Is there any PROOF that the 7800 was test marketed in 1984?

[Rhomaios]

high voltage is known for spouting the anti-Japanese views, even to the point of being factually wrong about it. It's a bias.

 

Also, if a magazine published in March 1984 (therefore written early March, late February) is talking about a crash, said crash probably was already in the works earlier:

 

[Lynxpro]

Gave it to Japan? Not for nothing but a good portion of the arcade hits in the 80's were Japanese designed from Taito, Namco, Konami, Capcom, SNK, etc. Nobody was stopping American developers from doing good 3rd generation games. Most of them were computer game developers, which helped get the West back into the fray on the PS1 and afterwards. The failure vs. success of the 7800 or NES had little to do with that. The crippled Atari may well have gotten all the arcade ports the NES did had there been no Nintendo, but their marketing would never have been as pervasive as Nintendo's. The NES was a cultural monstrosity. If anything, without Nintendo, SEGA would have eventually come ashore with the Genesis and blew Atari into the sea regardless.

 

Did you actually live during that time? Atari Inc's - not Atari Corp - marketing skills were phenomenal back in the day. Nintendo learned all of their tricks from Atari. And had Atari Inc survived, Nintendo would've never stood a chance. Period. That's one of the reasons why Nintendo originally approached Atari Inc. to market the Famicom outside of Japan…the rest of the entire WORLD. Nintendo even in their heyday never cracked the European market which both Atari Inc and Atari Corp did.

 

And SEGA came to Atari CORP to market the Genesis because Atari Corp was #2 in North America with the 7800 behind the NES, not the Sega Master System [contrary to the perception given by the video game press at the time and still to this day]. Sega of Japan felt Tonka failed to market the SMS properly so they approached Atari Corp to take over. Atari Corp employees even named it the GENESIS because Sega of Japan wanted to call it the TOMAHAWK in the States. The deal fell through because Atari Corp wanted to also market it in Europe as well as North America but Sega wanted to keep the European market to themselves. So when the deal fell through, Michael Katz took over Sega of America and gave birth to the "Genesis does what Nintendont!" marketing campaign. Katz's previous job was heading Atari Corp's game division.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Lynxpro

[Greg2600]

Yes I did, and Atari Inc went belly up and sold to Jack Tramiel. Those marketers, and Warner Bros. money were gone. Just take a gander at the paltry $ Tramiel spent marketing the 7800, XEGS, ST, Lynx, and Jaguar. A pittance. Not blaming the guy, but he did not have the bank account to do that. I mean, what are we debating, whether the maelstrom known as Atari Inc. would have survived, or Tramiel's Atari? By the time poor Jack bought the leftovers, it was over with. Retailers were not happy with Atari, and if Nintendo still have come in with their exclusivity agreements, what games would the 7800 had any differently?

 

Warner Bros. were selling Atari one way or the other. Heck, they probably would have sold them even if they had the distribution agreement for the NES with Nintendo. Who knows how Nintendo would have reacted to that?

[Lynxpro]

Yes I did, and Atari Inc went belly up and sold to Jack Tramiel. Those marketers, and Warner Bros. money were gone. Just take a gander at the paltry $ Tramiel spent marketing the 7800, XEGS, ST, Lynx, and Jaguar. A pittance. Not blaming the guy, but he did not have the bank account to do that. I mean, what are we debating, whether the maelstrom known as Atari Inc. would have survived, or Tramiel's Atari? By the time poor Jack bought the leftovers, it was over with. Retailers were not happy with Atari, and if Nintendo still have come in with their exclusivity agreements, what games would the 7800 had any differently?

 

Warner Bros. were selling Atari one way or the other. Heck, they probably would have sold them even if they had the distribution agreement for the NES with Nintendo. Who knows how Nintendo would have reacted to that?

 

And yet Atari Corp with its limited marketing budget was courted by Sega to market what we know as the Genesis in North America. That's counter to your earlier posting stating Sega would've still steamrolled Atari [Corp] in the marketing department. Not to mention Sega's award winning marketing started with Michael Katz who had just left Atari Corp after the Genesis deal fell through.

 

An Atari Inc. that hadn't been sold to Tramiel would've not only had the 7800 ready to market in 1984 - which retailers WERE interested in - but they also had the Amiga chipset awaiting release in 1985/1986 as a high-end video game console. So the 7800 would've debuted nationally 2 years before it ultimately did under Tramiel. Tramiel didn't release it earlier because of the payment dispute between Warner and Atari Corp over who actually owned GCC money for its development. Atari Inc. wouldn't have had that issue and would've continued paying GCC to develop games for it not to mention the retained programming staff at Inc. And they would've had exclusive rights to the Atari arcade games which were MAJOR hits from 1984-1996. Paperboy, Marble Madness, Gauntlet I & II, Road Blasters, Championship Sprint & Super Sprint, Vindicators, Blasteroids, STUN Runner, Toobin', Cyberball and Tournament Cyberball, Roadrunner, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, Return of the Jedi, Hydra, A.P.B., etc. And that's not even counting the Namco games of the era. The outcome would've been completely different.

[high voltage]

Gave it to Japan? Not for nothing but a good portion of the arcade hits in the 80's were Japanese designed from Taito, Namco, Konami, Capcom, SNK, etc. Nobody was stopping American developers from doing good 3rd generation games. Most of them were computer game developers, which helped get the West back into the fray on the PS1 and afterwards. The failure vs. success of the 7800 or NES had little to do with that. The crippled Atari may well have gotten all the arcade ports the NES did had there been no Nintendo, but their marketing would never have been as pervasive as Nintendo's. The NES was a cultural monstrosity. If anything, without Nintendo, SEGA would have eventually come ashore with the Genesis and blew Atari into the sea regardless.

 

At least SEGA is American

[Greg2600]

 

And yet Atari Corp with its limited marketing budget was courted by Sega to market what we know as the Genesis in North America. That's counter to your earlier posting stating Sega would've still steamrolled Atari [Corp] in the marketing department. Not to mention Sega's award winning marketing started with Michael Katz who had just left Atari Corp after the Genesis deal fell through.

 

An Atari Inc. that hadn't been sold to Tramiel would've not only had the 7800 ready to market in 1984 - which retailers WERE interested in - but they also had the Amiga chipset awaiting release in 1985/1986 as a high-end video game console. So the 7800 would've debuted nationally 2 years before it ultimately did under Tramiel. Tramiel didn't release it earlier because of the payment dispute between Warner and Atari Corp over who actually owned GCC money for its development. Atari Inc. wouldn't have had that issue and would've continued paying GCC to develop games for it not to mention the retained programming staff at Inc. And they would've had exclusive rights to the Atari arcade games which were MAJOR hits from 1984-1996. Paperboy, Marble Madness, Gauntlet I & II, Road Blasters, Championship Sprint & Super Sprint, Vindicators, Blasteroids, STUN Runner, Toobin', Cyberball and Tournament Cyberball, Roadrunner, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, Return of the Jedi, Hydra, A.P.B., etc. And that's not even counting the Namco games of the era. The outcome would've been completely different.

 

Nintendo and Sega were interested in Atari for its industry weight, which most importantly was thanks to it's worth to retailers. That wasn't marketing, it was plain old sales people having good connections with the buyers for the electronics, department, and toy stores. That's what the Japanese lacked. They had the software though, which Atari did not. If Nintendo or later SEGA had "used" Atari to sell their systems, eventually they would have dumped them to the curb. What use would Nintendo or SEGA had have for Atari after they got their feet wet? Both companies hired tons of American marketing, sales, and executive talent, many of who they had for years while selling arcade games here. You're acting as if Nintendo and Sega were handed the market without a fight. That's not what happened, they had to battle to convince customers and retailers that home game machines still had merit.

 

Not for nothing, but history unfolded the way it did for a reason. Wasn't random. Atari Inc. was run into the ground by putrid management, marketing whizzes or not. They failed in the end. They weren't befallen by a natural disaster or unseen event or bad luck. Atari having GCC develop games, that never happened in the glory days, they did it themselves. And to somehow retcon history is not right either. Warner sold Atari because they were losing tens of millions of dollars at least, every month. There was no way around that, there was no big backer looking to swoop in and save them with tons of capital. (Not counting Nintendo's offer) The company was destitute, like Coleco and Mattel game divisions. Investors had given up on home gaming until a couple years into the NES era. Tramiel got the company pretty inexpensively, but like I said he had little money to wage the marketing war on Nintendo.

 

I have this argument with 7800 defenders frequently, and really my stance has never changed. Had the 7800 made it to retail in 1984, it would have sat on the shelves like all the other overproduced video games. It wasn't far enough advanced in technology, and still featured arcade ports of games everybody already owned for the 2600. Then by Christmas '85, Nintendo would have quietly released the NES and Super Mario Bros. It would have taken a few years, but again their 1st party uniqueness plus the Japanese exclusivity contracts to Konami, Tecmo, Capcom, etc., would have still won the day.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Greg2600

[Jinks]

Nah. 7800 has the power just needed the games. With the money into the carts like nintendo did with their games it woulda been a different story. But after nintendo got in with a few years of SMB atari was then finished.

Reread your last two senteces. You say nintendo only won with games. I am saying had atari made the games for the 7800 it woulda been different.

 

Also console power don't mean much anyway. Look at the wii and 2600. Both not very powerful for their life span. But they had GAMES that were way more fun and thats what people want.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Jinks

[A Black Falcon]

None of those are actually true, Tramiel wanted to release the 7800 during the fall of '84 but General Computer (the developer of the 7800 and the launch titles) hadn't been paid royalties, and so Atari Corp. and Warner went back and forth who owed GCC payments (ultimately it was Tramiel who paid GCC). On top of that, Atari needed someone to head the reformed video game division and so Atari didn't start gearing up for the 7800's release until late 1985, which culminated in the 7800's reintroduction at the Winter CES in 1986. This has all been talked about to death here over the years.

The main issue I have with this version of events is that I can't understand why it took Tramiel's Atari to actually start making new GAMES for their console!

 

I mean, Tramiel bought Atari, and, according to this story which is the accepted one on Atari-Age, really did want to release the 7800. Okay. But, he got into a long fight with GCC first instead, and thus was only able to release it sometime in 1986. Alright. But... even considering that, I find the release list beyond mystifying. I know that most of Atari's remaining game programmers surely stayed with arcade Atari, not Tramiel's home company, but if you are going to release a console, you need games for it. It's not optional, it's a requirement.

 

And yet, as far as I know, Tramiel did not release one new games for the 7800 in 1986! Inst4ead, that year's release library -- the games with the spring-loaded cart protectors in them and 1986 copyright dates on them (it's too bad they removed them later, they're nice!) -- are all, ALL, games designed by GCC back in 1984. Every single one, I think. The first original titles didn't start appearing until 1987, and even then the release library was extremely thin and didn't improve. I know that Atari was losing lots of money and Tramiel was focused on profits and not actually getting the most out of the 7800, but still, not developing any games at all for your new console until the year after you release it (not counting the test market!) is ridiculous.

 

And when you consider that if he really was planning to release the 7800 from when he bought Atari he should have been planning for that from the beginning, from when he bought the company, instead of finally getting around to getting some new software in 1987 or so, it makes it even worse.

 

 

The NES wasn't much of a factor when the 7800 was released in early '86; the NES hadn't been released nationwide by that point and the NYC test market in October '85 didn't go that well.

As has been; said the 1985 test-market went alright, probably. Sure, the NES wasn't available in most markets until sometime in 1986, and wasn't really popular until 1987, but it WAS available in a few markets in fall 1985 and early 1986, and it did okay to well in them. There is a clear difference there between it and the 7800, which launched a bit later. Of course the 7800 did see some initial success, before fading out as the NES crushed it, but still, the NES launched first and at least some people knew it.

 

Also of course, the above is important -- the NES quickly got a far larger library!

 

It's no secret that in 1985, and even up through 1987, retailers were VERY skittish about having anything video-game related on their shelves. Remember, a lot of these retailers didn't understand that there was ANY difference between a Pong machine, the Atari 2600, and the NES. In their minds, they were all the same thing, and they had tons of unsold inventory from the "pre-crash" to get rid of - so of course they were less than enthused by the NES and 7800. Nintendo, however, did an amazing job of standing up for their machine and getting it into stores on their own expense... Atari.. did not.

Simple as all that, really.

Yeah, Nintendo worked very hard to get stores to carry the NES -- guarantees, suing R.O.B. to get it into stores that otherwise wouldn't have carried a videogame console, etc. And that work paid off.

 

Why? Without the nes the 7800 woulda been awesome with tons of 3rd party support like the nes had.

I doubt that. I mean, yes, it could have certainly had plenty of Western game support. But Japanese support? That would only have come in any significant amount if either the 7800 actually released there and did okay-ish, or Japanese third parties decided to support the thing even though it was nonexistent at home. Both of those things seem unlikely to me, and the problem with that is, most of the popular NES games were Japanese.

 

So yeah, I'm sure that a 7800 say from a unified Atari with better marketing could have had much greater success than it had, and could have gotten games from major Western studios like Tengen (which, if Atari hadn't split up, would have been first-party of course), Activision, Acclaim, Ocean, Color Dreams, and the like... but Tengen aside, that's not much of a list. Yeah, having stuff like Gauntlet and Paperboy potentially exclusive would have helped the 7800 for sure, but they'd still need an answer to the NES games from Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, etc. And 'the NES is never released in the US at all'? I doubt that, Nintendo was determined to get it out somehow. But regardless, I think that getting much Japanese game support for the 7800 would have been difficult at best.

[Jaynz]

The main issue I have with this version of events is that I can't understand why it took Tramiel's Atari to actually start making new GAMES for their console!

Money, timing, and contracts. The thing is, the 7800's launch list wasn't really that bad, if just a little dated. The main problem is that the 7800 had a lot of games already done on the 2600 or 5200, or had been brought over from somewhat computer games. Not a bad way to go, but it was a rehashed library. But it really seemed like Tramiel didn't want to, or couldn't, spend the time or money to update and expand the 7800's library all that much. And, of course, the decision to lean on the 2600 library as a crutch didn't help.

 

Yeah, Nintendo worked very hard to get stores to carry the NES -- guarantees, suing R.O.B. to get it into stores that otherwise wouldn't have carried a videogame console, etc. And that work paid off.

This, really, was all the difference. As I said, Nintendo really pushed the NES in all directions to make sure it got in the market with some staying power. Atari, did not.

[Greg2600]

Nah. 7800 has the power just needed the games. With the money into the carts like nintendo did with their games it woulda been a different story. But after nintendo got in with a few years of SMB atari was then finished.

Reread your last two senteces. You say nintendo only won with games. I am saying had atari made the games for the 7800 it woulda been different.

 

Also console power don't mean much anyway. Look at the wii and 2600. Both not very powerful for their life span. But they had GAMES that were way more fun and thats what people want.

 

I agree on the power of the console, though the outdated 2600 sound chip I think was a huge issue. My point is on the game library, Atari was never going to match Nintendo's lineup due to Nitntendo's agreements.

 

The main issue I have with this version of events is that I can't understand why it took Tramiel's Atari to actually start making new GAMES for their console!

 

I mean, Tramiel bought Atari, and, according to this story which is the accepted one on Atari-Age, really did want to release the 7800. Okay. But, he got into a long fight with GCC first instead, and thus was only able to release it sometime in 1986. Alright. But... even considering that, I find the release list beyond mystifying. I know that most of Atari's remaining game programmers surely stayed with arcade Atari, not Tramiel's home company, but if you are going to release a console, you need games for it. It's not optional, it's a requirement.

 

And yet, as far as I know, Tramiel did not release one new games for the 7800 in 1986! Inst4ead, that year's release library -- the games with the spring-loaded cart protectors in them and 1986 copyright dates on them (it's too bad they removed them later, they're nice!) -- are all, ALL, games designed by GCC back in 1984. Every single one, I think. The first original titles didn't start appearing until 1987, and even then the release library was extremely thin and didn't improve. I know that Atari was losing lots of money and Tramiel was focused on profits and not actually getting the most out of the 7800, but still, not developing any games at all for your new console until the year after you release it (not counting the test market!) is ridiculous.

 

And when you consider that if he really was planning to release the 7800 from when he bought Atari he should have been planning for that from the beginning, from when he bought the company, instead of finally getting around to getting some new software in 1987 or so, it makes it even worse.

 

As has been; said the 1985 test-market went alright, probably. Sure, the NES wasn't available in most markets until sometime in 1986, and wasn't really popular until 1987, but it WAS available in a few markets in fall 1985 and early 1986, and it did okay to well in them. There is a clear difference there between it and the 7800, which launched a bit later. Of course the 7800 did see some initial success, before fading out as the NES crushed it, but still, the NES launched first and at least some people knew it.

 

Also of course, the above is important -- the NES quickly got a far larger library!

 

Yeah, Nintendo worked very hard to get stores to carry the NES -- guarantees, suing R.O.B. to get it into stores that otherwise wouldn't have carried a videogame console, etc. And that work paid off.

 

I doubt that. I mean, yes, it could have certainly had plenty of Western game support. But Japanese support? That would only have come in any significant amount if either the 7800 actually released there and did okay-ish, or Japanese third parties decided to support the thing even though it was nonexistent at home. Both of those things seem unlikely to me, and the problem with that is, most of the popular NES games were Japanese.

 

So yeah, I'm sure that a 7800 say from a unified Atari with better marketing could have had much greater success than it had, and could have gotten games from major Western studios like Tengen (which, if Atari hadn't split up, would have been first-party of course), Activision, Acclaim, Ocean, Color Dreams, and the like... but Tengen aside, that's not much of a list. Yeah, having stuff like Gauntlet and Paperboy potentially exclusive would have helped the 7800 for sure, but they'd still need an answer to the NES games from Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, etc. And 'the NES is never released in the US at all'? I doubt that, Nintendo was determined to get it out somehow. But regardless, I think that getting much Japanese game support for the 7800 would have been difficult at best.

 

The reason the game industry crashed by 1984 was the oversaturation of the same games, over and over, on multiple systems. The 7800 was just a rehash of this. Sure it would have sold somewhat, heck the 2600 Jr. continued to sell. Then Nintendo would have entered the market as it did, and after a couple years, and kids seeing their games, word of mouth would have taken over. If Atari were locked out of the Japanese developers, history would have ended up largely as it did. We were done playing Pac-Man and Galaxian and Pole Position. How could Atari have competed with the Japanese games? They could not. The Western platforming games from that era were lousy in comparison. Activision's NES/Master System games were not very good. Broderbund, Activision, Epyx, to compete with Konami, Capcom, Tecmo? No way no how, so I am in agreeement on that front.

 

Not to mention that the NES cartridges, system, controllers, and light gun all looked better than the 7800, sturdier made. The ProLine's were terrible and outdated, and the D-pad isn't much better. The system had no composite AV either. They would have had to develop a 7800-II that improved the controllers, added AV, added pokey to the motherboard, etc.

 

Money, timing, and contracts. The thing is, the 7800's launch list wasn't really that bad, if just a little dated. The main problem is that the 7800 had a lot of games already done on the 2600 or 5200, or had been brought over from somewhat computer games. Not a bad way to go, but it was a rehashed library. But it really seemed like Tramiel didn't want to, or couldn't, spend the time or money to update and expand the 7800's library all that much. And, of course, the decision to lean on the 2600 library as a crutch didn't help.

 

This, really, was all the difference. As I said, Nintendo really pushed the NES in all directions to make sure it got in the market with some staying power. Atari, did not.

 

As I said earlier, Tramiel simply didn't have the money to spend. He wasn't *that* wealthy, and really did a good job in keeping the company afloat as long as they did.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Greg2600

[A Black Falcon]

Money, timing, and contracts. The thing is, the 7800's launch list wasn't really that bad, if just a little dated. The main problem is that the 7800 had a lot of games already done on the 2600 or 5200, or had been brought over from somewhat computer games. Not a bad way to go, but it was a rehashed library. But it really seemed like Tramiel didn't want to, or couldn't, spend the time or money to update and expand the 7800's library all that much. And, of course, the decision to lean on the 2600 library as a crutch didn't help.

Well, when exactly in 1986 did the 7800 release? I see Wikipedia says January, GameFAQs June, and likely as not they're probably both wrong... so does anyone know when it was? Because as I said, as far as I know, the only games released in 1986 were the games that were finished in 1984, and nothing else. I presume that they were all available at launch; it seems likely, since they were all done (though is there any proof otherwise?). Unless it was actually like December '86, then, this means that after launch, Atari released exactly nothing for the 7800 for somewhere between six months and a year, before finally in 1987 releasing their first few new games. Not even anything new for Christmas? I know Tramiel Atari had little money, but that's hard to excuse.

 

This, really, was all the difference. As I said, Nintendo really pushed the NES in all directions to make sure it got in the market with some staying power. Atari, did not.

Yeah.

 

I agree on the power of the console, though the outdated 2600 sound chip I think was a huge issue. My point is on the game library, Atari was never going to match Nintendo's lineup due to Nitntendo's agreements.

Yeah, Atari had a good point when they sued Nintendo over those agreements... but as Nintendo surely knew, any such legal decision would inevitably come far too late to matter in the console race that generation. But even without that, convincing Japanese third parties to give decent software support to the 7800 would be very difficult in any scenario. Japanese gaming companies have always cared the most about their home market.

 

The reason the game industry crashed by 1984 was the oversaturation of the same games, over and over, on multiple systems. The 7800 was just a rehash of this. Sure it would have sold somewhat, heck the 2600 Jr. continued to sell. Then Nintendo would have entered the market as it did, and after a couple years, and kids seeing their games, word of mouth would have taken over. If Atari were locked out of the Japanese developers, history would have ended up largely as it did. We were done playing Pac-Man and Galaxian and Pole Position. How could Atari have competed with the Japanese games? They could not. The Western platforming games from that era were lousy in comparison. Activision's NES/Master System games were not very good. Broderbund, Activision, Epyx, to compete with Konami, Capcom, Tecmo? No way no how, so I am in agreeement on that front.

Yeah, I focused on Tengen (Atari Games) because they actually did make some good NES games during that period, such as Gauntlet, Paperboy, Toobin', Super Sprint, Tengen Tetris, and such. And of course they also published a bunch of Sega and Namco games, but who knows if they could have done anything like that on the 7800; they wouldn't ghave Japanese games to base them on and it's not on the same platform, after all. I don't think Tengen had any real big system-sellers, though.... I mean, I really love Gauntlet, but I can't see it selling consoles over Mario, if Atari had been whole and only releasing their games on Atari systems. And as you say, the rest of the Western third parties on consoles in the late '80s weren't much to speak of. At that time the good Western developers were almost all working on computer games, and a few on arcades. Not consoles.

 

Not to mention that the NES cartridges, system, controllers, and light gun all looked better than the 7800, sturdier made. The ProLine's were terrible and outdated, and the D-pad isn't much better. The system had no composite AV either. They would have had to develop a 7800-II that improved the controllers, added AV, added pokey to the motherboard, etc.

Well, 7800 build quality isn't great for sure, but the NES has its problems too ("ZIF" connector!)... but yeah, the 7800 does look and feel cheaper, at least, and the controller, while okay, certainly isn't as good. And why did the US never get the gamepad controller? Odd decision there.

 

As I said earlier, Tramiel simply didn't have the money to spend. He wasn't *that* wealthy, and really did a good job in keeping the company afloat as long as they did.

So you're saying he was too poor to support his console? If you're too poor to release your system, should you even be releasing it... but on the other hand, in '87 to '90 he managed to fund a few games a year for it. Why couldn't that have started in 1986? Edited May 8, 2014 by A Black Falcon

[DracIsBack]

 

 

 

I have this argument with 7800 defenders frequently

 

So - in other words, you're in a forum marked "7800", deliberately looking for trouble with people who like the 7800?

 

I actually agree with your points that releasing it early in and of itself wouldn't have made a difference. In fact, I'm of the belief that even if they had seen the types of games Nintendo had during the NES negotiations and changed their launch library to something more reflective of the future, I think the retailers still associated "Atari" with "poison" and wouldn't have carried the product extensively.

Edited May 8, 2014 by DracIsBack

[DracIsBack]

Money, timing, and contracts. The thing is, the 7800's launch list wasn't really that bad, if just a little dated. The main problem is that the 7800 had a lot of games already done on the 2600 or 5200, or had been brought over from somewhat computer games. Not a bad way to go, but it was a rehashed library. But it really seemed like Tramiel didn't want to, or couldn't, spend the time or money to update and expand the 7800's library all that much. And, of course, the decision to lean on the 2600 library as a crutch didn't help.

 

 

This, really, was all the difference. As I said, Nintendo really pushed the NES in all directions to make sure it got in the market with some staying power. Atari, did not.

 

 

Nintendo did a famous disruptive approach. They simply changed the types of games being played. They did it again with the Wii years later.

 

Before the NES came out, Atari considered its competition to be consoles like the Colecovision and computer consoles like the Commodore 64. A lot of the 7800's initial line-up seems to reflect this approach of "Colecovision like games, but even better graphics" and "the types of games you can play on a computer, without the cost".

 

They weren't thinking that they needed Super Mario, Castlevania, Zelda etc.

 

To me, the technical stuff has always been far less important than the fact that Atari didn't react well to this disruptive trend and wasn't willing to invest. Games like the above take time and money to develop. Atari's response at first was to put their money into the XEGS for two years ... then to start to make NES style games when that didn't work. Except by then, they had a lot less shelf space.

[high voltage]

I guess if Nintendo would've failed in US, gaming would be going on as normal on PCs, A8, C64, Apple ][, later ST and Amiga.

Amiga and STs were more popular in Europe than NES, they had truck loads of great games, nobody needed Nintendo's 8-bit gaming in Europe.

 

Mind you, I was reading CGW, they didn't rate the NES highly, so go figure.

Edited May 8, 2014 by high voltage

[82atari5200]

For me it was all about the games. I grew up with a 5200 and loved it. But when I first played vs. SMB at Little Caesars, I was absolutely blown away. Nintendo's marketing worked great too because "Mom, Dad, it comes with a ROBOT and a LIGHT GUN" my parents thought the same thing that most did. You already have an Atari why do you need a Nintendo? IT COMES WITH A ROBOT!!! The closest thing the 7800 had was that one game with Grandpa Munster. I still don't understand the whole backward compatible argument at all. My PS3 can play all Playstation games, but I don't use it for anything but PS3 games. When I want to play PS2 I play PS2 and so on. Tramiel never believed in the 7800 or any Atari product that wasn't an answer to the Amiga. It was just a way to financially rape the Atari Loyalists. Nintendo games had depth. Atari games never came close. I still love my 5200 but sorry nothing comes close to the first time I played Legend of Zelda. Talk about a defining moment in video games.

[Trebor]

I grew up with a 5200 and loved it...I still don't understand the whole backward compatible argument at all.

Growing up with the 2600 (my first console), backwards compatibility was indeed a factor in my decision making. Besides wanting the 7800 just for it being the latest Atari console, my father actually asked if I rather have the NES instead (Circa 86-87) - which I declined. One of my reasons in my response was the Atari 7800 played the ~100 Atari 2600 carts we had at the time. So we get all these new games plus can play all our old ones too.

[atarian63]

 

I agree on the power of the console, though the outdated 2600 sound chip I think was a huge issue. My point is on the game library, Atari was never going to match Nintendo's lineup due to Nitntendo's agreements.

 

 

The reason the game industry crashed by 1984 was the oversaturation of the same games, over and over, on multiple systems. The 7800 was just a rehash of this. Sure it would have sold somewhat, heck the 2600 Jr. continued to sell. Then Nintendo would have entered the market as it did, and after a couple years, and kids seeing their games, word of mouth would have taken over. If Atari were locked out of the Japanese developers, history would have ended up largely as it did. We were done playing Pac-Man and Galaxian and Pole Position. How could Atari have competed with the Japanese games? They could not. The Western platforming games from that era were lousy in comparison. Activision's NES/Master System games were not very good. Broderbund, Activision, Epyx, to compete with Konami, Capcom, Tecmo? No way no how, so I am in agreeement on that front.

 

Not to mention that the NES cartridges, system, controllers, and light gun all looked better than the 7800, sturdier made. The ProLine's were terrible and outdated, and the D-pad isn't much better. The system had no composite AV either. They would have had to develop a 7800-II that improved the controllers, added AV, added pokey to the motherboard, etc.

 

 

As I said earlier, Tramiel simply didn't have the money to spend. He wasn't *that* wealthy, and really did a good job in keeping the company afloat as long as they did.

We had people chomping at the bit to get a 7800 in late 84 and all the years foilowing, it would have been a big success had Atari Inc stuck it out, there would have been NO nintendo, and in it's 85 early test market release packaged with R.O.B. ot was a joke, we could not even sell our demo unit that holiday season.

[Rick Dangerous]

This thread is freakin' awesome!

[Jinks]

No nintendo!! no nintendo!!

[Rick Dangerous]

All we need is a flux capacitor and Atari would be the biggest company in the world right now! But the "choose your own adventure" read through of Atari's business decision's in the late 70's, 80's to mid 90's is pretty cool, I must say.

[Greg2600]

So - in other words, you're in a forum marked "7800", deliberately looking for trouble with people who like the 7800?

 

LOL, actually the arguments were often outside of AA.

 

Nintendo did a famous disruptive approach. They simply changed the types of games being played. They did it again with the Wii years later.

 

Before the NES came out, Atari considered its competition to be consoles like the Colecovision and computer consoles like the Commodore 64. A lot of the 7800's initial line-up seems to reflect this approach of "Colecovision like games, but even better graphics" and "the types of games you can play on a computer, without the cost".

 

They weren't thinking that they needed Super Mario, Castlevania, Zelda etc.

 

To me, the technical stuff has always been far less important than the fact that Atari didn't react well to this disruptive trend and wasn't willing to invest. Games like the above take time and money to develop. Atari's response at first was to put their money into the XEGS for two years ... then to start to make NES style games when that didn't work. Except by then, they had a lot less shelf space.

 

Well, many of the most famous Atari console games were based on Japanese arcades. So they had taken cues before. I'm still of the opinion that western developers weren't as good as the Japanese back then in making platformers, but with money spent Atari could have make similar games. As I said before, the company wasted tens of millions of dollars, lost multiples of that too. There was no money left. Not with Warner, and not with Tramiel incoming.

 

For me it was all about the games. I grew up with a 5200 and loved it. But when I first played vs. SMB at Little Caesars, I was absolutely blown away. Nintendo's marketing worked great too because "Mom, Dad, it comes with a ROBOT and a LIGHT GUN" my parents thought the same thing that most did. You already have an Atari why do you need a Nintendo? IT COMES WITH A ROBOT!!! The closest thing the 7800 had was that one game with Grandpa Munster. I still don't understand the whole backward compatible argument at all. My PS3 can play all Playstation games, but I don't use it for anything but PS3 games. When I want to play PS2 I play PS2 and so on. Tramiel never believed in the 7800 or any Atari product that wasn't an answer to the Amiga. It was just a way to financially rape the Atari Loyalists. Nintendo games had depth. Atari games never came close. I still love my 5200 but sorry nothing comes close to the first time I played Legend of Zelda. Talk about a defining moment in video games.

 

Good point on the VS. NES cabs. Wasn't just that, but think of the Capcom, Nintendo, Konami, arcade ports Atari wouldn't have had.

 

Growing up with the 2600 (my first console), backwards compatibility was indeed a factor in my decision making. Besides wanting the 7800 just for it being the latest Atari console, my father actually asked if I rather have the NES instead (Circa 86-87) - which I declined. One of my reasons in my response was the Atari 7800 played the ~100 Atari 2600 carts we had at the time. So we get all these new games plus can play all our old ones too.

 

I hear ya, I was given a couple 8-bit 400's back then, but we eventually threw them in the trash because I had 10 times as many 2600 games, and playing that almost exclusively.

 

We had people chomping at the bit to get a 7800 in late 84 and all the years foilowing, it would have been a big success had Atari Inc stuck it out, there would have been NO nintendo, and in it's 85 early test market release packaged with R.O.B. ot was a joke, we could not even sell our demo unit that holiday season.

 

I really don't think so. By 1986-87, gamers were sick of Pac-Man, Asteroids, and the like. The Activision, Absolute, and similar 3rd party 7800 games were vastly inferior to NES games by that point. Plus, given that Atari turned down SEGA as well (to sell the Genesis), SEGA would have come in anyway with their great 16-bit system and clobbered Atari too.

[Trebor]

I really don't think so. By 1986-87, gamers were sick of Pac-Man, Asteroids, and the like. The Activision, Absolute, and similar 3rd party 7800 games were vastly inferior to NES games by that point. Plus, given that Atari turned down SEGA as well (to sell the Genesis), SEGA would have come in anyway with their great 16-bit system and clobbered Atari too.

 

The whole picture needs to be looked at...likely the entire Atari time-line and the impact the NES would (or would not) of had would have changed. This included all subsequent releases and time tables.

 

If the Atari 7800 was fully released and pushed in 84, a full two-three years would have gone by and there would have been a hell of a lot more than Ms. Pac-Man and Asteroids or other early arcade classics by 86-87. The Nintendo "agreement" with third parties may have never existed, and what could have been a very possible scenario is Japanese game makers may have been eager and anxious to get on board with the 7800. Atari could have very well dominated both US and Euro markets with Japanese and US game makers porting and creating games for the 7800.

 

Heck, for all we know, forget about Nintendo proposing release of its system...Atari pushing the 7800 in '84, and if Atari would have already saturated a US and Euro market, Nintendo may have just as well changed their game plan and would have ported Super Mario Bros. to the 7800 console by 86-87.

 

Jumping next generation (Sega Genesis) is also forgetting about a little something called the 32-bit Panther. Likely too, if everything is pushed two years earlier, instead of the original proposal of a 1991 release, the system may have not been canceled, and could have seen an 1989 release and may have buried the Mega Drive/Genesis as well.

 

Again, *everything* would be different...Sega approaching Atari may have never even been a thought if the 7800 would have been pushed in 84; Atari could have followed with the 32-bit Panther in '89 and then later (a different) 64-bit Jaguar (than what actually was released and when) possibly in '94 instead.

 

The number and quality of games for those systems, the 7800 through the Jaguar, would have changed and probably increased drastically, and things would have went down completely differently.

 

Consider this possibility too... Tetris may have never seen the light of day on the NES or the Gameboy in '89 or/and (Tengen Tetris) could have been released to the 7800 (exclusively/first) or/and the hottest Lynx (launch) title instead. Imagine all those Tetris sales under the Gameboy were made to the Lynx...Wow.

 

Just another scenario in this alternate universe of possibilities

[Greg2600]

I'm still not convinced that the 7800 would have even outsold the 2600 Jr. Anything is possible, but I really doubt Nintendo would not have gone forward. It's quite possible consumers would have left the 7800 on the shelves, infuriated retailers, and then who knows when they would have accepted another video game console? Which is what I said before. My feeling is Nintendo was coming one way or the other. When Atari balked, they came on their own. It's simply business. Especially with Mattel and Coleco gone. The NES was a better system than the 7800 in too many ways to have been stopped.

[Trebor]

Not trying to convince you or anyone else of anything

 

The fact is we're talking hypothetical and 'alternate universe' type scenarios here. Clearly, you believe the NES/Nintendo would win no matter what and was unstoppable. Point understood, just not agreed upon; especially regarding the NES being a "better system".

 

NES was a better supported system that has over 90% of its library possible due to cartridge chip expansions beyond the console's base capabilities. There's no denying that. The 7800 was indeed very poorly supported. Sure, when Atari balked Nintendo came on their own, but the NES was up against practically nothing at the console's launch. It likely would have been a whole different scenario if the 7800 was already out and selling/sold like crazy before Nintendo even (considered) approaching Atari.

 

If the 7800 was supported and had the same/similar enhancements through its life cycle as timely, or again a year or two sooner, from original launch in the US than the NES - it probably would have been a whole different ballgame and a whole different time table of events, IMHO.

 

I'm with you 100% though regarding "anything is possible", and this is truly a case of we will never know for sure either way.

[7800]

The bottom line, Atari shot themselves in the foot and by the time they realized they needed to play "catch up"... it was already too late. They really weren't in touch with how the home video game market was evolving. The only way the 7800 could have been better is if Atari literally spied on Nintendo to see what they were doing, then not only copy it... but improve upon it. 1986 and Atari is still hell bent on joysticks, meanwhile Nintendo embraced the gamepad for a few years already... just as one example.

Edited May 15, 2014 by 7800