Why Didn't Atari Add a Second Button?

[Grizzly Adam]

We know that the 2600 was perfectly capable of supporting two, if not 3, buttons per joystick. People have even altered classic games to support a second button. The Intellivision came out in '79 with their whacky multi-button controller, and Colecovision in '82. The Famicom came out in '83. Why didn't Atari follow suit and simply put out a new controller that would "upgrade" their system instantly? I would think it would have please the programmers. They might have even been able to re-release some older games with the extra button support and cash in on a relatively simple mod. As the Nerd would say, "What were they thinking?!"

[else]

In a similar vein, I've always wondered why Atari didn't release an "enhanced" 2600 with the 6502 processor instead of the 6507.  They could have called it the 2600+ or something.  This and a multi-button controller seem like two stupidly simple and cheap upgrades they could have done....

Edited June 23, 2023 by else

[+splendidnut]

Simple answer:  Atari was looking for ways to REDUCE the cost of the system, not increase it.

[Grizzly Adam]

13 minutes ago, else said:

In a similar vein, I've always wondered why Atari didn't release an "enhanced" 2600 with the 6502 processor instead of the 6507.  They could have called it the 2600+ or something.  This and a multi-button controller seem like two stupidly simple and cheap upgrades they could have done....

They could have even had customers upgrade their systems? I assume that the 6502 is a direct swap item that any of us could use-- should our 6507 blow, for instance.

[Grizzly Adam]

1 minute ago, splendidnut said:

Simple answer:  Atari was looking for ways to REDUCE the cost of the system, not increase it.

They could have still shipped with the single button joystick and only offered 2 button as an upgrade.

[+splendidnut]

5 minutes ago, Grizzly Adam said:

They could have still shipped with the single button joystick and only offered 2 button as an upgrade.

Sure.  But there's the development costs of that new joystick.  For a two button joystick, you're talking a new PCB, new molds, and probably a new wiring harness.... the new molds would be the most expensive thing.  They'd need a reason to really justify that cost.  And as history shows, they were very leery about spending any more money than they absolutely had to... i.e. developers had to beg for things like extra ROM space or RAM.

 

I'm probably being a bit too practical and realistic for your thought exercise here.

[+splendidnut]

17 minutes ago, Grizzly Adam said:

I assume that the 6502 is a direct swap item that any of us could use-

The 6507 and the 6502 have vastly different pin counts.  They are not easily interchangable on a 2600 board without some sort of adapter.

[+SpiceWare]

8 minutes ago, Grizzly Adam said:

I assume that the 6502 is a direct swap item that any of us could use-- should our 6507 blow, for instance.

 

Nope, different pin counts. 6502 and 6507 pinouts from Console5.

 

[else]

37 minutes ago, splendidnut said:

Sure.  But there's the development costs of that new joystick.  For a two button joystick, you're talking a new PCB, new molds, and probably a new wiring harness.... the new molds would be the most expensive thing.  They'd need a reason to really justify that cost.  And as history shows, they were very leery about spending any more money than they absolutely had to... i.e. developers had to beg for things like extra ROM space or RAM.

 

I'm probably being a bit too practical and realistic for your thought exercise here.

Still an order of magnitude cheaper than developing a completely new system such as the 5200 or 7800.  And it's not like Atari didn't release other controllers for the 2600 -- the kids controller, keyboard controller, star raiders controller, proline joystick, trakball, etc...

[zzip]

It wasn't supposed to last that long.   I think they planned on 3 years when they launched it.   Probably also didn't plan on the CX40 becoming a 'standard'

 

I think Atari would have preferred people upgrading to a new console rather than expand the capabilities of the 2600.

[else]

4 minutes ago, zzip said:

It wasn't supposed to last that long.   I think they planned on 3 years when they launched it.   Probably also didn't plan on the CX40 becoming a 'standard'

 

I think Atari would have preferred people upgrading to a new console rather than expand the capabilities of the 2600.

Oh I completely agree.  But similar to how Apple doubled down on the II once they realized the III was going to be a failure, I feel like Atari could have done the same with the 2600 maybe?  Anyway, it's fun to speculate would could have been....

[+x=usr(1536)]

47 minutes ago, else said:

Still an order of magnitude cheaper than developing a completely new system such as the 5200 or 7800.

Not a great deal would have been gained by replacing the 6507 with the (more expensive) 6502.  Apart from the pin count problem, TIA is what really determines audio and video.  Without a Super TIA or similar, games would be exactly the same but able to access more RAM.

 

Granted, that is an oversimplification on my part, but it still holds that a 6502 running at the same clock speed on the same bus with the same supplemental ICs wouldn't really offer anything over a comparable 6507.

47 minutes ago, else said:

And it's not like Atari didn't release other controllers for the 2600 -- the kids controller, keyboard controller, star raiders controller, proline joystick, trakball, etc...

Bear in mind that those peripherals could also be used with the home computer range, so it's not as though they were captive to the 2600.  Getting the budget to design and sell a peripheral of any sort when there are multiple channels it could potentially be sold into is a lot easier than trying to get the same budget for a device that only works with one machine.

 

One thing regarding why Atari didn't go with a multi-button controller from the start: apart from cost reduction reasons, the fact that the machine hit the market in 1977 probably played a large part.  Arcade games had one button almost exclusively.  For a machine intended to play Tank and Pong, that was plenty.

33 minutes ago, else said:

But similar to how Apple doubled down on the II once they realized the III was going to be a failure, I feel like Atari could have done the same with the 2600 maybe?

Well...  They did.  That's how the machine stayed in production for 15 years.

[else]

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

8 minutes ago, else said:

But similar to how Apple doubled down on the II once they realized the III was going to be a failure, I feel like Atari could have done the same with the 2600 maybe?

Well...  They did.  That's how the machine stayed in production for 15 years.

Eh, not in my mind.  Apple released a TON of enhancements to the Apple II line, including the IIe, IIc, IIc+, plus lots and lots of cards and peripherals.  Atari did comparatively little other than continue to produce the 2600 more or less unchanged throughout it's entire life.

Edited June 23, 2023 by else

[+splendidnut]

23 minutes ago, else said:

Still an order of magnitude cheaper than developing a completely new system such as the 5200 or 7800.  And it's not like Atari didn't release other controllers for the 2600 -- the kids controller, keyboard controller, star raiders controller, proline joystick, trakball, etc...

Ah... you see... Atari did develop a controller with a second button.  Just nobody thought to plug it into the 2600.

[else]

Just now, splendidnut said:

Ah... you see... Atari did develop a controller with a second button.  Just nobody thought to plug it into the 2600.

I was thinking of the Proline Space Age joystick for the 2600.

[+Gemintronic]

As already mentioned it was a matter of scope and cost.  Did Combat or Pong require more than one FIRE button?

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, else said:

Oh I completely agree.  But similar to how Apple doubled down on the II once they realized the III was going to be a failure, I feel like Atari could have done the same with the 2600 maybe?  Anyway, it's fun to speculate would could have been....

The other part is the ownership

 

Under Warner, Atari was actually doing development on peripherals,  they announced a full keyboard,  and they did design the two button Pro-line controller for the 2600, and that ultimately became the controller for the 7800.

 

But then the company sold to the Tramiels, and Jack Tramiel famously did everything on the cheap.   The Tramiel Atari discovered they could sell millions of 2600 JRs into the third world in the late 80s, so they kept it alive, but spent very little on R&D to enhance it in any way.

 

23 minutes ago, else said:

Still an order of magnitude cheaper than developing a completely new system such as the 5200 or 7800.  And it's not like Atari didn't release other controllers for the 2600 -- the kids controller, keyboard controller, star raiders controller, proline joystick, trakball, etc...

The problem is most of the time those new controllers only get supported by a handful of games.   And this is a problem with adding new peripherals to any console.   Developers would rather support the original controllers because everybody owns them, rather than limit their game to people with the new controller.

[Grizzly Adam]

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

One thing regarding why Atari didn't go with a multi-button controller from the start: apart from cost reduction reasons, the fact that the machine hit the market in 1977 probably played a large part.  Arcade games had one button almost exclusively.  For a machine intended to play Tank and Pong, that was plenty.

And that part completely made sense, but at some point they should have realized that many games worked better with two action buttons. 

 

And if the first button was called the fire button, would the second button be the water button? </dadJoke>

[+x=usr(1536)]

23 minutes ago, else said:

Eh, not in my mind.  Apple released a TON of enhancements to the Apple II line, including the IIe, IIc, IIc+, plus lots and lots of cards and peripherals.  Atari did comparatively little other than continue to produce the 2600 more or less unchanged throughout it's entire life.

OK, so you're comparing peripheral availability for a game console to peripheral availability for a range of home computers.  Got it.

 

The two aren't even remotely close in terms of how their individual companies supported them, or what the market demands were for Moar Stuffz™ for them.

19 minutes ago, splendidnut said:

Ah... you see... Atari did develop a controller with a second button.  Just nobody thought to plug it into the 2600.

In North America   My first Jr. came with a pair of PainProlines in the box.

18 minutes ago, else said:

I was thinking of the Proline Space Age joystick for the 2600.

Those are still only a single-button controller; both of the two buttons do exactly the same thing.  A number of joysticks were on the market at the time that were the same way.

[else]

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

28 minutes ago, else said:

I was thinking of the Proline Space Age joystick for the 2600.

Those are still only a single-button controller; both of the two buttons do exactly the same thing.  A number of joysticks were on the market at the time that were the same way.

And of course that's why I included it my list showing that Atari produced many joysticks for the 2600, showing it wasn't too expensive for them to make molds and whatnot.  The Space Age only has one button, by the way.  Heck, that joystick even HAD multiple buttons in it's MBX form, and Atari removed them from the molds.  So I don't see mold costs being the limiting factor.

[Flyindrew]

They did upgrade the joystick in a sense. The 7800 joystick was backward compatible with the 2600 and it did have 2 buttons. 

[+x=usr(1536)]

32 minutes ago, else said:

And of course that's why I included it my list showing that Atari produced many joysticks for the 2600, showing it wasn't too expensive for them to make molds and whatnot.

Uh, no, molds still have a significant cost to set up.  Especially when you're dealing with something like the Space Age stick, the mylars in which had an arguably higher failure rate by percentage than 5200 controllers.  Either way, Atari pulled the retail plug on it pretty quickly once it was clear how it didn't stand up to real-world use, so whether or not it recouped its development and manufacturing costs is likely to fall into the 'not' category.

32 minutes ago, else said:

The Space Age only has one button, by the way.

Correct.  Haven't owned one in years; my memory was evidently off.

32 minutes ago, else said:

Heck, that joystick even HAD multiple buttons in it's MBX form, and Atari removed them from the molds.  So I don't see mold costs being the limiting factor.

As raising a point seems to be met with not seeing it as relevant, what exactly are you looking to prove or disprove?

[Grizzly Adam]

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

As raising a point seems to be met with not seeing it as relevant, what exactly are you looking to prove or disprove?

It sounds like the two button molds were already made and they chose to make a new one button mold instead?

[+x=usr(1536)]

22 minutes ago, Grizzly Adam said:

It sounds like the two button molds were already made and they chose to make a new one button mold instead?

To clarify: I'm asking the question in broader terms than the moulds.  We keep getting littles bits and pieces of his thoughts, but not anything cohesive enough to understand what it is he's really driving at.

[else]

 

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

To clarify: I'm asking the question in broader terms than the moulds.  We keep getting littles bits and pieces of his thoughts, but not anything cohesive enough to understand what it is he's really driving at.

splendidnut said that Atari possibly didn't produce a two button joystick for the 2600 because mold costs were two expensive.  I provided a list of joysticks the Atari produced for the 2600 besides the standard one, and included the Space Age joystick in that list.  I don't know what "bits and pieces" of my thoughts means -- I guess an insult.  Is it that difficult a point to understand?  Back off and drop it already!