Which is better, Atari 400/800 vs. Commodore-64 (GRAPHICS ONLY!)

[Bill Loguidice]

1 minute ago, Atari130XE said:

Hello, thanks for this. 

Could you elaborate a little bit? Why was it not practical back in the day? 

Modern developers have access to tools and hardware that weren't necessarily available or practical back in the day (not to mention more time than commercial developers and relatively easy worldwide collaboration). Prince of Persia for Atari 8-bit was not necessarily impractical, although software requiring 128K of RAM, like PoP does in this case, was not exactly common. 

In any case, some of the best Atari 8-bit homebrews require 320K of RAM (which few owners would have been able to afford back in the day), while some of the best C-64 homebrews, which run just fine on the stock 64K, can only be run from modern cartridges (which would have been cost prohibitive back in the day). It's just a matter of practicality. The point is, just about every classic system has benefited in similar ways from modern homebrews that pushed them in ways that simply weren't commercially viable back in the day. (And of course there are plenty of instances where modern developers on these systems produce amazing stuff that DOES fit within "back in the day" limitations, but they still benefit from the passage of time and knowledge.)

That's just a long-winded way of saying that, in my opinion, it's best to evaluate back-in-the-day software and modern homebrew software separately. They each tell different, and interesting, stories.

[zzip]

47 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Prince of Persia for Atari 8-bit was not necessarily impractical, although software requiring 128K of RAM, like PoP does in this case, was not exactly common. 

Were there any A8 commercial games BITD that required 128K?   I can't think of any.   Most were written to work in 48K with the occasional special benefits if you have 64K or 128K

[Bill Loguidice]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Were there any A8 commercial games BITD that required 128K?   I can't think of any.   Most were written to work in 48K with the occasional special benefits if you have 64K or 128K

A few made use of it, I guess, but certainly not required: 

 

 

I suppose in that regard, it's one of the very few platforms with greater than 64K machines in circulation that didn't have really any exclusive 128K games. It goes back to the whole thing about third party developers mostly wanting to support 48K models max, and not even the 64K the Apple II and C-64 enjoyed, limiting what got released after a certain point.

 

[Lostdragon]

Please excuse necrobump, but didn't want to start a seperate thread.. 

 

So, reading a very old interview, with a very young David Levine 😃,  where he said... 

 

 

Both Ballblazer and Rescue On Fractalus! were coded on the Atari 8-bit computers, under a directive where the company was not to create convertible games, thus in his opinion, the C64 versions were definitely inferior. 

 

Has anyone else ever heard of such a claim? 

 

 

 

 

[www.atarimania.com]

17 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Has anyone else ever heard of such a claim?

It's pretty much common knowledge since everything started out with a deal between Lucasfilm and Atari.

[Lostdragon]

9 hours ago, www.atarimania.com said:

It's pretty much common knowledge since everything started out with a deal between Lucasfilm and Atari.

They are a company I haven't really looked that deeply into, tried to get into Ballblazer many times, it's just not for me.

 

Loved A8 Rescue, found the C64 version  lacked the excitement. 

 

 

Probably because I experienced the games in my early youth, I wasn't aware that  Lucasfilm Games almost went bankrupt in 1983?

 

 

 

Is this claim also true?

 

-Atari employees  spread pirated copies of the first two games  In reaction, Atari refused to publish the games.

 

Epyx saw their chance in 1984 and released by games for the Atari 400/800 and the C64. The Eidolon and Koronis Rift followed in 1985.

 

#Again tried both these on the C64 after reading rave reviews in Zzap! 64 magazine, couldn't get into either. 

 

 

I just assumed the original releases were written for the A8 hardware in mind, but with a view of maximising sales, by later converting to other systems. 

 

 

The Zzap!64 interview with David Fox didn't specify anything like the above nor the first 2 games were written not to be convertible, he just talked about later releases being written to use host hardware features where possible.. 

 

 

".. with Rift the Commodore version and the Atari version were both developed in parallel and we tried to make each version look the best we could within each machine's capabilities."

 

 

"

So how did the team get involved with Lucasfilm ?

 

"It was about three and a half years ago and George Lucas said that we should-be working in active entertainment. So to the computer division we brought on a man called Peter Langston, who also had an agreement with Atari to do development work. That continued for the first two games, but unfortunately just before the first two games were ever released, Atari changed hands and we ended up going entirely different Ways."

 

 

This is why these days I look for multiple sources and why the interview with Levine caught me off guard. 

Edited August 10 by Lostdragon

[zzip]

On 8/10/2024 at 1:58 PM, Lostdragon said:

Is this claim also true?

 

-Atari employees  spread pirated copies of the first two games  In reaction, Atari refused to publish the games.

 

Epyx saw their chance in 1984 and released by games for the Atari 400/800 and the C64. The Eidolon and Koronis Rift followed in 1985.

Rescue on Fractalus was spread on BBS's under the development name "Behind Jaggi Lines" and that did create tensions between Atari and Lucasfilm for sure.

 

But this also happened around the time Atari was sold off to the Tramiels,  which put the company into disarray for awhile, so that may have ultimately killed the deal and allowed Epyx to snatch it.

 

Oddly, Atari did release these games on the 5200 in 1986, so they must have retained publishing rights of some sort?