, I look at the weekly BEST BUY flyer today and Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft run big ads every week for their systems. Say those ads for that flyer cost $50,000 each. Each of those manufacturers is paying over $2 million a year just to appear in a BEST BUY flyer. The promotion is nuts.

[Retro Rogue]

In terms of R&D, they seemed to get better at this. During the initial 7800 days, Jack seemed to hire the cheapest outfits he could find. With the XE, he focused on getting the rights to disk based games at bargain basement prices. With the Jaguar, he definitely spent more.

 

He did no such thing, he wasn't around. Jack had "retired" from his position around '88 and left Sam at the helm. Sam was the Jaguar, unless you're mixing it up when Jack came back at the end of things after Sam's heart attack?

 

(those are the docs that Curt shared).

 

How would you know what docs Curt's shared with me?

 

They had strong support with retailers from the Lynx

 

I remember the Forbes article noted that Nintendo had something like 6 times the number of retailers carrying the Gameboy compared to what Atari had for the Lynx.

 

Completely different context then what was being stated. Atari Corp. had strong support from retailers for the Lynx, but obviously when compared against Nintendo at the time it would be comparatively less. Nintendo had the most support out of anyone because of their distributor and retailer relationship from the NES.

 

whose main failure was because of the high cost of its color LCD.

 

Cost was one: I remember the price going up twice between when it was announced. First it was $149, then $169 then hit at $179 due to the screen cost.

 

There's also the other issue. Available games (they couldn't get the big licenses initially due to Nintendo's clauses) was another. Size and batter life was also an issue.

 

According to Leonard, their view was it all came down the LCD cost. They couldn't get it down to a price to compete price wise like they wanted to, and that lead to not being able to attract the developers. Hence they sued the LCD supplier for not being able to deliver on the projected cost.

Edited June 28, 2008 by wgungfu

[AJ_Maine_Man]

The Joysticks were terrible and the colecovision owned the 5200