Jump to content
IGNORED

Why Atari 5200 was considerate a fail?


Recommended Posts

Failure is a matter of opinion.  If colecovision made coleco lots of money they might not consider it a failure.  If telegames sold colecovision compatible systems in 1986/87, does that make it a success.

 

Atari didn't want to be number two in the market so they might have considered the 5200 a failure.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Failure is a matter of opinion.  If colecovision made coleco lots of money they might not consider it a failure.  If telegames sold colecovision compatible systems in 1986/87, does that make it a success.

 

Atari didn't want to be number two in the market so they might have considered the 5200 a failure.

Yes. I read a Nolan Bushnell interview about your first game, Computer Space. He said, for him, Computer Space had a sucess, but, for Nutting was a fail. Everithing is a question about expectations. So, Atari 5200, can be a case like this.He sad

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, BladeJunker said:

It was expensive bitd from what I hear, like a lot more than the 2600 that it couldn't take off. I think the graphics are a large step up but back then it probably didn't seem like enough to justify a new expensive console.

The graphics were a huge deal back then.   We kids knew we couldn't expect much from the VCS and were usually underwhelmed by the graphics.   When the 5200 and Coleco came out-  finally we could have arcade-like graphics at home!!   We were definately excited by it,  at least those of us still interested in gaming.   A lot of our friends were starting to get bored by gaming and started watching MTV after school instead-  I think this is a factor in the crash that gets ignored.   Videogames became a pop culture fad after "Pacman fever" hit, and all fads wind down.

 

Another thing Atari did that probably hurt the 5200 was release the 600XL the next year.   This could play almost all the games the 5200 could, and some it couldn't, like Donkey Kong.   It was cheaper than the 5200,  much more compact than the 5200, used the classic joysticks and was a computer to boot!   It was much easier to convince parents to buy us 600XLs than 5200s

 

15 hours ago, BladeJunker said:

Atari seemed to want to keep the 2600 going forever and it did but that doesn't bold well for advancing technology or new models. They made the next generation but probably released it a year or two late with the '83 crash pending.

When Atari released the 2600, they knew it would be obsolete in a few years and immediately started working on the replacement.   This became the 400/800 first.   It was pricey.    1981/1982 were probably the peak of the 2600 popularity, so it made sense to keep it going at that time.   When they released the 5200 in 1982, it was still expensive.  It would have been even more expensive if released earlier.   I think it was timed about right for the technology in it,  but nobody expected the crash, they thought the videogame craze of 81/82 would keep going.

 

16 hours ago, BladeJunker said:

The present loves to use their "FAIL" stamp on anything remotely imperfect. The game industry failed as a whole and none of the game companies could escape that collapse.

I think Atari could have salvaged it.  Maybe release new controllers, and a slim model as well as price cuts.   If they could sell 600XLs for $139 in 83,  they should have been able to sell a lower cost version of the 5200.   I call it a failure because Atari dumped it before it was even two years old and they tried to replace it with another new console.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

Really, failure can be a strong term, but the Atari 5200 suffered front your competitors, it's clear.
Other thing. Atari 5200 were, basically, a Atari 400/800 computer, right?  So, why someone buy a Atari 5200 if they had a Atari 400/800 with the same games? The Atari marketing didn't see the obvious and this fact caused low sales. They not positioned console correctly in the market.

At the time, consoles and computers were different markets, and the 400/800 were pricey and out of the budget for many families, so they weren't really competing against each other in 82.    But then 83 is when the Commodore price war happened, and that drove down the prices of home computers, and suddenly you could buy a home computer for the same price of a console.   Atari released the 600XL/800XL that year and made the 5200 seem pointless.

 

Also Atari was trying to somewhat obscure that the 5200 was the same as 400/800.   They reprogrammed some of the 400/800 games to look and play different on the 5200.   The 400/800 were not always sold in the same stores that sold the 5200, so it wasn't easy to do a side-by-side comparison.   I remember suspecting that they might be the same based on how similar screen shots in magazines looked, but not really knowing for sure at the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Atari, Coleco and Mattel all failed. Coleco put it parent company out of business.  Atari and Mattel had a failure of vision.

 

Neither of them understood a demand existed and was strong.  It was simply oversaturation ( of legacy tech and junk ) and waisted time and $$ on stop gaps.

 

The 5200 was a stop gap system.  If they simply stripped the "computer" parts from the 400/800 and sold it as the 800GC Game Console.  It plays the games at a lower cost!

as the stop gap... maybe??

 

They should have skipped that completely and agreed to work with Nintendo.  The NES would have been an Atari system!  Did that do okay in the 80's?

Mattel missed the boat too.  The Intellivision III never was system and the IV, they had a deal lined up to release the Sony PS1 ( earlier version ) but still.  I think... that did okay. :)

 

We think kids today need instant gratification...  So does every CEO, board member and share holder.  Sometimes, someone needs to stand up, tell them, look, this is the real deal.  We can make loads of cash if we do this right.

And after they clean out the office and go to collect...  Maybe someone else listens and you hit a home run.  Or they go the way of Atari, Mattel Electronics and Coleco.

 

Hmm.  Steve Jobs anyone.   If you think my above comment is a pipe.  Just after his clearing out... They survived just long enough for him to come back and help Apple a little... How are they doing?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I didn't know about the Atari 600. Even if not sold in the same stores  in 1983/84 the parents saw. The crash proves this. The Commodore war prices threw lights on computers. Atari produced the same games in carts with different pins, an hour someone would realize.
And the puzzle about Atari 5200 history starts to make sense.

It is not a bad system, but yes, a system in wrong time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, 1980gamer said:

The 5200 was a stop gap system.  If they simply stripped the "computer" parts from the 400/800 and sold it as the 800GC Game Console.  It plays the games at a lower cost!

The problem with this idea was licensing.   Games were licensed differently for consoles and computers.    Coleco got the license for Donkey Kong for consoles, Atari got it for computers.    If the 800GC could play the computer version of Donkey Kong, it would mean trouble.

 

Remember this very thing happened with Adam.   When Atari execs saw Donkey Kong running on the Adam, they got angry and let Nintendo "have it".  Supposedly Atari walked away from the NES deal over this issue.

 

12 minutes ago, 1980gamer said:

They should have skipped that completely and agreed to work with Nintendo.  The NES would have been an Atari system!  Did that do okay in the 80's?

NES was inspired by Colecovision, so at the time they were preparing the 5200, the NES deal wasn't on the table yet.   The 5200 tech was always designed to replace the 2600.  Atari was thinking ahead for once when they designed it.   Their mistake maybe was underestimating how long the 2600's shelf life would be.   They thought 3 years tops, so they needed something by 1980.   But 2600 was just getting started after 3 years.   So by the time the 5200 showed up, the tech was already slightly dated

 

4 minutes ago, Ricardo Cividanes da Silva said:

I didn't know about the Atari 600. Even if not sold in the same stores  in 1983/84 the parents saw. The crash proves this. The Commodore war prices threw lights on computers. Atari produced the same games in carts with different pins, an hour someone would realize.
And the puzzle about Atari 5200 history starts to make sense.

It is not a bad system, but yes, a system in wrong time.

1983 was when you really started seeing computers showing up in the average retail store, like K-mart and similar chains.  Before that they were only in specialty stores and the more upscale department stores.

 

So I think the 5200 made sense in 1982 since it was a hot year for videogames, everyone wanted the hottest arcade games and better graphics,  so both 5200 & CV seemed like the right products for the time.  But then in 1983 the economics changed with the appearance of cheap computers, and the crash in general

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, youxia said:

If PS2 was being outsold by PSX (and competitors) years after its launch, and discontinued after 2, then it would be considered a failure, and rightly so. The same applies to any other successor console, or piece of kit in general.  The "market" doesn't just elect chosen ones for set periods of time. You could argue if 5200 was a failure as a console, or was it Atari's general failure (for me probably the mix of the two) but it'd be a bit of a semantic exercise. Speaking of which, it was a successor, not a competitor, hence why your NES/PSX examples do not apply here.


PS2 outsold PS3 for years after its release, and so did its other competitors, and PS3 is one of the top 5 best selling consoles of all time.  There are lots of reasons they were able to ride that out for more than 2 years, but a big one that's worth noticing is that, even as the weakest competitor in terms of sales at that time, it still sold more than twice all the pre-NES consoles combined.  If "market", that is, the total number of people willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a fancy toy, was still the size it was in the 70s or 80s when PS3 came out, it Sony would have pulled the plug on it, too.

Successor?  This isn't the Qing Dynasty; they're video games.  When you have two machines on the same store shelves chasing the same dollars, they're competing.  It may be commonplace for gamers to buy every single machine on the market now, but it certainly wasn't in 1985 (and boy do I hope nobody points out that they, personally, bought every console in 1985; that would totally negate my argument).  Like I said, cultural reasons; in 1985, you just didn't have millions of 30-50 year-old men who grew up playing video games, and who were willing to spend huge amounts of time and money on them.  In 2006 you did.  The only benchmark for success that existed in 1982 was the 2600, and against that, every console failed.  They didn't even come close.  The only benchmark in 1988 was the NES, and against that, every console failed.  They didn't even come close.  By 1994, the market had grown enough that there were two benchmarks, and against those, every console, you guessed it, failed and didn't even come close.

Why did the Vectrex fail?  Because it was expensive and didn't have a lot of games, and was too ahead of it's time?  No, it failed because it was 1982 and however much you, guy reading this right now and all your nerd friends in the 1980s, care(d) about graphics and new games, the average person did not, at least not enough.  They either already had a 2600 or could get one relatively cheaply, and that was good enough for them.  Why did the Phillips CD-i fail?  Because it had a bad controller and was too expensive, and people thought FMV games were lame even though Dragon's Lair was a massive hit just a few years earlier?  No, it was because it was 1990, and the average person already had their Nintendo or Sega, and that was good enough for them.  The number of dollars that the buying public were willing to allocate to video games just wasn't enough to support all these different machines.

It's not that way now, but it was that way then.  If you want to discuss the failure of, say, the Wii U, then game selection and controllers and all that are viable explanations.  If you want to analyze the failure of any 1980s console, the only relevant question is "Was this console the Atari 2600"?  If not, then that's why it failed; there was already a dominant player on the scene and everyone else massively overestimated the growth of the market, which any one of these machines would have had to rely on to be successful.  This was the case right up until the PS2 era. In 2019, when people were still allowed to go outside, they bought about 46 million game consoles.  If there were 46 million new console buyers in 1984, the 5200 would not have been cancelled no matter how shitty the joysticks were, and no matter how graphically inferior Super Breakout was to Donkey Kong.  In 1985, they could have put an Ed Laddin joystick and an arcade perfect port of Galaga in the box, and it still would have "failed".  Boring explanation, I know, but that's how it is.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I understand how some people MIGHT want to suggest the 5200 was not a failure.  It made money and many consoles were sold (in North America anyway).  But COME ON - it was the follow up to a huge entertainment disruptor (the VCS/2600) that had almost completely controlled the market it created.  The 2600 was a marvelous accident for Atari and all they had to do was follow it up with something its fans wanted.  They failed.  The only other console that I think could exceed the level of failure achieved by the 5200 would be the Saturn.  And yes, I admit that the Saturn was a success in certain context, but it lost Sega the market control it had in North America and Europe.

 

The reasons why the 5200 failed have been covered here.  One anecdote I have read before that I didn't see is that there were incentives at Atari to engineers/designers who could register patents.  The more patents, the bigger the incentives.  I don't know if that is true, but I've read before that it is responsible for some of the things that make the 5200 different from the 8-bit computer line and an excuse for the controller that nobody asked for.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, zzip said:

The graphics were a huge deal back then.   We kids knew we couldn't expect much from the VCS and were usually underwhelmed by the graphics.   When the 5200 and Coleco came out-  finally we could have arcade-like graphics at home!!   We were definately excited by it,  at least those of us still interested in gaming.   A lot of our friends were starting to get bored by gaming and started watching MTV after school instead-  I think this is a factor in the crash that gets ignored.   Videogames became a pop culture fad after "Pacman fever" hit, and all fads wind down.

 

Another thing Atari did that probably hurt the 5200 was release the 600XL the next year.   This could play almost all the games the 5200 could, and some it couldn't, like Donkey Kong.   It was cheaper than the 5200,  much more compact than the 5200, used the classic joysticks and was a computer to boot!   It was much easier to convince parents to buy us 600XLs than 5200s

I wondered because I thought that would be a bigger factor but then it wasn't. I could see how MTV might distract back then, when they played music and it wasn't saturated with reality shows. Well I think a lot of contemporaries at the time would have liked it to be a fad but it was here to stay as a form of entertainment media. ;)

 

Yeah there it is, the home computer, the factor that could endure the '83 dip and the "homework" factor lol.

 I think the 5200 success could have rested on the controller if it had been better, more arcade oriented, something the classic wasn't equipped to do, but nope as it was a breaking analog stick with a keypad.

 

4 hours ago, zzip said:

When Atari released the 2600, they knew it would be obsolete in a few years and immediately started working on the replacement.   This became the 400/800 first.   It was pricey.    1981/1982 were probably the peak of the 2600 popularity, so it made sense to keep it going at that time.   When they released the 5200 in 1982, it was still expensive.  It would have been even more expensive if released earlier.   I think it was timed about right for the technology in it,  but nobody expected the crash, they thought the videogame craze of 81/82 would keep going.

But the reality seemed to contradict that, the public wouldn't or couldn't let go of the 2600 for perhaps financial reasons, hence the backwards compatibility backlash. Like even now compare the homebrew scene, it's 2600, 7800, 5200 and even the past sales have this same priority order.

Not saying they should have dropped the 2600 like a stone but it could have been reinvigorated with a new CX40 with added fire buttons to keep up with arcade port demands, cheap upgrade. Since that was going to be the established user base they should have made the most of it despite the crash.

Truth is I couldn't think of way around the timing problems of release, custom chip making grew a lot after 1977. ;) 

 

4 hours ago, zzip said:

I think Atari could have salvaged it.  Maybe release new controllers, and a slim model as well as price cuts.   If they could sell 600XLs for $139 in 83,  they should have been able to sell a lower cost version of the 5200.   I call it a failure because Atari dumped it before it was even two years old and they tried to replace it with another new console.

It's tricky, can't say Atari lacked for 2600 models, but yeah a slim 5200 would have been nice heh. Much later but look at the AmigaCD32, another rebadged hardware that failed to gain a market away from Commodore's computers. That is true about cost of 600XL versus 5200, it's possible the marketing department might have raised prices, they do dumb things like that. ;) Can't disagree that a couple years isn't much support, strange but before most crashes people get drunk with money even though they are actually bleeding, not cheap to make custom game consoles.

 

Atari seemed to have a death grip on their controller designs, in the future they changed the controller to roll with the punches Egs. NES turbo controllers, Sega 6-button controller, the DualShock. Like I wasn't surprised to hear the Jaguar controller comes from another product line since it doesn't match the market they were trying to enter at that time with the Jaguar. ?

Edited by BladeJunker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, zzip said:
 

The problem with this idea was licensing.   Games were licensed differently for consoles and computers.    Coleco got the license for Donkey Kong for consoles, Atari got it for computers.    If the 800GC could play the computer version of Donkey Kong, it would mean trouble.

 

Remember this very thing happened with Adam.   When Atari execs saw Donkey Kong running on the Adam, they got angry and let Nintendo "have it".  Supposedly Atari walked away from the NES deal over this issue.

 

NES was inspired by Colecovision, so at the time they were preparing the 5200, the NES deal wasn't on the table yet.   The 5200 tech was always designed to replace the 2600.  Atari was thinking ahead for once when they designed it.   Their mistake maybe was underestimating how long the 2600's shelf life would be.   They thought 3 years tops, so they needed something by 1980.   But 2600 was just getting started after 3 years.   So by the time the 5200 showed up, the tech was already slightly dated

 

1983 was when you really started seeing computers showing up in the average retail store, like K-mart and similar chains.  Before that they were only in specialty stores and the more upscale department stores.

 

So I think the 5200 made sense in 1982 since it was a hot year for videogames, everyone wanted the hottest arcade games and better graphics,  so both 5200 & CV seemed like the right products for the time.  But then in 1983 the economics changed with the appearance of cheap computers, and the crash in general

"Remember this very thing happened with Adam.   When Atari execs saw Donkey Kong running on the Adam, they got angry and let Nintendo "have it".  Supposedly Atari walked away from the NES deal over this issue."

 

This is easy to get around.  The console has a UART, leave a keyboard connector.  Sell a keyboard as an accessory.  It is a starter computer. Wink Wink.

Plus, the ADAM was an add on component to the Console.  Even the 2600 had those.  Guess that was a violation also?  (tongue in check) 

 

"NES was inspired by Colecovision, so at the time they were preparing the 5200, the NES deal wasn't on the table yet."

 

I don't know about that?  Famicom, (the nes) was released in 83. The CV was August of 82.  These had to be in development concurrently.  The feet dragging at Atari slowed the NES release to 85  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Nintendo_Entertainment_System

 

"So I think the 5200 made sense in 1982 since it was a hot year for videogames, everyone wanted the hottest arcade games and better graphics,  so both 5200 & CV seemed like the right products for the time.  But then in 1983 the economics changed with the appearance of cheap computers, and the crash in general"

 

Well certainly Atari agreed with you.  I think the 5200 was very much like the Intellivision III, to little to late.

I don't know the 5200 history, but it really looks like a quick response to the CV.  It came out in Nov. of 82.  3 months after the CV.  It looks like that much thought was put in to it.

 

I don't think cheap computers caused the crash in 83/84. It was a ton of shit games!   And SHIT big name games.  Donkey Kong on the 2600 or Intellivision... Hard to be worse.  E.T. 

Starting with Pac Man ( however, I actually liked it!  LOL )  But General Mills started making games!  If the 3rd parties stayed limited to Activision and Imagic, I think things could have been okay.

Even though I liked games from CBS, Parker Brothers etc.  Toooo much to fast and LOTS of very bad games.

 

To back up my theory... The NES.  Computers didn't seem to hurt that to bad.  Plus, we have more computers than ever and console sales continue to grow.

And to contradict myself... I had a NES and never used it...  It was all C=64 in the time frame.  I am back to the Intellivision and TI these days.

 

Bottom line...  The Big Three all bit the dust.  So, they each had successes, they all ultimately failed.  Atari and Intellivision were both sold.  So, the names exist, they are not who they were.

 

My neighbor had the 5200.  I didn't like it back then... He didn't like my Intellivision.  It's all good.  We were friends through high school and I still see him from time to time. 

I was less turf war and more just wanting all the cool stuff!  I really didn't like the controller on the 5200.  Exactly what he said to me about my Intellivision!

 

Later in life, I came to own a 5200.  I like several games.  More than the CV.  I had a CV  in 82!

 

In my personal judgement.  ALL ABOVE is just my opinion and means nothing in the grand scheme, If you look at the 5200 at it roots, it was very successful. 

 

Maybe it was the crossover from console to computer / computer to console that did them all in!  LOL

The 5200 was a computer

The Adam was a console

Intellivision always promised to be a computer...  We just got Lucki    LOL  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Computer_System

 

No matter how you slice it, The 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision all occupied many hours of my youth.  As well as the TI99/4A and C=64  So to me... ALL were successful!

 

Just an add on....  My best friend was a single button VCS fan!  LOL  I remember when he showed my Home Run.  Near pissed myself!  LOL  He eventually got an Intellivision and we had some great battles!

 

I like to spur conversation.  Just trying to give a different look at what happened.  At least from my younger days.  I did love the 99 cent games at KB toy... until I couldn't get any more! :(

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, wongojack said:

I understand how some people MIGHT want to suggest the 5200 was not a failure.  It made money and many consoles were sold (in North America anyway).  But COME ON - it was the follow up to a huge entertainment disruptor (the VCS/2600) that had almost completely controlled the market it created.  The 2600 was a marvelous accident for Atari and all they had to do was follow it up with something its fans wanted.  They failed.  The only other console that I think could exceed the level of failure achieved by the 5200 would be the Saturn.  And yes, I admit that the Saturn was a success in certain context, but it lost Sega the market control it had in North America and Europe.

 

Not saying this was directed at me, but just for clarification, I'm not saying the 5200 wasn't a failure.  I'm saying it wasn't a failure for any reason that was unique to the 5200.  Yes, people complained about the controllers at the time, but they also complained about the Intellivision controllers, and the Colecovision controllers, Odyssey 2 controllers, and yes, even the CX40s.  Nintendo's sold a squintillion Switch units, and every day, Google recommends me an article about the issues with the controllers.  People kvetch about controllers. Always have, always will.  Consoles don't stand or fall on their controllers.  The game lineup was nothing Earth-shattering, but plenty of consoles have launched with dismal selections.  Dreamcast had a blockbuster launch lineup, and it fell flat on its face.

 

3 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

I don't think cheap computers caused the crash in 83/84. It was a ton of shit games!   And SHIT big name games.  Donkey Kong on the 2600 or Intellivision... Hard to be worse.  E.T. 

Starting with Pac Man ( however, I actually liked it!  LOL )  But General Mills started making games!  If the 3rd parties stayed limited to Activision and Imagic, I think things could have been okay.

Even though I liked games from CBS, Parker Brothers etc.  Toooo much to fast and LOTS of very bad games.

 

I hear this one all the time.  The 2600 in particular had all these fly-by-night third party companies producing lousy games for it, funded by VC and programmed by inexperienced hacks, and consumers just shoved off because of that.  I even felt like that was true myself for years.  Then I got back into the 2600 8-9 years ago, and...

 

Who?  Who were these fly-by-night companies?  Yeah, there were some stinkers; even Activison and Imagic had 'em.  But 20th Century Fox's games were mostly good, and Parker Bros., Data Age, Apollo, Spectravideo, Starpath, M-Network.  The list goes on.  Looking back, the balance was heavily in favor of good games.  Granted, there's a big difference between paying $5 for Space Cavern in 2021 and paying full price for it in 198whatever, but is this ratio better now?  There's a hell of a lot more coming a hell of a lot faster now, and a lot of it's pretty shitty.  Why does the period of the mid-80s always get singled out for this kind of issue when there are far more outright scams and grifts being sold than ever?

 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the grand scheme of things, the 5200 from 82-84 was the best thing on earth for me as a kid.  I had so much fun.  My controllers actually lasted.  In that time, I used foil in 1984 to keep it working great.  I was already operating the controllers back when I was a kid.  There was no failure to me.  

 

When we got the 8bit in 1985, I stopped playing the 5200 and got into computer gaming.  

 

Fast forward 2021, the 5200 gets way more play time than the 8bit in my spare time.  It's faster to load, the controllers work great with gold dot mods and updated flex, and there's always new conversions coming out, and there are new games that are released.  I still love my 8bit and I've played it longer, but the 5200 is my favorite Atari. 

 

It's funny, I knew 3 people with 5200's as a kid.  We traded cartridges.  We also played sports against each other.  My Coleco friends would come over just to play Centipede and Pac Man.  I would go over their houses to play Cosmic Avenger and Donkey Kong. 

 

We can debate what's failure but the 5200 was fun as a kid for me and I'm still playing it today. People can always say the controllers were to blame for sales, but if you were a kid like me and bought and read every gaming 80s mag, you'll find most critics hardly talked about how bad the controllers. The bad rap about controllers came out after the fact. Every game I've competed with on Atari age was using the original sticks.   

 

Edited by phuzaxeman
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, BladeJunker said:

But the reality seemed to contradict that, the public wouldn't or couldn't let go of the 2600 for perhaps financial reasons, hence the backwards compatibility backlash. Like even now compare the homebrew scene, it's 2600, 7800, 5200 and even the past sales have this same priority order.

I'm not sure how big the backwards compatibility backlash was.  My peer group didn't care about it.   All consoles were mutually incompatible, I can't think of any that had been backwards compatible, so we didn't expect it would be.   Maybe our parents cared?   It was the tail end of a major recession,  money was tight and they didn't want to start over.   I think what really started it was when Coleco made a 2600 game adaptor for Colecovision, and that freaked Atari out, and they needed to make one too..   I think it also heavily influenced their decision to go with the 7800 and axe the 5200 so quickly

 

18 hours ago, BladeJunker said:

Not saying they should have dropped the 2600 like a stone but it could have been reinvigorated with a new CX40 with added fire buttons to keep up with arcade port demands, cheap upgrade. Since that was going to be the established user base they should have made the most of it despite the crash.

Yeah, I don't think they knew what to do at that point.   For one the 2600 was incredibly popular right before the crash, and it doesn't make sense to kill the golden goose,  but on the other hand the 2600 tech was ancient at that point, it was increasingly struggling to bring good arcade ports and was getting beat up on graphics by Intellivision and soon Colecovision, so Atari felt the pressure to be competitive with them before they stole Atari's marketshare.   Then when Tramiel took over Atari,  they didn't believe in innovating much for the old product lines,  just in selling huge volumes of them at low prices as long as people would buy them.   They kept the 2600 alive for years after it should have been done because it was still selling well in the 3rd world.

 

18 hours ago, BladeJunker said:

I wondered because I thought that would be a bigger factor but then it wasn't. I could see how MTV might distract back then, when they played music and it wasn't saturated with reality shows. Well I think a lot of contemporaries at the time would have liked it to be a fad but it was here to stay as a form of entertainment media

It was both a fad and here to stay if that makes any sense?  Things went crazy after Pacman, it was a cultural phenomenon like Beatlemania or Dalekmania in the UK.   There were Pacman songs on the radio, Pacman cereals, cartoon shows, etc.  First time we had ever seen that for a game.  Arcades were popping up like mushrooms,  arcade games were showing up in any retail space that had a power outlet.  In school, games were all we talked about.

 

Then suddenly that all stopped.   In school, kids were always talking about MTV/music instead..  Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Def Leppard, Journey, etc.   Arcades started closing.   A lot of us who were still into game were buying computers.   Gaming became a "nerdy" pastime, and back then being nerdy wasn't cool like it is now.

 

Then after a few years of that, everyone started buying NES's.  That confused me..  "wait? games are suddenly cool again?"   The market has been much more stable ever since.    It was similar to what happened with dotcom's in the late 90s.   Dotcom's were the greatest thing going on.  Then they crashed and nobody wanted anything to do with them.   But internet companies made a comeback ever since and have been here to stay.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

"Remember this very thing happened with Adam.   When Atari execs saw Donkey Kong running on the Adam, they got angry and let Nintendo "have it".  Supposedly Atari walked away from the NES deal over this issue."

 

This is easy to get around.  The console has a UART, leave a keyboard connector.  Sell a keyboard as an accessory.  It is a starter computer. Wink Wink.

Plus, the ADAM was an add on component to the Console.  Even the 2600 had those.  Guess that was a violation also?  (tongue in check)

Adam was both an add-on  and also sold as a standalone computer..  But  yeah this shows exactly what was wrong with that licensing model.  Every console at the time was showing keyboard peripherals to turn them into computers.   Adam took this concept further than anyone, at least until the XEGS.   It could be that Atari just wanted an excuse to walkaway from the NES deal, and they used this.

 

15 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

I don't know about that?  Famicom, (the nes) was released in 83. The CV was August of 82.  These had to be in development concurrently.  The feet dragging at Atari slowed the NES release to 85  

I remember one of the NES designers saying he took inspiration from Colecovision, I'll have to see if I can find it.   Since Donkey Kong was a huge deal for CV, it's likely that people from Nintendo got to see CV prototypes in action long before release.

 

15 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

I don't think cheap computers caused the crash in 83/84. It was a ton of shit games!   And SHIT big name games.  Donkey Kong on the 2600 or Intellivision... Hard to be worse.  E.T. 

Starting with Pac Man ( however, I actually liked it!  LOL )  But General Mills started making games!  If the 3rd parties stayed limited to Activision and Imagic, I think things could have been okay.

Even though I liked games from CBS, Parker Brothers etc.  Toooo much to fast and LOTS of very bad games.

This is the common interpretation of the crash,  but I don't agree with it because it doesn't add up.   ET wasn't a game so bad that people gave playing videogames over.   The sales data shows that people didn't buy it in the first place!   At least not in the numbers that Atari hoped to sell.  So most people didn't know if it was bad or not.  Given how popular that movie was, it should have sold a lot more.   This was a symptom of waning interest in games, not the cause.    Now Pacman did sell a ton, and it's possible that that version was so disappointing that people lost enthusiasm, and ET and other games sales suffered from that.

 

"ET was so bad that it destroyed the industry and had to be buried in a landfill" makes a great urban legend for clickbait media to spread, but it doesn't ring true.   There have been plenty of terrible movie tie-in games released since,  some even worse (Superman 64?).   But they don't do this kind of damage.

 

Yes there was a flood of games in 1982, but 90% of those games were on the 2600

 

So ET, Pacman, game flood were all 2600 phenomenon.   Why would people stop buying Intellivision games or Colecovision games or stop going to arcades because ET or Donkey Kong on the 2600 sucked?   If anything it should have put wind in their sails as people were seeking something better than the crap Atari was delivering.  Coleco had the good version of DK.   But what ended up happening is everyone abandoned the console business except Atari.   The 2600 continued to sell well for many years.   This is the exact opposite of what should have happened if the problem was the quality and quantity of 2600 games.

 

As I alluded to in my other post,  I think MTV did more to damage video games than any of this stuff.  It exploded in popularity right as the crash was happening.  They were targeting the same demographic.   It pulled a lot of the casuals out of gaming.  The afternoons spent glued to MTV were afternoons not spent at the arcade or playing your console because they were likely using the same TV.   Those still interested started buying computers,  so that was a double whammy that hit console games.

 

16 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

To back up my theory... The NES.  Computers didn't seem to hurt that to bad.  Plus, we have more computers than ever and console sales continue to grow.

In the 8-bit era, the computers could be had for less than $200, same price as console.   If the C64 was a console, it would have won that generation.

 

But the 16-bit era was a lot more expensive, you would have to invest hundreds or more than a thousand dollars for an Amiga or ST, and even more for PC.  Compared to NES at what, $99?   It's no surprise consoles became popular again.   I think Jack was hoping to repeat the success of the C64 with the ST, but NES made that impossible.

 

12 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Who?  Who were these fly-by-night companies?  Yeah, there were some stinkers; even Activison and Imagic had 'em

Oh definitely!   I'd argue that Activision had a ton of stinkers.  They dazzled us with graphics, but gameplay?   Freeway?  cut-rate frogger.  Sky Jinks?  Just a simple slalom game, and I could go on.    I much prefer games from CBS and Parker Brothers.

 

13 hours ago, MrTrust said:

There's a hell of a lot more coming a hell of a lot faster now, and a lot of it's pretty shitty.  Why does the period of the mid-80s always get singled out for this kind of issue when there are far more outright scams and grifts being sold than ever?

Yeah, not just games but music, books, dvd's all have their bargain bins.   The existence of bargain bins doesn't destroy the sales of other titles the way they claimed it did during the crash.   I think what happened is retailers got caught up in the craze and assumed that anything videogame/2600 relates was going to sell, and common sense went out the window.   So they bought way too much stock from companies nobody had ever heard of..   then the bottom fell out and they took a big hit.  

If full price game weren't selling then maybe that indicates a quality problem?   Like today you can find games on sale for $5 any week, yet people still get excited to play the $70 new releases,  they see that it's worth it.   If people were buying $5 and being satisfied back then,  maybe it meant the $30 games back then weren't much better?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, zzip said:

So ET, Pacman, game flood were all 2600 phenomenon.   Why would people stop buying Intellivision games or Colecovision games or stop going to arcades because ET or Donkey Kong on the 2600 sucked?   If anything it should have put wind in their sails as people were seeking something better than the crap Atari was delivering.  Coleco had the good version of DK.   But what ended up happening is everyone abandoned the console business except Atari.   The 2600 continued to sell well for many years.   This is the exact opposite of what should have happened if the problem was the quality and quantity of 2600 games.

 

 

I think I didn't make my point.   Like I said, I actually got hours of fun from Pac Man Back then.  ET did suck!  But that didn't cause people to stop buying games.  It made them selective.

The problem came from the GLUT of games.  And the big name bad ones.

 

People not buying a game hurts the entire industry because stores do not want dead inventory.  They had LOTS of dead inventory.

I also said game sales dollars didn't shrink, it grew.  But the money lost was greater!  Making more ET carts than existing consoles to play them... Not real smart!

Roms were very expensive at the time.  Building 10 Million carts and selling a million just doesn't work.  Not counting the returns!

 

That is just one game.  I really think Coleco was the biggest problem.  BIG name games and very bad versions on competing consoles.   I get making your own system look the best.  But fake an effort!

Oh, lets not forget Mattel changed the Intellivision II to block 3rd party games!  So, people would buy Donkey Kong and be spared the pain... No, I meant it would not work!  Then they have to return it!  What a Pain!

 

The GOLD controllers from BEST are pretty sweet!  I also have the wico y adapter etc.  But explain Frogger to me?  LOL

 

As far as controllers go, I think the first console you own defines you!  I have never had an issue with the Intellivision Controller.  But many do.  The 5200 was strange for me at first also. 

The Coleco was okay.  But, I used the 2600 controller for most games.

 

To me, whatever brings you joy in this life!  Go with it!  Unless you are a Jeffrey Epstein of course!

 

I think a lot of the later 2600 sales were linked to $49 for a replacement system.  I got one!  LOL

Midnight Magic helped too.  

 

Intellivision games were being made and sold until 1990.  Well, late 1989 at least. They even got back into Toys R Us. 

 

Cool to see different perspectives on this.  I do think games sales were always strong.  NES proves this. Like I said, Intellivision (INTV) continued to make consoles, Coleco had clones etc.  The 7800 sold okay against the NES.

 

Lots of dollars were available.  Just a lot of hands grabbing at them. 

 

Of course I had every M-Network game!  I am an Intellivision Fan!   I like the Intellivision versions better,  but Dark Caverns was great and we got a different Tron game too.

 

Many man very good games were being made, but many many more were bad.

Even if all of them were GREAT,  way to much supply for the possible demand.

 

NES saw the problem and controlled all releases.  Limiting the over-saturation and getting a little piece of all games released.  Brilliant!

 

Be well all

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, 1980gamer said:

I think I didn't make my point.   Like I said, I actually got hours of fun from Pac Man Back then.  ET did suck!  But that didn't cause people to stop buying games.  It made them selective.

The problem came from the GLUT of games.  And the big name bad ones.

 

People not buying a game hurts the entire industry because stores do not want dead inventory.  They had LOTS of dead inventory.

I also said game sales dollars didn't shrink, it grew.  But the money lost was greater!

Game sales dollars actually did shrink.   According to wikipedia,  home games sales were $3.2 billion in 1982, and dropped to only $100 million in 1985.  A lot of people really did stop buying games.

 

50 minutes ago, 1980gamer said:

Like I said, I actually got hours of fun from Pac Man Back then.  ET did suck!

I'd say the opposite,  Pac Man was heart-achingly bad.   ET wasn't a bad game at all if you read the manual.   People's enjoyment of Pac-man seems to depend on how enamored they were with the arcade version.  Lots of people here have said they never saw arcade pacman before getting the 2600 version and had no issues with the 2600 version.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Game sales dollars actually did shrink.   According to wikipedia,  home games sales were $3.2 billion in 1982, and dropped to only $100 million in 1985.  A lot of people really did stop buying games.

I wanted to buy new cartridges in 1983 but couldn't.  The new stuff was just not making it to the stores where I was.  In 1984 video game sales shifted to home computers but none of it counts as video game sales as the bean counters put them under computers and computer software.  Further, there was massive piracy; video game computer sales was a fraction of what it should have been.  Sure there was a drop after the pacman phenomenon fad but video game demand remained strong through the crash.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

I'd say the opposite,  Pac Man was heart-achingly bad.   ET wasn't a bad game at all if you read the manual.   People's enjoyment of Pac-man seems to depend on how enamored they were with the arcade version.  Lots of people here have said they never saw arcade pacman before getting the 2600 version and had no issues with the 2600 version.

Were there cartridges before 2600 pacman with as bad flicker as that.  Others made some attempt to manage flicker e.g. 2600 asteroids, but it was persistently bad in pacman.

Edited by mr_me
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me, 5200 and 2600 were competing against each other. The game libraries were very similar- colecovion and intellivision were a different experience.

Would you rather have better graphics and audio, or more games at a lower price with better controller options?

If I wanted the Atari experience, 2600 was good enough. If I wanted something fancier, I'd look to coleco, maybe inty.

Had 2600 been phased out in 1981, it would be different. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, mr_me said:

I wanted to buy new cartridges in 1983 but couldn't.  The new stuff was just not making it to the stores where I was.  In 1984 video game sales shifted to home computers but none of it counts as video game sales as the bean counters put them under computers and computer software.  Further, there was massive piracy; video game computer sales was a fraction of what it should have been.  Sure there was a drop after the pacman phenomenon fad but video game demand remained strong through the crash.

Yeah I would say that's true,  Sometime during the crash retailers wanted out of videogames and finding new games became harder.  Computer gaming was where all the action was 84-86.   Even then, most retailers didn't have a great selection of computer games.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Yeah I would say that's true,  Sometime during the crash retailers wanted out of videogames and finding new games became harder.  Computer gaming was where all the action was 84-86.   Even then, most retailers didn't have a great selection of computer games.  

 

The other great thing for retailers with "Computer" Software vs. a "Video Game" was a no return policy on any open items,  because the software "could" be copied.

 

Toys R Us had an okay selection.  Sears had a little bit.  But in my area it was Walden Books, Software Etc. and Media Play that had the most available.

 

I had a pretty good selection of Commodore games until 1990-91 when a friend of mine started a BBS and had 99% of everything available.  I had hundreds of floppies.

I still would buy the games that I liked.  Mostly Accolade stuff and EA.  Had to have the Bird Vs. Dr. J box... LOL  

Under the Get what you pay for category.... I was going to buy something?  Test Drive I think.  They didn't have it.  But I had $30 in my pocket and it NEEDED to be spent..

I got 3 $9.99 games from Mastertronix I think?  The Last V-8, Some Motor Cycle game? and maybe UXB 

I guess my glasses were fogged..  The Last V-8 was not that bad, just very hard to control.  The motor cycle game was bad!  UXB was kinda cool looking but pretty boring.

Bottom line.  Those three games got maybe 2 hours of play.  Test Drive got that the first day I got it!  I can still see my cracked windshield after crashing my porche!  LOL

Wow, that is way back... I don't have any Commodore stuff any more :(  gave it all away.  I had multiple drives with Jiffy Dos, Final Cart, Super Snapshot 4 etc.  EProm programmer, Blank Carts to put the eproms in.

 

Would love to have that stuff... and room for it!  Now.

 

Now the sad reality is... I remember more about those bad games today than many of the good ones!

 

Back to the 5200.   Let me give the controller some props!  It was a good controller for Breakout and Missile Command, games that would use a trackball or paddle.  Cannot do that with a joy stick.

If they really did cheap out on the centering spring... that is just to bad. :(

 

1 last winner for the 5200.   QIX.  Love this game!  I don't remember this game on other consoles.  Maybe it just missed it?  But I first played it on the 5200... Instantly hooked.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder how much of this was regional.  A lot of the remaining Atari fandom seems concentrated on the west coast, where I imagine the big glut, such that it existed, would have been worse out there than elsewhere.

 

I was just a baby then, so all I have to go on are vague memories and what I can see from pictures and old games that other people collected.  It looks like, outside of maybe Sears and Radio Shack, most of the games came from either mom & pop electronics stores, or regional (and sadly, no longer extant) department stores like Nichols and Woolworths.

 

I wonder if all that dead inventory never made its way across the country, and if they may not have sat on video game stuff as long.  One difference it seems is that, growing up, most stores had pretty generous return policies.  Didn't like the game?  They'd take it back no questions asked.  Even Electronics Boutique would swap out games for us well into the 90s without a hassle, but this does not appear to be a typical practice from what I hear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe it's a regional thing, but the 5200 never seemed to be promoted in my area.  I first read about it in Atari Age magazines.  All the major department stores had kiosks you could play, and that dates back to Pong systems.  For some reason, I can't recall ever seeing a 5200 on display.  Maybe because they knew the controllers would shit the bed after a week? lol

Sunday sales flyers always showcased the 2600, even when it was in the $120 range.  If the 5200 was featured, it was a little afterthought in the corner.

 

I have a 1982 Wards Christmas catalog and the entire rear cover is for the 2600...a best buy at 132.88.

Inside there is another page dedicated to 2600 games and accessories.  You'll also find the Odyssey 2, Intellivision and a page dedicated to the new ColecoVision.  No 5200 at all.

 

Going back to the store demo kiosks...I believe it was Sears where I first played the ColecoVision and was blown away by Donkey Kong.  It actually looked and played like the real deal.  Almost immediately, every kid in my school wanted a CV.  5200 wasn't on anyone's radar.

 

Coleco did things so much better.  Release the system in August with the hottest arcade game at the time and now it's on everyone's Christmas wish list.  It's also out in time to be featured in every major department store's Christmas catalog.

Atari waits until November and gives you a 1976 arcade game as the pack-in, which was already done twice on the 2600. :lol:  A few months earlier with Ms. Pac-Man or Zaxxon as the pack-in would have given Coleco some competition that Christmas.

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...