How powerful was the cancelled Atari Panther compared to the Atari ST/Amiga?

[ColecoKing]

It should be noted that Commodore and Atari had so much time to deal with PC's and instead decided to double down on their proprietary strategies which destroyed them, and both came to the same conclusion that the only way to avoid destruction was to abandon their core industry and audience to release a stand-alone video game console so late where either; if money was made, the amount made wouldn't be enough to save the company in time, or released so late the product was immediately outdated by the competition.

Cheaper gaming consoles like the SNES and Sega Genesis, cheap PC's which had caught up and surpassed the Amiga and ST power gap from years earlier, and the 3DO had proven to be a powerhouse that would widen the gap further as announcements for even more consoles were on the horizon that touted 3D capabilities.

To be fair to Commodore they did try the CDTV a couple years before but at $800 with one controller and no game that's a fucking atrocious value especially when an Amiga with a CD drive ended up being cheaper and more reliable. The CD32 should have been the console to release that year and the CDTV a niche TV computer enthusiast device. Curiously, also the same year the Panther should have been released which would have been ideal, instead of cancelling it for a console that wouldn't release until after everything fell apart and after Atari no longer had the funds to market it.

They are like twin brothers that both snapped and went crazy and got locked up at the same ward, in the solitary straitjacket room.

[zzip]

9 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

You can't compete without money. Sony had money when the PS3 crashed their finances, even went as far as to sell property assets to hold the company up until things they stopped bleeding. Atari didn't have money or buildings to sell or any divisions to cut to generate spare cash.

Atari bet everything on the ST and succeeded the choice of where to allocated the money were logical and they still allocated money to games and that increased at the ST succeeded in turning around the companies fortunes.

But there are other ways of raising money than waiting for profits to come in.   If you want to expand your business, you either find investors or take on debt.   Now admittedly, few investors or banks would have been interested in financing a console expansion in 1984 for a company that had as much skepticism around it as Atari did,  however in 1985 with the ST coming to fruition and generating lots of buzz in the press, and Nintendo starting to make waves,  they may have been able to attract investment to jump start their gaming side and run it properly. 

 

Or they could have just abandoned the console market, saying "we're a computer company now", which was the road they started down in the first place.

 

But instead they strung the gaming division along,  never giving it the resources it needed to compete properly, but never pulling the plug on it either

26 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Atari was much more serious about gaming earlier on. The only reason why they bet everything on the Jaguar is because their computer business was dead in the water, they also put more money into games where they didn't have money when the Jaguar came out.

They were not serious enough.   They didn't design new hardware until the 90s,  they kept peddling the console designs they inherited pre-84  They weren't getting big hit games.   The Jaguar was lost in 1985-87 because that's when they lost all their mind share.

 

30 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

They did have staff working on games. You also repeated yourself from earlier and repeating myself I must mention again you need money to compete. Considering the entire company was short on cash in 1985 they would have had to write-off all the business the entire company dealt in.

I'm talking about a specific period after Jack bought Atari.  They were not working on new games,  they were not licensing new games,   This gave Nintendo the window to come in and dominate.   But again on the money question..  if they were serious about gaming, they would have raised the money.  They were serious about the ST and they made that happen.   They weren't serious about gaming.

[mr_me]

3 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Just going to repost this for those who actually want to be informed and are looking for accurate information from the time:

 

  

 

And this

 

  

 

 

also this other thing

 

  

 

To the last point, some of the most popular games on the Sega Saturn were arcade ports of powerful sprite and scaling arcade games from the 80's and early 90's, including games like Outrun from 1986, which got pretty much an arcade perfect port on a home console for the first time, among other titles. Because you know, those count as games people are interested in, but I don't see anyone making the same argument for the Saturn some people here are making for the 7800, especially since those weren't the only games on the console.

 

Also don't forget another crazy theory peddled in this thread that Jack "purchased" and "destroyed" Atari despite him turning the company around and people clearly taking notice at the time.

 

 

But anyway feel free anyone that for some reason believes the "emotional side" of this thread instead of the evidence is right and address all of this or you know, admit the evidence is there.

 (@zzip has already showed he's dishonest and won't address any of this being reduced to drive-by posts so of course anyone else who believes he even is 5% correct in anything I'd invite you to a positive discussion on address everything here if you disagree, with facts.

None of that is evidence of anything.

 

The three Atari 5200 cartridges released in 1986 were in fact unreleased cartridges from 1984 that they dug up to make a quick buck.  They could have been released in 1984 or 1985, why 1986?  Do you believe that digging up the discontinued atari 5200 which they probably had sitting in storage, helped or hurt the atari 7800 in the market.  They should have focused their efforts on the 7800.  The 7800 had unique architecture compared to the nes.  More games showing off those differences would have helped.

 

You should ask Michael Katz how he felt working for Jack Tramiel or anyone else's thoughts working at Atari Corp at that time.

 

It wasn't just video games, Tramiel didn't think much of developing software in general.

'One ex-Commodore employee said that to Tramiel "software wasn't tangible—you couldn't hold it, feel it, or touch it—so it wasn't worth spending money for" '

 

"Michael Katz (president, Sega of America): In '88, when I was still at Atari, Hayao Nakayama and Dave Rosen brought us the Genesis. They asked if we wanted to license the product. At the time, we needed a next-generation system to take on Nintendo, and Genesis would've been perfect. But Jack Tramiel turned it down."

 

' "Jerry Jessop (engineer, Atari): Brad Saville was a production guy at Atari during the Tramiel days. When the 7800 machine was finished, he went to Tramiel's office to present it. Brad said Tramiel swept the prototype right off his desk and onto the floor, yelling, "We're a computer company now!" '

Edited September 9, 2020 by mr_me

[zzip]

20 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

It should be noted that Commodore and Atari had so much time to deal with PC's and instead decided to double down on their proprietary strategies which destroyed them, and both came to the same conclusion that the only way to avoid destruction was to abandon their core industry and audience to release a stand-alone video game console so late where either; if money was made, the amount made wouldn't be enough to save the company in time, or released so late the product was immediately outdated by the competition.

Yeah, in retrospect, it became obvious that proprietary computer platforms were doomed unless you where a Mac, because the economies of scale in the PC clone market could not be beat.    But yet proprietary consoles flourish to this day and are big business.

 

But Jack embarked on his Atari journey at the worst possible time because the the conventional wisdom in 1984 was that 1. consoles were dead.  2. video games were a passing fad  3. proprietary computer platforms had a bright future.  Atari Corp was structured around these assumptions and they weren't ready/able to pivot and go full steam ahead into games when they rebounded.

 

My theory is that had Warner not sold Atari and successfully restructured it/stopped the bleeding, they would have been much better able to seize new console opportunities of the post-crash world,  they would have had the resources of Warner to help fund the new expansion (as opposed to the small family-run company that was Atari Corp without a lot of resources).   I also think Warner Atari would have dropped the computer line(s) by the end of the 80s

[zzip]

6 minutes ago, mr_me said:

It wasn't just video games, Tramiel didn't think much of developing software in general.

'One ex-Commodore employee said that to Tramiel "software wasn't tangible—you couldn't hold it, feel it, or touch it—so it wasn't worth spending money for" '

In the Leonard Tramiel talk I posted earlier in this thread, Leonard said that his dad was pretty technologically inept,  the only computing platform he ever felt comfortable using was the iPad.

[Leeroy ST]

10 minutes ago, zzip said:

SMB 3= hit game.   Nintendo had them in spades.  Atari post-Tramiel, not so much.   At the end of the day, this is what matters, not the technical details of each system.

This applies to Sega as well, but isn't relevant to the argument that was being made why can't you stick to one thing? No one said anything about the 7800 having hit games this is some made up new argument you're adding.

 

Also below is to another person but...

45 minutes ago, zzip said:

I agree, and it may have been that Atari Corp had to pick and choose and focus.   But instead they wanted a little piece of everything-  games, high-end workstations, PC clones, department store chains, 

 

I thought you said they didn't want game, what happun?

11 minutes ago, zzip said:

They didn't release any titles for 2600 or 5200 in 1984

Specify they, you're original argument was Atari in general. Which is wrong. 

 

13 minutes ago, zzip said:

The 84 releases listed were pre-Tramiel.

Oh you changed your earlier argument. 

 

15 minutes ago, zzip said:

The ST is the only thing they didn't half-ass during this time. 

This contradicts a few of your earlier arguments about games and Atari Corp.

 

16 minutes ago, zzip said:

In case the theme of all my posts continues to go right over your head,  let me pound it some more:  it's about having the right GAMES and MARKETING them so people know about them.

. 

Feel free to actually address those articles and the other evidence in the long post above and show why you disagree with them instead of constantly arguing what you want to believe without any evidence other than your feelings. 

 

Also if you want me to quote your original arguments so you remember what you argued instead of chaining your stances every 4 minutes I can help you with that too. 

 

[Leeroy ST]

28 minutes ago, mr_me said:

None of that is evidence of anything.

 

The three Atari 5200 cartridges released in 1986 were in fact unreleased cartridges from 1984 that they dug up to make a quick buck.  They could have been released in 1984 or 1985, why 1986?  

 

'

Why did Atari support the 5200 from 85-87 when they had the 7800 on wait, the 2600 in gear, the ST in gear, and the 8-bits in gear? Then replace the 5200 with the XEGS based on the same architecture? A console that was a money sink and killed by Warner?

 

Why release "old" game by producing new copies of those cartridges which costs money and spending money to get them into retail while also creating NEW reissuing carts of older 5200 games which costs money?

 

For a company that doesn't care about games that doesn't make much sense.

 

31 minutes ago, mr_me said:

It wasn't just video games, Tramiel didn't think much of developing software in general.

'One ex-Commodore employee said that to Tramiel "software wasn't tangible—you couldn't hold it, feel it, or touch it—so it wasn't worth spending money for" '

Yet they higred Kats specifically for video games, in 1985. Doesn't matter how much Tramiel cared about something or not he clearly greenlit these moves and was influenced by someone or a group of someones. Him being difficult to work with is irrelevant.

 

32 minutes ago, mr_me said:

"Michael Katz (president, Sega of America): In '88, when I was still at Atari, Hayao Nakayama and Dave Rosen brought us the Genesis. They asked if we wanted to license the product. At the time, we needed a next-generation system to take on Nintendo, and Genesis would've been perfect. But Jack Tramiel turned it down."

If this is true, this really doesn't mean anything since Atari was still exploring an ST console which would have been stronger than the Genesis, leading to it being scrapped for the Panther, also stronger than the Genesis, plus considering Sega themselves screwed up the Genesis after a few years who knows whether or not Atari would have done a better job but you are using biased rose-tinted glasses to look at this statement and so did Kaz.

 

What were the terms? How much profit would come in? It wouldn't be ready until a year later in 1989? 88 where the 7800 was having its best year and the money they were making was increasing production? ST was popular and a console idea base on it was floating around? 

 

Was it a bad move? Was it a good move? No clue but at least of all the decisions made by Atari Corp I can see how this rejection would at least make sense (same with the NES rejection years earlier) unlike other decisions that didn't. 

 

40 minutes ago, mr_me said:

' "Jerry Jessop (engineer, Atari): Brad Saville was a production guy at Atari during the Tramiel days. When the 7800 machine was finished, he went to Tramiel's office to present it. Brad said Tramiel swept the prototype right off his desk and onto the floor, yelling, "We're a computer company now!" '

Yet the company put it out anyway, this doesn't tell me anything, What year was it? Who was involved? Also you do realize he's not king dictator of Atari Corp right?

[mr_me]

Again what you are saying is all interesting discussion, but it's not evidence.  If the Atari ST console was a viable video game platform for a console, Michael Katz would have known this.  It wasn't, it didn't even have video game specific graphics hardware.  Even if it was, the fact it wasn't followed through supports the idea that Tramiel and therefore Atari Corp was not serious about video games.

 

34 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Yet the company put it out anyway, this doesn't tell me anything, What year was it? Who was involved? Also you do realize he's not king dictator of Atari Corp right?

It was when the 7800 was finished in 1984.  Tramiel was happy to sit on it until GCC met his terms, he didn't pay anything for that inventory anyway.  GCC eventually realized it was Tramiel's way or nothing.   No I think Tramiel was the king dictator and you have no evidence to say he wasn't.  He did keep a solid gold sword in his office.

Edited September 9, 2020 by mr_me

[zzip]

10 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

This applies to Sega as well, but isn't relevant to the argument that was being made why can't you stick to one thing? No one said anything about the 7800 having hit games this is some made up new argument you're adding.

 

Also below is to another person but...

I thought you said they didn't want game, what happun?

Specify they, you're original argument was Atari in general. Which is wrong. 

 

Oh you changed your earlier argument. 

 

This contradicts a few of your earlier arguments about games and Atari Corp.

 

. 

Feel free to actually address those articles and the other evidence in the long post above and show why you disagree with them instead of constantly arguing what you want to believe without any evidence other than your feelings. 

 

Also if you want me to quote your original arguments so you remember what you argued instead of chaining your stances every 4 minutes I can help you with that too. 

 

My argument has not changed.   You are nitpicking words from me and pretending I'm arguing against myself.   The Tramiels held Atari for 12 years, and their business strategy shifted during their time.   Their stance on games in 84 was completely different from their stance on games in 94

 

They were not doing games at all in 84-85

They were only releasing old titles in 86-87

Around 87 or later you finally start seeing new games, but it's not enough to keep up with the competition.

After the Lynx they decided they better design their own hardware because they can't keep milking the Warner designs forever.

 

But if you quote me talking about them not doing games in 84/85 and then say I'm contradicting myself I'm admitting they released games (later), you are the one being dishonest.

 

[zzip]

26 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Why did Atari support the 5200 from 85-87 when they had the 7800 on wait, the 2600 in gear, the ST in gear, and the 8-bits in gear? Then replace the 5200 with the XEGS based on the same architecture? A console that was a money sink and killed by Warner?

Because they were trying to liquidate old inventory for quick cash! 

 

32 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

For a company that doesn't care about games that doesn't make much sense.

For a company that DOES care about games this doesn't make sense.  

 

Every SUCCESSFUL console company releases one console per generation, and only one.   Key word 'successful'.   They may release a handheld too,  but not two incompatible consoles.   Otherwise you split your player base,  you get hardware not fully supported by developers, and get disgruntled customers.   Sega tried the 32X, and that was part of their downfall.

 

Yes Sony and Microsoft did the PS4 Pro and X, but they went through great pains to ensure that all games would be compatible with both models,  because they learned from the mistakes of Sega and Atari.

 

Now supporting an old-gen console like 2600jr is fine..  that was intended for markets the 2600 skipped the first time around.  I can't fault them for that.

 

But to release the XEGS as a current gen console on the back of the 7800 was insane.  To support a console like 5200 Atari Inc previously declared dead on top of that (though releasing 3 old games is hardly what I'd call support).  This move says they have no vision or strategy,  they were just cashing in on whatever was lying around.

[zzip]

37 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Again what you are saying is all interesting discussion, but none of it is evidence.  If the Atari ST console was a viable video game platform for a console, Michael Katz would have known this.  It wasn't, it didn't even have video game specific graphics hardware.  Even if it was, the fact it wasn't followed through supports the idea that Tramiel and therefore Atari Corp was not serious about video games.

I think an STgs may have worked, but it depends on the year.   It would have to be before the Sega Genesis.  If it had the blitter, that would help make up for lack of sprite hardware.

 

Atari had the problem of too many consoles on the market already.  Release it in 87 or 88, you are cutting off the 7800, release it in 89 or 90 too close to the Genesis.

 

Still I would probably have more respect for their efforts had they done an STGS instead of XEGS, it would be so much more current. 

[Lost Dragon]

The ST Console was just Rob Zybdel trying to convince Atari they could put the ST hardware into a console style case, get it out here in the UK for around £100 and have a range of old arcade games out on it at budget price.. £25,which would of been cheaper than Master System and NES titles. 

 

 

Bear in mind rumours abounded Ariolasoft pulled out of the Sega Master System distribution deal here in the UK as they were unhappy with the prices Sega wanted to charge for 8-bit software. 

 

Atari UK were hoping the cream of existing arcade conversions and arcade style games already on the ST converted to it. 

 

Atari UK admitted it was aimed at the younger users market, the ST was still the Golden Calf and the console was not intended to take sales away from the ST computer range. 

 

Atari UK MD Bob Gleadow said that when he joined Atari UK in October 1986,the original plan to establish the ST as a small business machine was looking flawed, so Atari needed a new ethos on which to market it, so they pitched it as in all-in-one home computer, rather than a games machine. 

 

Atari redefined the ST again, under Gleadow, in the UK in late 1991 as being seriously the better computer, with Atari putting strong emphasis on the fact it was aiming the hardware at the serious user. 

 

 

You can find Sam Tramiel pushing the ST as a serious users machine to the press in Summer of 1990, boasting a high resolution monochrome mode and more business applications over the Amiga. 

 

 

He also stated Atari had to break Nintendo's monopoly on games software, before Atari could get good, brand name software for the 7800 and 2600 and Atari would go one-on-one with Nintendo with next generation machines, Lynx and Panther. 

 

Atari would happily redefine the ST from a marketing perspective, when sales started to flag, to try and capture market share where they thought it could do well in. 

Edited September 9, 2020 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

55 minutes ago, zzip said:

I think an STgs may have worked, but it depends on the year.   It would have to be before the Sega Genesis.  If it had the blitter, that would help make up for lack of sprite hardware.

 

Atari had the problem of too many consoles on the market already.  Release it in 87 or 88, you are cutting off the 7800, release it in 89 or 90 too close to the Genesis.

 

Still I would probably have more respect for their efforts had they done an STGS instead of XEGS, it would be so much more current. 

Considering Atari UK were hoping the cream of ST coders would convert software to the ST Console, there wasn't a huge amount of love from them for the ST Blitter. 

 

Wayne Smithson (Blood Money) described it as a complete waste of time and space, no barrel shifting equating to don't bother using it

 

Jez San, Argonaut not impressed either. 

[zzip]

17 minutes ago, Lost Dragon said:

Considering Atari UK were hoping the cream of ST coders would convert software to the ST Console, there wasn't a huge amount of love from them for the ST Blitter. 

 

Wayne Smithson (Blood Money) described it as a complete waste of time and space, no barrel shifting equating to don't bother using it

 

Jez San, Argonaut not impressed either. 

I've never coded for it myself, but I always noticed a performance increase when it was being used.  And there was the flying birds blitter demo which showed a night-and-day perfomance difference when moving "sprites", unless that was fudged somehow?

[ColecoKing]

zzip

But there are other ways of raising money than waiting for profits to come in. If you want to expand your business, you either find investors or take on debt. Now admittedly, few investors or banks would have been interested in financing a console expansion in 1984 for a company that had as much skepticism around it as Atari did, however in 1985 with the ST coming to fruition and generating lots of buzz in the press, and Nintendo starting to make waves, they may have been able to attract investment to jump start their gaming side and run it properly.



Or they could have just abandoned the console market, saying "we're a computer company now", which was the road they started down in the first place.



But instead they strung the gaming division along, never giving it the resources it needed to compete properly, but never pulling the plug on it either

No there wasn't. Atari was a well known video game brand at time when banks were hesitant to give money toward video games, investment firms that could provide capital were skeptical of the entry-level computers and were running scared during the price war, which was only recently recovering and the residue was still fresh. Other investment options were clearly paying attention to Warner not paying developers and that they were spinning off a cash furnace that was there gaming division, a division that already cut most of their staff and studios before the Atari Corp transaction. To top it all off Tramiel was an infamous name who brought a popular consumer brand that wasn't a popular business brand in the US, and wouldn't get more funding sources until after he started turning the company around. It also doesn't help that he was trying to get capital for new products in two highly competitive markets, that due to price wars, became sooooooooooo cheap that it caused everyone to flee like pigeons not long before.

Nintendo wasn't starting to make waves in 1985, some outlets said that Nintendo failed in its attempt to sell the console and some said they were successful but it was a highly concentrated limited test launch during a time people were still buying Atari gaming hardware and software. In regards to the ST it launched in 1985 so Tramiel hadn't proven himself to anyone yet to open up his acess to resources, but would in a short-time.

And yes, Atari Corp was a computer company, but they had departments and funding set up for general consumers. The mistake being made is that Atari wasn't aiming business machines to the consumer market they were aiming business machines to the enterprise market, and games were marketed to the consumer market. Even a BASIC programmer that used a 2600 or an A8 as a tool wasn't the target audience for enterprise, corporate was, small business was, logistics was. You're making the assumption that the ST was only made for one market.

Keep in mind almost every attempt at trying to capture marketshare in enterprise failed in America, where gaming was more successful. In Pal regions this was reversed and that's because what was popular in both regions were also reversed.

They were not serious enough. They didn't design new hardware until the 90s, they kept peddling the console designs they inherited pre-84 They weren't getting big hit games. The Jaguar was lost in 1985-87 because that's when they lost all their mind share.

Jaguar? The Jaguar didn't come out until the 90's.

They don't need new hardware built from scratch to have a successful product. The American NES isn't even a new product it's a redesigned Famicom built inefficiently with reliability issues because they wanted that version of the console to resemble a VCR. The 2600 did better than the NES in 1985 and reportedly in 1986 and that was a rudimentary machine that should have been killed off years ago but was still a fan favorite, remodeling it to be cheaper to produce while selling it at lower prices than all the competition available was a great business strategy that would have made sense.

Would have made sense if they didn't have another product that could play the same games as the 2600 in addition to its own games, which also cost less than all the other competitors.

So I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here, the people involved with the decision to sell a redesigned 2600 below the 7800's price when the 7800 had backwards compatibility,m need to be hit with a baseball bat, repeatedly. Atari's most fatal move imo with the 7800, placing it far behind the NES by an enormous amount in the US btw, was keeping the VCS2600 on the market when the 7800 had BC. The 7800 may have outsold the NES its first year on the market, and maybe did well in the second if the 2600 was discontinued. There would have been more shelfspace available since there would be only one Atari flagship video game console for retailers to deal with, all the bargin bin 2600 games could be resold as compatible with the 7800, and all new games that released for the 2600 could have been upgraded graphically to work on the more powerful 7800 system instead. The amount of sales and attention would have attracted those western studios that fled after the crash or who didn't want to go bankrupt during the price wars dropping which forced them to price their software below $5, this would have caused Nintendo to react differently and both companies would become more competitive as a result.

Keeping the 2600 was the real mistake, not whether Atari could find a loan.

I'm talking about a specific period after Jack bought Atari. They were not working on new games, they were not licensing new games, This gave Nintendo the window to come in and dominate. But again on the money question.. if they were serious about gaming, they would have raised the money. They were serious about the ST and they made that happen. They weren't serious about gaming.

Are you talking about 1st and 2nd party titles? They wouldn't be able to do that until later, the ST only just launched that in 1985 and that's where the money comes from to fund other assets. Instead Atari was able to line up a large number of third party software to launch with the ST until they were ready.

I want to add something about the XEGS btw since its relevant to this conversation, the ST was getting creamed in games and was a moderate success at business in Europe, while before the Atari A8 was getting creamed in business and was a moderate success at gaming. The XEGS was an attempt to bring a console to Europe based hoping to gain a piece of that European gaming pie that was dominated by Commodore, Amstrad, and Sinclair, and later Sega in a more limited capacity. It wasn't a total dud but it did not reach Ataris' expectations and this is also why the 7800 was released in Europe late.

They did try to sell the XEGS in the US, getting journalists who knew nothing about games writing articles saying the XEGS at $150 was the "most powerful console on the market" or Ataris strongest product when anyone who paid any attention knew the 7800 ran circles over the XE and was significantly cheaper. It had some fanfare but then dropped of a cliff then quickly started disappearing. But the whole point of the XEGS was that It was designed to penetrate the European gaming market to compete with the popular 8-bit computers dominating there, with a cheap TV console that would cost half while allowing you to optionally upgrade the XEGS into an Atari 650XE if you wanted to.

As for Nintendo they didn't really come in and dominate. I know the wive tale goes that the NES released in 1985 and swept up in 24 hours but that's not what happened. Atari was still the number one manufacture of home video game consoles until late 1987. 1987 is when the media started giving prompts to Nintendo and that increased ten-fold by 1988 with people doing raindances and throwing flowers at them for leading the industry out of its rut.

Yeah, in retrospect, it became obvious that proprietary computer platforms were doomed unless you where a Mac, because the economies of scale in the PC clone market could not be beat. But yet proprietary consoles flourish to this day and are big business.

Consoles have different business models and thrive based on what's available on one and not on the other. The big issue with Commodore and Atari is that they could have put out their own unified standards but didn't and they kept fighting over a market that was shrinking. They ignored the new emerging business market that were buying up PC's, they did not try hard to get into the educational market which arguably is why Apple was largely spared, they were known for their video, audio, and media capabilities but they didn't dive into the markets related to media priduction, they ignored editing and film, they never took the music industry seriously outside a few nods, and basically didn't even consider the digital art and construction niches as something that ever existed.

They both kept making the same mistakes in pairs like someone with personality disorder but both personalities are basically the same except one was too lazy to do anything and the other was too overconfident to believe they needed to try.

But Jack embarked on his Atari journey at the worst possible time because the the conventional wisdom in 1984 was that 1. consoles were dead. 2. video games were a passing fad 3. proprietary computer platforms had a bright future. Atari Corp was structured around these assumptions and they weren't ready/able to pivot and go full steam ahead into games when they rebounded.



My theory is that had Warner not sold Atari and successfully restructured it/stopped the bleeding, they would have been much better able to seize new console opportunities of the post-crash world, they would have had the resources of Warner to help fund the new expansion (as opposed to the small family-run company that was Atari Corp without a lot of resources). I also think Warner Atari would have dropped the computer line(s) by the end of the 80s

I don't understand what you're saying, gaming production picked up when the ST turned Atari around, Atari spend millions on video game development, marketing, partnerships, and regaining good will to retailers to stock more of their products. Even sales picked up. That was used with money generated from the ST, they grew in tandem.

Warner they would have never dropped the computer lines, that was worth more than the console division after the crash. The price wars hurt originally but created enormous revenue that would have been beneficial as the prices returned to normal. Meanwhile gaming would stay at fire sale prices for another couple of years hardware and software.

Edited September 9, 2020 by ColecoKing

[empsolo]

7 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Not relevant. You are talking about games that pushed the system and even with help the 7800 could match or exceed several years of various NES/Famicom games without any help, and comparing that to outside modular chips doesn't really help your argument, and even than the chips wouldn't help Nintendo with core flaws like slowdown, flickers, sprite size limitations, how fast sprites can move around, how many can be on screen at once, and limited polygonal abilities.

 

All of which the 7800 could do better. You are comparing two different systems with two different goals where one also has several externals tools to help enhance the experience while the other can be comparable in multiple areas without any such help with the biggest major thing on the console close to that being a sound chip called Pokey.

 

What do you mean not relevant? Dude, this wasn't the early 1980's anymore. Single screen games weren't going to fucking cut it. BY 1986, the focus in Japan had been shifted to platformers and sprawling scrolling games because Super Mario Bros had caught the entire gaming industry in Japan off guard and every body was pushing to get their Mario-like game out into the market, from top companies like Capcom, Konami, and Namco to your run of the mill fly by night devs in Tose, Nippon Sunrise, and Mars Corp. This required serious investment by Nintendo to provide hardware for cartridges to accommodate these sprawling games or investment on the part of third parties to come up with thier chips through thier own R&D divisions (like Konami and Namco did). You bitch about the fact that Nintendo had such a stranglehold on the market and then in the next breath whine about the fact that the 7800 couldn't do these games anyway. According to 7800 homebrew devs on this very site who point out that, while the MARIA chip couldn't be assisted directly via the cartridge slot,a mapper would have been a godsend in preparing assets for when it came time for MARIA write the assets instead of having to generate them wholecloth. Several people on this site have been working on some sort of MAPPER Chip for the 7800 for some time now.

 

Yes Nintendo did do that, and did invest a lot in something an Atari machine that was designed to launch in 1984 with 82/83 parts in its foundation did better than for years until it eventually finally surpasses it in "some" areas with just the base machine. How dare Atari not put an insane amount of money into something they wouldn't need to on a machine with small cartridges were even if they did want to, couldn't do anyway.

]

 

1. As homebrew devs have noted MAPPER chips are definitely doable and there is even a MAPPER being worked on for Rikki and Viki. 2. Did Atari Corp really think that 1984 was the "End of history" when it came to video game development? Did they not become concerned that a sprawling game like Super Mario Bros had literally changed the industry over night as companies in both Japan and the US began to design and publish their own side scrolling action game? This sounds to me like either ignorance or incompetence as Atari should have been focused developing newer and more exciting games and not giving the consumer bullshit like Scrapyard Dog in 1990.

 

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I mean by the time some of the most notable modular games came out the 16-bit consoles had released and the then Panther was right around the corner and Nintendo started rapidly losing marketshare. 

I'm sorry....WHAT?

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Lol also newly minted Jrpg genre? Nintendo has computer ports initially, Dragon Warrior/Quest was a computer port. Te genre was already on computers which were more popular than consoles in japan for a time, it was NEC (ironically) and Nintendo that helped reduce that industries significance overtime and caused a shift toward consoles.

Dragon Quest was a Famicom exclusive as was Final fantasy. Both games were designed from the ground up for the system.  Yuji Horri even points out as much in interviews he gave on Dragon Quest 1's development It was later ported to the MSX in 1987, but it did not start there. The JRPG genre was birthed on the Famicom as games before then had been PC ports like Black Onyx and Wizardry.

 

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No they aren't, and GCC putting sound chips in cartridges like Pokey or the cancelled Gumby they are working on don't mean that they could suddenly be able to throw MMC style chips and run Mega Man 5's and SMB3's.

Again, homebrew developers on this site point out that mapper chips are doable and one is even being worked on for a cartridge version of Rikki and Viki.

 

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Not to mention the architecture behind the famicom and its roms helped with this such a connection is not in the architecture of the 7800. Mega Man 1's and Castlevania 1's weren't that big of an issue and had games that match or exceeded them technically in various areas. Different strengths for different systems. 

Except Castlevania 1 uses the UNROM mapper and Mega man 1 also uses an UNROM mapper as well.

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by empsolo

[ColecoKing]

Leeroy ST

BAtari Corp did both as proven by articles during the time as well as the production years on the games themselves across computers and consoles. Eventually becoming primarily a game machine after the business end failed.

ST was always a gaming machine in the US.

Can the 7800 run SMB 3? No, can the famicom run SMB 3? No, not without help. Can the 7800 run the then cleanest and fastest version of Ballblazer without help outside a pokey soundchip? Yes, can 7800 run f18 hornet without help? Yes, can the Famciom run (in comparison) anything close to F18 hornet no. Can games with tons of sprites of changing sizes with tons of projectiles on the screen run on the famicom? no.

While I can agree that the machines had different goals you have to realize that Nintendo controlled the mind share of home consoles so a game that could scroll with high sprite detail jumping to the right, or jumping and shooting to the right was the popular game style at the time. Sure, Sega had the same style and failed to make a mark like Atari but it helped create a familiar environment that helped the Mega Drive later. Atari's development goals would work more competing with computers than with home consoles.

Of course all that would be different if Atari didn't have the 2600 cannibalizing marketshare from a console that had backwards compatibility with the 2600. Because that decision made sense.

can't add MMC3 chips, mappers, and other crazy shit in a 7800 size cartridge, and you are comparing freaking SMB2 to impossible mission even though that's not even one of the better looking games on the console that SAME YEAR Impossible mission came out? (also a game rushed out with a glitch)

You may be limited by what you can put inside due to ROM size but saying you can't add chips to enhance graphics on a 7800 cart is completely false. That's not why such a strategy wouldn't work on the 7800, the actual reason why it would be futile is due to the single unified bus inside the 7800 which had to be shared for numerous operations, while the Nintendo system had an A and B bus where the rom cartridge had direct access to the GPU. It's not because the roms were too small to add in a chip I can only see that argument working with NEC Turbo cards.

[SharpSprite]

I realize how little I understand about the capabilities of MARIA, the main chip that powered the graphics of my very first game console.

 

The Atari 7800 ProSystem, which I got for my birthday in early 1988 along with a number of 7800 and 2600 games.

 

Off-hand, from what I can recall, MARIA and the Atari 7800 dates back to around 1983 or so, when the next console beyond the 5200 became a top priority within Atari.

[Torr]

basically.... what empsolo said.

 

Now can we please stop feeding the troll?

 

Or are so many of you guys in my camp that, this thread is just too much fun to read to to have it end?

 

EDIT: Hell, this one AND the sales figures thread... I thought I was posting in that one!!!

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by Torr

[Lost Dragon]

11 hours ago, zzip said:

I've never coded for it myself, but I always noticed a performance increase when it was being used.  And there was the flying birds blitter demo which showed a night-and-day perfomance difference when moving "sprites", unless that was fudged somehow?

The ST Console was literally going to be the existing, entry level ST hardware in a console case, hence the budget price tag, younger gamer market, there were as far as i am aware, no plans to enhance the specifications to include the Blitter.

 

Adding the Blitter increases the cost of manufacturing the hardware and when your just looking at converting existing ST software to it on cartridge, your not looking for coders to rewrite routines to take advantage of it. 

[Lost Dragon]

@ColecoKing

 

Bob Gleadow described the XEGS as being a machine that was needed here in the UK, more than the 7800,as any new console system needed to cater for UK software houses and that meant putting games out on cassette and disk. 

 

Cartridge manufacturering was a huge investment and could only be justified by the platform having a massive installed user base. 

 

I will use parts of an old post I made on the subject some years ago.. 

 

The 2600 at this time (Oct/Nov'87) was  retailing for £50 and  had  3 price groups for it's games (£6.99, £9.99 and £12.99 with likes of Pacman Jr and Solaris at the highest group, Stargate, Joust, Moon Patrol etc in mid-range and Defender, Space Invaders etc at lowest end).

 

These are the smessages that Atari UK  put out in April 1987:Ronald Whitehouse, manager of marketing and software: 'We need and are actively looking for, more cartridge based software for the 65XE.The response has been excellent'.

May 87 saw  saying that he was reciving assurances from UK software houses that there would be plenty of software for the A8 range, espically the 65XE games machine...

Which were completely false statements and contradicted by statements from likes of Ocean Software and US GOLD. 

 Pricing of the 65XE was'nt exactly genius either, given that little under a year before, you could buy a brand new 800 and disk drive for less than the cost of a 65XE disk drive and the classified adverts were usually full of people selling A8 computers with stacks of games as they were looking to upgrade to say the ST or pick up a Master system ,C64 or something that had new, exciting games coming out, (something the A8 range and 65XE lacked)..

 

Sam Tramiel singled out the 65XE as a flagship product in it's games machine range at an '87 Hanover show, saying it's introduction would drive the company's growth in 1987.

[Lost Dragon]

Regarding Atari and it's approach to treating the ST as a Games Machine in the early years.. 

 

At the start of 1986,Rob Harding, Atari UK Sales and Marketing Manager said Atari's determination was for the ST to have software covering all  areas of the market, from games and entertainment through to serious business and vertical applications. 

 

Out of around 140 titles then available for the ST, 51 were classed as entertainment, the balance remaining included 14 accounting packages, 10 word processors, 3 spreadsheets, 9 databases, 6 graphics packages, 18 programming languages and 11 utilities. 

 

And we shouldn't forget the Sinclair QL origins of some early ST titles, The Pawn, Brataccas, formly Bandersnatch etc. 

 

Silica marketed the 520ST  in a direct VS comparison with the Apple Mac and Apricot F1e systems. 

 

Under Max Bambridge, Atari UK were targetting the 1.2 million shopkeepers of the UK and hoping to persuade them the ST was the ideal business computer for them, due to it's affordable price. 

 

By the summer of 1987,Atari were placing 2 page magazine adverts, with the first page showcasing it as a Games system (Gauntlet, Tai Pan, Metrocross, Arkanoid, Star Raiders and Flight Sim II being shown) second page it's serious application software (1st word plus, superbase personal, Fleet Street Publisher and VIP GEM). 

 

Slogan : ATARI 520 ST Works Hard Plays Hard. 

 

They were presenting it as the computer to suit all needs. 

 

[zzip]

14 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

Nintendo wasn't starting to make waves in 1985, some outlets said that Nintendo failed in its attempt to sell the console and some said they were successful but it was a highly concentrated limited test launch during a time people were still buying Atari gaming hardware and software. In regards to the ST it launched in 1985 so Tramiel hadn't proven himself to anyone yet to open up his acess to resources, but would in a short-time.

Ok, whichever year the console recovery happened,  there would be a window of opportunity for Atari to maintain it's gaming dominance.  If it was after 1985, that would be even better for Atari, because at that point they had proved they could deliver the ST and people would buy it.   That would calm jittery investors/bankers who would not have touched the company in 84/ early 85.  

 

14 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

You're making the assumption that the ST was only made for one market.

No I'm not making that assumption.   I knew Jack had his sights on various business markets,  that was obvious from the product line.   Like the high-speed laser printer they made.   That was a little much for most home users.  But looking at how much R&D they were doing for business markets vs what they were doing for the console market -- which was basically zero..  they just took the old Warner designs and put them on the market without updates, save for a new case for the XEGS

 

It was obvious at the time that they were trying to clean up their image as a serious business company and shed the game image.   But then games became unexpectedly popular again, and they couldn't ignore the easy money there.  But my point is they never made a serious effort to counter Nintendo.   They were just milking a slowly dying cash cow, until they realized they had better get some new console designs out there.

 

I also realize that the experience with the gaming side was much different in the UK,  and maybe a certain user here who insists Atari did everything right when it comes to games is looking from a UK perspective.  But I'm talking about Atari corporate, and I believe Atari UK often had to battle with them to get their way.

14 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

Jaguar? The Jaguar didn't come out until the 90's.

Yes the Jaguar came out in the 90s, but it was a lost cause from the start because Atari had already squandered their gaming mindshare in the mid-80s.   You can't just put out new hardware and expect to win back all your old fans,  especially when some are still bitter about your past gaming moves.   Plus there was now a whole generation of gamers raised on NES and the name Atari meant nothing to them.   It would be a long, hard battle to win back those fans, and win new ones.   But in the end, like the 5200 before it, the Jag was dead within two years.

 

15 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

So I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here, the people involved with the decision to sell a redesigned 2600 below the 7800's price when the 7800 had backwards compatibility,m need to be hit with a baseball bat, repeatedly.

When the Atari 2600jr was announced, a lot of people were surprised.  Atari said it was aimed at the third world countries which missed out on it the first time around.   But yet it was still sold on the US market..    It's just another case of Jack dumping old inventories I think.

 

15 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

Consoles have different business models and thrive based on what's available on one and not on the other. The big issue with Commodore and Atari is that they could have put out their own unified standards but didn't and they kept fighting over a market that was shrinking. They ignored the new emerging business market that were buying up PC's, they did not try hard to get into the educational market which arguably is why Apple was largely spared, they were known for their video, audio, and media capabilities but they didn't dive into the markets related to media priduction, they ignored editing and film, they never took the music industry seriously outside a few nods, and basically didn't even consider the digital art and construction niches as something that ever existed.

I agree except I would argue that the music industry is one of Atari's few success stories.

 

15 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

Warner they would have never dropped the computer lines, that was worth more than the console division after the crash. The price wars hurt originally but created enormous revenue that would have been beneficial as the prices returned to normal. Meanwhile gaming would stay at fire sale prices for another couple of years hardware and software.

After the crash yes,  but in 87, 88?   No, the console line would have been more valuable.   Of course a lot depends on how things developed.   1) does Warner produce a 16-bit computer line?  They had prototypes, but would they come to market?    2) Does Warner successfully obtain Amiga chips?  if so, are they used for computing or gaming?  3) Does the 7800 launch in 84 as planned?  Do they continue producing new hot titles from their arcade division.  Do they produce hot original games.   

 

I think #3 at least was likely to happen, which would give them a stronger position against Nintendo than Atari Corp ever had.

[zzip]

14 hours ago, empsolo said:

1. As homebrew devs have noted MAPPER chips are definitely doable and there is even a MAPPER being worked on for Rikki and Viki. 2. Did Atari Corp really think that 1984 was the "End of history" when it came to video game development? Did they not become concerned that a sprawling game like Super Mario Bros had literally changed the industry over night as companies in both Japan and the US began to design and publish their own side scrolling action game? This sounds to me like either ignorance or incompetence as Atari should have been focused developing newer and more exciting games and not giving the consumer bullshit like Scrapyard Dog in 1990.

This is why I say the 7800 was a panic move by Atari, and a mistake.  Their reaction to CV was "OMG we need better sprites!" apparently, and they got a console with kick-ass sprites, terrible sound, and slightly better graphics than 5200 (almost every game using 160w pixels, just like 5200).  Probably should have rode the 5200 out for a few years, focusing on high-quality games, and designing a killer replacement to come out no sooner than 1986

[zzip]

6 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

Adding the Blitter increases the cost of manufacturing the hardware and when your just looking at converting existing ST software to it on cartridge, your not looking for coders to rewrite routines to take advantage of it.

Sure.   Of course the Tramiels were always going to do it on the cheap...    I think such a system would have to be released by 1988.   STfm's  were selling for $399 in 87 (no monitor),  build one without a mouse/ keyboard/ floppy / serial/parallel/ACSI ports,  maybe cost could be $250?  Maybe less?    Unless they intended STgs to be like XEgs and be a real computer, then it was never viable.

 

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Bob Gleadow described the XEGS as being a machine that was needed here in the UK, more than the 7800,as any new console system needed to cater for UK software houses and that meant putting games out on cassette and disk. 

then maybe it would have made sense to sell it in the UK instead of the 7800,  and sell the 7800 in the US, but not the XEGS.   But they sold both, eating into each other's market share

Edited September 10, 2020 by zzip