7800 Atari Corp. Revival

[The_Laird]

Actually I cited several forum posts here when I was correcting the mistakes in the Lynx wiki.

[kool kitty89]

With Atari 'we will be in the whole spectrum of the market,' from video games to home computers, says Tramiel. - Tramiel quoted in BusinessWeek, July '84.

 

"Tramiel told the money men Atari will still make videogames" - Forbes article on the takeover.

For the software side of things, they'd pretty much dropped back to the computer programming/development staff and dropped most of the console specific programmers in the transition, right? (and put a greater emphasis on outsourcing software development)

And the loss of the arcade division meant less straightforward conversions from newer Atari arcade games. (and while Warner's investment in A/Corp could have facilitated some of that, A.Games didn't stay with Warner very long at all going to Namco and then independent -but once A.Games' abandoned Nintendo licensing that would at least break that barrier)

 

In any case, without the in-house development resources of A.Inc, or access to most 3rd party arcade licenses, they were sort of stuck with a limited number of original games, older Arcade ports, a handful of newer arcade ports, and computer games. The latter is what Katz pushed into, but it seems they missed a significant opportunity in exploiting the very strong European home computer software market; unless they did try that but only had very limited success. (they got good support with the ST from 3rd parties and the 7800 was supposedly more popular in Europe -though behind the NES and SMS, and perhaps it had to do with the distinct architecture of the 7800)

 

There's also the 2600 and 5200's on display at the Winter CES (Jan. '85), and even when they severely downgraded the size of their CES booth for the Summer '85 CES they still included both consoles.

The 5200 was mainly being liquidated though, right? (just pushing out remaining old stock -and manufacturing/completing some components to round things out for final packaging)

 

Did Tramiel ever consider dropping the 7800 and keeping the 5200 going through the cost-reduced 5100/Jr project (or further consolidated incarnations -like completing CGIA, let alone the upgraded joystick design)? With the back and forth over the GCC contract it would seem like decent motivation for keeping the 5200 going, especially if the 5200 could be pushed into the desired low-cost region.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps tramiel was trying the commodore plan after all....i.e using atari's computer product lines (outside the actual gaming systems) to segment the videogaming market (since the big A was obviously losing mktshare in that area and needed to counter whatever nintendo and sega threw at atari) and using a computer product (like the ST or XE) to leverage Atari some share of the VG market would have kept atari going for a little while (even if that strategy would hurt the ST particularly in other areas of it's market)

 

And i came up with a theory behind the 'get this pollution out of here' thing.... Trameil was obviously looking for the Atari rep who presented the idea to tramiel to actually pitch tramiel on the idea of using something like the 7800 to spearhead Atari's renewed approach the VG market, and clearly the rep concerned missed that trick by a country mile (and they say that America is full of salespeople)

That doesn't make any sense... the computer market was already separate and the VIC and C64 made the differences less if anything: pushing computers more directly into the consumer range where consoles were. (something you could argue they should have done with the 400/600 instead of pushing the 5200)

What Atari Inc was already doing and what Atari Corp pushed (in a somewhat different manner) was providing a broad range of machines from low-end dedicated game machines (2600) to mid-range (7800) to low end home computers (65XE/800XL) to low/mid-range (130XE) to mid-range/low cost high-performance (520ST). Atari Inc had previously had the 2600, 5200 (with 7800 to replace that as the higher/mid-range machine in fall of '84), 400 (later 600XL), 800 (then 1200 and 800XL), and plans for a high-end game system based on the Amiga chipset for fall of 1984.

Albeit in the US market all of Atari Inc's computers (up to the 600/800XL) had the issue of limited expandability (technically the RAM expansion slots of the 800 might have been usable as general purpose expansion slots, but that didn't happen) and the 1200 pushed further away from that (and didn't reduce cost enough to make it really competitive with the C64). But in Europe they had different problems not meshing with the market. (the ST fared very well in Europe yet suffered from the same critical lack of expandability that had killed the 1200 back in '82, not even a good general purpose expansion port like the PBI -or expansion ports on some low-end 8-bits like the VIC, C64, Spectrum, etc -even though the speccy 48k lacked any joysick, cartridge, parallel, or serial connectors, it ended up having tons of expansion options using the simple expansion connector)

 

 

Nintendo and Sega would have been total non-factors until around mid 1986, though Nintendo first showed up as possible competition when Katz found all the major arcade licenses locked out when looking for new 7800 games in mid/late 1985. (ad Marty mentioned earlier)

 

 

 

 

Wikipedia can be a great tool depending on the motive of the person editing the page.

 

Wikipedia can be used for correcting false information that was discovered. I have no problem with people correcting false information if that person has found documents that no one had access to before. I have no problem with Curt and Mary correcting false information as a result.

With most/all Atari (and several other video game) related articles you've got Marty and Curt checking on a good deal of the edits and updating things themselves, so in those cases it's pretty reliable. (always check the sources though... that's true for any compiled reference including commercial encyclopedias and respected publications)

 

 

 

 

Actually I cited several forum posts here when I was correcting the mistakes in the Lynx wiki.

You aren't supposed to do that.

Marty deleted an edit I made to the 7800 page citing the 3.77 million sales from the charts that Curt posted last year. (it needs to be published on an official site to be used as a reference -so when that info goes onto Atarimuseum, it will be there)

Edited October 31, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Pete5125]

I always saw it as this he took over Atari because of the Computer buisness, it was very similar to the Comadore Computer buisness, that he already was good at, at this point in time, no matter what anyone wants you to believe, the home video game buisnees was dead and had imploded, yes Atari was known primarily for its Video Game devision, but even then it was considered a retro Video Game devision, yes the 5200 had came out releasing the exact same games as the 2600 with better grafix and no backward compatability...So he was able to take over a similar company that was losing $$ by the boatload, so much that Warner Brothers could not figure out how to save it...let me say this again Warner Brothers, one of this biggest entertainment industries in the world couldn't figure out how to save it.

 

So video games are dead but you got a stock pile of old 2600 lieing around, OK, but they are still selling so lets just stop producing them, also all $$ is going to the computer devision the market that I know and the market I want to crush Comadore Computers in since I hate them.

 

End of the year we sold 1 million 2600, what the crap an almost 10 year old system with very little support from its old company sold 11 million units, we better take advantage of this quick, also we have the rights to the 7800, lets blow the dust off that and release it as well...."the FUN is Back of ATARI under $5o Bucks, $50 Bucks

[Retro Rogue]

I always saw it as this he took over Atari because of the Computer buisness, it was very similar to the Comadore Computer buisness, that he already was good at, at this point in time, no matter what anyone wants you to believe, the home video game buisnees was dead and had imploded, yes Atari was known primarily for its Video Game devision, but even then it was considered a retro Video Game devision, yes the 5200 had came out releasing the exact same games as the 2600 with better grafix and no backward compatability...So he was able to take over a similar company that was losing $ by the boatload, so much that Warner Brothers could not figure out how to save it...let me say this again Warner Brothers, one of this biggest entertainment industries in the world couldn't figure out how to save it.

 

Per his son Leonard, Jack took over Atari Consumer for it's manufacturing and distribution network. The video games were meant as a bonus to help keep the new company afloat since they were taking on much of the debt in exchange for the no money down purchase.

 

So video games are dead but you got a stock pile of old 2600 lieing around, OK, but they are still selling so lets just stop producing them, also all $ is going to the computer devision the market that I know and the market I want to crush Comadore Computers in since I hate them.

 

No on all counts. He was more concerned for the Japanese (his old nemesis) entering the US computer market and didn't feel Commodore or anyone was capable of competing with them at that point. Hence his coming out of his self-imposed retirement. Likewise, he started up the cost reduced 2600 program r(2600 jr) right away that August along with a number of other outlets for products. Likewise with full plans for the 8-bit Atari line as well. They literally hit the ground running, it was the financial problems that ground things to a halt along with the initial lawsuit from Commodore towards his computer team.

 

 

End of the year we sold 1 million 2600, what the crap an almost 10 year old system with very little support from its old company sold 11 million units, we better take advantage of this quick, also we have the rights to the 7800, lets blow the dust off that and release it as well...."the FUN is Back of ATARI under $5o Bucks, $50 Bucks

 

No. As has already been covered extensively in this forum, the 7800 was not part of the deal - GCC (the designer) had done it under contract with Warner. There were negotiations between Warner, Jack (Atari Corp.) and GCC on who owed GCC for the development on the MARIA chip and 10 launch titles, that lasted through that Spring and Summer respectively. By August '85 he was looking to relaunch the 7800 and for someone to head the new Electronic Entertainment division and began wooing Mike Katz for the job. Katz took the position in late October (officially announced in early November) and launched the 2600 JR. with the $50 price point. Until that time, the stock (from '84 through Fall '85) had still been selling well. The $50 drop that Fall of '85 was to clear out more stock (people have no idea just how much there was), and to position the 2600 as a low end market console in advance of the 7800 relaunch that January '86.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jaybird3rd]

He was more concerned for the Japanese (his old nemesis) entering the US computer market and didn't feel Commodore or anyone was capable of competing with them at that point.

It's too bad that there isn't anybody like Jack Tramiel in the computer industry today. I'd love to see what he would do if he were in charge of a 21st-century computer company and in competition with the likes of Dell or HP.

[+wood_jl]

He was more concerned for the Japanese (his old nemesis) entering the US computer market and didn't feel Commodore or anyone was capable of competing with them at that point.

It's too bad that there isn't anybody like Jack Tramiel in the computer industry today. I'd love to see what he would do if he were in charge of a 21st-century computer company and in competition with the likes of Dell or HP.

 

I have to wonder if those tactics would work today. His were from "The Japanese are coming!" era, and now we're in a "The Chinese are already here!" era.

[kool kitty89]

He was more concerned for the Japanese (his old nemesis) entering the US computer market and didn't feel Commodore or anyone was capable of competing with them at that point. Hence his coming out of his self-imposed retirement. Likewise, he started up the cost reduced 2600 program r(2600 jr) right away that August along with a number of other outlets for products. Likewise with full plans for the 8-bit Atari line as well. They literally hit the ground running, it was the financial problems that ground things to a halt along with the initial lawsuit from Commodore towards his computer team.

I still find it a little ironic that his fears of a Japanese entry/domination in the US market had already been pretty much thwarted by the C64 (and also with the VIC/TI/etc price war) followed up by the dominance of the PC (the C64 bridged the gap in market saturation for PC clones to come out big).

 

But not just that: It's even more ironic that he took control of the former consumer division of the biggest video game company in the world (at that time), took on the brand name, and then had to face off with the Japanese (namely Nintendo) and ended up having the market dominated by the Japanese to this day.

 

OTOH, the success of the ST in Europe may have helped curtail Japanese competition there. (the MSX was the only system that really bit into that market anyway and it wasn't a prime competitor on the nextgen 16-bit market as such; the MSX2 might have made it in the game-oriented computer market but the lack of hardware H-scroll weakened it, the MSX2+ came too late -not sure if NEC's 8 or 16-bit PCs ever would have caught on given the rather weak cost/performance -albeit better than CGA/EGA PCs in the US , and then there's the X68000 but that was also late and beyond Amiga in price/cost unless they'd made a cut-down version catering to the EU market specifically)

Edited January 30, 2011 by kool kitty89

[toptenmaterial]

fascinating!! I must admit, I have always operated under the assumption that the 7800 and jr were a reaction to the success of the NES. I do wonder, though, why Atari Games didn't get the 7800 into stores (did they own it and Jack didn't? was that the problem?). I haven't read the tread in it's entirety so my apologies if this question was already addressed....

[Retro Rogue]

fascinating!! I must admit, I have always operated under the assumption that the 7800 and jr were a reaction to the success of the NES. I do wonder, though, why Atari Games didn't get the 7800 into stores (did they own it and Jack didn't? was that the problem?). I haven't read the tread in it's entirety so my apologies if this question was already addressed....

 

Atari Games didn't have anything to do with the 7800. Atari Games was the former coin-op division of Atari Inc., which was initially kept by Warner while it was deciding to do with the rest of Atari Inc. it didn't chop off and give to Jack. It then spun off the coin division to Atari Games Inc., which was renamed to Atari Games Corp. in 1985 when controlling interest was sold to Namco. (So at that time you had three Atari's - the original Atari Inc. which was just on paper by then (for finishing up legal happenings), Atari Games, and Atari Corporation (Jack).

 

The 7800 was owned by Warner at the time of the split (GCC's contract was with them).

 

Additionally, when Jack purchased Atari Consumer, he also purchased rights to the Atari brand and logo for consumer usage as well. Atari Games was allowed to use it in coin-op only, and it must have the word "Games" appended to the logo. Hence, there was no way for them to enter consumer market as Atari Games and release the 7800, nor was Warner looking for them to enter the consumer market. Warner had just got done dropping all consumer operations to Tramiel. Atari Games did enter the consumer market under Namco's leadership in 1987 though, via it's subsidiary Tengen, which was created for that purpose to get around the agreement.

Edited February 2, 2011 by wgungfu

[toptenmaterial]

thank you for the clarification. at the risk of sounding redundant, the delay of the 7800 was a matter of Warner holding out on Atari Corp, asking too much, being uncooperative or something along those lines? if I recall correctly you had addressed that issue in the tramial thread...

 

that being said, it seems clear that Jack was really unfairly blamed for the delay of the 7800, as well as some other stuff like layoffs. I'm not sure why history is so hard on him...

 

In any event I have just always found the delay of the 7800 so odd. The old "Jack hated video games" theory seems to be debunked.

 

What I see, based on what was posted by wgungfu and others, was that the sale of Atari by Warner was a total clusterf#ck, the 7800 ended up on the Warner side, and something about their position made it very tough for the new Atari Corp to acquire it.

Edited February 2, 2011 by toptenmaterial

[+Mitch]

The delay was because GCC still owned the 7800 and neither Warner or Jack T wanted to pay them off. They both wanted the other one to spend the cash. Jack ended up caving first and paid for the 7800.

 

Mitch

[toptenmaterial]

The delay was because GCC still owned the 7800 and neither Warner or Jack T wanted to pay them off. They both wanted the other one to spend the cash. Jack ended up caving first and paid for the 7800.

 

Mitch

thank you. i can go to sleep now.

[Retro Rogue]

The delay was because GCC still owned the 7800 and neither Warner or Jack T wanted to pay them off. They both wanted the other one to spend the cash. Jack ended up caving first and paid for the 7800.

 

Mitch

 

 

 

GCC was owed for the development of the MARIA chip and 10 launch games. It was a work for hire situation, GCC didn't own it.

[+wood_jl]

In any event I have just always found the delay of the 7800 so odd. The old "Jack hated video games" theory seems to be debunked.

 

Yeah, you have to appreciate wgungfu's efforts in researching - and more importantly - sharing this information. However, this won't be the last "Jack hated video games," "the 7800 was a response to the NES," and "What if Atari re-entered the console market (circa 2011)" threads will recur again-and-again. Some people will believe only what they think they know.

[DracIsBack]

Atari Games did enter the consumer market under Namco's leadership in 1987 though, via it's subsidiary Tengen, which was created for that purpose to get around the agreement.

 

Also, later on they did come to a license agreement with Atari Corp for titles to appear on Atari Corp's consoles. It mostly benefited the Lynx, though Klax and Pit Fighter for 7800 were examples that it was under consideration for other consoles as well.

 

IIRC, Atari Corp referred to the games as "licensed from Tengen" not "licensed from Atari Games Corp".

[Lynxpro]

Link doesn't work

I think Atari caused most of the problems around the 7800 themselves, if you look at why nintendo and sega were successful with their consoles is mostly due to the fact that anyone developing for sega/nintendo only had to support thast particular console, i.e the NES and the SMS, which meant that sega/nintendo could maximize not only the amount of games on their platform(s) but also maximise licensing profits for each game sold/released on their platform(s), Atari simply didn't read the market properly, after all Atari were'nt top dog anymore so why did Atari do 3 gaming systems aimed at the same market (bearing in mind that nintendio had already sewn up most of the US publishers for publishing/development on it's console) and that what remained were'nt so interested in supporting any Atari platform, perhaps if Atari had only focused on one platform in the gaming hardware market (like the 7800) in the same way that Nintendo and Sega did with the NES and SMS/II I think the 7800 might have been more successful, since Atari and 3rd party publishers would only have to support one Atari gaming platform and not 3

 

 

 

The reason for the XEGS was to shore up the 8-bit computer line. At the time, software publishers were furious with software piracy and they were looking to make an example by cutting out an entire platform. While the [anecdotal] majority of software piracy was being committed by Commodore 64 owners, publishers couldn't cut that platform out so they instead were targeting the Atari 8-bit platform. Atari Corp. was doing its best to save the line until the ST became cheap enough to come in at the 8-bit's price point so they opted to repackage the 65XE as a game system [XEGS] and prove to the publishers that going the game cartridge route was the best way to defeat disk based software pirates despite the higher cost of producing cartridges versus floppy disks. If I recall, even John Skrutch said much the same in an interview in Atari Explorer back then.

[Lynxpro]

 

See above, the Jaguar may have been a market failure, but it wasn't a business failure. (in fact it was a critical success for Atari Corp at the time)

 

For failures the Falcon probably does apply and the Transputer Workstation, not sure if the TT030 turned a profit either. (though it didn't make the impact desired)

Maybe I'm not looking at it with enough detail, but it seems like Atari Corp sort of screwed up with the ST at the end of the 80s and early 90s with rather limited upgrades that were a bit late (the STe came out at a point where it was really behind both mid-range PCs and still behind the Amiga -the latter mattering more for Europe) and then pushing more high-end with the TT without a lower-end /mid-range counterpart with similar video enhancement. (no lower end 68020/030 models prior to the Falcon or 16 MHz 68k models until the MEGA STE in '91 -it seems something like an STe with 16 MHz 68k with optional FPU and added TT SHIFTER video would have been good alongside the TT in '90 though more so if the STe had video upgrades in the first place -not all the TT modes, but a 320x200 256 color mode at least and probably a 640x200 16-color mode if not expanded 640x400/480 modes -obviously for dedicated RGB/VGA monitors only)

 

 

As an ST owner, I think the biggest screw up they committed was skipping the 68020. I remember Sig Hartmann commenting on how disappointed they [Atari Corp.] were in the chip's multitasking abilities circa 1986/87 and even saying as much not only in Atari Explorer but also at the user's group meetings he'd appear at. Even then, that was startling to me since Motorola finished the 68020 back in 1984. Regardless, their "disappointment" delayed them releasing a high-end line and the TT030 was shipped too late in the ballgame against the Amiga wares and the creeping cheap PC clone onslaught.

 

The STe came out way too late and it still did not match the Amiga's graphics abilities. Even as a staunch ST owner at the time, that was pretty embarrassing.

[Lynxpro]

Now the Tramiel haters really have little left to bash them with.

 

Now they'll just write off what Marty and others have been saying as "revisionist history."

This is why the internet is actually a step backwards in human evolution. The original view of the Tramiels (that they wanted to focus on computers only, that they released the 7800 too late because they didn't like consoles, etc) was based on nothing at all. No fact checking, no documentation, etc. In fact, it wasn't even based on logic (why would a businessman buy a company known for videogame consoles, with three consoles ready to be sold, with games ready to be produced, and with stock of some of it sitting in warehouses) and then plan to not sell consoles for no reason? It defies logic that the idea has persisted so long when you think about it.

 

The new view that Marty and Curt have demonstrated is based on hours of interviews, checking company business and sales reports, and internal communications within Atari. Because the internet breeds stupidity, this new view is called "revisionist," while the illogical one based on nothing at all is believed to be the truth. I think our species is about two decades away from climbing back into the trees.

 

 

 

The "computers only" perception came from the press. All during the ST's launch, the press kept on stressing that Atari Corp. was "now a computer company" and supposedly directly coming from Jack's mouth. The coverage didn't change until 1986 after the NES was considered a success and then you have magazines like Compute! stating that the Tramiels then decided to get back into video games. The Tramiels themselves didn't seem to do much to correct this "narrative" that the press created and us owners latched onto since it conveniently explained all the missteps that Atari Corp. took over the years.

 

It also doesn't help that even in interviews today, Jack Tramiel seems rather dismissive of video games. That was evident in the Computer History Museum's session on the Commodore 64's anniversary from a few years back, not to mention Commodore's own advertising campaigns for the 64 back in the day.

[Metal Ghost]

But not just that: It's even more ironic that he took control of the former consumer division of the biggest video game company in the world (at that time), took on the brand name, and then had to face off with the Japanese (namely Nintendo) and ended up having the market dominated by the Japanese to this day.

 

 

I don't know. If using a quantitative metric to meausre 'dominate', I'd probably use the 'ol 80/20 rule (because IMO a #1 position doesn't necessarily imply domination). And certainly by that measure I'd argue that the Japanesedo not dominate today.

 

In terms of games development I would even question whether Japan should be considered a #1 or #2, but even if #1 in games develoment they do not dominate as in the 80's, when it seemed as if every game was coming from Japen. And again in terms of current gen console sales, though Wii and PS3 sales combined certainly are greater than Xbox 360 sales, Xbox 360 is now alternating back and forth as the #1 console sold. And again, no matter what, it makes up much more than 20% of the current market.

 

Now the handheld market, that they dominate! But there is the iPhone....

[GroovyBee]

But there is the iPhone....

 

... made in China...

[Metal Ghost]

But there is the iPhone....

 

... made in China...

 

 

Yes, but not designed. I'm using that as the litmus here, not source of manufacture. Or I guess the entire games hardware industry would be considered Chinese now!

Edited February 2, 2011 by Metal Ghost

[GroovyBee]

Yes, but not designed.

 

Jonathan Ive (an English guy ) is responsible for the iPhone industrial design.

[Retro Rogue]

Yes, but not designed.

 

Jonathan Ive (an English guy ) is responsible for the iPhone industrial design.

 

 

 

In California.

[Metal Ghost]

Yes, but not designed.

 

Jonathan Ive (an English guy ) is responsible for the iPhone industrial design.

 

 

 

In California.

 

I love it!

[jaybird3rd]

In California.

Yes, as indicated right on the back of the iPhone and iPod:

 

 

"Designed by Apple in California." As Joel Spolsky points out, it's a much more seductive and evocative phrase than the one Microsoft puts on the Zune ...

 

 

... which evokes nothing except Boeing, constant rainstorms, and the suicidal Kurt Cobain. One of the many reasons why Microsoft will never have what it takes to match Apple's style and design ingenuity.