I think now I understand why the NES beat the 7800

[8th lutz]

 

 

Okay. fair enough. Why did Activision only release two games 1989+ if the system was doing so well in '87 and '88. Why did other companies not design games for this hot selling system. (The NES excuse is overrated.) What about Europe? Why not? There are two sides to every story.

 

Activision released 5 games for the Atari 2600 from 1987 to 1989. The games were Kung Fu Master, Commando, River Raid 2, Double Dragon, and Rampage.

 

It is one out of 4 things for Activision waiting till 1989 for publishing games for the 7800 at least.

 

1.) Atari was pursing 3rd parties for the 2600, not the 7800 in the Early going.

2) Activisiont interested in publishing 7800 games

3.)Atari had a lockout chip for the 7800, not the 2600.

4.)Atari's dedication to the Atari 7800 was questionable in 1987 & 1988 despite their strong sales in North America. That had to be a concern for 3rd parties. Atari had ads for the Atari XEGS that had it compare it to the Nes in 1987, or 1988. That ad is found on youtube matter of fact. Atari marketed the Atari XEGS as a game console despite being a computer as that ad showed. Atari thought the XEGS was going to be the threat to the Nes, not the 7800 as that ad showed. The whole deal with the XEGS was a move that Jack Tramiel did despite Katz not wanting the XEGS to be released a first place.

Edited March 21, 2011 by 8th lutz

[8th lutz]

What made the 3rd party support even worse for the 7800 was Atari 2600 was getting 3rd party releases from 1987 to 1989 in North America besides Activision.

 

Epyx published and developed California Games, Summer Games, and Winter Games for the 2600 in 1987. If Epyx didn't have to face a lawsuit against Data East, it would have been interesting in what other games Epyx would have published and developing for the Atari 2600. I am guessing Epyx might have done World Games, Impossible Mission and International Karate for the 2600.

 

Atari published Impossible Mission, Summer Games, and Winter Games for the 7800 with Atari hiring contractors for those 3 games to be developed at the time. California Games was on its way being 4th Epyx game for the 7800 with a contractor developing the game for Atari. Epyx affected the Atari 7800 in terms of what games contractors were developing at the time as it proved.

 

Absolute Entertainment released games for the 2600 besides the 7800. Title Match Pro Wrestling was released in 1987 for the 2600. Pete Rose Baseball, and Tomcat: The F-14 Fighter Simulator were released in 1988 for the 2600. Atari 7800 had to wait to get those three games released until 1989.

 

Skate Boardin' was the only Absolute Entertainment games that the 2600 had and the 7800 didn't. Skate Boardin' was released in 1988.

 

Absolute Entertainment released 5 games for the Atari 7800 without counting the Tomcat: The F-14 Fighter Simulator 2600 label. The only thing Absolute Entertainment had in its defense was the fact they released F-18 Hornet for the 7800 in 1988.

 

Froggo didn't became a publisher for the 7800 right away either and published crappy 2600 games like Karate instead. It might have been a good thing that Froggo only released Tank Command and Water Ski for the 7800 as a result of their track record.

Edited March 21, 2011 by 8th lutz

[SpaceDice2010]

 

 

1.) Atari was pursing 3rd parties for the 2600, not the 7800 in the Early going.

2) Activisiont interested in publishing 7800 games

3.)Atari had a lockout chip for the 7800, not the 2600.

4.)Atari's dedication to the Atari 7800 was questionable in 1987 & 1988 despite their strong sales in North America. That had to be a concern for 3rd parties. Atari had ads for the Atari XEGS that had it compare it to the Nes in 1987, or 1988. That ad is found on youtube matter of fact. Atari marketed the Atari XEGS as a game console despite being a computer as that ad showed. Atari thought the XEGS was going to be the threat to the Nes, not the 7800 as that ad showed. The whole deal with the XEGS was a move that Jack Tramiel did despite Katz not wanting the XEGS to be released a first place.

 

 

When I mentioned why would developers even want to develop games for the 7800, what you said backs up my point somewhat. Nintendo had the NES. They were not in the $200 computer business. They were not in the $1000 computer business. Nintendo had financial resources. After the launch in NY (somewhat successful) and the nationwide launch, Nintendo became a safe bet for developers.

 

So many put so much of the blame on Nintendo for the 7800's failure. I just don't buy that argument. There were many developers that could have designed games for the 7800 and chose not to. There were also many games that Atari could have grabbed licenses to and didn't. (Atari Games comes to mind as one.)

 

For a developer or licensee to get a game on the Atari 7800 it has to be in the company's best interest. Just because there were 3 million units sold that is not reason enough.

 

Someone mentioned that Atari had brand recognition. But they also had a history of bad management and I believe at the time of the 7800 they also had a product positioning problem as well. You eluded to that in your post.

 

Reminds me of that old game show, where three people pretend they are the same person. Will the real "Atari" please stand up.

Edited March 21, 2011 by SpaceDice2010

[+wood_jl]

When I mentioned why would developers even want to develop games for the 7800, what you said backs up my point somewhat. Nintendo had the NES. They were not in the $200 computer business. They were not in the $1000 computer business. Nintendo had financial resources. After the launch in NY (somewhat successful) and the nationwide launch, Nintendo became a safe bet for developers.

Talking about just after the launch of the NES: There was no "safe bet" for developers; the industry had just crashed. The NES "success" was not instant, and it was not instantly a "safe bet."

 

So many put so much of the blame on Nintendo for the 7800's failure. I just don't buy that argument. There were many developers that could have designed games for the 7800 and chose not to. There were also many games that Atari could have grabbed licenses to and didn't. (Atari Games comes to mind as one.)

This guy is just here to sh*t on the 7800. Period. He's going to make up 1000 "why not" scenarios. So now, you're supposed to pretend that the competition (Nintendo, and their previously-unheard-of-monopolistic-practices) had **absolutely nothing** to do with the reduced-success of their competitors. HA HA HA!!!

 

For a developer or licensee to get a game on the Atari 7800 it has to be in the company's best interest. Just because there were 3 million units sold that is not reason enough.

Tell us how it is, Mac, since you're so full of facts.

 

Someone mentioned that Atari had brand recognition. But they also had a history of bad management and I believe at the time of the 7800 they also had a product positioning problem as well. You eluded to that in your post.

I believe he means "alluded" to in your point. To "elude" is to evade. Claims to be from Harvard, or I wouldn't mention it, but the claim gave me higher expectations...higher than that... But this is just more sh*tting on the 7800, ST, or anything else that he didn't have. Silly to argue with him. You're not going to convince him of anything, and you're prompting him to sh*t on Atari some more and "tell us how it was."

 

Reminds me of that old game show, where three people pretend they are the same person. Will the real "Atari" please stand up.

Reminds me of the last johnny-come-lately internet troll I saw on another board. Really digging for an audience to accept opinion as fact.

Edited March 21, 2011 by wood_jl

[high voltage]

Pre-Famicom Nintendo was almost on the verge of being bankrupt, so it was not always plain sailing for Nintendo.

 

Actually, Nintendo took almost three years to succeed from AVS launch (CES Jan 1984, again CES June 1984) to testmarketing of NES (85) to success (87).

In late 85 many USA shops like Sears, Macy's and TrU still didn't want the NES, they didn't even know how to pronounce 'Nintendo' and they were not interested in learning how.

 

THE NES ONLY SUCCEEDED BECAUSE ARAKAWA HAD TO GIVE RETAILERS A RISK-FREE PROPOSITION, A MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Also, Nintendo had to promise retailers free displays, window advertising etc for 90 days. After that, stores would pay Nintendo for what they sold and could return the rest. With these options, stores couldn't refuse, and slowly one by one, companies agreed.

Edited March 21, 2011 by high voltage

[kool kitty89]

Okay. fair enough. Why did Activision only release two games 1989+ if the system was doing so well in '87 and '88. Why did other companies not design games for this hot selling system. (The NES excuse is overrated.) What about Europe? Why not? There are two sides to every story.

There's no "NES excuse" though there is the very real issue of Nintendo blocking competition with unprecedented anticompetitive licensing policies. (obviously Atari still wouldn't have gotten more support than Nintendo if they hadn't done anything else different, but that's not the issue: the issue is Atari getting much more support than they themselves did historically -or Sega for that matter, and it's a cumulative thing too: better support, better funding, cyclical, more and more as time went on with the real potential being the leap to the next generation -something they already had a big opportunity for, but could have been even bigger)

 

Now, I admit that I don't know what Atari was offering developers. What was the dev system cost? Was it free? How much did it cost? What developer support did Atari have? What was Atari offering for licenses? Marketing support? What did developers feel about Atari's long term stability (keep in mind that many developers saw the crash and burn years earlier). How did developers feel about competing with Atari's $10-$20 game prices? How did they measure the position of the 7800 vs NES in the market... I have another 20 or so questions, but I will stop there for now.

Yes, I too would like to know more about just what Atari's licensing policies were and how 3rd party development was managed in general.

 

As for the NES issue. How many here believe that Osborne Computer crashed because they announced the new computer too early?

I'm not sure how the osborne's self defeating prophecy has anything to do with the video game market of the time at all.

 

 

I also wonder about the European support as well. Why didn't they? Maybe it was Nintendo as well?

Given that Katz didn't even have any commissions from European developers, I think it may have been more of an oversight on focusing on US developers. But for native EU dev support, there wasn't a whole lot on the NES or SMS either as far as Euro publishers were concerned (especially prior to 1989), and both of those sold a lot better than the 7800 in Europe. (actually, most of the European published NES and SMS games are from the early 90s)

Maybe there was simply too much interest in the computer game market (and the totally free licensing, low-cost media, etc native to that) to attract publishers to consoles, especially in the late 80s. (all the more reason Atari would have had to commission games as such and/or use especially favorable licensing policies -like totally free/open licensing other than the cost of development tools and possibly reviewing games for objectionable material or such)

 

I need to look further, but I can't seem to find any European published NES or SMS games (not sure about 2600) prior to the early 90s.

That's one more reason to argue Atari going all computers back in '84/85, or rather having a fully compatible consolized version of the 600XL released at the time. (no delay issues a la 7800, fewer platforms to support for software or hardware, lots of existing software and development support, getting around Nintendo's licensing with a "game computer", etc, etc) Going with the XEGS in '87 was a bad move, but something like that in '84/85 could have been a very different story. (let alone doing that instead of the 5200 back in '82 -especially since the 16k 400 was already being cut to 5200 level prices in late 1982)

 

 

 

 

 

Activision released 5 games for the Atari 2600 from 1987 to 1989. The games were Kung Fu Master, Commando, River Raid 2, Double Dragon, and Rampage.

 

It is one out of 4 things for Activision waiting till 1989 for publishing games for the 7800 at least.

 

1.) Atari was pursing 3rd parties for the 2600, not the 7800 in the Early going.

2) Activisiont interested in publishing 7800 games

3.)Atari had a lockout chip for the 7800, not the 2600.

4.)Atari's dedication to the Atari 7800 was questionable in 1987 & 1988 despite their strong sales in North America. That had to be a concern for 3rd parties. Atari had ads for the Atari XEGS that had it compare it to the Nes in 1987, or 1988. That ad is found on youtube matter of fact. Atari marketed the Atari XEGS as a game console despite being a computer as that ad showed. Atari thought the XEGS was going to be the threat to the Nes, not the 7800 as that ad showed. The whole deal with the XEGS was a move that Jack Tramiel did despite Katz not wanting the XEGS to be released a first place.

It seems odd that they hadn't been pushing for more 7800 support right out of the gate (ie by late 1985, when Katz was preparing things), unless the above is incorrect. (haven't seen Curt/Marty make any statement one way or the other on that issue)

 

By late 1985, the 2600 should have been mainly aimed at old games with re-releases and compilations and a low priority for new games, at least for 1st party stuff. (just like any late gen console -like the NES from 1991 onward, SNES from 1996 onward, PSX from ~2001 onward, etc)

If any 3rd parties wanted to publish for it, fine, but don't add to the encouragement over the 7800 (or computers).

 

Lockout was there, yes, but all that meant was that Atari had control over how to manage 3rd party support. It would have been up to them to allow free development, very low licensing fees to be competitive, etc. (under the circumstances, they probably should have had free licensing, or maybe low-risk contracts that only charged royalties above a certain volume sold)

 

Yes, the XEGS was a bad move, at least in the way it was released, after the fact of the 7800 rather than instead of it. (also it was oddly expensive, some $200 when the 65XE had been 1/2 that previously) Again, a 600XL derived console in late '84 or '85 would have been another matter entirely with advantages over the 7800 route. (let alone back in 1982 instead of the 5200, but there's even more alternatives there too)

 

 

 

 

 

When I mentioned why would developers even want to develop games for the 7800, what you said backs up my point somewhat. Nintendo had the NES. They were not in the $200 computer business. They were not in the $1000 computer business. Nintendo had financial resources. After the launch in NY (somewhat successful) and the nationwide launch, Nintendo became a safe bet for developers.

WTF? What would having a diverse company have against publishing for their game system?

 

Anyway, Nintendo didn't have many of those advantages until well after the fact in the US. They had Japan locked-in, and that was their main advantage until they could otherwise establish themselves in 1986/87. (I'd imagine US developers were taking a "wait and see" attitude across the board)

 

Of course, Nintendo's position would have generally meant better support across the board regardless, but it wouldn't have meant what they got, and that's blocking the competition almost completely. If Japanese and US developers have been totally free to publish for any platform they wanted without any catches, that would have made the market a very different place.

Noone's saying that Nintendo alone forced Atari from a dominant position in the market, but the issue is that they DID keep them from being competitive. (ie Nintendo would have had a lead, but not nearly as big a lead over Sega or Atari in Japan or the US than they did historically)

 

What's interesting is that Nintendo was somehow able to hold down their licensing policies in Japan with absolutely no hardware lockout. (maybe more to do with the Nature of the Japanese market and honor or something, or maybe Nintendo had other underhanded tactics like compelling retailers to not stock unlicensed games) The Famicom had no more lockout in Japan than the VCS did in the US, the only physical/business reasons to go licensed were for the development tools and for the branding of their games as Nintendo licensed.

 

So many put so much of the blame on Nintendo for the 7800's failure. I just don't buy that argument. There were many developers that could have designed games for the 7800 and chose not to. There were also many games that Atari could have grabbed licenses to and didn't. (Atari Games comes to mind as one.)

Atari had limited funds for such licensing, and as Nintendo pushed more and more, they had an even bigger advantage for in-house development, let alone the even bigger 3rd party stuff.

Again, Nintendo wasn't the only problem, but they were a huge one.

 

For a developer or licensee to get a game on the Atari 7800 it has to be in the company's best interest. Just because there were 3 million units sold that is not reason enough.

It would have been in their interest though, but not if publishing on the 7800 would have meant not publishing on the NES in the context of the time. (for the 7800 to get support, it would have had to be the system with the absolute most profit potential and not just another outlet for their games -had Morgan's Atari Inc stayed, that might have happened by the time the NES was released, but in spite of the limitations of Atari Corp's position the 3rd parties still would have had lots of incentive to publish for a less popular system, just at lower priority -plus the 7800 would have been much closer in popularity without Nintendo's licensing)

 

Someone mentioned that Atari had brand recognition. But they also had a history of bad management and I believe at the time of the 7800 they also had a product positioning problem as well. You eluded to that in your post.

In the US, Atari had a stronger name for consumers and Retailers up through 1986, of course the entire industry was still shaky up through 1986 and coming back from the bottom of the crash in '84. (again, a major issue with "wait and see")

Nintendo had Japan to work with with no crash (indeed a boom when the US crashed), but Atari Corp had no such advantage of overseas success.

 

They also had a growing brand name in Europe, especially with the increasingly popular ST making Atari a true household name across Europe in a different context than they had been in the US (obviously associated with games too given the huge computer game market for the ST). That followed for the Lynx and is the reason Atari's brand name was far stronger in Europe in 1993 than in the US. (and one of the big reasons not pushing the Jag predominantly in Europe was a major mistake -Jack got it right when he was willing to allow shortages in the US to maintain their European presence, but Sam apparently didn't see that)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-Famicom Nintendo was almost on the verge of being bankrupt, so it was not always plain sailing for Nintendo.

Hmm, I don't know about that. I was under the impression Nintendo had been rather successful with the arcade, pong consoles, and Game & Watch line in Japan. A small company, but a successful one.

 

Now, they did risk bankrupsy with their gutsy move with the Famicom, investing in a 3 million unit initial contract with Ricoh to keep per-unit costs down. Had the FC failed, Nintendo may have been no more, but it took off so fast that even the recalls with early hardware problems didn't hurt them too badly. (they were more or less like Atari with the VCS in the US, except rising a bit faster - more or less accomplishing in 1983-1985 what Atari did in 1977-1980, though given the nature of Japan, that's hardly surprising -much denser population)

 

Actually, Nintendo took almost three years to succeed from AVS launch (CES Jan 1984, again CES June 1984) to testmarketing of NES (85) to success (87).

In late 85 many USA shops like Sears, Macy's and TrU still didn't want the NES, they didn't even know how to pronounce 'Nintendo' and they were not interested in learning how.

True, they had to work hard to get into the market, probably one of the major reasons they managed to get marketing right in '86/87 when Sega was floundering in spite of comparable (or greater) advertising budgets.

 

THE NES ONLY SUCCEEDED BECAUSE ARAKAWA HAD TO GIVE RETAILERS A RISK-FREE PROPOSITION, A MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Also, Nintendo had to promise retailers free displays, window advertising etc for 90 days. After that, stores would pay Nintendo for what they sold and could return the rest. With these options, stores couldn't refuse, and slowly one by one, companies agreed.

Not so much the no-risk thing, since many others had done that too (or not quite as low risk, but full options for retailers to make returns -one of Atari Inc's big problems was the massive returns of games/hardware from retailers and distributors, had they made the distributors/retailers liable, Atari wouldn't have had nearly as much debt to deal with).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I mentioned why would developers even want to develop games for the 7800, what you said backs up my point somewhat. Nintendo had the NES. They were not in the $200 computer business. They were not in the $1000 computer business. Nintendo had financial resources. After the launch in NY (somewhat successful) and the nationwide launch, Nintendo became a safe bet for developers.

Talking about just after the launch of the NES: There was no "safe bet" for developers; the industry had just crashed. The NES "success" was not instant, and it was not instantly a "safe bet."

It hadn't just crashed, it had crashed some 3 years earlier and had been recovering rapidly from mid 1985 onward (when 2600 sales picked up).

 

Nintnedo's success in Japan also would have given some indication, but Atari's brand name would as well.

On the whole, all western developers seem to have taken a "wait and see" approach as such while Nintendo already had Japanese companies locked-in so Atari couldn't even license/commission games if they had the money to do so, let alone expect independent or licensed publishing.

 

Thus, once Nintendo became the most attractive to publish for, western developers were also willing to make the sacrifice of exclusivity for Nintendo. (at least for a time, though many eventually got fed up with the BS, more than just lock-in but many other limits on publishing for Nintendo)

 

That's the same thing that happened in Japan, there was notable competition, but Nintendo made it big enough to make developers willing to go exclusive when they otherwise would have published cross-platform. (which of course widened the gap further for future licensees, and so on until NEC's PC Engine tore into the market strong enough to change that)

 

 

 

I don't think anyone's arguing that Nintendo wouldn't have still been the most successful under similar circumstances but with unlimited licensing. The point is that other platforms would have done much better (if still been behind Nintendo overall for other reasons), and that goes for Sega's SG-1000 and Mk.III (and some other competition for that matter) in Japan as well as Sega and Atari in the west. (actually, Sega might have risen above Nintendo, though given how they messed up their marketing in spite of funding and good software, I'm not sure that would have worked out either in the US)

Edited March 21, 2011 by kool kitty89

[kool kitty89]

Oh, I forgot to mention, the NES and SMS both had hardware advantages as well that made them more attractive (actually even the A8/5200 was more attractive in several aspects than the 7800 in terms of ease of development relative to "common standards" for arcade/console/computer programming of the time -like character modes, bitmap/framebuffer graphics, etc).

 

But I think that aspect of things has been done to death already. (regardless of the 7800's advantages, it was definitely less adept at and more difficult to program for common games of the time than its contemporaries, and the fact it didn't get established back in '84 when that was less of an issue obviously makes things worse)

 

But even if Atari had had hardware close to the Master System or NES, it probably wouldn't have changed things that substantially with all else being equal. (the Master System might have actually been a fairly poor choice given the ROM sizes Atari was generally working with and how much the SMS's 4bpp graphics take up -you could compress things in ROM and unpack into VRAM -or maybe unpack some stuff on the fly if you could spare the CPU resource to do so, but that's only for stuff you're not updating on the fly and that 16k in the SMS gets eaten up pretty quickly with 4-bit sprite/tile data -actually, the SMS probably would have been better off in general for the time if it had supported 2-bit or maybe even 1-bit graphics data -outside of the TMS9918 mode- but with much more flexibility of indexed colors than the NES -an NES with 8x8 attribute cells and double the subpalettes probably could have looked better than the SMS in many cases -let alone with the bandwidth needed for more 3 color sprites per line -sort of like the Game Boy Color vs the Game Gear except with ROM being far more expensive and limiting than in those cases; by the mid 90s, the flexibility of 16 color subpalettes with the GG would have been much more significant)

[Lynxpro]

Why would a company want to develop for the 7800 anyways?

Because they had brand recognition, a significant market share, etc, etc. (and that market share would have been considerably higher with open 3rd party support without the walls put up by Nintendo)

 

I mean, in spite of the budget/support issues, Atari DID have a substantial brand name at the time and DID sell 3.77 million unite from '86-90. (nearly 3 million in '87 and '88 alone, the best 2 years for the system)

They were also well ahead of Sega in the US in spite of Sega's better funding and software resources.

 

 

Maybe Warner should've just paid GCC off for the 7800, gave it to Atari Games Corp. - which they still owned a 10% stake in during Namco's takeover - and then negotiated with TTL/Atari Corp. to revert home video game console rights to the name "Atari" back to Atari Games. That would've made more sense than giving the home gaming rights to Tramiel when TTL/Atari Corp. did not retain any of the former Atari Inc. programming staff while on the other hand, Atari Games Corp. immediately wanted in on the home video game console action following the split. Game Over in its narrative clearly states Atari Games staff wanted to compete and to beat Nintendo. Had they had their own console [7800], they probably would've been more successful than what Tramiel & Co. had at it...

[SpaceDice2010]

Looking back at history is always fun. One of the biggest blunders of the 7800 was the delayed launch. That really hurt. Yes there were legitimate reasons why that happened. But it still hurt.

[SpaceDice2010]

 

When I mentioned why would developers even want to develop games for the 7800, what you said backs up my point somewhat. Nintendo had the NES. They were not in the $200 computer business. They were not in the $1000 computer business. Nintendo had financial resources. After the launch in NY (somewhat successful) and the nationwide launch, Nintendo became a safe bet for developers.

Talking about just after the launch of the NES: There was no "safe bet" for developers; the industry had just crashed. The NES "success" was not instant, and it was not instantly a "safe bet."

It hadn't just crashed, it had crashed some 3 years earlier and had been recovering rapidly from mid 1985 onward (when 2600 sales picked up).

 

Nintnedo's success in Japan also would have given some indication, but Atari's brand name would as well.

On the whole, all western developers seem to have taken a "wait and see" approach as such while Nintendo already had Japanese companies locked-in so Atari couldn't even license/commission games if they had the money to do so, let alone expect independent or licensed publishing.

 

Thus, once Nintendo became the most attractive to publish for, western developers were also willing to make the sacrifice of exclusivity for Nintendo. (at least for a time, though many eventually got fed up with the BS, more than just lock-in but many other limits on publishing for Nintendo)

 

That's the same thing that happened in Japan, there was notable competition, but Nintendo made it big enough to make developers willing to go exclusive when they otherwise would have published cross-platform. (which of course widened the gap further for future licensees, and so on until NEC's PC Engine tore into the market strong enough to change that)

 

 

 

I don't think anyone's arguing that Nintendo wouldn't have still been the most successful under similar circumstances but with unlimited licensing. The point is that other platforms would have done much better (if still been behind Nintendo overall for other reasons), and that goes for Sega's SG-1000 and Mk.III (and some other competition for that matter) in Japan as well as Sega and Atari in the west. (actually, Sega might have risen above Nintendo, though given how they messed up their marketing in spite of funding and good software, I'm not sure that would have worked out either in the US)

 

As KoolKitty said this was not right after the crash. And the timeline I referred to was after the NES launch in NYC and the nationwide launch. The market had recovered very nicely by that time. Nintendo was a success in Japan and they had shown that they could do the same in the US market. At least developers had confidence that they could.

Edited March 22, 2011 by SpaceDice2010

[SpaceDice2010]

When I mentioned why would developers even want to develop games for the 7800, what you said backs up my point somewhat. Nintendo had the NES. They were not in the $200 computer business. They were not in the $1000 computer business. Nintendo had financial resources. After the launch in NY (somewhat successful) and the nationwide launch, Nintendo became a safe bet for developers.

WTF? What would having a diverse company have against publishing for their game system?

 

Developer confidence. In many companies it would neither be an asset or a liability. In Atari's case I feel it was a liability. Atari seemed like a very thinly funded company that was throwing things against the wall and hoping that something would stick. On one hand they had the Atari 7800 that was running ads against Nintendo while at the same time they had the XEGS running ads against Nintendo as well.

 

-----

 

 

While we all have this discussion one needs to think about Japanese culture as well. Culture played a big part in this. If anyone has tried to do business with a Japanese company you will know what I mean. It's damn hard to explain until you get in the position when you have to do so...

Edited March 22, 2011 by SpaceDice2010

[kool kitty89]

Why would a company want to develop for the 7800 anyways?

Because they had brand recognition, a significant market share, etc, etc. (and that market share would have been considerably higher with open 3rd party support without the walls put up by Nintendo)

 

I mean, in spite of the budget/support issues, Atari DID have a substantial brand name at the time and DID sell 3.77 million unite from '86-90. (nearly 3 million in '87 and '88 alone, the best 2 years for the system)

They were also well ahead of Sega in the US in spite of Sega's better funding and software resources.

 

 

Maybe Warner should've just paid GCC off for the 7800, gave it to Atari Games Corp. - which they still owned a 10% stake in during Namco's takeover - and then negotiated with TTL/Atari Corp. to revert home video game console rights to the name "Atari" back to Atari Games. That would've made more sense than giving the home gaming rights to Tramiel when TTL/Atari Corp. did not retain any of the former Atari Inc. programming staff while on the other hand, Atari Games Corp. immediately wanted in on the home video game console action following the split. Game Over in its narrative clearly states Atari Games staff wanted to compete and to beat Nintendo. Had they had their own console [7800], they probably would've been more successful than what Tramiel & Co. had at it...

Yes, it would have been a wise investment on warner's part as a shareholder and if they seriously had plans of ever reclaiming Atari consumer. (but in that sense, the whole botched liquidation process was a huge blunder)

If they wanted to get the debt off the books, but try to put Atari in a position to be healthy and have provisions for a buy-back, they really should have pushed for a total sale of some sort. (I think the isue wa that they were asking for too much and may have been able to sell AInc outright if they'd pushed something closer to the loan/promisary note route they did with the consumer division)

 

But in any case, I'm not sure the 7800 was preferable to release at all, even if they'd released it in 1984 as planned. (ie there were other advantages to never investing in that development or halting it in favor of pressing on with the 5200 or switching to the XEGS route -or similar- there were many options for correcting much of the 5200's problems after the fact, or droppin it and shifting more to the computers and pushing them directly onto the console market -in either case you have a lot of commonality inhardware and software development, but the 5200 could have been cheaper than the A8 while the A8 would have full computer compatibiltiy and a loophole for Nintendo)

 

This is really a separate dicusion entirey though. (with Tramiel, there ws even more reaon not to go with the 7800 asthey lacked the added reources Warner had provided and ended up stripped of many of AtariInc's other resources even, on top of the conflict over the 7800 -so there's an argument that the 7800 was unnecessary for Atari Inc in 1983/84, but much more of onefor Atari Corp -for Atari Inc, maybe they could negotiated with Warner/GCC to hold off and roll the work done on MARIA into a future design for the successor to the 5200)

 

Then there's the whole separate argument of what Atari Inc should have done in place of the original 5200 backin 1982. (ie 3200 or similar, direct consolized A8, cheaper/low-cost optimized 5200 with provisions for cheaper/convenient VCS compatibility and an adapter at launch, etc -or maybe a directly conolized A8 with special provisions for VCS compatibility)

 

 

 

Looking back at history is always fun. One of the biggest blunders of the 7800 was the delayed launch. That really hurt. Yes there were legitimate reasons why that happened. But it still hurt.

True, or not deciding to drop it entirely back in '84 and preson with exisitin products. (and either conolizing th 600XL or re-releasing the 5200)

 

 

 

Edit:

Oh, and a good analogy for the Nintendo licensing situation:

Take another generation when one platform/company had a substantial lead in the market, like the 5th or 6th generation. If Sony had implemented Nintendo-like licensing agreements (or at least the console exclusivity portion) for the PSX or PS2, what would have happened to the 3rd party support on the N64, Saturn, Xbox, or GameCube?

By extention, with the much more limited support (pretty much only 1st party), how much less would those systems have sold and how much more limited would the resources have been to product/commission 1st party published releases? (especially for Nintendo since MS was managing a loss making business with the Xbox as it was with massive subsidation from other divisions, Nintendo just had the -albeit quite successful- game boy/color/advance line going at the time -and like with the 7800 vs ST, diverting excessive resources to the GC that could go to the handhelds wouldn't have made much sense -though there's other exceptions to that parallel with the 2600 in play among other things)

 

That's all assuming that government/legal action wouldn't stop Sony from doing so (just as Nintendo wasn't stopped in the period we're addressing)

 

And, of course, Sony had other advantages that allowed them to put even more pressure on the market than Nintendo ever had, but without being illegal. (or at least less illegal as what Sony was doing was to some extent similar to what led to IBM's antitrust suits years earlier -which contributed to the PC being made from mainly off the shelf parts and not taking advantage IBM's vertical integration and massive capacity, and if Sony had been a US company, it might even have come up against such legal action)

But Sony's impact on the market is yet another separate discussion.

Edited March 22, 2011 by kool kitty89

[SpaceDice2010]

Edit:

Oh, and a good analogy for the Nintendo licensing situation:

Take another generation when one platform/company had a substantial lead in the market, like the 5th or 6th generation. If Sony had implemented Nintendo-like licensing agreements (or at least the console exclusivity portion) for the PSX or PS2, what would have happened to the 3rd party support on the N64, Saturn, Xbox, or GameCube?

By extention, with the much more limited support (pretty much only 1st party), how much less would those systems have sold and how much more limited would the resources have been to product/commission 1st party published releases? (especially for Nintendo since MS was managing a loss making business with the Xbox as it was with massive subsidation from other divisions, Nintendo just had the -albeit quite successful- game boy/color/advance line going at the time -and like with the 7800 vs ST, diverting excessive resources to the GC that could go to the handhelds wouldn't have made much sense -though there's other exceptions to that parallel with the 2600 in play among other things)

 

That's all assuming that government/legal action wouldn't stop Sony from doing so (just as Nintendo wasn't stopped in the period we're addressing)

 

And, of course, Sony had other advantages that allowed them to put even more pressure on the market than Nintendo ever had, but without being illegal. (or at least less illegal as what Sony was doing was to some extent similar to what led to IBM's antitrust suits years earlier -which contributed to the PC being made from mainly off the shelf parts and not taking advantage IBM's vertical integration and massive capacity, and if Sony had been a US company, it might even have come up against such legal action)

But Sony's impact on the market is yet another separate discussion.

 

The reason that I brought up Osborne Computer is because if you ask someone today why the company failed they will most likely say because they announced their two new computers too soon. This is just plain wrong. In this thread it's all Nintendo's fault. Everything comes back to that licensing agreement. Again and again and again. (And some didn't even get their facts straight on that in the first place. I think I saw someone mentioned it was two games a year?)

 

The Nintendo license agreement didn't force a company to ONLY develop for Nintendo. Anyone or all of the companies that were producing games for the NES could release games for other "consoles". They just had to have anything that was on the NES exclusive to the NES for two years. Heck. Think about it. The company could only release five games a year on the NES. Why didn't these companies want to sell more games and thus release other games for systems like the 7800? Maybe because... they didn't want to. (I think I asked why would game companies want to develop for the 7800 anyways.) As of yet I still have no idea what Atari was offering developers or how much it cost them for dev systems etc. Or how much they were willing to pay for a license etc.

 

Did NOA's licensing agreements help Atari? No. Was it responsible for the demise of the 7800? No. Atari's mismanagement was doing a damn good job at that without help from Nintendo.

Edited March 22, 2011 by SpaceDice2010

[SpaceDice2010]

 

Edit:

Oh, and a good analogy for the Nintendo licensing situation:

Take another generation when one platform/company had a substantial lead in the market, like the 5th or 6th generation. If Sony had implemented Nintendo-like licensing agreements (or at least the console exclusivity portion) for the PSX or PS2, what would have happened to the 3rd party support on the N64, Saturn, Xbox, or GameCube?

By extention, with the much more limited support (pretty much only 1st party), how much less would those systems have sold and how much more limited would the resources have been to product/commission 1st party published releases? (especially for Nintendo since MS was managing a loss making business with the Xbox as it was with massive subsidation from other divisions, Nintendo just had the -albeit quite successful- game boy/color/advance line going at the time -and like with the 7800 vs ST, diverting excessive resources to the GC that could go to the handhelds wouldn't have made much sense -though there's other exceptions to that parallel with the 2600 in play among other things)

 

That's all assuming that government/legal action wouldn't stop Sony from doing so (just as Nintendo wasn't stopped in the period we're addressing)

 

And, of course, Sony had other advantages that allowed them to put even more pressure on the market than Nintendo ever had, but without being illegal. (or at least less illegal as what Sony was doing was to some extent similar to what led to IBM's antitrust suits years earlier -which contributed to the PC being made from mainly off the shelf parts and not taking advantage IBM's vertical integration and massive capacity, and if Sony had been a US company, it might even have come up against such legal action)

But Sony's impact on the market is yet another separate discussion.

 

Reading this reminds me of an interview that Sam Tramiel did in NextGen magazine. Google "sam tramiel nextgen magazine interview."

[GroovyBee]

Oh, I forgot to mention, the NES and SMS both had hardware advantages as well that made them more attractive (actually even the A8/5200 was more attractive in several aspects than the 7800 in terms of ease of development relative to "common standards" for arcade/console/computer programming of the time -like character modes, bitmap/framebuffer graphics, etc).

 

But I think that aspect of things has been done to death already. (regardless of the 7800's advantages, it was definitely less adept at and more difficult to program for common games of the time than its contemporaries, and the fact it didn't get established back in '84 when that was less of an issue obviously makes things worse)

 

Thats rather a blanket statement coming from somebody who has never actually programmed the 7800 (as far as I'm aware). Don't forget that all programmers are not created equal. You can't say what a system can and cannot do unless you try and make it do it.

[kool kitty89]

Oh, I forgot to mention, the NES and SMS both had hardware advantages as well that made them more attractive (actually even the A8/5200 was more attractive in several aspects than the 7800 in terms of ease of development relative to "common standards" for arcade/console/computer programming of the time -like character modes, bitmap/framebuffer graphics, etc).

 

But I think that aspect of things has been done to death already. (regardless of the 7800's advantages, it was definitely less adept at and more difficult to program for common games of the time than its contemporaries, and the fact it didn't get established back in '84 when that was less of an issue obviously makes things worse)

 

Thats rather a blanket statement coming from somebody who has never actually programmed the 7800 (as far as I'm aware). Don't forget that all programmers are not created equal. You can't say what a system can and cannot do unless you try and make it do it.

I'm not talking about the raw capabilities, in fact I specifically qualified that in that post.

 

I'm talking about the specific MECHANISMs used for those capabilities and how easy they are to use, both for a beginner on the system and for programmers who would be constantly working with other popular platforms at the time. (ie tilemap based character modes with indexed color attributes, hardware sprites with x/y position registers, x/y playfield scroll registers, and/or bitmap/framebuffer graphics using a blitter or CPU grunt -or various mixes of those feature sets)

 

The sprite mechanism of the A8 would have put it at a disadvantage too, but it least it had framebuffer modes and relatively conventional character modes.

 

That's the same reason the Panther would have been a bad idea, not meshing with easy multiplatform development or with common standards of the time. (the Panther is rather like MARIA on steroids with much higher bandwidth, higher clock speed, higher color depth, hardware sprite zooming/scaling, etc) Well, that, and the specific configuration of the Panther not only made it eat CPU cycles like crazy, but also require expensive high-speed SRAM (I think it was planned to use 30 ns SRAM) and thus limited to only 32 kB of total onboard RAM shared with the CPU. The Jaguar's object processor avoided those problems with 64-bit word buffering in addition to line buffers allowing commodity 75 ns FPM DRAM to be used and enough RAM to allow a framebuffer in addition to the list generated objects. (and more flexible use of color among other things)

 

 

 

Again, those disadvantages with the 7800 wouldn't have mattered so much if the 7800 had dug in and gained developer interest before being "spoiled" by other hardware (except arcade and computers would divided things regardless) and thus had more established development support with the planned 1984 release. (but still you could argue whether it would have made more sense to minimize the number of distinct products Atari was pushing out and instead push ahead with the 5200 and fix many of the problems that could be or drop it and switch to a direct derivative of the computer line -maybe keep MARIA development going for use in a next generation console)

 

It still would have been harder to port to from the many common arcade/console/computer architectures of the time (in case of actual ports rather than total ground-up remakes -albeit many "ports" are actually remade/custom games as such with no relation to the source code or original graphics data), but it would have had enough established support that that wouldn't be a major problem.

[+wood_jl]

Reading this reminds me of an interview that Sam Tramiel did in NextGen magazine. Google "sam tramiel nextgen magazine interview."

 

That has nothing to do with the discussion at all. Just another attempt at shitting on Atari, and know-it-all-I-told-you-so. Typical.

[GroovyBee]

I'm talking about the specific MECHANISMs used for those capabilities and how easy they are to use, both for a beginner on the system and for programmers who would be constantly working with other popular platforms at the time. (ie tilemap based character modes with indexed color attributes, hardware sprites with x/y position registers, x/y playfield scroll registers, and/or bitmap/framebuffer graphics using a blitter or CPU grunt -or various mixes of those feature sets)

 

Again, making use of what the system has or has not got is entirely down to the programmer.

[SpaceDice2010]

Reading this reminds me of an interview that Sam Tramiel did in NextGen magazine. Google "sam tramiel nextgen magazine interview."

 

That has nothing to do with the discussion at all. Just another attempt at shitting on Atari, and know-it-all-I-told-you-so. Typical.

 

It actually does if you read the interview. Just to make it easy for you to understand Sam Tramiel was ranting about how Atari was going to sue Sony for selling the Playstation below cost to kill the Jaguar and dominate the world. He also ranted about a few other things as well, but was about as coherent as Gaddafi on a good day. KoolKitty was making a comparison in which Sony would be able to rule the world as well. Hence why I said it reminded me of that interview. (Among other things.)

 

It's a real funny read -

http://www.defunctgames.com/shows.php?id=theysaidwhat-23

[SpaceDice2010]

I believe this sums the NOA vs Atari issue the best...

 

Howard Lincoln said in regards to the Atari lawsuit, "Our defense is really simple. We are going to put Sam Tramiel on the stand and he is going to explain how, in 1985, he had 100 percent of the market for home video games, and [that] the home video-game business was synonymous with Atari and no one had ever heard of Nintendo. And then we're going to demonstrate how, through his own ineptness and idiocy and mismanagement, he took that franchise and shot it in the foot and killed it. We'll show how he was quite successful in doing it and literally went from 100 percent of the market to no market share, I think we will do just fine."

 

And NOA pretty much did just as Lincoln said they would as the court ruled on May 1, 1992 that NOA's licensing program had not hurt Atari.

[kool kitty89]

 

Edit:

Oh, and a good analogy for the Nintendo licensing situation:

Take another generation when one platform/company had a substantial lead in the market, like the 5th or 6th generation. If Sony had implemented Nintendo-like licensing agreements (or at least the console exclusivity portion) for the PSX or PS2, what would have happened to the 3rd party support on the N64, Saturn, Xbox, or GameCube?

By extention, with the much more limited support (pretty much only 1st party), how much less would those systems have sold and how much more limited would the resources have been to product/commission 1st party published releases? (especially for Nintendo since MS was managing a loss making business with the Xbox as it was with massive subsidation from other divisions, Nintendo just had the -albeit quite successful- game boy/color/advance line going at the time -and like with the 7800 vs ST, diverting excessive resources to the GC that could go to the handhelds wouldn't have made much sense -though there's other exceptions to that parallel with the 2600 in play among other things)

 

That's all assuming that government/legal action wouldn't stop Sony from doing so (just as Nintendo wasn't stopped in the period we're addressing)

 

And, of course, Sony had other advantages that allowed them to put even more pressure on the market than Nintendo ever had, but without being illegal. (or at least less illegal as what Sony was doing was to some extent similar to what led to IBM's antitrust suits years earlier -which contributed to the PC being made from mainly off the shelf parts and not taking advantage IBM's vertical integration and massive capacity, and if Sony had been a US company, it might even have come up against such legal action)

But Sony's impact on the market is yet another separate discussion.

 

Reading this reminds me of an interview that Sam Tramiel did in NextGen magazine. Google "sam tramiel nextgen magazine interview."

You mean the one where he downplays the Saturn and threatens the price dumping suit? (I assume he was basing that on the older Saturn specs that had been published in late 1993 -in EDGE and EGM iirc, which definitely were weaker than the jaguar)

 

If you want to see someone rip on Sony's anticompetitive market tactics and monopolistic/megacorp tendencies, etc, etc, you should see some of the arguments sheath has made over at Sega-16. (not sure if he has any articles on that on his gamepilgrimage site)

 

In any case, I doubt a dumping suit would have held up since Sony was dumping the price internationally across the board, not in the characteristic manner of selling high in one region and not another. (they were using massive investment capital leveraged by their massive size/internal funding/credit to subsidize things rather than more conventional dumping techniques like what Jack Tramiel thought the Japanese would push on the computer market and did with DRAM -legal action was taken too late to prevent the collapse of DRAM production in the US though)

They were taking the megacorp approach to the conventional razor and blade business model with unprecedented losses on hardware (vs the more conventional sales at or very near cost) that the competition couldn't afford to match.

Then they poured tons more money into massive ad campaigns and software (and buying up exclusives to some games and buying out some developers entirely) on top of having some of the best suited hardware for the market at the time.

 

Then you have the competition all either screwing up and/or falling onto hard times for other reasons (or both in several cases) which turned it into a perfect storm where Sony had almost every advantage except an established position in the market. (even more of a perfect Storm than Nintendo with the Famicom or NES -or Atari with the VCS and all their early competition being rather weak in one way or another -Astrocade was probably the best, but expensive and not marketed well by comparison)

 

Even if Atari had had a case, Sony would have railroaded them in court like they did Bleem. (who actually won, but collapsed due to the cost of that litigation) Or like what DRI would have come up against if they'd really pushed against IBM/Microsoft's infringement on CP/M with DOS, or how Apple probably would have railroaded DRI if they'd actually gone to court over the "look and feel" BS. (albeit if DRI had teamed up with IBM, the shoe would have been on the other foot )

 

 

 

 

Anyway there was already a thread about that interview:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/90927-sam-tramiel-interview-next-generation-1995/ (note some of my comments in that thread are made with ignorance of some things I've learned since then -that, and that thread is where Marty made that interesting post that rather concisely summarizes Atari Corp under Sam Tramiel)

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/90927-sam-tramiel-interview-next-generation-1995/page__st__100__p__1823912#entry1823912

 

 

 

But that still fails to parallel my main points with the GC/Xbox/N64/Saturn analogy, as I was talking about Sony being in an even more aggressive position by using Nintendo's exclusivity tactics to drown the competition.

Anyone who thinks that such contracts didn't have an absolutely massive impact on the Japanese and US video game markets (and some on Europe as well) is either ignorant or delusional.

Remember, it was those contracts in Japan that limited Sega -and other competition- in that market and also prevented Atari from licensing or commissioning games from major Japanese developers even before Nintendo had test marketed the NES. Hell, even with the VCS, Japanese developers were pretty substantial; can you imagine where Atari would have been if they'd been totally locked out from all the major Japanese arcade games? (Space Invaders WAS their first massive killer app after all)

 

Actually, even if Atari Inc had stayed under Morgan, Nintendo's lock-in of the Japanese market could have been a massive problem. Even by late 1984, Nintendo was getting substantial interest on the market and licensing games would have become an uphill battle for Atari. (regardless of having better resources than Atari Corp)

They'd have a hell of a lot of a better chance of maintaining strong US developer support (maybe to the point of Nintendo modifying their contracts for US publishers), but losing Japanese developers/licenses would have been a huge disadvantage. (especially since the market was dominated by Japanese games by the late 80s)

Edited March 22, 2011 by kool kitty89

[Chris Leach]

It all boils down to Game Selection. Nintendo licensed their wares to many programmers and took ricks. Atari couldnt or just didnt get other involved til it was too late. The activision games were great, but you need Sega to do more for your system...maybe bring back Konami..Give them something to work with...Contra on Atari 7800 would have been sick!

[kool kitty89]

It all boils down to Game Selection. Nintendo licensed their wares to many programmers and took ricks. Atari couldnt or just didnt get other involved til it was too late. The activision games were great, but you need Sega to do more for your system...maybe bring back Konami..Give them something to work with...Contra on Atari 7800 would have been sick!

It's the opposite though. Nintendo took their big risk with the launch of the Famicom in '83, but beyond that they simply forced 3rd parties to cater to them after they'd gotten established as the market leader of Japan.

Nintendo didn't "license their wares" as such to be more competitive through more support, they used exclusive licensing that forced those developers to virtually only develop for Nintendo consoles or not publish for Nintendo at all and to pay Nintendo substantial royalties for the privilege. (and have full control over release dates, manufacturing, volumes, etc -3rd parties were not allowed to manufacture their games independently, something that's still a problem with the DS)

 

Nintendo's monopoly in Japan is what gave them their most fundamental advantage worldwide. (NEC was the first to break through that in large part due to their massive corporate presence -though they failed to push that in the west like Sony did, which was good for Sega though -and favored more open competition in general when NEC could have steamrolled the western markets like Sony did later on -and if they'd managed to pull Square from Nintendo, Japan would fall in line as well)

 

 

 

 

I believe this sums the NOA vs Atari issue the best...

 

Howard Lincoln said in regards to the Atari lawsuit, "Our defense is really simple. We are going to put Sam Tramiel on the stand and he is going to explain how, in 1985, he had 100 percent of the market for home video games, and [that] the home video-game business was synonymous with Atari and no one had ever heard of Nintendo. And then we're going to demonstrate how, through his own ineptness and idiocy and mismanagement, he took that franchise and shot it in the foot and killed it. We'll show how he was quite successful in doing it and literally went from 100 percent of the market to no market share, I think we will do just fine."

 

And NOA pretty much did just as Lincoln said they would as the court ruled on May 1, 1992 that NOA's licensing program had not hurt Atari.

Yep, Nintendo railroaded Atari in court as such with that grandstanding BS and Atari f*cked up in responding to it.

 

Lynxpro already addressed this a few times. Atari Corp and Atari Games should have won their antitrust suits against Nintendo, but they both screwed up. (and it certainly didn't help that Nintendo had more funds backing things up)

 

I could make a direct counter argument to that totally BS Nintendo claim as Atari should have, but I think I've already done that in the previous discussions and I've said enough, really.

 

Except, they shouldn't have had Sam on the stand at all since he had relatively little to do with the company at the time. Jack and Michael Katz would have been the main people of interest. (though twisting Sam's arm was certainly a smart thing for Nintendo's defense to pull, obviously BS, but the legal system is full of that -a shame that Sam wasn't smart enough to realize that and push Jack and Katz to respond)

Hell, did Michael Katz and jack Tramiel even have a major presence at that trial?

 

 

And why didn't Sega of America sue Nintendo or Atari bring Sega people in to support the litigation? (for Sega, it may have been the Japanese culture that held them back, even from the US branch taking legal action)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm talking about the specific MECHANISMs used for those capabilities and how easy they are to use, both for a beginner on the system and for programmers who would be constantly working with other popular platforms at the time. (ie tilemap based character modes with indexed color attributes, hardware sprites with x/y position registers, x/y playfield scroll registers, and/or bitmap/framebuffer graphics using a blitter or CPU grunt -or various mixes of those feature sets)

 

Again, making use of what the system has or has not got is entirely down to the programmer.

And that's the problem, you want a system that's as friendly/easy/standard to use as possible for the market at hand. You can make do without that, but it's one more strike against you. (Sony could suck it up with the PS2 as they had so many other advantages that drove developer/market interest at the time; if they'd done that with the PS1, that would have had much bigger consequences -especially if you flipped it so Sega had the likes of the PSX's programmability/tools/etc and Sony had the likes of the Saturn or Jaguar -obviously Sony would have still had many other advantages, but it wouldn't have been a perfect storm like it was)

 

Having a more idiot proof architecture is ALWAYS important. (look what happened with sound on the Genesis, especially how often you got

 

The Atari 8-bit chipset had

Edited March 22, 2011 by kool kitty89

[Retro Rogue]

I believe this sums the NOA vs Atari issue the best...

 

Howard Lincoln said in regards to the Atari lawsuit, "Our defense is really simple. We are going to put Sam Tramiel on the stand and he is going to explain how, in 1985, he had 100 percent of the market for home video games, and [that] the home video-game business was synonymous with Atari and no one had ever heard of Nintendo. And then we're going to demonstrate how, through his own ineptness and idiocy and mismanagement, he took that franchise and shot it in the foot and killed it. We'll show how he was quite successful in doing it and literally went from 100 percent of the market to no market share, I think we will do just fine."

 

And NOA pretty much did just as Lincoln said they would as the court ruled on May 1, 1992 that NOA's licensing program had not hurt Atari.

Yep, Nintendo railroaded Atari in court as such with that grandstanding BS and Atari f*cked up in responding to it.

 

Still have someone on block, so didn't see the original post. The content of the quote is wildly inaccurate on so many levels, and even the context it's being presented in here is a bit off. The book it's taken from (Game Over) goes on right after that to say that even Lincoln was surprised when the jury ruled in favor of that one issue (there were three issues and the jury was deadlocked on the other two).

 

1) They did not have "100%", and even then any percentage they had was of a drastically shrunken market consisting of clearance level older stock. Way different than having 100% of a large vibrant market with new product and active competition.

 

2) It was Jack in charge from '84 to '87.

 

3) No one hearing of Nintendo is a bit stretching it. No retailers hearing of Nintendo as a manufacturer of consoles and initially not trusting them because of Atari Inc.'s issues is more accurate. Which then contradicts Lincoln's previous statements on a supposed market position and brand name recognition. You can't regularly claim as Nintendo, Lincoln, et. al. did, that Atari Inc.'s past mistakes and negative brand connotation with retailers represented a major hurdle for you to get past to get your product in to stores, and then turn around and claim it as an advantage for Atari Corp. as in that rant. Completely contradictory.

 

4) As has already been shown with clarifying what went on behind the scenes, there was no "ineptness", there was the issues of why they filed the suit in the first place. Lincoln's referring to his other claim of Atari Corp. trying to position itself as a lower cost competitor as it's only strategy. Which has nothing to do with why it was unable to secure licenses or hire the dev studios, which is actually related to points two and three that the jury deadlocked on.

 

5) The jury stated that Atari Corp.'s lawyers hadn't adequately showed how Nintendo's policies (points 2 and 3 of the lawsuit) represented a willful intent to monopolize and therefore harm Atari financially. Because of the way the motion was entered, they had to prove on those specific grounds - anything else is irrelevant. Including Mr. Lincoln's statements, which the jury's decision and resulting deadlocks most certainly did not back up his argument either. The jury's decision was "Nintendo had monopoly power in the United States, which is not by itself illegal, but had not been shown to have an intent to monopolize. It deadlocked on two other questions: whether the exclusive-rights contracts were an unreasonable restraint of trade and whether Nintendo had illegally maintained a monopoly through exclusive or restrictive practices." The fact was that Atari's lawyers didn't prove Nintendo intended to monopolize - and therefore do willful harm to Atari Corp., which is what they had to show. Having monopoly power by itself is not illegal in the US, and Atari's lawyers failed to show the jury that Nintendo didn't reach it's monopolistic position simply because it was a better competitor, which in turn failed to show it's direct impact on Atari's losses. That's also why they were then deadlocked on the restraint of trade and restrictive practices - which also would have been key towards the intent of the suit. That in turn ultimately then lead the judge to take the partial decision and dismissing the suit. Neither side was vindicated, and in fact Nintendo dropped the policies under the deadlocked portions during the case because they were already facing a separate antitrust investigation by the US government. And even shortly after both of these they lost an antitrust case on price fixing of their consoles - something else Tramiel (and others) had complained about in relation to unfair competition from them, i.e. an unfair relationship with dealers.

Edited March 23, 2011 by wgungfu

[+wood_jl]

Thank You, wgungfu, for coming in to counter some of this bullshit. What you have written is pretty-much undeniable, and demonstrates an actual understanding of the lawsuit, which is uncommon.

 

Although a certain know-it-all-tell-it-all (and get it wrong, obviously, with preposterous, idiotic opinion presented as "fact") shitter (whom you have on block, wisely) will SIMPLY IGNORE THE FACTS and continue to spout vitriol, your information is certainly not in vain, as it appeals to a much wider audience; the truth frequently has this effect, to the good fortune of many.