Older arcade conversions

[ledzep]

I know that the Atari 5200 advertised the Real Sports games and they were cool but I'm really surprised that, considering the analog stick + keyboard (and later, the magnificent Trak-ball) that they never converted their older arcade sports games, specifically Atari Baseball, Atari Football, and Atari Soccer since those games utilized the analog trak-ball controller and had buttons for preset plays.  That seems like it would have been stupid easy to adapt to the 5200.

 

 

 

I think the Football and Soccer versions also had 4-player versions of the cabinets?  I know it would be pretty expensive to have 2 (or 4!) Trak-ball controllers for the 5200 just to play those games but the joysticks would have been good enough, probably, and the keypads would have lent themselves perfectly for the play selections.  Maybe they thought the games looked too primitive and they left that style to the 2600, which had no hope of recreating the look and play of these games without loads of flickering, probably.  As a Trak-ball controller fan I'm biased, obviously, but I would have loved to have had a home version of Atari Football, especially one that wouldn't have ruined my hands with those giant trak-balls, hahaaha.  And the Baseball version which I've never played.  They could have added basic colors to the game for the field and the team colors (with an option for classic vivid black and white).  But keep the Xs and Os for the Football game!

[Flyindrew]

By late 1982 these late 70s era titles looked like they were from the stone age. Nobody was going to buy them especially on a brand new state of the art console.

[zzip]

The Atari Baseball game looks like every baseball game from that era, except with more primitive graphics (but still better than Home Run!)

 

But the Football game with X's and O's is unique,  and I think such a game could have done well on the 5200 --   The 5200 could have kept the high-res graphics and maybe do PMG overlays to make the field green.

[ledzep]

On 2/15/2024 at 9:56 AM, Flyindrew said:

By late 1982 these late 70s era titles looked like they were from the stone age. Nobody was going to buy them especially on a brand new state of the art console.

 

Super Breakout disagrees with you, hahaaha, but I do agree that those games were especially simplistic graphically for the new console (and I assume they wanted the 5200 to look like was doing things decidedly non-2600 as far as visuals go).  Even so, it was mostly an arcade port system and those games were arcade games.  And Atari Football is a late '70s game (1978) and Atari Baseball is from 1979 so I wouldn't say that they looked terrible compared to other late '70s games, it's not like they came out in the '60s or anything.  And the Football game at least was popular as hell when I was going to arcades.  Again, I don't think I ever laid eyes on a Baseball game (or Atari Soccer).

[ledzep]

On 2/15/2024 at 10:14 AM, zzip said:

The Atari Baseball game looks like every baseball game from that era, except with more primitive graphics (but still better than Home Run!)

 

But the Football game with X's and O's is unique,  and I think such a game could have done well on the 5200 --   The 5200 could have kept the high-res graphics and maybe do PMG overlays to make the field green.

 

If anything, Atari Football (and Baseball) might have generated more Trak-ball sales (and repairs, hahaha).  The 5200 version could have added crowd animation (I would have programmed a bunch of Fs as fans in stands bouncing around or waving pendants or whatever).  Maybe even include a roving R as a referee, who knows.  They could have had fun porting it to the 5200.

[+Allan]

Obviously they were having issues with Realsports Basketball but I wanted Realsports Hockey. And Realsports Golf and Realsports Bowling would have been nice as well. They didn't even attempt the later three.

[bigfriendly]

I never saw any of these sports games except for the football. The 4 player model would often draw a crowd of onlookers. It took two blood blisters before I learned how to operate that trackball without pinching my palms. 

[ledzep]

3 hours ago, bigfriendly said:

I never saw any of these sports games except for the football. The 4 player model would often draw a crowd of onlookers. It took two blood blisters before I learned how to operate that trackball without pinching my palms. 

 

Ya, always swipe across up, never go down (into the pinch).  That took a few times for sure.  But also, they were so heavy that I got burst blood vessels occasionally if I played too long, just ruined hands, hahaaha.  The 5200 Trak-ball would have been much less painful.

[Flyindrew]

On 2/17/2024 at 8:07 PM, ledzep said:

 

Super Breakout disagrees with you, hahaaha, but I do agree that those games were especially simplistic graphically for the new console (and I assume they wanted the 5200 to look like was doing things decidedly non-2600 as far as visuals go).  Even so, it was mostly an arcade port system and those games were arcade games.  And Atari Football is a late '70s game (1978) and Atari Baseball is from 1979 so I wouldn't say that they looked terrible compared to other late '70s games, it's not like they came out in the '60s or anything.  And the Football game at least was popular as hell when I was going to arcades.  Again, I don't think I ever laid eyes on a Baseball game (or Atari Soccer).

Take it from an arcade/video game console junkie in 1982, nobody would have bought these late ‘70s titles at the time on a new console. In late ‘82 home console buyers were enamored with Colecovision and its home arcade ports of (then) cutting edge arcade games. As for Atari sports fans, they were buying the Realsports titles.

Yes..in 2024, through the eyes of nostalgia, these late 70s Atari sports games were/are awesome and should be part of any compilation. I remember these games being popular circa 1979.  Im just saying that in ‘82/‘83 they were considered old news, and were collecting dust in the arcades sitting next to newer games.

[ledzep]

5 hours ago, Flyindrew said:

Take it from an arcade/video game console junkie in 1982, nobody would have bought these late ‘70s titles at the time on a new console. In late ‘82 home console buyers were enamored with Colecovision and its home arcade ports of (then) cutting edge arcade games. As for Atari sports fans, they were buying the Realsports titles.

Yes..in 2024, through the eyes of nostalgia, these late 70s Atari sports games were/are awesome and should be part of any compilation. I remember these games being popular circa 1979.  Im just saying that in ‘82/‘83 they were considered old news, and were collecting dust in the arcades sitting next to newer games.

 

I was also an arcade/video game console junkie in 1982, I would have bought 5200 Atari Football in a heartbeat.  But I agree that many gamers would have rolled their eyes at a '70s arcade game being converted to a new "modern" console... like Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Galaxian (1979), Super Breakout (1978), etc., right?  Maybe not, I don't remember complaints about '70s conversions (except maybe for Super Breakout being the pack-in game).  There were lots more converted to the 2600 of course since it was more primitive and came first, but they sold very well, too, such as Circus (1977), Pong (1972), Drag Race (1977), Sprint 2 (1976), Tank (1974), Jet Fighter (1975), Night Driver (1976), etc., even in the '80s from what I remember in terms of buying my own games.  The Realsports titles weren't that much better in terms of the sports themselves, they just had blocky players instead of simpler shapes.  The sports fans I knew preferred accurate sports representations vs. good looking games that skimped on the game rules.  Even in the '80s, Atari Football was popular in arcades (when you could find one).  Certainly more colorful games, vector games, more complicated games were getting most of the quarters.  Even so, people were still playing Asteroids and Lunar Lander and Tail Gunner and Galaxian and Sea Wolf and Star Fire and Starhawk and Space Wars in arcades, the only issue in that sense was that many of those cabinets would be removed in smaller arcades to make room for the new games coming in.  But the bigger arcades that could hold more games still had some of those older games around (thank Odin) because they didn't stop being great, fun games simply because another year had passed.

 

As much as I loved the newer games I still wanted to play the older games, too.  But even in 1982, most games were still current or barely old, like Defender (1981), Missile Command (1980), Qix (1981), Centipede (1981), Battlezone (1980), Rally-X (1980), Rip-Off (1980), Scramble (1981), Star Castle (1980), Gorf (1981), Wizard Of Wor (1980), Solar Fox (1981), Omega Race (1981), Astro Blaster (1981), Berzerk (1980), Tempest (1981), Bosconian (1981), Asteroids Deluxe (1981).  Don't tell me those games were light years ahead of the late '70s games.  A little more detailed, sure, but back then I couldn't tell which game was newer than the other based only on how they played.  Ok, maybe Space Invaders was noticeable along with the truly older ones like Night Driver and Tank.  I don't think I ever saw a Tank in an arcade.  I do remember Blasto (1978), now that was a game made for the 2600.

[Flyindrew]

16 hours ago, ledzep said:

 

I was also an arcade/video game console junkie in 1982, I would have bought 5200 Atari Football in a heartbeat.  But I agree that many gamers would have rolled their eyes at a '70s arcade game being converted to a new "modern" console... like Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Galaxian (1979), Super Breakout (1978), etc., right?  Maybe not, I don't remember complaints about '70s conversions (except maybe for Super Breakout being the pack-in game).  There were lots more converted to the 2600 of course since it was more primitive and came first, but they sold very well, too, such as Circus (1977), Pong (1972), Drag Race (1977), Sprint 2 (1976), Tank (1974), Jet Fighter (1975), Night Driver (1976), etc., even in the '80s from what I remember in terms of buying my own games.  The Realsports titles weren't that much better in terms of the sports themselves, they just had blocky players instead of simpler shapes.  The sports fans I knew preferred accurate sports representations vs. good looking games that skimped on the game rules.  Even in the '80s, Atari Football was popular in arcades (when you could find one).  Certainly more colorful games, vector games, more complicated games were getting most of the quarters.  Even so, people were still playing Asteroids and Lunar Lander and Tail Gunner and Galaxian and Sea Wolf and Star Fire and Starhawk and Space Wars in arcades, the only issue in that sense was that many of those cabinets would be removed in smaller arcades to make room for the new games coming in.  But the bigger arcades that could hold more games still had some of those older games around (thank Odin) because they didn't stop being great, fun games simply because another year had passed.

 

As much as I loved the newer games I still wanted to play the older games, too.  But even in 1982, most games were still current or barely old, like Defender (1981), Missile Command (1980), Qix (1981), Centipede (1981), Battlezone (1980), Rally-X (1980), Rip-Off (1980), Scramble (1981), Star Castle (1980), Gorf (1981), Wizard Of Wor (1980), Solar Fox (1981), Omega Race (1981), Astro Blaster (1981), Berzerk (1980), Tempest (1981), Bosconian (1981), Asteroids Deluxe (1981).  Don't tell me those games were light years ahead of the late '70s games.  A little more detailed, sure, but back then I couldn't tell which game was newer than the other based only on how they played.  Ok, maybe Space Invaders was noticeable along with the truly older ones like Night Driver and Tank.  I don't think I ever saw a Tank in an arcade.  I do remember Blasto (1978), now that was a game made for the 2600.

Your right in that Atari had a successful formula from 1978-1982 rehashing the classic arcade games on the 2600 (Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Space Invaders). However, by late 1982 this was about to change. The Colecovision was the game changer. The vast majority of game players saw a sexy new state of the art console, with fresh arcade ports and attractive boxes with the arcade machines on them (genius marketing at the time).  Yes Atari launched the 5200, but Coleco was new and excited gamers more  at the time (even though I personally think the 5200 is a far superior system of the 2 owning both). That being said, many gamers were ready to move on. I was like you, and still enjoyed the older titles along with the new stuff.   

Edited February 20 by Flyindrew

[zzip]

17 hours ago, ledzep said:

The Realsports titles weren't that much better in terms of the sports themselves, they just had blocky players instead of simpler shapes.  The sports fans I knew preferred accurate sports representations vs. good looking games that skimped on the game rules.  Even in the '80s, Atari Football was popular in arcades (when you could find one).

Same with my friends who were big sports fans.   I was really into graphics, but noticed that they'd forgive a lot in terms of graphics if it did a good job of capturing the essence of the game.   X's and O's were used in football playbooks so there was a certain authenticity in using them in a football videogame --  I don't think fans would be put off by "ewww! character graphics!" even in 1982.  But the Atari Football arcade game wasn't simply character graphics, it's high-res for the era, and motion is smooth.   Yeah it was B&W, but you could colorize the field if necessary.

[jerseystyle]

On 2/17/2024 at 5:07 PM, ledzep said:

 

Super Breakout disagrees with you, hahaaha,

To this day (and as someone who was practically born with a Pong paddle in my hand) I’ll never understand how anyone thought Super Breakout should’ve been the pack in title. In no way did it stand as any sort of showcase for the 5200. Such an odd, tone deaf choice.

[Flyindrew]

1 hour ago, jerseystyle said:

To this day (and as someone who was practically born with a Pong paddle in my hand) I’ll never understand how anyone thought Super Breakout should’ve been the pack in title. In no way did it stand as any sort of showcase for the 5200. Such an odd, tone deaf choice.

The 5200 should have been released in September of 1982 with Pac Man as the pack in game. Marketing/advertising should have been done hot and heavy for the arcade quality graphics. Centipede, Galaxian, Joust and Moon Patrol should have been possibilities as other arcade titles at launch. Wait until December 1982 to release the inferior 2600 Pac Man

[zzip]

1 hour ago, jerseystyle said:

To this day (and as someone who was practically born with a Pong paddle in my hand) I’ll never understand how anyone thought Super Breakout should’ve been the pack in title. In no way did it stand as any sort of showcase for the 5200. Such an odd, tone deaf choice.

Because back then you didn't give your best game as the pack-in.   The pack-in was just something to tide you over until you got better titles.   Colecovision pulled a coup by giving away their biggest title.  In that world Super Breakout was the perfect choice-  an older title that might not sell as well on its own.   Pac-man should sell easily, so why give it away?

 

But because Coleco upped the ante,  Atari was eventually forced to include Pac-man

 

15 minutes ago, Flyindrew said:

Wait until December 1982 to release the inferior 2600 Pac Man

I don't think Pac-man could wait until Dec 82,  they had to get it out before the hype died down.   But they should have at least announced that the 5200 was coming with a superior Pacman before releasing the 2600 version.

And they could have spent an afternoon making a few tweaks to 2600 Pac-man to make it less awful, so that it at least felt like a good-faith port and Atari didn't purposely sell us a bad version to get us to buy new hardware.

[jerseystyle]

2 hours ago, Flyindrew said:

The 5200 should have been released in September of 1982 with Pac Man as the pack in game. Marketing/advertising should have been done hot and heavy for the arcade quality graphics. Centipede, Galaxian, Joust and Moon Patrol should have been possibilities as other arcade titles at launch. Wait until December 1982 to release the inferior 2600 Pac Man

Yes! I would have been on board with this.

[Flyindrew]

And another thing that needed to be done radically different by Atari was marketing, namely the boxes the 5200 carts were sold in. While I think Atari had the superior console (5200) and arcade ports, Coleco ran circles around Atari as far as marketing goes. The Coleco boxes with the arcade cabinets displayed made you feel like you were purchasing the arcade game and taking it home with you. 

[zzip]

Main issues with the 5200 was it was too expensive (cost significantly more than CV),  had controllers prone to breaking, and its library was not significantly different from the 2600.   People mainly buy consoles to play games they can't play on current systems,  playing games they already own with better graphics is less of a priority.

 

As far as marketing, both Atari 5200 and Coleco marketing emphasized how arcade-like their arcade ports were.   Yes the Atari arcade portfolio had many more well-known titles, while Coleco licensed a bunch of lesser-known games outside of a few heavy hitters like DK and Zaxxon.   While seeing the arcade cabinets on the Coleco boxes was cool, I don't think that was a deal breaker,  Atari's own box artwork was iconic enough to get its own book! 

 

Coleco put the arcade images on their 2600/INTV ports too, so you didn't need a Colecovision to enjoy that aspect.  If the 5200 and CV lasted long enough, Coleco may have ported their games to the 5200 too!   But on that topic,  Atarisoft porting some of their games to Colecovision without Coleco reciprocating was not doing the 5200 any favors either.

[ledzep]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Main issues with the 5200 was it was too expensive (cost significantly more than CV),  had controllers prone to breaking, and its library was not significantly different from the 2600.   People mainly buy consoles to play games they can't play on current systems,  playing games they already own with better graphics is less of a priority.

 

Having Activision clone their 2600 games to the 5200 and only updating the graphics didn't help, either.  I mean, at least offer a new option that the 2600 version didn't have!  Higher difficulty level or extra obstacles or whatever.  I did appreciate that 5200 versions of some 2600 games were "done right"er, meaning the Trak-ball games actually worked right now with the analog joystick (better) or the Trak-ball itself (best) instead of the inadequate digital joystick.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

As far as marketing, both Atari 5200 and Coleco marketing emphasized how arcade-like their arcade ports were.   Yes the Atari arcade portfolio had many more well-known titles, while Coleco licensed a bunch of lesser-known games outside of a few heavy hitters like DK and Zaxxon.   While seeing the arcade cabinets on the Coleco boxes was cool, I don't think that was a deal breaker,  Atari's own box artwork was iconic enough to get its own book! 

 

Ya, the arcade game pic is cute, but what if the game is an original idea, not an arcade port?  Now what?  I liked the 5200's box art scheme, I just wish they had varied the colors to distinguish between shooters or space games or sports games or whatever.  I will say I'm a bit biased in that area, I cannot stand those modern games with artwork that completely wraps around the box, no borders or frames or anything.  I never cared about the arcade port having an actual image of the arcade game cabinet, either, I only cared if the game played accurate enough.  I mean, I knew the home versions would never be 100%, I just wanted them to be close enough.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Coleco put the arcade images on their 2600/INTV ports too, so you didn't need a Colecovision to enjoy that aspect.  If the 5200 and CV lasted long enough, Coleco may have ported their games to the 5200 too!   But on that topic,  Atarisoft porting some of their games to Colecovision without Coleco reciprocating was not doing the 5200 any favors either.

 

Ya, that was a dumb move, Atari should have insisted on a 2-way exchange.  They should have also gotten Activision, CBS, Imagic, SEGA, etc., to release new games on the 5200 first, then maybe on the 2600 if the game would work well enough.

[zzip]

24 minutes ago, ledzep said:

Ya, that was a dumb move, Atari should have insisted on a 2-way exchange.  They should have also gotten Activision, CBS, Imagic, SEGA, etc., to release new games on the 5200 first, then maybe on the 2600 if the game would work well enough.

Yeah there's many games that just don't work well on 2600 but got released there anyway.   But that's where the money was.  Atari would probably have had to pay publishers to compensate for delaying or not publishing on the 2600 in order to boost the 5200's library's exclusivity.

 

 

[ledzep]

10 hours ago, zzip said:

Yeah there's many games that just don't work well on 2600 but got released there anyway.   But that's where the money was.  Atari would probably have had to pay publishers to compensate for delaying or not publishing on the 2600 in order to boost the 5200's library's exclusivity.

 

 

 

Possibly, but I could see where the delay would be minimal, like a month or less.  I would guess that a system that wasn't so hard to program and resulted in games that actually looked like what was advertised would be a plus for the game publishers, they could brag about how their library of games were the best.  No more blocks moving around other blocks and having everything flicker when too much shit was on the screen, people tended to blame the game more than the console when that happened (since most games didn't flicker).  I bet even Vectrex games could eventually have been ported (same controller type) though the vector graphics would suffer.

[zzip]

6 hours ago, ledzep said:

 

Possibly, but I could see where the delay would be minimal, like a month or less.  I would guess that a system that wasn't so hard to program and resulted in games that actually looked like what was advertised would be a plus for the game publishers, they could brag about how their library of games were the best.  No more blocks moving around other blocks and having everything flicker when too much shit was on the screen, people tended to blame the game more than the console when that happened (since most games didn't flicker).  I bet even Vectrex games could eventually have been ported (same controller type) though the vector graphics would suffer.

I think they just want the money, haha.   I used to think technical limitations kept publishers from porting games to a system.  But now when I look back at some of the ports the IBM PC (CGA) and Apple II got in that era, some ports are quite appalling!   If your system had any kind of installed base, the developers would find a way to bring their game to it, even if they strip out all the game's charm in the process.

 

So yeah it makes sense they'd want to continue to produce 2600 ports even if that means flickering, and blocky minimalist graphics.   It's a shame.  There's a bunch of games that got ports on CV and Atari8 but never made it to 5200 because of licensing or other issues.   The a8 ports are as good as and sometimes superior to the CV version.   And to add insult to injury many of them got 2600 ports but no 5200 port.

[ledzep]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

So yeah it makes sense they'd want to continue to produce 2600 ports even if that means flickering, and blocky minimalist graphics.   It's a shame.  There's a bunch of games that got ports on CV and Atari8 but never made it to 5200 because of licensing or other issues.   The a8 ports are as good as and sometimes superior to the CV version.   And to add insult to injury many of them got 2600 ports but no 5200 port.

 

I assume the source code for these games must be available somewhere.  They're probably too old to have been 6502 code, right?  I wonder if there's a way to convert them to something "normal" like 6502 assembler or whatever so that they could be ported to the 5200.  It would be easier than porting to the A8 computers, although wouldn't it be cool to have 2 players that used 2 controllers each, the joystick (or a CX22 Trak-ball) and the Keyboard controller in order to hide what plays were being selected (4-port Atari 800 only so, not ideal).

[zzip]

29 minutes ago, ledzep said:

 

I assume the source code for these games must be available somewhere.  They're probably too old to have been 6502 code, right?  I wonder if there's a way to convert them to something "normal" like 6502 assembler or whatever so that they could be ported to the 5200.  It would be easier than porting to the A8 computers, although wouldn't it be cool to have 2 players that used 2 controllers each, the joystick (or a CX22 Trak-ball) and the Keyboard controller in order to hide what plays were being selected (4-port Atari 800 only so, not ideal).

being on Atari 8 is as close to being on the 5200 as you can get.   Still there's some effort,  you have to alter the game to use 5200 controllers,  you need to account for the different memory map of the 5200.  And if the game was released on disk, it needs to be reorganized to run from a bank switched 5200 cart.   So it's not a matter of simply recompiling code.   There's a reason people don't like "hey can you port this to the 5200?" type requests around here. 

 

[ledzep]

57 minutes ago, zzip said:

being on Atari 8 is as close to being on the 5200 as you can get.   Still there's some effort,  you have to alter the game to use 5200 controllers,  you need to account for the different memory map of the 5200.  And if the game was released on disk, it needs to be reorganized to run from a bank switched 5200 cart.   So it's not a matter of simply recompiling code.   There's a reason people don't like "hey can you port this to the 5200?" type requests around here. 

 

 

That's not what I meant, I was saying that porting Atari Football (and Baseball) to the 5200 would be easier because the controller was analog and it includes a keyboard so that you can "hide" your play picks, something that would be tough to do playing on an Atari 8-bit computer (unless sportsmanship allows for players to turn their heads while their adversaries choose their plays on the computer keyboard) unless it was the 4-port Atari 800 so that each player would get 2 controllers, the joystick (or Trak-ball) and the keyboard controller.  But that would screw a lot of A8 owners who only had 2 controller ports so probably a no-deal.  That's if the source code exists in the first place.  As far as I know there's no port of either arcade game to anything out there.