IGN ranks the Atari 7800 over the Sega Master System! Do you agree?

[+Pac-Lander]

https://www.ign.com/videos/top-25-videogame-consoles-20-16

 

The 7800 comes in at #17 in their all time rankings, ahead of the Sega Master System, Neo Geo, and Sega Saturn. 

I certainly agree, and of course most of the discussion will come down to development and the games (or lack there of). I think over time and thanks in large part to the homebrew community, the 7800 has proven how much power was really under the hood. 

But this was surprising (to me) that a mainstream media site like IGN would have the 7800 on top of the SMS. Obviously on AtariAge we will be biased, (and this list is a bit dated) but curious to hear opinions/thoughts from the AA community. 
 

[phoenixdownita]

45 minutes ago, Pac-Lander said:

https://www.ign.com/videos/top-25-videogame-consoles-20-16

 

The 7800 comes in at #17 in their all time rankings, ahead of the Sega Master System, Neo Geo, and Sega Saturn. 

Nah man.

 

Both the Neogeo and Saturn are on a different league compared to the 7800.

Say what you want but the Saturn brought home the 3d arcade of Daytona, Sega Rally, VF2 … that alone is huge.

The Neogeo is the real 16bit arcade at home experience, yes it was damn expensive but it’s exhilarating to this day, if you can afford it you should really give it a whirl, MiSTer does a very good job at it as well.

 

Wrt SMS I place it a little higher to the 7800, growing up in Europe it was easy to find one at toy stores and electronics vs the 7800 was … what it was. I was surprised to learn it sold 1M units.

 

The og SW on the 7800 was quite weak and the pain line controllers borderline atrocious for those kind of games, as soon as I got my 7800 a decade ago or so I immediately purchased the euro pads which even if not that good as a joypad it beats the pain line by a country mile (I literally had to replace the cords on both of my euro pads 10 days ago).

 

Yes modern homebrew on 7800 does a good job with the platform showing that it could have been much more than it was but there are great SMS showings like Sonic which is quite impressive (don’t care if it’s not homebrew), I mean it even has an official port of Xenon2 (pal only or you get stuck) that is not bad at all.

Edited June 4 by phoenixdownita

[famicommander]

No, that's absolutely ludicrous and I love the 7800.

[CapitanClassic]

Triple Jump ranked the 7800 lower when considering game library, price, etc.

 

 

They didn’t rank any Atari systems in the top 10. It wouldn’t be fair to rank them based upon homebrew games coming out today. What would be more interesting is to compare them based off the games released during the same year/quarter, to determine if any of those games would warrant buying one of the systems over the other. With that in mind, I don’t think many of the 7800 games from 1986-1987 would sell the system. The arcade titles from Sega ported to their SMS are just about as compelling, and by 1988 they would completely dominate what Atari was putting out.

 

43# Atari XEGS

41# Atari Jaguar

39# Atari 5200

35# Atari 7800

28# Neo Geo

24# Colecovision

23# Sega CD

19# Famicom Disk System

18# Sega Master System

16# Atari 2600

 

Spoiler

#14 Sega Dreamcast

11# Genesis/MegaDrive

10# Nintendo Switch

9# NES / Famicom

8# Microsoft XBox

7# Nintendo Wii

6# Sony PS4

5# Nintendo SNES

4# Sony PSX

3# Sony PS3

2# Microsoft XBox360

1# Sony PS2

 

[+GoldenWheels]

I mean I am a straight SUCKA for everything 7800 but... they got it wrong. SMS had a better console, better peripherals (in that, it actually had SOME), and a far, FAR better (OMG so much better) library than the 7800.

 

And so far as worldwide impact and longevity....wow. Unless done just for clicks, this article is some merda.

[+GoldLeader]

YES

[phoenixdownita]

11 minutes ago, GoldenWheels said:

And so far as worldwide impact and longevity....wow. Unless done just for clicks, this article is some merda.

Interesting choice of word cumpa’.

 

merda -> 💩 in Italian (seems also Portuguese)

Edited June 4 by phoenixdownita

[John Stamos Mullet]

I have both the 7800 and the SMS. 
 

love em both.

 

but while technically the SMS is better, I like the 7800 more. 

[+GoldenWheels]

16 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

Interesting choice of word cumpa’.

 

merda -> 💩 in Italian (seems also Portuguese)

I chose it specifically because they were releasing new Master System hardware in Brazil as late as 2008! 2008!!! Those Brazilians love them some SMS.

 

To me that has always been a fun subject, somewhat 'regional' systems. Brazil kept the SMS going with love, the UK largely skipped early consoles in favor of pcs, and for whatever reason they LOVE their 8-bit Ataris in Poland and the Eastern Bloc. I am sure their are logical reasons for all, just funny how the chips end up sometimes.

[+swlovinist]

Huge 7800 fan but the SMS was a powerhouse and offered a much more robust library of games back in the day.    The aftermarket of the 7800 has been excellent but that to me does not change my opinion.   

[phoenixdownita]

5 minutes ago, GoldenWheels said:

I chose it specifically because they were releasing new Master System hardware in Brazil as late as 2008! 2008!!! Those Brazilians love them some SMS.

 

To me that has always been a fun subject, somewhat 'regional' systems. Brazil kept the SMS going with love, the UK largely skipped early consoles in favor of pcs, and for whatever reason they LOVE their 8-bit Ataris in Poland and the Eastern Bloc. I am sure their are logical reasons for all, just funny how the chips end up sometimes.

The Brazil anomaly was all due to affordability afaik, the very long duration (the Wii launched in 2006 lol) though seems very specific.

 

Atari 8 bits and Poland likely same thing to my knowledge, they were sold cheap there and hence affordable to the locals that grew very fond of it and very skilled at it … I believe the eastern bloc proper had a lot of zx spectrum clones, not sure how much of that production made it back to the Sinclair machine.

[zzip]

I think it just a matter of when you create a large ranking, it's tough to get everything right, and you're more concerned about getting the top of the list right rather than the bottom of the list.

 

Also it doesn't seem like the SMS had a big impact in the US,  So at the time both were on the market, Atari might have still been a bigger name in consoles here.

[Razzie.P]

Funny memory from an IGN employee way back when -- as he was clicking the button to publish a list like this (or make it live, I think was his words) --- he said "Ok nerds... fight!"

 

 

[johannesmutlu]

If it is about games wich do showcasing the power of the mastersystem system, then the mastersystem wins hands down,

on the atari 7800 most games hardly do show the real capabilities of that system,

but to me i do love the atari 7800 just more because of my favorite games being on that system like nintendo games because i am a nintendo fan but i also do like atari just more because of their own games on that system,

trough i do have fond memories of the sega mastersystem in the early 90’s with games such as  alex kidd,mj moonwalker,fantansy zone,action fighter but that’s it.

Edited June 5 by johannesmutlu

[akator]

The SMS has superior hardware, better controllers, 3D glasses, a superior original library, and many homebrew games with plenty of current homebrew development.

 

I like the 7800 a lot, but the SMS wins across the board.

[Zoyous]

4 hours ago, GoldenWheels said:

I chose it specifically because they were releasing new Master System hardware in Brazil as late as 2008! 2008!!! Those Brazilians love them some SMS.

They've been continuing to release new Master System hardware in Brazil even to this day (usually in an all-in-one configuration). Tectoy has said it continues to sell some 200,000 units per year.

[phoenixdownita]

3 minutes ago, Zoyous said:

They've been continuing to release new Master System hardware in Brazil even to this day (usually in an all-in-one configuration). Tectoy has said it continues to sell some 200,000 units per year.

Holy crap … the Atari Jaguar sold <150k (Wikipedia) in its whole lifetime.

[Zoyous]

1 hour ago, phoenixdownita said:

Holy crap … the Atari Jaguar sold <150k (Wikipedia) in its whole lifetime.

Sorry, correction/clarification... I went back to look up what my fuzzy memory was saying. From the Wikipedia article on the SMS (with citations):
 

Quote

A 2012 article on UOL wrote that Tectoy re-releases of the Master System and Mega Drive combined sold around 150,000 units per year in Brazil.^[69][70] By 2016, Tectoy said they had sold 8 million units of Master System branded systems in Brazil.^[16]

 

[roots.genoa]

[BassGuitari]

I didn't watch the video so I don't know what their arguments or criteria are, but I don't see where there's a case that the Atari 7800 can reasonably be ranked above the Sega Master System. Except on looks. Or box art. 7800 wins both of those.

 

But the Sega had more games, better games (in instances where direct comparisons apply), more advanced games that were more in step with the times, better controllers, way better sound, and more peripherals (or rather, peripherals, period). I love the Atari 7800 but it's really not even close. 

[Hydro Thunder]

Click bait / belligerence / nonsense.  And I LOVE the 7800.  I understand it's "for its time" etc, but even so.  The Saturn, while badly losing the sales war, had AMAZING games, its library is phenomenal.  Not as much experience with Neo Geo or SMS so won't comment there.  But the 7800 had a tiny but mighty / mighty fun library, and is a neat system with TERRIBLE sound and AWUL stock controllers.  Unbelievably awful.  My 7800 with composite mod, Concerto / Homebrews aplenty, and Edladdin twin stick?  Whole different story.  But that's not a legit comparison.  7800 with ProLine controllers?? Yipe Stripe.

[Gentlegamer]

I was going to post that I don't think even die hard 7800 fanboys would put it over SMS... I see the die hard fanboys have already posted as much!

[+pboland]

Nope!

 

I'm an SMS guy. I passed up the 7800 (and NES for that matter) back in the day for the SMS. I only knew one kid that had a 7800 back then (and he wanted a NES).

 

With that said, I think the idea of the 7800 was great! It's basically a 2600 with extra power. And if I was to guess this is why more 7800 units actually sold than the Master System. If back in the day your 2600 died, you could either get the new $49.99 2600 jr (under fifty bucks!) or for $40.00 more ($89.99) you could get the 7800 which could still play those old 2600 cart plus you would get the ability to play newer more powerful games (possibly) in the future. I think a lot of people bought the 7800 for this exact reason. I know if I was in that boat back then, I most likely would have went with the 7800.

[BydoEmpire]

I'm a fan of both, and have had both for a while. I got an SMS around 1990 and a 7800 a couple years later. The SMS just does too much too well, and has a lot of really unique and cool games. That said, they're quite complementary because they have such different libraries.

[roots.genoa]

9 hours ago, BassGuitari said:

Except on looks. Or box art. 7800 wins both of those.

My assumption is the 2600 ranks high and the 7800 is retrocompatible with it. Otherwise I don't get it either.