How would you rate every era of Atari ?

[JPF997]

Here's how i would personally rate the different era's of the company/brand ( keep in mind that I'm a zoomer so of course my opinion will probably be vastly different than most of yours )

 

- 2nd Golden Age : Infogrames Atari 2001-2013

           (Best era)

 

- 1st Golden Age: Atari Inc 1971-1983

 

-Silver Age : Atari SA 2021-present time                  (Wade Rosen era)

 

-Bronze Age : Atari Corp 1984-1996

 

-Age of Mediocrity : Atari SA 2014-2020                   (Fred Chesnais era)

 

-Undecided : - Hasbro Interactive 1997-2000

                       - Atari Games 1984-?

 

[Giles N]

Atari has made one major mistake over and over from the start:

 

They haven’t secured the output of quality games for their various systems to the degree that’d be in proportion to what they’d need to stay in the competition.

 
With the 2600, Activision was formed by people who really knew how make good games for it, but felt Atari (back then) held them back. They had to break out to feel free to make some of the best games for the 2600.

 

5200: not enough games made. The ‘strategy’ of making backward-compatibility with the 2600 rare misfired. The akward controllers, like man - how to make good gsmes of any type if you’re a third-party developer…?

 

7800: even if many titles were ‘locked’ to be NES-exclusives, so what? They could have gone off to find people from the home-computer industry in Europe and US, to port or make special versions of a million good home-computer titles… that is, if they prioritized it, made it s top priority.

 

Lynx: best hardware on a handheld for years, but they failed to secure good game-developer-deals that got game-production happen much faster and on much bigger scale.

 

Jaguar: don’t know the details, just the results; no effective line-up of quality games being pushed out.

 

And now?

  
Will they secure deals with game-developers that make games that are really interesting for gamers wanting to play fun games, have good game-session experiences…?

 

If you’re willing to go with some trade-ofs, trying to find win-win sweet-spots, alot can happen without having to invent the wheel and the gunpowder afresh.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Giles N

[akator]

1. 1971-1983.  I don't think anything compares to this because without this era, none of the others would exist.  During this time Atari was instrumental in the early arcade, console, and personal computer industries.  It was because of these years that an Atari "sign" appears in the original Blade Runner movie.  Atari wasn't just relevant, it was pioneering.
2. 1984-1996.  Atari Corp was still mainstream and relevant.  If nothing else this is proven by the Atari ST series of computers and their significant user base.  Atari still influenced the market for at least the first half of this era.
3. 2001-2013.  Infogrames / Atari published some decent games.  This is also when we got the excellent Atari Flashback 2 —even though THE AFB2 was outsourced, it still indicates there was at least some early interest from the parent corp to do something right.

I think the remaining "eras" are pretty much a wash.  While the new "Wade Rosen era" seems like it could be interesting, it's still too early to tell.

Edited October 23, 2023 by akator

[MrTrust]

8 hours ago, JPF997 said:

- 2nd Golden Age : Infogrames Atari 2001-2013

           (Best era)

 

Why is it the best era?

 

8 hours ago, JPF997 said:

- 1st Golden Age: Atari Inc 1971-1983

 

Why is this the second best era?

 

8 hours ago, JPF997 said:

-Silver Age : Atari SA 2021-present time                  (Wade Rosen era)

 

Why is it the third b... you get the idea.

 

8 hours ago, JPF997 said:

( keep in mind that I'm a zoomer so of course my opinion will probably be vastly different than most of yours )

 

And this is one of the select instances where that kind of opinion is interesting and valuable.  You should elaborate on it. 

 

You're asking a bunch of olds, and we're all going to answer the question more or less the same way, and in a way we've all heard a thousand times.  I'm interested in what even attracts someone your age to Atari at all?  Why, if you're into the Infogrames period, does the 70s period land so highly?  What does that have to offer someone with those preferences?  Why do you don't care for the current iteration?  What would you rather see them do instead?

[ledzep]

5 hours ago, Giles N said:

With the 2600, Activision was formed by people who really knew how make good games for it, but felt Atari (back then) held them back. They had to break out to feel free to make some of the best games for the 2600.

 

The 2600 is, when looking back, a piece of shit (no memory, crap graphics).  But, it was the best out of those first 8-bit home consoles and made the most with what little it had, partial due to the various specialized controllers beyond a joystick and the carts at least having the possibility of expanding memory or other features (like today with modern homebrew options).  I think the severe limits of the hardware squeezed the most out of the programmers, they made games with such great playability to make up for the goofy graphics.  Later games, of course, benefitted from what the programmers learned, but those early years were like video LEGOs.

 

6 hours ago, Giles N said:

5200: not enough games made. The ‘strategy’ of making backward-compatibility with the 2600 rare misfired. The akward controllers, like man - how to make good gsmes of any type if you’re a third-party developer…?

 

I don't understand that question.  I mean, yes, I get the mistakes about number of games and all that but, if the 2600 market taught 3rd-party developers anything, it was that gamers would run screaming towards any new/improved controllers they could design.  There were dozens and dozens of aftermarket 2600 controllers, some unique like the Starplex (all buttons), there's no reason that one of those 3rd-party companies (besides Wico and a couple others) couldn't have come up their own (self-centering) joysticks, to say nothing of paddles and spinners and button controllers and whatever else.  Then games like Asteroids and Star Castle and Tempest and Arkanoid would have been much easier to consider releasing.  It's like those companies forgot that the controllers plug in or something.  I see having the analog joystick option as a plus, you can always convert that type to a "digital" joystick (only allow certain output values), but you can't turn a digital joystick into an analog controller.  And then that opens up paddles and everything else.

 

 

For me the first era (Atari Inc. 1971-1983) is easily the best.  Besides establishing Atari in the first place, they basically created the video game industry.  Yes, others were also around early on, but Atari (and Kee Games, hahaha) put so much on the map at once.  Their arcade games were the best (though the other companies also produced some of the best classics, particularly Bally/Midway, Williams, Gremlin/Sega, Stern, Namco and Cinematronics).  It was the Wild West back then, no restrictions (besides tech) on things like displays, controllers, graphics ideas, etc.  And then they had the first "best" video game console (2600).  There were others but they never got all the elements down correctly even if one of them might have had better graphics or memory or whatnot.  By the time of the 5200 the competitors had caught up but I love that console even more than the 2600 (minus the lack of games, comparatively, of course), I thought its arcade ports were fantastic.  And I was a huge fan of the Atari 800 (over the Apple ][).  After that, when arcade games starting moving away from vector displays and more towards fighting/shooting/driving games I lost interest.

 

I would guess that Atari Corp. 1984-1996 would come in second because you still have "real" Atari ideas, even if they weren't as good.  I liked the Atari ST but it was obvious that it was trying to be the Atari Mac, same 68000 chip and all that.  It was big in the MIDI music world but I wasn't so that was lost on me.  Arcade games still showed up but like I said none of them did much, refining what already existed instead of expanding, no equivalent of a Tempest or I, Robot or Gauntlet type "new" idea from what I remember, just improved graphics and sound, from every company.  Same with the 7800, it added a little more than what the 5200 had but at the same time less.  The controllers were bland, which is criminal from one of the kings of the arcade era.  I like seeing the many recent homebrews for it, specifically all the arcade ports (Moon Cresta and Astro Blaster, you lucky bastards).

 

The rest of them, whatever.  Some interesting moments but they all wash together for me.

[JPF997]

3 hours ago, MrTrust said:

 

Why is it the best era?

 

 

Why is this the second best era?

 

 

Why is it the third b... you get the idea.

 

 

And this is one of the select instances where that kind of opinion is interesting and valuable.  You should elaborate on it. 

 

You're asking a bunch of olds, and we're all going to answer the question more or less the same way, and in a way we've all heard a thousand times.  I'm interested in what even attracts someone your age to Atari at all?  Why, if you're into the Infogrames period, does the 70s period land so highly?  What does that have to offer someone with those preferences?  Why do you don't care for the current iteration?  What would you rather see them do instead?

Well for me the Infogrames era in the 2000s was the best because it pretty much had everything that one could want from Atari, the flashback 2 was as good as the original 2600, the game collections they put out were excellent, but the most important thing for me was that  Atari was actually capable of competing with the big boy's in the triple A industry during  that era developing and publishing so many classics like Neverwinter nights, Dragon Ball Budokai 3, Enter the Matrix, Driver 3 (yes I know some people don't like it but I really enjoyed it ), test drive unlimited 2, Alone in the Dark the New Nightmare and the 2008 reboot etc.

 

I put the original Atari Inc era in second place mostly out of respect, there is no Atari without the contributions of the original company, Nolan Bushnell and his team deserve all the credit in the world.

 

I put the current Wade Rosen era in third place because it's what's gotten me interested in Atari again, after the 2013 bankruptcy and the takeover of the company by Fred Chesnais it just wasn't the same company anymore, it became the laughing stock of the industry, Wade coming in and taking over the company  has been one the best things that has ever happened to Atari and to the modern gaming industry as a whole, I love the recharged games , the Atari 50 collection, the new ip's, the acquisitions etc,   all around these last few year's have been some of the best to be an Atari fan frankly ever.

 

Atari Corporation is at fourth place because while they released some great hardware   (ST, Lynx and Jaguar) the first party titles were unfortunately lacking in comparison that what they're competitor's ( Nintendo and Sega ) were putting out, this ultimately led to the company's demise in 1996 and almost the death of the Atari brand as a whole ( it was frankly a miracle that Infogrames decided to become the new Atari, if they didn't I doubt the brand would even exist at all in present time, most likely would have been completely forgotten by now )

 

What more can  be said about the disaster that was the Fred Chesnais era of Atari, yes he technically "saved" the company after the 2013 bankruptcy by investing in it and then he pulled a lot of interesting marketing stunts that made sure that no one would forget about the brand ( Blade Runner 2049 collaboration, merchandise, the hotel deal, the speaker hat etc ) but in terms of what's most important for a game company, you know the quality of the actual games he completely failed. Roller coaster tycoon became a joke with World and those awful mobile games, he sold off legendary ip's like Alone in the Dark and Battlezone for pennies, he allowed those terrible early access games like Alone in the Dark Illumination, Asteroids Outpost and Haunted House Cryptic Caves to be made, the VCS only succeeded because of the hard work the engineer's put into it and later Wade Rosen and his team  actually releasing games for it (2023 has literally been the best year for the VCS, more games are coming out right now than all other years combined), overall it was easily the worst era in Atari's history.

 

 

[Lord Mushroom]

5 hours ago, JPF997 said:

the VCS only succeeded because of the hard work the engineer's put into it

The VCS was a commercial failure.

[JPF997]

11 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

The VCS was a commercial failure.

Well it's succeeding more now than it did at launch that's for sure, more games are releasing now and into next year than any of the previous year's combined, I'd say it's still too early to consider it a failure, it will probably last longer on the market than the Jaguar and the 5200 did on they're original runs when all is said and done.

[Lord Mushroom]

1) Atari Inc 1971-1983

An innovative and very popular company that made a lot of high quality products.

 

2) Atari Corp 1984-1996 (Tramiel)

They made a good computer and two decent consoles.

 

3) Atari Games 1984-1999

They made some good games.

 

4) Atari SA 2021- (Wade Rosen)

A focus on quality, but a low degree of innovation.

 

5) Infogrames Atari 2001-2013

They made some good games, but it was just Infogrames disguised as Atari.

 

6) Atari SA 2013-2021 (Chesnais)

Brought the company back to life again, but did a lot of shitty things. Low quality stuff.

[Lord Mushroom]

The production of VCS stopped after just 18 months. The Jaguar lasted three years, the 5200 two. The Jaguar lost a lot more money than the VCS, though. I don´t know how the 5200 did, but I am guessing it lost more money than the VCS too.

 

Rosen has provided more support for the VCS, but it is too little too late.

[+bent_pin]

8 hours ago, ledzep said:

The 2600 is, when looking back, a piece of shit (no memory, crap graphics).  But, it was the best out of those first 8-bit home consoles and made the most with what little it had, partial due to the various specialized controllers beyond a joystick and the carts at least having the possibility of expanding memory or other features (like today with modern homebrew options).  I think the severe limits of the hardware squeezed the most out of the programmers, they made games with such great playability to make up for the goofy graphics.  Later games, of course, benefitted from what the programmers learned, but those early years were like video LEGOs.

True, but it was MY POS and I loved it. I think that's why a lot of us are here.

 

Video LEGOs is the best description that I've heard yet.

 

To the topic at hand:

First gen home Atari was a great company, but the mid 80 game development model really damned the fine hardware to last place.

[zzip]

#1: Golden Age:  1980-1984    This is when the 2600 really exploded with first Space Invaders,  followed soon by Pac-Man Fever.  Videogames became a dominant force in life for us kids.   Atari was a major force in arcades, home consoles and home computers.   This era ended with the crash and sale of Atari.

 

#2: Early Days:  1972-1979     Lots of innovation.   Weird arcade concepts,  home pong consoles.   There aren't a whole lot of Atari games from this era that I have fond memories for, but the company was headed on to big things

 

#3 Tramiel Era: 1984-1996     An era of big promises and underwhelming delivery.   Other than the initial ST launch, everything promised seemed slow to materialize, often with features cut.   The console gaming side was never funded enough to be competitive with Nintendo and Sega.   Company's slogan was "Power without the Price", and ths ST really did deliver that!   But the flip side of that was the company seemed to do everything on the cheap

 

#4 Infrogrames era: 2001-2012   It was cool to see the name back, but at this point they were more of a software publisher like EA or Ubisoft than a company known for hardware innovation.   It was also strange to see the Atari name attached to a bunch of Microprose and Dungeons and Dragons games and few legacy Atari games.   So this era really did feel like "Atari in name only".

 

#5 Second Dark Age:  2013-2020   Post-bankruptcy,  Atari is heading off in all sort of odd directions.   One bright spot (depending on who you ask):  The VCS came out of this era.

 

#6 First Dark Age:  1996-2001:   Company sold to JTS, a hard-drive manufacturer.   For all intents in purposes the brand was dead, until the name was sold to Hasbro.   Hasbro released a few retro-inspired titles before selling the name to Infrogrames.

 

I don't yet know where to put the Rosen era.   I do like what they've been doing, so they could end up in the #3 spot if the momentum holds.

[zzip]

49 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

The production of VCS stopped after just 18 months. The Jaguar lasted three years, the 5200 two. The Jaguar lost a lot more money than the VCS, though. I don´t know how the 5200 did, but I am guessing it lost more money than the VCS too.

 

Rosen has provided more support for the VCS, but it is too little too late.

One difference is when Atari stopped manufacturing the 5200, they announced it was dead and the software stopped coming (other than a few stragglers the new owners managed to release in 86).   Atari never said the VCS was dead,   they stopped manufacturing because they have enough inventory for now.   New games are coming at a faster pace now than in the previous two years, and it already has more games than the Jaguar and 5200 combined (counting official releases, not homebrews).   There's also the Polymega stuff coming.  Atari is also still publishing most of its titles to VCS.

 

VCS was never meant to be a mainstream console, so it was never going to rack up those kinds of sales.   It was meant to be indy-focused, and easy to port to. 

 

 

 

[Lord Mushroom]

54 minutes ago, zzip said:

Atari never said the VCS was dead,   they stopped manufacturing because they have enough inventory for now. 

From Wikipedia:

"but according to Atari's financial reports, sales related to hardware fell from $2.44 million in 2021 to around $212,000 in 2022."

 

So sales are almost non-existent.

[Flojomojo]

These are the only "Ataris" that really mattered

1) Atari Inc 1971-1983

An innovative and very popular company that made a lot of high quality products.

 

2) Atari Games 1984-1999

They were great, and lived on under Midway and Warner. 

 

 

I am cautiously optimistic and wish them the best

Atari SA 2021- (Wade Rosen)

A focus on quality, but a low degree of innovation.

 

 

 

These were hot garbage

Atari Corp 1984-1996 (Tramiel)

Circling the drain. Some of the late 2600 releases that squirted out were interesting. I liked Lynx and Jaguar for what they were, but they were undeniably business failures and aren't remembered by anyone outside our little cult. 

 

Infogrames Atari 2001-2013

Seriously, what is there to say about this? Utterly forgettable. Bubsy?

 

Atari SA 2013-2021 (Chesnais)

Brought the company back to life again, but did a lot of shitty things. Low quality stuff. Atari VCS the mini-PC is a boondoggle and a waste of resources. 

 

 

 

[Lord Mushroom]

33 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

I liked Lynx and Jaguar for what they were, but they were undeniably business failures and aren't remembered by anyone outside our little cult.

Don´t forget the 7800. I have read that it sold 3.77 million units, and was profitable. And don´t forget that Atari Inc. was overall unprofitable.

[Flojomojo]

13 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Don´t forget the 7800. I have read that it sold 3.77 million units, and was profitable. And don´t forget that Atari Inc. was overall unprofitable.

Oops, I totally forgot the 7800. I got a clearance unit around the year 1989 and enjoyed playing all the arcade ports while Nintendo was going in a different direction. In a perfect world, 7800 should have been the second console, since the 5200 was a real steamer. Market conditions were really tough by then however. 

[ledzep]

4 hours ago, bent_pin said:

True, but it was MY POS and I loved it. I think that's why a lot of us are here.

 

Oh, same here.  We played the shit out of that thing when I was a kid.  My best friend had the 5200 (and Intellivision) so we played those a lot when we went to his house.

 

4 hours ago, bent_pin said:

Video LEGOs is the best description that I've heard yet.

 

Whenever I play Surround, that's all I see, hahaaha.

 

4 hours ago, bent_pin said:

To the topic at hand:

First gen home Atari was a great company, but the mid 80 game development model really damned the fine hardware to last place.

 

It's unfortunate, the amount of missteps that Atari made, even in their heyday.  I suppose no company is perfect.

[PowerDubs]

9 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

The production of VCS stopped after just 18 months. The Jaguar lasted three years, the 5200 two. The Jaguar lost a lot more money than the VCS, though. I don´t know how the 5200 did, but I am guessing it lost more money than the VCS too.

 

Rosen has provided more support for the VCS, but it is too little too late.

 

'Current' production stopped... wouldn't surprise me to see Wade announce a new supplier...and some tweaks...to allow it to be sold globally this time.

 

The VCS would see a LOT more if available in other countries.

 

I don't count it as dead.  I think Wade is holding back his hand.