Atari's August 1984 list of game ROMs

[Savetz]

A pile of docs I got from former Atari employee Dan Kramer includes a list of Atari 5200/7800 games dated 1984-08-28. It gives the exact date of ROM releases, and lists several cancelled/unfinished/unreleased games. I don't know if there is any new information here, but trust that you'll find it if there is.

 

https://archive.org/details/atari-5200-7800-cartridge-library-1984-08-28

[Jaden (JRH)]

Pretty cool stuff. There's lots of 5200 games here that I didn't even know were planned to be made. Sadly nothing new for 7800, but it still makes me wonder what Track & Field would have looked like on the system.

[+Mitch]

The 7800 section looks similar to the June one. http://atari7800.org/museum/7800NTSCsoftwarelist.htm

 

Mitch

[+jeremiahjt]

Why were there third party games on the list? Was Atari at one time trying to get rights for these third party games?

 

If there is an actual date in the "Date/Order of ROM Release" column does that mean the game was actually finished? Millipede and Track and Field are the only two unreleased games that have actual dates in that column.

[Savetz]

7 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:

Why were there third party games on the list? Was Atari at one time trying to get rights for these third party games?

Those are a good questions. 

7 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:

If there is an actual date in the "Date/Order of ROM Release" column does that mean the game was actually finished? Millipede and Track and Field are the only two unreleased games that have actual dates in that column.

I assume that means that some version was put on ROM. 

 

Keep in mind this list is from a month after Tramiel took over and started killing projects, especially games. So they may have been finished but swept away.

 

-K

[+DrVenkman]

I suspect third-party games were on the list since third-parties had to have the BIOS validation “key” in order to produce properly signed 7800 binaries that would run on the system. So Atari knew ahead of time which games were planned and was distributing that info both to its own people as well as to distributors and dealer for their own planning purposes - programmers would want to know what unannounced games NOT on this list might be worth working on, which third-party titles dealers might want to hype or promote, etc.

[Tempest]

This list at least proves that Track and Field for the 7800 did exist at one point.  

[+jeremiahjt]

3 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

I suspect third-party games were on the list since third-parties had to have the BIOS validation “key” in order to produce properly signed 7800 binaries that would run on the system. So Atari knew ahead of time which games were planned and was distributing that info both to its own people as well as to distributors and dealer for their own planning purposes - programmers would want to know what unannounced games NOT on this list might be worth working on, which third-party titles dealers might want to hype or promote, etc.

There are no third party titles for the 7800 on the list, only 5200 titles. The problem with the third party titles on the 5200 list is that only a few are on there. River Raid is on there, but no other Activision titles.

 

Maybe the first title the third party started working on is on there because Atari had to give the third party the code or "key" only one time. Then why is there no Parker Brothers title, or Quest for Quintana Roo, or Meteorites?

[+DrVenkman]

1 minute ago, jeremiahjt said:

Maybe the first title the third party started working on is on there because Atari had to give the third party the code or "key" only one time.

The 5200 had no such BIOS verification key code required; the 7800 was the first system that required it.

That said, there is plenty of other precedent for Atari internally knowing about third party software releases for its platforms. It's widely known that most of the Lucasfilm titles for the A8 were leaked from inside Atari itself by employees, and there are carts floating around among collectors with EEPROMs containing third-party games, complete with Atari stickers that say something like "Evaluation Copy". Seems pretty clear most publishers in the industry were copying each others' games, if only to study and figure out the programming tricks and tips and try to give themselves a leg up on the next round of games.