HAPPY 40th ANNIVERSARY/BIRTHDAY BIG SEXY!!! The Atari 5200 SuperSystem turns 40 years young this past month!!!

[phuzaxeman]

3 hours ago, Flyindrew said:

That was also an issue at the time as everyone had 5200 games already on the 2600. I have the 5200 Pac Man game as well and its as close to the arcade port you could find during that time period. Another mis step was not making that Pac Man game the pack in game similar to what Coleco did with Donkey Kong.

Pacman was the pack in game later in 83.

[Lynxpro]

On 11/20/2022 at 5:26 PM, BIGHMW said:

When I picked up 5200 Centipede, I had only previously seen the A8 version of it on ads for the 400/800 computers so I THOUGHT I knew what to expect, but when I first booted her up, this just days removed from getting her for my 17th Birthday, I was quite surprised and impressed!!! It was BY FAR BETTER than the A8 version!!! It was a wonder why Atari never decided themselves to officially port it over for A8 users to enjoy for themselves like they eventually did with both Qix and Dig-Dug instead of having Glenn do that now-famous code-breaking hack conversion.

 

Atari Corp UK sold Glenn the 5200 Man's unauthorized 5200-back-port-to-A8 version of Centipede on floppy disk circa 1987-88.

[Lynxpro]

On 11/22/2022 at 1:43 PM, Flyindrew said:

That was also an issue at the time as everyone had 5200 games already on the 2600. I have the 5200 Pac Man game as well and its as close to the arcade port you could find during that time period. Another mis step was not making that Pac Man game the pack in game similar to what Coleco did with Donkey Kong.

 

And yet Ms. Pac-Man was one of the best selling titles for the Sega Genesis. And also on the NES before it.

 

Pac-Man later was added as a pack-in game for the 5200 in 1983. So you got Super Breakout and Pac-Man.

[+swlovinist]

Just thought I would post a video I did to help collectors and showcase what the 5200 could do.   Happy 40th!

 

 

[BIGHMW]

8 hours ago, swlovinist said:

Just thought I would post a video I did to help collectors and showcase what the 5200 could do.   Happy 40th!

 

 

Nice pic, I also,  own a Retro-Game-Boyz 5200 controller, the right hand orientation with the fire buttons on the left side, thumbs up if you also own or play your 5200 with a Retro-Game-Boyz stick!!!

[+playsoft]

On 12/4/2022 at 6:20 PM, swlovinist said:

Just thought I would post a video I did to help collectors and showcase what the 5200 could do.   Happy 40th!

 

 

Thanks for including Scramble and AtariBlast! it was a really nice surprise to see them included.

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 hours ago, playsoft said:

Thanks for including Scramble and AtariBlast! it was a really nice surprise to see them included.

I have to admit that I was completely unaware that AtariBlast! had a 5200 version until I saw that video.  So, yes - definite thanks as well!

[Ecernosoft]

On 11/22/2022 at 4:54 PM, phuzaxeman said:

Pacman was the pack in game later in 83.

I thought it WAS the pack in game...

what was the pack in game before PAC-MAN?

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, Ecernosoft said:

I thought it WAS the pack in game...

what was the pack in game before PAC-MAN?

Super Breakout.

[BIGHMW]

2 hours ago, Stephen said:

Super Breakout.

....and, at one point the original title that WAS going to be the pack-in game before they decided on Super Breakout was the (formerly) unplayable and unfinished Asteroids. In fact it was given the model number CX5201 (Missile Command was CX5202, Super Breakout was CX5203), but, as I said it was never finished, Atari and Warner both aborted the project on it in May 1982 because they couldn't figure out how to map the game to the supplied CX52 joystick controllers.

 

Since then, and, 40 years later, a solution to fix the problems with the joystick controls, our very own Paul Lay @playsoft, at first, hacked into the control codes, making them far better and dead-centered, with ample "dead-zone". The result was that it was much more playable, but then, he discovered that you really couldn't switch the defensive modes from the shields to either hyperspace, flip over, or no effect at all, nor could you switch to options like slow/fast asteroids or the "bounce" mode, like I said it was unfinished. So Paul, unexpectedly, decided to convert the original A8 version from the 8-bit computer lineup and remapped all the options on it to the CX52 controller, and then he sped up the defensive mechanism, from a (long, a half-a-second) 500ms delay to a mere 30ms delay, making it easier to get yourself out of a fix, I myself enjoy using the shields as they never burn off, but also the space debris literally goes right through you, in fact acting like a ghost-like "inviso" effect. Paul Lay even did several hacks of it including 2 different keypad versions of it in case you don't want to use the joystick.

 

....and while true the graphics may not be anything to write home about compared to later released variations for the 5200 like Electra Concepts' Meteorites or even the incredible 2000s homebrew Rasteroids, Asteroids is still great to play nevertheless.

[Flyindrew]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:42 PM, BIGHMW said:

....and, at one point the original title that WAS going to be the pack-in game before they decided on Super Breakout was the (formerly) unplayable and unfinished Asteroids. In fact it was given the model number CX5201 (Missile Command was CX5202, Super Breakout was CX5203), but, as I said it was never finished, Atari and Warner both aborted the project on it in May 1982 because they couldn't figure out how to map the game to the supplied CX52 joystick controllers.

 

Since then, and, 40 years later, a solution to fix the problems with the joystick controls, our very own Paul Lay @playsoft, at first, hacked into the control codes, making them far better and dead-centered, with ample "dead-zone". The result was that it was much more playable, but then, he discovered that you really couldn't switch the defensive modes from the shields to either hyperspace, flip over, or no effect at all, nor could you switch to options like slow/fast asteroids or the "bounce" mode, like I said it was unfinished. So Paul, unexpectedly, decided to convert the original A8 version from the 8-bit computer lineup and remapped all the options on it to the CX52 controller, and then he sped up the defensive mechanism, from a (long, a half-a-second) 500ms delay to a mere 30ms delay, making it easier to get yourself out of a fix, I myself enjoy using the shields as they never burn off, but also the space debris literally goes right through you, in fact acting like a ghost-like "inviso" effect. Paul Lay even did several hacks of it including 2 different keypad versions of it in case you don't want to use the joystick.

 

....and while true the graphics may not be anything to write home about compared to later released variations for the 5200 like Electra Concepts' Meteorites or even the incredible 2000s homebrew Rasteroids, Asteroids is still great to play nevertheless.

And this version your speaking of appears on Vault 2 on the VCS.

[Flyindrew]

On 1/4/2023 at 7:32 PM, Stephen said:

Super Breakout.

The worst decision ever by Atari at the time. If they initially included Pac Man (which was the best port at the time) as the pack in game in November '82, then held off with the inferior 2600 version until December '82, the fate of the system would have been different. 5200 Pac Man would have been equal to Colecovision Donkey Kong at the time as far as a quality goes. 

[+Stephen]

5 minutes ago, Flyindrew said:

The worst decision ever by Atari at the time. If they initially included Pac Man (which was the best port at the time) as the pack in game in November '82, then held off with the inferior 2600 version until December '82, the fate of the system would have been different. 5200 Pac Man would have been equal to Colecovision Donkey Kong at the time as far as a quality goes. 

Yeah - not sure why anyone would think that Super Breakout made sense as a pack in any time after 1979.  Fun game, but it won't win any bragging rights for a system!

[Flyindrew]

3 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Yeah - not sure why anyone would think that Super Breakout made sense as a pack in any time after 1979.  Fun game, but it won't win any bragging rights for a system!

Back in 1982 I was begging my parents for a Colecovision just to get the port of Donkey Kong. I highly doubt any of my peers were begging their parents for a 5200 to get Super Breakout lol.

 

Dont get me wrong, 5200 Super Breakout is an excellent game (tied with the new Neo-Breakout from Atari 50 as my fav version), but could hardly be called a system seller at the time. 

[zzip]

On 11/16/2022 at 11:30 PM, Lynxpro said:

Atari Inc. advertised the 5200 heavily until early 1984. Atari advertised everything heavily until then. If you were watching broadcast television in the States, you certainly could not miss Alan Alda pimping Atari computers and accessories in prime time like a pimp with a blimp.

yup, I remember seeing TV ads all the time, including a bunch of 5200 ads

 

On 11/22/2022 at 4:43 PM, Flyindrew said:

That was also an issue at the time as everyone had 5200 games already on the 2600. I have the 5200 Pac Man game as well and its as close to the arcade port you could find during that time period. Another mis step was not making that Pac Man game the pack in game similar to what Coleco did with Donkey Kong.

Before Coleco did that with Donkey Kong, the idea was that you didn't give away your most popular game.   The pack-in was something to get you started and you'd spend money on more popular titles.   So I understand why they did it.

 

But I think the way they mishandled Pac-man was to release the 2600 version first and upset everyone.    What they should have done is shown both the 2600 and 5200 at the same time-  you could buy the inferior version now, or wait until Christmas and get the new console with a much more arcade-like Pacman.   Probably would have created more excitement for the 5200 and sold more.

 

But yeah the fact that 5200 had mostly the same titles as 2600 for the first year was another problem

 

Also I think the initial shipment of games didn't do the 5200 many favors..   Missile Command,  Galaxian, Super Breakout, etc.   These aren't exactly graphics powerhouses and didn't look much better than the 2600 version.   I think Atari needed to show off more games that looked like arcade graphics in 1982,  not arcade ports that were a few years old at that point.

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

Before Coleco did that with Donkey Kong, the idea was that you didn't give away your most popular game.   The pack-in was something to get you started and you'd spend money on more popular titles.   So I understand why they did it.

Something that I think Coleco (mostly) understood that Atari and Mattel only sort-of grasped: you may as well make the hot title the pack-in game, because by next season it'll be something else.  Sell as many as you can while that game is still attractive, then change it next Autumn for whatever's popular at that time to help drive hardware sales.  Of course, Coleco never really had the opportunity to put that into practice before they axed the system, but that's another ball of wax.

2 hours ago, zzip said:

But I think the way they mishandled Pac-man was to release the 2600 version first and upset everyone.    What they should have done is shown both the 2600 and 5200 at the same time-  you could buy the inferior version now, or wait until Christmas and get the new console with a much more arcade-like Pacman.   Probably would have created more excitement for the 5200 and sold more.

Agreed, but it would likely have done so by angering existing 2600 owners - they would have felt (and justifiably so) as though they were having a half-assed game palmed off on them.  Knowing the constraints that Tod Frye was up against, I really don't hold him completely responsible for the end product: that was largely down to poor decisions by management and the subsequent constraints that he had to work within.  The last thing Atari wanted when launching a new system was backlash from existing customers, so staggering the releases makes sense from a CYA position.

 

However, Super Breakout as the pack-in makes no sense whatsoever.  Pac-Man would have been a far better choice - had it been ready.

2 hours ago, zzip said:

Also I think the initial shipment of games didn't do the 5200 many favors..   Missile Command,  Galaxian, Super Breakout, etc.   These aren't exactly graphics powerhouses and didn't look much better than the 2600 version.   I think Atari needed to show off more games that looked like arcade graphics in 1982,  not arcade ports that were a few years old at that point.

Agreed.  It's also difficult to see what Atari's long-term plan for the 5200 was.  By and large, their approach seemed to be, "if you liked the 2600, here's one with a bigger number.  Oh, and you can go re-purchase half of your game library until we release the VCS adapter."

 

Granted, I'm making it sound a lot more cynical than it likely was, but the way in which the 5200 was released and marketed never really suggested a solid plan for it.  Software sells systems, and this is a case that really illustrates that point.

[zzip]

16 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Agreed, but it would likely have done so by angering existing 2600 owners - they would have felt (and justifiably so) as though they were having a half-assed game palmed off on them.

Well a lot of 2600 owners felt that way anyway..   "they gave us a shitty pacman so they could make us buy a new console".    However announcing the 5200 Pacman at the same time would at least have given people a choice-  buy now for the system you have or wait for the better system if it's in your budget.  It might have made people a tad less angry.

 

When 2600 pacman came out, I don't even think the 5200 console had been announced.   But they must have been working on it.

 

23 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Knowing the constraints that Tod Frye was up against, I really don't hold him completely responsible for the end product: that was largely down to poor decisions by management and the subsequent constraints that he had to work within.  The last thing Atari wanted when launching a new system was backlash from existing customers, so staggering the releases makes sense from a CYA position.

I think some small changes to the 2600 PacMan could have gone a long way to improving its reception- 

1. get the maze colors right

2. Pacman doesn't have an eye, get rid of it.

3. sound-  at least TRY to mimic the arcade sounds

 

I know Atari was anxious to ship it, but the first 2 could be done in an afternoon, and the third shouldn't take much longer.   If the game resembled Pacman within the 2600 constraints I think people would have felt less like they were purposely given a bad version to sell 5200s. 

 

36 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Agreed.  It's also difficult to see what Atari's long-term plan for the 5200 was.  By and large, their approach seemed to be, "if you liked the 2600, here's one with a bigger number.  Oh, and you can go re-purchase half of your game library until we release the VCS adapter."

especially since they always planned to followup the 2600 since it released in 1976,  the tech was ready by 1979,  and yet in 1982 there they are scrambling to put a system and games collection together to compete against Coleco.    They had no excuse!

 

40 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Granted, I'm making it sound a lot more cynical than it likely was, but the way in which the 5200 was released and marketed never really suggested a solid plan for it.  Software sells systems, and this is a case that really illustrates that point.

Yeah,  I don't think Atari understood that.   The market was too new and there were a lot of things they hadn't figured out yet.   They seemed to think just having popular arcade titles and people would upgrade just to play their favorite games with better graphics.

[Lynxpro]

On 1/10/2023 at 2:11 PM, zzip said:

Well a lot of 2600 owners felt that way anyway..   "they gave us a shitty pacman so they could make us buy a new console".    However announcing the 5200 Pacman at the same time would at least have given people a choice-  buy now for the system you have or wait for the better system if it's in your budget.  It might have made people a tad less angry.

 

When 2600 pacman came out, I don't even think the 5200 console had been announced.   But they must have been working on it.

 

I think some small changes to the 2600 PacMan could have gone a long way to improving its reception- 

1. get the maze colors right

2. Pacman doesn't have an eye, get rid of it.

3. sound-  at least TRY to mimic the arcade sounds

 

I know Atari was anxious to ship it, but the first 2 could be done in an afternoon, and the third shouldn't take much longer.   If the game resembled Pacman within the 2600 constraints I think people would have felt less like they were purposely given a bad version to sell 5200s. 

 

especially since they always planned to followup the 2600 since it released in 1976,  the tech was ready by 1979,  and yet in 1982 there they are scrambling to put a system and games collection together to compete against Coleco.    They had no excuse!

 

Yeah,  I don't think Atari understood that.   The market was too new and there were a lot of things they hadn't figured out yet.   They seemed to think just having popular arcade titles and people would upgrade just to play their favorite games with better graphics.

 

The 5200 wasn't meant to compete with the Colecovision. The Colecovision wasn't announced until CES and it took the industry by surprise. The 5200 was meant to compete with Mattel's Intellivision and end their smug superiority marketing campaign with blowhard George Plimpton. 

 

Unless we're talking about Coleco's peripheral controllers, there isn't much actual [hardware... or software] innovation from Coleco's part. Aside from the Cabbage Patch Kids, they basically had no IP of their own. Their console's hardware consists of off-the-shelf parts. Their true innovations were their business strategies. They paid top dollar to Nintendo for the rights to Donkey Kong and then bundled the cartridge with the console. [Atari didn't do that at first nor did they want to pay Nintendo top dollar* because a. Nintendo have always been a$$holios and b. most of Atari's programmers disliked the game]. They had the stones to sell a 2600 adapter despite knowing full well they'd be sued over it. And finally thanks to Michael Katz, they effectively acquired the rights to obscure-but-good arcade titles that Atari, Commodore, Mattel, and Parker Bros. had all failed to license first. Katz tried to repeat that same strategy a few years later when he was running [Tramiel's] Atari Corp's Entertainment Electronics Division in charge of console sales.

 

 

*Manny Gerard in Atari: Game Over personally disputed the claim Atari was unwilling to pay Nintendo a $4 royalty per cartridge for Donkey Kong, although his dispute was based upon his memory. He didn't seem to be fully sure of it though.

[zzip]

8 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

The 5200 wasn't meant to compete with the Colecovision. The Colecovision wasn't announced until CES and it took the industry by surprise. The 5200 was meant to compete with Mattel's Intellivision and end their smug superiority marketing campaign with blowhard George Plimpton. 

Ok, if Mattel was the target that makes it worse.     The Plimptom ads were running since 1980, Atari had the tech inside the 5200 since 1979.   They should have had plenty of time to produce a console without issues like the 5200 controllers or producing a compelling game library that does more than simply duplicate 2600 titles.

 

8 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

Unless we're talking about Coleco's peripheral controllers, there isn't much actual [hardware... or software] innovation from Coleco's part. Aside from the Cabbage Patch Kids, they basically had no IP of their own. Their console's hardware consists of off-the-shelf parts

That's true, but it was still doing things we hadn't seen in a console before.  To us kids, the innovation was that you could actually have arcade graphics at home, instead of the blocky affairs we had to deal with on 2600 and INTV.   We didn't care if they got there via custom chip or existing design.

[Flyindrew]

9 minutes ago, zzip said:

Ok, if Mattel was the target that makes it worse.     The Plimptom ads were running since 1980, Atari had the tech inside the 5200 since 1979.   They should have had plenty of time to produce a console without issues like the 5200 controllers or producing a compelling game library that does more than simply duplicate 2600 titles.

 

 

And that was exactly what  the average video game consumer circa 1982/1983 was thinking. 

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 1/10/2023 at 4:11 PM, zzip said:

Yeah,  I don't think Atari understood that.   The market was too new and there were a lot of things they hadn't figured out yet.   They seemed to think just having popular arcade titles and people would upgrade just to play their favorite games with better graphics.

And that's a big part of it: the market was completely new.  IIRC, the 5200 was also the first console to be both a followup to an existing model as well as a generational leap ahead of it.  Nobody knew how that would play out, since it simply hadn't been done before.  There was a lot of room to set the pattern by which it would work in the future, but also a lot of room to get it wrong.  Atari managed to do both.

[Lynxpro]

On 1/12/2023 at 7:23 AM, zzip said:

Ok, if Mattel was the target that makes it worse.     The Plimptom ads were running since 1980, Atari had the tech inside the 5200 since 1979.   They should have had plenty of time to produce a console without issues like the 5200 controllers or producing a compelling game library that does more than simply duplicate 2600 titles.

 

That's true, but it was still doing things we hadn't seen in a console before.  To us kids, the innovation was that you could actually have arcade graphics at home, instead of the blocky affairs we had to deal with on 2600 and INTV.   We didn't care if they got there via custom chip or existing design.

The Colecovision's graphics aren't better than the 5200's. It's a draw. The TI graphics chip came out after the ANTIC/GTIA and still couldn't outperform it. The TI sound chip isn't better than the POKEY. 

 

Your comment about the library is pure revisionism. Speaking as a kid back then, there were plenty of us who wanted to play those very same games that were on the 2600 but with graphics and sound closer to their Atari arcade counterparts. Coleco's library mainly consisted of B arcade titles that Atari, Mattel, and the other 3rd Party companies didn't acquire. Michael Katz was very proud of that strategy. The main exception was paying Nintendo $4+ per cartridge of Donkey Kong - a game most of Atari's programmers hated - and packing it in with the console. But the likes of Slither does not compare to the likes of Centipede.

 

Your point of Atari having "plenty of time" to come out with a successor to the 2600 also fails to address the fact that Coleco sat on the Colecovision for almost the same amount of time. They chose not to release their mom & pop screwdriver shop console back in 1979 because of the price of the chips it required. Of course, had it released back in 1979, the graphics still wouldn't have been great since the cartridges would've been 2K - or 4K max - ROM due to the ROM chip prices back then. You wouldn't have had 8K or 16K ROM carts.

[Flyindrew]

9 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

The Colecovision's graphics aren't better than the 5200's. It's a draw. The TI graphics chip came out after the ANTIC/GTIA and still couldn't outperform it. The TI sound chip isn't better than the POKEY. 

 

Your comment about the library is pure revisionism. Speaking as a kid back then, there were plenty of us who wanted to play those very same games that were on the 2600 but with graphics and sound closer to their Atari arcade counterparts. Coleco's library mainly consisted of B arcade titles that Atari, Mattel, and the other 3rd Party companies didn't acquire. Michael Katz was very proud of that strategy. The main exception was paying Nintendo $4+ per cartridge of Donkey Kong - a game most of Atari's programmers hated - and packing it in with the console. But the likes of Slither does not compare to the likes of Centipede.

 

With regard to this there are 2 perspectives. The 1983 perspective and the 2023 perspective.

 

1983-Kids in my junior high class were over and done with Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command etc. and did not care that there was a new Atari system (5200) out. Coleco produced an arcade quality version of Donkey Kong. Venture, Carnival and Mouse Trap, Turbo (with steering wheel) were also "state of the art. And when you went to Toys R Us Coleco games came in boxes with arcade cabinets affirming we were getting the true arcade experience.

 

2023-(owning both the 5200 and Collectorvision Phoenix-which is basically a Colecovision)- I find the 5200 a far superior, console and  the games much more fun to play. The graphics are much better and the sound about equal. The controls are equal  but can easily be remedied.

[zzip]

9 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

Your comment about the library is pure revisionism. Speaking as a kid back then, there were plenty of us who wanted to play those very same games that were on the 2600 but with graphics and sound closer to their Atari arcade counterparts.

Yes lots of us kids wanted the graphics of the 5200.   But plenty of adults who controlled the spending rightly had the attitude of I'm not spending $269.99 (equivalent to over $800 today) for a console that plays the same games you already own!   Sales data shows that most 2600 owners didn't upgrade.   I know none of my friends did even though we all wanted the better graphics and sound.

 

9 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

Your point of Atari having "plenty of time" to come out with a successor to the 2600 also fails to address the fact that Coleco sat on the Colecovision for almost the same amount of time. They chose not to release their mom & pop screwdriver shop console back in 1979 because of the price of the chips it required. Of course, had it released back in 1979, the graphics still wouldn't have been great since the cartridges would've been 2K - or 4K max - ROM due to the ROM chip prices back then. You wouldn't have had 8K or 16K ROM carts.

I'm not arguing that the 5200 or Colecovision should have come sooner, precisely for the reasons you mention.   I think 82 was a good time.

But they'd been working a successor to the 2600 since it released in 76.    That means they had five or six years to get a 2600 successor right.  So for controllers if they didn't want to go with the CX40 design and instead wanted to do something inspired by Intellivision, they still had several years to consumer test and quality control different designs.   They have no excuse for being surprised by the high failure rate of the 5200 controllers.

[Crazy Climber]

On 11/7/2022 at 6:19 PM, Stephen said:

It's odd - I had a 400 in late 1982, and we only had over the air TV (with rabbit ears) so I am sure I was blasted with commercials, but I honestly do not recall any memories of the 5200.  We had a 2600 but I honestly don't recall thinking about the 5200 until I started BBSing which would have been 87.  I obviously saw all the magazine ads comparing games on different systems.  I think I realized the games were identical and never gave another thought.  Anyone else have the same experience?

 

On 11/22/2022 at 1:54 PM, Flyindrew said:

As I was 10 in 1982 I have zero memory of the 5200 existing as all of us 2600 kids were thirsting for a Colecovision at the time. In January 2022 I stumbled on a gorgeous totally refurbished 5200 at an old mom and pop TV repair store. Having both machines in my lifetime, I can honestly say the 5200 was far superior. Its such a shame it never caught on at the time.

 

On 1/10/2023 at 11:56 AM, Stephen said:

Yeah - not sure why anyone would think that Super Breakout made sense as a pack in any time after 1979.  Fun game, but it won't win any bragging rights for a system!

 

Yeah, I was pretty young in the early 80's but was a regular Atari 2600 player/customer. I won't go as far as saying I don't have ANY memories of the 5200 existing but I don't remember any commercials for it and don't remember seeing any store displays/etc (Minnesota) What little I knew about it didn't really interest me. I was getting atari games for a few bucks each...

 

By the time I found out what it was all about it was too late (moved on to Nintendo)

 

I do however remember that late 80's commercial for the relaunch of the Atari 2600...the one with the "hip" rap lol, man they aired that one CONSTANTLY. To this day it still gets stuck in my head.

 

 

Side Note - Super Breakout was an awful choice for a system that already had questionable controller issues.