How did the 7800 sell??

[King Atari]

Judging them on ebay alone could be hard, since they're often sold with games & extras.

[Gunstar]

I'd say the SMS and 7800 were very close, with the NES far ahead, but it must be on a national level and on local levels it varied as to which system sold better. I've come across far more 7800's&games in the wild in the midwest than I have SMS's&games. NES everywhere and I never wanted it. I owned a 7800 and my best friend had a SMS. We both had 2600's we still played and I had an XE computer and he had a C64. There were just as many of those around as NES's (XL/XE, C64) where I come from. The original gaming market split between computers and consoles after the '84 crash. So the competition was really NES, SMS, 7800,XL/XE, C64. If you combine these markets, the picture is different, but the SMS and 7800 still came out on bottom, together. I think with the introduction of the 16-bit systems that a lot of the market that was split between the 8-bit computers and consoles regrouped.

[Air Dawg]

I always thought it went:

 

1-NES

2-SMS

3-7800

 

I know a person who had an SMS, and nearly everyone I know has or had an NES. I don't know anybody (besides myself ) that has or had a 7800.

 

I also always thought of it like this:

 

NES-80%

SMS-15%

7800-5%

 

I know those are probably not accurate statistics, just they way I pictured it.

 

So did I.

[dougy76]

The SMS seemed to have sold heavily in certain parts of the country and hardly at all in other parts. When I was living in the Midwest, I hardly found any SMS stuff in the thrifts, but lots of 7800. Now, I live in Colorado, and I find tons of SMS stuff and hardly any 7800. One of the first stores I visited here, I found a complete Buster Douglas. When I was a teenager living in Texas, alot of my friends/neighbors had them, and I bought a system and games from my neighbor who didn't play it at all. SMS stuff abounded in KB, ToysRUs, etc. in Texas back then. This was in the late 80's or early 90's. I even remember commercials for SMS games back then. I don't remember any for the 7800.

 

So it seems like SMS was heavily marketed in certain parts of the country. Overall, I'd say the SMS sold more than the 7800 in the US.

[theaveng]

Discussing whether 7800 outsold SMS, or vice-versa, seems about as worthless as discussing whether GameCube outsold Xbox. Playstation2 has sold roughly *5 times* as many consoles... GC/XBX are basically flops. Ditto the late 80's: NES was the king. 7800/SMS were essentially flops. Like Beta. Only a very, very small minority (us) even remember they existed.

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So, about this Atari v. Nintendo anti-trust suit: How did it turn out? Did Atari win?

[DracIsBack]

Discussing whether 7800 outsold SMS, or vice-versa, seems about as worthless as discussing whether GameCube outsold Xbox.  Playstation2 has sold roughly *5 times* as many consoles... GC/XBX are basically flops.  Ditto the late 80's: NES was the king.  7800/SMS were essentially flops.  Like Beta.  Only a very, very small minority (us) even remember they existed.

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So, about this Atari v. Nintendo anti-trust suit: How did it turn out?  Did Atari win?

 

Agreed about the debate. "Very little" or "slightly more than very little" is really irrelevant.

 

In the Atari suit, the jury sided with Nintendo but was hung on a couple of points. IIRC, Atari agreed not to pursue the matter further and Nintendo agreed not to make Atari pay any legal bills of Nintendo's.

 

I think there was merit in Atari's argument, but the Tramiels seemed to get a bit greedy and overlook their own part in Atari's downfall in the console business.

 

Yes, Nintendo did bully retailers and developers into supporting them and not the competition. On the other hand, Atari didn't exactly put a whole lot of effort into launching the 7800 or developing the same calibre of games as Nintendo did ... the system was released as an "afterthought".

 

Side by side, the 7800 and NES are fairly similar on a technical level ... the problem was the Nintendo squeezed the most out of their system, whereas Atari threw the Warner era arcade and computer ports onto the market.

[eldunko]

Around here is non-existant to atari/sega carts, I guess its just the age of the town. I bought every underdog system from that era that I've ever come across, and its accounted to 6. 3 sms', 3 tg-16s. Maybe I need a new turf?

[MegaManFan]

Discussing whether 7800 outsold SMS, or vice-versa, seems about as worthless as discussing whether GameCube outsold Xbox.  Playstation2 has sold roughly *5 times* as many consoles... GC/XBX are basically flops.  Ditto the late 80's: NES was the king.  7800/SMS were essentially flops.  Like Beta.  Only a very, very small minority (us) even remember they existed.

 

Funny them how the majority of us in this topic area and this thread in particular are discussing these "flops" that are "little remembered." It seems to me those of us who played them as kids never suspected they weren't the leading edge. In fact I played a borrowed SMS a friend gave me one summer and was convinced it was as good as the NES if not better, and locally I had no trouble finding it for rental or games to rent that went along with it.

[chrisbid]

Having an Intellivision in the 80's, i never really cared about how popular a system was. When the NES started to catch fire, i saw a commercial for the Sega Master System, and was intrigued that another arcade company was trying to make its own system. My cousin got one for the following christmas, and i saw Alex Kidd in Miracle World and immediately fell in love. I wanted one of these instead of an NES. But eventually my parents ended up buying an NES for me and my brother when the chaing Gold Circle had a going out of buisness sale. I loved my NES and (sadly) it was probably my best friend when i was in middle school. But my love for the Sega Master System never faded, and i always relished the times i got to visit my cousin and his black & maroon machine.

 

As far as the 7800 goes, i only saw one of these in the day, a friend of mine had one, but im guessing they got it super cheap, and it was a decoy, as his little brother was excited about playing "super mario" when in fact, he was playing the 2600 port of Mario Bros. I did get to play Xevious, which was pretty good, but being a somewhat jaded kid, i was unimpressed at the time and was sure that an NES version would be better (of course it wasnt).

 

Modern times, I dont see very much of either system, but finding a complete 7800 was far more difficult. There were three occasions when a dealer had a 7800, but didnt have a power supply, so it was useless. Sega Master Systems on the other hand, ive picked up three of these, and all three were well kept collections with lots of extras, and a nice bundle of games. Hell, one collection i picked up 75 dollars, had 36 games, all complete, and each game still had the promotional Sega posters as well as the dam Toys 'r' Us receipts in them. I sold the system and a handful of doubles ironically to the same cousin who had the system in the late 80's for $25, and I sold my Extra Copy of Phantasy Star for another $25, so I ended up getting roughly 25 games for a dollar a piece

 

I got lucky with my 7800, an old woman had recently died, and she had a lot of boxed games that she would pick up cheap for her grandkids. One of her adult kids had sold the stuff to a local game store here, and i managed to pick up a hardly used 7800, with 7 boxed games(complete with ugly orange clearance tags that read $3.99). The nice thing about 7800 games is that some moronic dealers will throw loose games in with their 2600 games and sell them for the same price. Although so far, my 7800 collection is pretty lackluster, and one of these days i need to go on ebay and get some of the better games for it.

 

I would imagine that Sega and Atari were pretty close in sales when they were both introduced, but Atari quickly faded away, while Sega stuck with it until they brought the Genesis over. Not that it really matters.

[theaveng]

Discussing whether 7800 outsold SMS, or vice-versa, seems about as worthless as discussing whether GameCube outsold Xbox.  Playstation2 has sold roughly *5 times* as many consoles... GC/XBX are basically flops.  Ditto the late 80's: NES was the king.  7800/SMS were essentially flops.  Like Beta.  Only a very, very small minority (us) even remember they existed.

 

Funny them how the majority of us in this topic area and this thread in particular are discussing these "flops" that are "little remembered"

 

 

Yeah well, I stand by my opinion. Among the general population, I doubt anyone remembers the Atari 7800 or Sega MS. When they think about late 80s gaming, they think of Mario and Nintendo.

[MegaManFan]

Yeah well, I stand by my opinion.  Among the general population, I doubt anyone remembers the Atari 7800 or Sega MS.  When they think about late 80s gaming, they think of Mario and Nintendo.

 

Then I wonder why AtariAge is such a popular website.

 

I'd love to see a poll online on a big gaming site that asks if you're older than 25, what three consoles you can remember playing in the 1980's. Odds are, either Sega or Atari would come up in every response.

[Godzilla]

i didnt even get a nes until much later. i avoided it like the plague it was, while i played my sms 1/2 & 7800/a8bit/c64/etc. of course once the nes had two godzilla games I had to finally break down and get one of the turds, but it was nothing to me.