DOWN WITH THE KING...

[kskunk]

Actually the mags wanted us to succeed, as true gamers they were excited to come around, but at the end of the day there were too many delays and most of the games were not worth the wait, so I think at some point they formed a grudge against the machine.

 

I really believe that. I've noticed the biggest grudges are held by the people who feel the most betrayed. A lot of gamers were indifferent, but some of the people who really, really, wanted Atari to kick ass were angered when they mismanaged everything.

 

I feel plenty of love/hate for the Jaguar myself. They got a lot right while missing things that seem like forehead slappers today.

 

In the end I'm amazed such a small company made such a bold grab for that market. It's like your local pharmacy deciding it's going to compete with Pfizer. The only reason anyone believed it was that Atari used to own the market, but it was only a skeleton crew by the time Jaguar development was underway.

 

- KS

[marigul]

Yeah it was a skeleton crew. The Tramiels had money though. And they had some clout as did the name. They just didn't have the desire to market the product. In reality marketing is key. Old school sales people have a belief that the "product sells it self", this may (or not) have been true at sometime, but today you need a good marketing and promotion engine behind your product.

 

Its actually pretty easy to design and make (to prototype) a mid range game system, technically I have done it a few times at the last company I worked for. It all comes down to software and marketing. Even if you had a skeleton crew you can farm out a lot of work. As long as you could market and distribute it you could probably make money if the games were good.

[carmel_andrews]

Yeah it was a skeleton crew. The Tramiels had money though. And they had some clout as did the name. They just didn't have the desire to market the product. In reality marketing is key. Old school sales people have a belief that the "product sells it self", this may (or not) have been true at sometime, but today you need a good marketing and promotion engine behind your product.

 

Its actually pretty easy to design and make (to prototype) a mid range game system, technically I have done it a few times at the last company I worked for. It all comes down to software and marketing. Even if you had a skeleton crew you can farm out a lot of work. As long as you could market and distribute it you could probably make money if the games were good.

 

 

 

 

 

If Atari had 'burnt their bridges' with the retail/dealer/distib. sector as people had claimed, why didn't atari just reduce price, spend/do more on 'co-marketing' and sell direct to end users and not through retail/dealer markets

 

co marketing as in joining with well known media organisations, getting them to offer free advertising in return for a percentage of unit sales based on enquiries/leads received therough the free advertising thru that media organisation (effectively paying for the advertising)

 

Also, Atari relied to much on big name 3rd party support, what atari should have been doing is going down the independent s/w publishing sector (i,e not your us golds, ocean's, EA, activisions etc) that way atari would have a should have a consistant supply of quality games coming through

[marigul]

Yeah it was a skeleton crew. The Tramiels had money though. And they had some clout as did the name. They just didn't have the desire to market the product. In reality marketing is key. Old school sales people have a belief that the "product sells it self", this may (or not) have been true at sometime, but today you need a good marketing and promotion engine behind your product.

 

Its actually pretty easy to design and make (to prototype) a mid range game system, technically I have done it a few times at the last company I worked for. It all comes down to software and marketing. Even if you had a skeleton crew you can farm out a lot of work. As long as you could market and distribute it you could probably make money if the games were good.

 

 

 

 

 

If Atari had 'burnt their bridges' with the retail/dealer/distib. sector as people had claimed, why didn't atari just reduce price, spend/do more on 'co-marketing' and sell direct to end users and not through retail/dealer markets

 

co marketing as in joining with well known media organisations, getting them to offer free advertising in return for a percentage of unit sales based on enquiries/leads received therough the free advertising thru that media organisation (effectively paying for the advertising)

 

Also, Atari relied to much on big name 3rd party support, what atari should have been doing is going down the independent s/w publishing sector (i,e not your us golds, ocean's, EA, activisions etc) that way atari would have a should have a consistant supply of quality games coming through

 

I don't recall any big bane 3rd party supporet except maybe id. Many of the games like Bubsy, NBA Jam, etc. were all licensed deals and funded by atari. To my knowledge none of the big boys were interested in working with us but would take the Tramiels money for a license deal.

 

In regards to co marketing or marketing...the Tramiels for the most part were not in the business of giving things away for free, they wanted the whole pie.

[kool kitty89]

If Atari had 'burnt their bridges' with the retail/dealer/distib. sector as people had claimed, why didn't atari just reduce price, spend/do more on 'co-marketing' and sell direct to end users and not through retail/dealer markets

 

co marketing as in joining with well known media organisations, getting them to offer free advertising in return for a percentage of unit sales based on enquiries/leads received therough the free advertising thru that media organisation (effectively paying for the advertising)

 

Also, Atari relied to much on big name 3rd party support, what atari should have been doing is going down the independent s/w publishing sector (i,e not your us golds, ocean's, EA, activisions etc) that way atari would have a should have a consistant supply of quality games coming through

 

I really don't think that was an isseu by the time the Jag came arround, maybe not even with the Lynx. But lack of advertizing and developer support detraced a lot.

 

Otoh, your mention of mail order could have been a good choice to continue with the 2600(Jr) and 7800 if retailers were too limited. The thing is, it doesn't seem like Tramiel had a hard time getting the 7800 onto the market, or even the 2600 Jr. The latter in particular beats the "Nintendo revitalized the market" reasoning into the ground as they started selling Jr. 2600s before the NES even hit New York (and the 7800 was even released prior to Nintendo going national -and really didn't get big until holiday '86 through 1987). They sold out of all 2600 Jrs they had in the 1985 holiday season, and Michael Katz (then Atari employee) was adamant that they'd have sold many more had they had th eproduction capacity.

 

So either retailers recognized that Atari Corp was a different company, or the market had already settled doen by mid 1985. (had they wanted to launch the 7800 in '84, mail order may have been a good route to take, at least suplementally) But the real thing I think weakened the 7800/Lynx/Jag was lack of strong marketing, but with he 7800 at least, money was really tight, so that would have been tough (the 7800 sold surprisingly well regardless >3.7 million in US alone). Perhaps by the time the Lynx came around they could have been more agressive, and particularly by the Jaguar (which was their sole product) so long as the Tramiels were willing to make a personal investment. Noting on the same scale as Sony of course, or Nintendo, but possibly Sega (after 1995 at least when mon was getting really tight for the US Sega branch). They could have really pushed for the EU/UK marked with the Jag as well, given the popularity of Atari Computers (unlike the US where they were best known for the old game systems), especially with Sega really screwing up over there with the Saturn (with EU being Sega's longest successful console market prior to that) and the N64 being relatively weak over there as well. And don't bother going for the Japanese market at all, inless they got a Janese partner to market it over there. (NEC perhaps, lackign a proper successor to the PCEngine+CD -the PCFX being rather poor)

[Rev. Rob]

 

 

I don´t think 7800 and SMS were very far apart from each other in the US...

 

SMS had 3.3% US market share to Atari's 1.1%, which includes 2600 and 7800 sales. NEC had 1.3%.

 

http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/segavid/