How come a lot getting into retro games skip Atari?

[matt2d2]

Nintendo really wanted Atari to distribute the NES. It almost happened!

[SignGuy81]

This may be one reason.

 

Look at ebay, go to video game consoles, type in atari 2600, and click every option but for parts not working, and click price plus shipping lowest first. The first unit that I came across that actually said it was tested working and came with controllers is here http://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-2600-Rainbow-Mini-System-w-Joysticks-Paddles-Berzerk-game-/282419725448?hash=item41c1870488:g:FKQAAOSw~AVYuGKTwith a big cracked open gaping hole right in the middle, $45 for something that looks like crap.

 

Now type in NES with same filters and come across http://www.ebay.com/itm/Retron-1-NES-System-Top-Loader-white-Red-2-Controllers-Nintendo-Console-NEW-/191723036995?hash=item2ca3956143:g:FV0AAOSw9mFWK7G7which is brand new, comes with two controllers and only $16 and some change free shipping.

 

You have to have electronics experience to maintain an Atari. I don't see any new Atari 2600 clones that will accept carts so you can choose your own games to play. All the equipment is old except the Flashbacks which aren't going to include every game you want.

 

I still think plenty get into Atari though, doesn't the Flashbacks sell well?

[the_wizard_666]

You have to have electronics experience to maintain an Atari.

 

I disagree with this. I think you just need to be willing to learn. Most of the fixes don't really take all that much. Even if solder is needed, the contacts aren't as fine as other systems. It's actually really easy for an amateur...I should know, I'm terrible with a soldering iron and I still have little difficulty. You don't need experience, you just need a willingness to learn how and to put the time in to actually do it.

[SignGuy81]

 

I disagree with this. I think you just need to be willing to learn. Most of the fixes don't really take all that much. Even if solder is needed, the contacts aren't as fine as other systems. It's actually really easy for an amateur...I should know, I'm terrible with a soldering iron and I still have little difficulty. You don't need experience, you just need a willingness to learn how and to put the time in to actually do it.

I was just stating why I believe some are put off by them. And some people don't have time to learn or don't won't to fool with older systems they just want something that works. I have a degree in electronics and already do and have done console repairs from Atari to Xbox 360 along with some mods here and there. I was just talking about the average person that wants to pick up a controller and start playing.

[the_wizard_666]

Yeah, I agree with you there. People generally want instant gratification. I'm just saying that you don't need to be great with electronics to do it, because it's not hard for an amateur. I totally agree that most people don't want to put the time in to learn and do the work.

[Keatah]

In time, won't the NES units need repairs? Or did they use magical components with 200-year lifespans?

[crazydean]

The Turbo Duo already needs a bit of work to be usable these days and it's a decade newer than the VCS.

[Keatah]

Yeah, I agree with you there. People generally want instant gratification. I'm just saying that you don't need to be great with electronics to do it, because it's not hard for an amateur. I totally agree that most people don't want to put the time in to learn and do the work.

I'm an experienced ET/EE and even I wouldn't want to continually play with fixing the units, especially one I may have (or will) recommend others purchase. Once or twice, ok. But it gets tedious real fast.

[high voltage]

The problem was the video game crash. There were just a lot of shitty games. NES took over and pretty much made everything before it irrelevant and forgotten.

So how come there was no crash because of the loads of shitty games on the NES?

 

The crash in 1984 had more to do with computers took over as gaming hardware, companies like Activision, EA, Microprose, Infocom, Synapse, Datasoft produced bigger and better games with more depth on 5 1/4 disc.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by high voltage

[Keatah]

Shouldn't the promise of the FPGA, which is the hot thing on fire nowadays, be covering the VCS? There's that Walkman cassette thing, then the NT Mini. And let us not forget the flashbacks in various forms either.. There's probably others which I'm forgetting at the moment.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I was just stating why I believe some are put off by them. And some people don't have time to learn or don't won't to fool with older systems they just want something that works. I have a degree in electronics and already do and have done console repairs from Atari to Xbox 360 along with some mods here and there. I was just talking about the average person that wants to pick up a controller and start playing.

Yeah, guys like us are actually comfortable holding a soldering iron.

 

Some people are comfortable riding a skateboard. I'm not one of them.

 

My mother crochets. But I don't know how to operate the business end of a crochet hook any more than my mom knows how to operate the business end of a soldering iron. Also unlike the benign crochet hook, a solder iron will hurt you if you touch the wrong end...

 

So how come there was no crash because of the loads of shitty games on the NES?

 

Nintendo limited the supply to keep demand up, and still oftentimes pull this archaic practice to this day. See also NES Classic Mini.

 

Atari did a pretty good job of flooding their own market long before the third parties did. So much that they had to bury the evidence in a New Mexico desert. :rol:

 

You wanna know why Nintendo enacted the policies it did? They looked carefully at every mistake Atari made. Nintendo ran the US market exactly the opposite of how Atari did, and to huge success, even if their business practices eventually landed them with antitrust suits.

[SignGuy81]

In time, won't the NES units need repairs? Or did they use magical components with 200-year lifespans?

I posted links in ebay they are making new clones of the nes still.

[matt2d2]

Those retcon things are total crap. And, just because there was an auction for broken looking 2600 for $45 doesn't mean people will buy it for that price

Edited April 25, 2017 by matt2d2

[zzip]

In time, won't the NES units need repairs? Or did they use magical components with 200-year lifespans?

Even when they were new, they commonly had problems reading cartridges.

[zzip]

Atari did a pretty good job of flooding their own market long before the third parties did. So much that they had to bury the evidence in a New Mexico desert. :rol:

 

You wanna know why Nintendo enacted the policies it did? They looked carefully at every mistake Atari made. Nintendo ran the US market exactly the opposite of how Atari did, and to huge success, even if their business practices eventually landed them with antitrust suits.

It's more complicated than this. Lots of consoles have more crappy titles than the 2600 had titles in total. It doesn't wreck their market.

 

Back in 82, videogames were a classic bubble. When bubbles happen, traditional thinking goes out the window and euphoria takes over. There's a feeling that the sky's the limit. You could put anything on a cartridge and sell a ton. With this thinking retailers stocked tons of games from companies nobody ever heard of. In normal times, they wouldn't have taken that kind of risk. But then they thought they could sell any Atari game. Then when they couldn't, they dumped the stock and became resistant to stocking videogames.

 

As for consumer demand. Does it make sense that Atari fans would stop buying games altogether because "Games by Apollo" or "US Games" released a bunch of subpar games? Nobody had even heard of those companies before, and their games weren't on people's radars. Does it make sense that Intellivision gamers stopped buying games because Atari released ET? Or does it make more sense that consumers felt burned by highly anticipated, but ultimately disappointing conversions of games like Pac Man and Donkey Kong? I find the latter more probable. Then those still interested in gaming started abandoning consoles and moving to computers.

 

So I don't think Nintendo's lockout move spared its console from Atari's fate. It was a misread on what the real problems were.

[Keatah]

Maybe it's as simple as consumer confusion? No one knew what to buy next?

[Andromeda Stardust]

It's more complicated than this. Lots of consoles have more crappy titles than the 2600 had titles in total. It doesn't wreck their market.

 

Back in 82, videogames were a classic bubble. When bubbles happen, traditional thinking goes out the window and euphoria takes over. There's a feeling that the sky's the limit. You could put anything on a cartridge and sell a ton. With this thinking retailers stocked tons of games from companies nobody ever heard of. In normal times, they wouldn't have taken that kind of risk. But then they thought they could sell any Atari game. Then when they couldn't, they dumped the stock and became resistant to stocking videogames.

 

As for consumer demand. Does it make sense that Atari fans would stop buying games altogether because "Games by Apollo" or "US Games" released a bunch of subpar games? Nobody had even heard of those companies before, and their games weren't on people's radars. Does it make sense that Intellivision gamers stopped buying games because Atari released ET? Or does it make more sense that consumers felt burned by highly anticipated, but ultimately disappointing conversions of games like Pac Man and Donkey Kong? I find the latter more probable. Then those still interested in gaming started abandoning consoles and moving to computers.

 

So I don't think Nintendo's lockout move spared its console from Atari's fate. It was a misread on what the real problems were.

I am well aware of the bubble situation. Companies did produce more stock than demand. Atari and third parties literally flooded the market.

 

And retailers treated video games like it was just a fad that was going to die, not a sustainable ecosystem with incremental hardware and software refreshes like has been done since Nintendo took over. Nintendo of Japan bent over backwards to penetrate the US market before they created a US subsidiary and established themselves as kingpins of the video game empire.

[Flojomojo]

It's more complicated than this. Lots of consoles have more crappy titles than the 2600 had titles in total. It doesn't wreck their market.

 

Was the mobile app rush that different? It's all "nobody goes there, it's too crowded" with a few high-grossing superhits taking all the money, and a lot of everything else stinking up the place. Everyone says 99% of mobile apps are crap, which kinda devalues the marketplace as a place to go for entertainment, right?

 

You're a smart person. How many $30 turds will you buy before thinking more critically about how you spend your time and money?

 

The crash (such as it was) was too many turds in the market AND high prices AND the constant churn of bigger/better/badder coming from competition.

[Keatah]

I am well aware of the bubble situation. Companies did produce more stock than demand. Atari and third parties literally flooded the market.

 

And retailers treated video games like it was just a fad that was going to die, not a sustainable ecosystem with incremental hardware and software refreshes like has been done since Nintendo took over. Nintendo of Japan bent over backwards to penetrate the US market before they created a US subsidiary and established themselves as kingpins of the video game empire.

 

Seems like this was something that had to have been developed or happened upon, but was absolutely necessary.

[zzip]

Was the mobile app rush that different? It's all "nobody goes there, it's too crowded" with a few high-grossing superhits taking all the money, and a lot of everything else stinking up the place. Everyone says 99% of mobile apps are crap, which kinda devalues the marketplace as a place to go for entertainment, right?

Of course the mobile rush was no different. Many new technologies have their gold rush phase *cough dotcom cough*. But they generally don't repeat in the same space. The market is wiser and more mature the second time around. There's tons of no-name crap that comes out on a weekly basis on PS4 and Xbox, but that doesn't cause those markets to implode. Gamestop isn't going to waste shelf space on it even if it did a physical release. "Life of Black Tiger" isn't going to eat into Call of Duty's profits. Worst case is the studio that produced the crap goes under, not the entire market.

 

So the NES was probably safe from a repeat crash. They didn't really need the draconian measures they implemented.

[Flojomojo]

NES's keepers weren't protecting the industry, just their platform. SEGA did the same thing, as do the current platform holders. Sony makes money from "no-name crap" whether or not it sells through, via their licensing agreement. Apple takes 30% of every App Store sale.

Atari never benefitted from these arrangements. They were frequently on the paying end, licensing stuff like Pac-Man from Namco, which couldn't have come cheaply. Add that to expensive manufacturing and distributing, and keeping inventory becomes very risky.

We probably have the NES days to thank for the current state of inventory management. I don't know how much waste is in the physical media channel, but it seems like in most cases, there's the right mix of supply and demand. That was all out of whack in the crash days.

I believe that if Nintendo hadn't enforced their quota of the number of games allowed per year per company, it could have hurt them. Sure, third parties worked around it with their little tricks like LJN, Acclaim, etc -- still each paying license to Nintendo. Flooding the market and devaluing your product isn't good.

You just KNOW Nintendo is sitting on several months' worth of finished Switch games, but they're going to trickle them out slowly, to keep interest high.

[Keatah]

You just KNOW Nintendo is sitting on several months' worth of finished Switch games, but they're going to trickle them out slowly, to keep interest high.

 

Yup. I just rescued 70 some odd PD disks for the Apple II. Think I'minna post them all at once? Hell no. I'll feed one out here and there every once in a while.

[zzip]

NES's keepers weren't protecting the industry, just their platform. SEGA did the same thing, as do the current platform holders. Sony makes money from "no-name crap" whether or not it sells through, via their licensing agreement. Apple takes 30% of every App Store sale.

But I don't think they have the kinds of publishing quotas NES had. And if they do, PC certainly doesn't. PC has thousands and thousands of games which doesn't hurt their market. The bad games and niche games are there for those that want them, but most people just ignore them and buy the games they want. Physical Retailers won't stock those games, they want the games that will sell- so the market takes care of the problem.

 

The problem back then wasn't too many games, it was the market didn't sort it out. Retailers overbought untested games, then marked down huge quantities when they didn't sell- These markdowns meant that people might buy 6 $5 games instead of 1 $30 game, and that hurt the rest of the publishers. And also the fact that getting a game for $5 was an unheard of novelty at the time so people bought them, where as today they might simply turn down a $5 game that doesn't interest them in favor of the $60 title they really want

 

sorry if it seems like I'm splitting hairs, but I always encounter people who insist another game crash is imminent because of the amount of crap that gets published. And I have to explain why it's unlikely to happen again, and that a flood of crappy games (or just ET) by itself wasn't the cause of the crash.

 

Atari never benefitted from these arrangements. They were frequently on the paying end, licensing stuff like Pac-Man from Namco, which couldn't have come cheaply. Add that to expensive manufacturing and distributing, and keeping inventory becomes very risky.

But in those days they were still figuring out how the market for videogames would work. Atari's plan never even expected third party publishers on their platform. They sued to stop it.

 

I believe that if Nintendo hadn't enforced their quota of the number of games allowed per year per company, it could have hurt them. Sure, third parties worked around it with their little tricks like LJN, Acclaim, etc -- still each paying license to Nintendo. Flooding the market and devaluing your product isn't good.

On the other hand, they restricted how third parties could publish on other platforms, which an anti-competitive practice and not good for the industry.

 

You just KNOW Nintendo is sitting on several months' worth of finished Switch games, but they're going to trickle them out slowly, to keep interest high.

Yes and no. There is a science to when games get released, and you don't want them too close to other big releases, but on the other hand, I doubt they have a bunch of heavy hitters ready to go- those games are notorious for being developed right up until release (and then some!). More likely they have a bunch of indies and ports from other platforms ready to go until the next big titles are ready.

[Flojomojo]

I don't think you and I are disagreeing here. I think you're minimizing the degree to which bad games f$cked the market. Sure, Atari was figuring out how the market was going to work.

 

And they failed. Because there was a glut of bad product. You say, no no, "the problem back then wasn't too many games, it was the market didn't sort it out." Where does one end and the other begin? The market couldn't sort it out because it was jammed up with crap.

 

Also, for other reasons ... I'm totally on board with that.

 

Did Nintendo go too far? Yeah, probably. Do they owe their tremendous financial success to getting away with it? I think so.

 

People like shorthand explanations for things. It's OK.

 

And if you think Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Ultra Street Fighter II, Splatoon 2, and ARMS aren't ready to go, well I guess neither of us can prove it, but I think I'm right.

[Schizophretard]

I don't think the crash really happened. I mean, I don't think there was really anything wrong with the market. I think it was just in people's heads and therefore it became a self-fulfilling prophesy. I think all that was really happening with the market was the exact same thing that has happened for every console generation since. The consoles that are out become popular, because they are popular more and more games come out which obviously comes with more shovelware being added as well as the good games, people start getting bored with their consoles and want new ones, the companies want new ones too because they are starting to push their hardware and want better hardware for the games they want to create, the new consoles start to come out, the old games end up in bargain bins, and the cycle starts over again.

 

For an example, the market for the PS3, XBOX 360, and Wii has "crashed" but the console market as a whole hasn't crashed because we saw it coming and when we saw it coming we didn't misinterpret it as,"OMG! The sales for PS3, XBOX 360, and Wii are starting to drop! Their libraries are getting huge with a lot of shovelware and games are starting to go on discount! The market is flooded with too many consoles now that we have the PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, PS4, XBOX ONE, and Wii U! Three consoles were enough but now we have six! Console gaming must be a fad! Stop buying consoles! Sale your stocks in these companies because they are all about to fail! This is how it ends!"

 

In other words, I don't think people understood that a new console generation was starting and these cycles happen so as it was happening they misinterpreted it, panicked, and behaved according to this panic. We often bring up the video game crash of 1983 but there was also a crash in 1977 of the dedicated Pong console market caused by the introduction of the Atari VCS as well as other programmable consoles. I think it is more than a coincidence that both home console video game crashes happened early on but none have happened since and both happened when a new generation was starting. The first crash we consider the line between first generation and second generation but what was happening at the time of the second video game crash? They were referring to the Atari 5200, ColecoVision, Vectrex, etc. as a new third wave of consoles. How did people react? "These new consoles are flooding the market!....."

 

I mean, this is how the change of the generations' ends have been marked:

 

1st gen: Video Game Crash

2nd gen: Video Game Crash

3rd through now: Next gen of consoles.

 

So, I think that a video game crash and a next gen of consoles are the exact same thing and the only reason the first two generations are marked as ending with a crash is that they didn't understand that the nature of the market works in these cycles. Therefore, for the first two cycles people freaked out at the end of them which caused the self-fulfilling prophesies of doom to take place when there was nothing wrong with the market at all. From lack of experience there wasn't common sense yet with how this all works but since we experience it every console generation it has become common sense and that is why video game crashes don't happen anymore. We just call it next gen and don't freak out over it.