Atari 50: The First Console War

[+DrVenkman]

5 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

Most  gaming historians disagree with this assessment, here's Adam Koraliks take on the 5200

 

 

You really have no sense of logical consistency, do you? Your post in this thread which I disagree with was lumping in ColecoVision with Atari and Intellivision. You've now so lost the train of your own thought that you link a video from a guy who calls the 5200 "second generation," which - amusingly - is what most of us who lived through the era of cartridge based systems would categorize ColecoVision.

Thus, again, claiming ColecoVision should be included into a discussion of "the first console war" is absurd.

 

Can't you at least try to keep your own arguments straight? 

[JPF997]

28 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

You really have no sense of logical consistency, do you? Your post in this thread which I disagree with was lumping in ColecoVision with Atari and Intellivision. You've now so lost the train of your own thought that you link a video from a guy who calls the 5200 "second generation," which - amusingly - is what most of us who lived through the era of cartridge based systems would categorize ColecoVision.

 

... I agree that the Coleco Vision and the 5200  are second generation consoles... How am I lost in my own train of thought ?

28 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

 

Thus, again, claiming ColecoVision should be included into a discussion of "the first console war" is absurd.

 

Can't you at least try to keep your own arguments straight? 

The  "first console war " in this case  is what Digital Eclipse is dubbing the Atari Intellivision rivalry, I think this is more propaganda than real history, there were console wars before the Intellivision even came out ( anyone remember the Magnavox Odyssey 2 ? ).

 

Intellivision  imo wasn't even Atari's most formidable opponent in that era, Commodore for example was a far bigger threat to Atari than Intellivision ever was ( the computer wars between the C64  and the Atari 800 and later the Amiga vs the ST were far bigger and more  impactful than what was happening in the console market).

Edited October 8 by JPF997

[+DrVenkman]

23 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

... I agree that the Coleco Vision is a second generation console... How am I lost in my own train of thought ?

The  "first console war " in this case  is what Digital Eclipse is dubbing the Atari Intellivision rivalry, I think this is more propaganda than real history, there were console wars before the Intellivision even came out ( anyone remember the Magnavox Odyssey 2 ? ).

 

Intellivision  imo wasn't even Atari's most formidable opponent in that era, Commodore for example was a far bigger threat to Atari than Intellivision ever was ( the computer wars between the C64  and the Atari 800 and later the Amiga vs the ST was far bigger and more  impactful than what was happening in the console market).

Again, you really don't understand the history here. The O2 was an also-ran in the commercial market, a distant third in the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers of the era. ANYONE who was a console gamer between 1977 and 1981 would agree with that premise. Mattel's infamous marketing blitz wasn't comparing Intellivision to the O2, the Fairchild System F or Pong clones. No, dozens of commercials like this ran in front of millions of eyeballs daily:

 

But once more you're bringing up tangential and unrelated thoughts: the 8-bit computer battles. And once again, you're wrong: the C64 didn't release until 1982, 3 years after the Atari 400/800 were released. For those of us who were there, when we were using our Atari computers in 1982, it was the Apple II and Trash-80 people we were initially considering competitors of Atari. The C64 was an upstart, a late-comer to that battle that swept the 8-bit field primarily due to Jack's insane cost-cutting and realizing the market share of $200 - $400 computers was vastly greater than the market for $400 - $1,500 computers. 

 

But that being said, no one was going to a store in 1983 and trying to decide between an Atari Video Computer System console, an Atari 800 or a Commodore 64. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison across market segments. So once again, you are changing the topic with tangents that are utterly irrelevant to the premise of the entire thread. 

[CapitanClassic]

7 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

ANYONE who was a console gamer between 1977 and 1981 would agree with that premise. Mattel's infamous marketing blitz

I was going to post those commercials, as it is clear evidence of the marketing war between Intellivison and Atari 2600. It was the first Console War, with Nintendo vs Sega and it's (Genesis Does What Nintendon't through it's Next Level / Sega CD commercials) being the most memorable. 

 

Console wars have basically ended though. The last memorable one to me was the "I'm A Mac" and I'm a PC commercials of the late 2000s.

[+Zeptari]

1 hour ago, JPF997 said:

The  "first console war " in this case  is what Digital Eclipse is dubbing the Atari Intellivision rivalry, I think this is more propaganda than real history, there were console wars before the Intellivision even came out ( anyone remember the Magnavox Odyssey 2 ? ).

Yes I remember the Odyssey 2, and I knew exactly zero people that owned one back in the day. All my friends had a VCS or an Intellivision, It's not propaganda. Most of us looked forward to the next gen! Trying to pick between the 5200 and Colecovision! We tired of those and quickly moved on the the home PC market. Exciting times.

 

[+Zeptari]

51 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

The last memorable one to me was the "I'm A Mac" and I'm a PC commercials of the late 2000s.

I forgot about that one, I clearly remember the Playstations "If you still want a Saturn your head is in Uranus" campaign. At the time I was a huge Sega guy, and that one hurt! I traded mine in over time and grabbed a PSX. No hard feelings, great games and fun times.

[+Zeptari]

Here's my take:

 

1st:  Magnavox Odyssey, Pong (home), Fairchild Channel F

2nd: Atari 2600,Intellivision,Odyssey 2.

3rd: ColecoVision,Atari 5200

4th: NES,SMS,7800

5th: SNES,TG-16,Genesis

6th: 3DO,Atari Jaguar, CDi

7th: Saturn,PSX,N64

8th: DC,GC,PS2,Xbox

9th: 360,PS3, Wii

10th: All the shit since then. Yup, I own a bit of it. LOL

 

 

 

[Atariboy]

4 hours ago, JPF997 said:

Most  gaming historians disagree with this assessment, here's Adam Koraliks take on the 5200

The people making the Wikipedia list think real gaming started with the NES. Lumping two generations into one doesn't gel with reality.

 

And really if we're honest with ourselves here, the entire generation concept is stupid anyways. Too many platforms exist that don't fit cleanly in the list. For instance the most recent example is the Nintendo Switch. Released approximately three and a half years before the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X/S did. It established instead and became a huge hit when the competition was still focused on the Playstation 4 and Xbox One for several years. And it also has successfully held its own (and then some) against the PS5 and Series systems. Yet Nintendo already released a system that quite cleanly fits into the XB1/PS4 generation. Where do we classify it?

 

The concept all too often just doesn't work. But in no way, shape, or form do the Colecovision and Atari 5200 fall into the same generation as the 2600 and Intellivision.

Edited October 9 by Atariboy

[Atariboy]

3 hours ago, Atariboy said:

It established instead and became a huge hit when the competition was still focused on the Playstation 4 and Xbox One for several years.

While I hate typos, they don't normally require fixing if I happen to notice a mistake past the edit window. But since this sentence really doesn't make sense as-is, the bolded word should've been "itself".

[atarifan88]

For those that want to continue the "debate" about gaming generations, please comment in the following thread: 

 

 

Now back on topic, this article expands a little on the next installment of the Atari DLC:

https://gamerant.com/atari-50-wider-world-dlc-19-more-games/

 

Some sources say there will be 19 games added and the one I just posted says 20. The theme is centered around the Atari 2600 and Intellivision rivalry. So I'm wondering if the games included in this batch will be mostly M-Network? That would account for 13 games:

 

AD&D: Tower of Mystery	M Network
AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin	M Network
Air Raiders	M Network	Black
Armor Ambush	M Network	Black
Astroblast	M Network	Black
Dark Cavern	M Network	Black
Frogs and Flies	M Network	Black
In Search of the Golden Skull	M Network
International Soccer	M Network	Black
Space Attack	M Network	Black
Star Strike	M Network	Black
Super Challenge Baseball	M Network	Black
Super Challenge Football	M Network	Black

 

[zzip]

15 hours ago, JPF997 said:

Most  gaming historians disagree with this assessment, here's Adam Koraliks take on the 5200

 

Most youtubers simply regurgitate the revisionist history from Wikipedia. 

 

Every other gaming generation is based on a leap in technology and a period of 5-7 years.    The true second generation, which released around 1976/1977, featured extremely primitive, blocky graphics.  The systems that came out in 1982 boasted arcade-like graphics that had never been seen in home consoles before,  if that isn't a technology leap, I don't know what is.   The 5200 and NES were both based on a 6502 CPU running at 1.79mhz,   the third-generation Sega SG-1000 was based on the same hardware as Colecovision!   No matter how you slice it, the 5200/Colecovision, are third gen,  they are using some other criteria to throw them in with the 2nd generation.

[Hwlngmad]

I am looking forward to seeing what they do with the next DLC with the videos and included titles.  Also, yes, the first console war was between the VCS / 2600 and the Intellivision as Mattel took Atari directly on.  Anyone that thinks otherwise is entitled to their opinion, but they would be, at the end of the day, incorrect.

[MrMaddog]

3 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

I am looking forward to seeing what they do with the next DLC with the videos and included titles.  Also, yes, the first console war was between the VCS / 2600 and the Intellivision as Mattel took Atari directly on.  Anyone that thinks otherwise is entitled to their opinion, but they would be, at the end of the day, incorrect.

 

If anyone tries to bring up Channel F, I will laugh at them...

[Hwlngmad]

1 hour ago, MrMaddog said:

 

If anyone tries to bring up Channel F, I will laugh at them...

I love the Channel F.  But, let's face facts, it got stomped into the dirt.

[zzip]

16 hours ago, JPF997 said:

Intellivision  imo wasn't even Atari's most formidable opponent in that era, Commodore for example was a far bigger threat to Atari than Intellivision ever was ( the computer wars between the C64  and the Atari 800 and later the Amiga vs the ST were far bigger and more  impactful than what was happening in the console market).

Computers and Consoles were completely different markets then.   Consoles were almost toys, while you'd have to shell out serious coin for a computer.   They weren't even sold in the same parts of the store in the beginning.      Atari just happened to have products for both markets,  most other companies were either console makers, computer makers, but not both.      That's why Atari got looked down on in the business computer world as "just a game company",  even though these days Microsoft is in both and nobody bats an eye.

 

In the early 80s,  consoles were more important to Atari sales-wise, so the Intellivision rivalry was a bigger deal.  

After the game crash, computers became the only gaming sector that was growing, and they came down in price.   When Jack Tramiel took over Atari, he was mostly focused on the computer end since that's what he knew, and consoles were thought to be dead anyway.    And he wanted to get revenge on Commodore so the ST/Amiga rivalry, blew up, when they should have been paying more attention to the NES/7800 rivalry.

[+cjherr]

9 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

I love the Channel F.  But, let's face facts, it got stomped into the dirt.

Unfortunately so, but it's still a fun, quirky little machine.

[+jeremiahjt]

50 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

I love the Channel F.  But, let's face facts, it got stomped into the dirt.

The Hundred Years' War was a war. As was the Six-Day War. Just because one was really short and that one side "got stomped into the dirt" does not mean it was not a war.

[mr_me]

3 hours ago, atarifan88 said:

...

Now back on topic, this article expands a little on the next installment of the Atari DLC:

https://gamerant.com/atari-50-wider-world-dlc-19-more-games/

 

Some sources say there will be 19 games added and the one I just posted says 20. The theme is centered around the Atari 2600 and Intellivision rivalry. So I'm wondering if the games included in this batch will be mostly M-Network? That would account for 13 games:

...

The set with the Berzerk games has 19. The M-network set is supposed to have 20. There are a few more M-network titles in addition to those thirteen they can publish, e.g. Sea Battle and Swordfight

[Hwlngmad]

1 hour ago, jeremiahjt said:

The Hundred Years' War was a war. As was the Six-Day War. Just because one was really short and that one side "got stomped into the dirt" does not mean it was not a war.

The Channel F was a competing device, sure.  Same with the Odyssey 2.  But, it didn't take on Atari directly like Mattel did with the Intellivision did.  It truly was a direct, head-on competition and a 'war' between two brands.

[+jeremiahjt]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

The set with the Berzerk games has 19. The M-network set is supposed to have 20. There are a few more M-network titles in addition to those thirteen they can publish, e.g. Sea Battle and Swordfight

Did they change that recently? After the original announcement of 39 total games, Atari said they had to remove Frisky Tom and that both dlcs would have 19 games.

[mr_me]

21 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:

Did they change that recently? After the original announcement of 39 total games, Atari said they had to remove Frisky Tom and that both dlcs would have 19 games.

That could be the case. I was referencing the Sept 25 article linked above. It doesn't mention M-network or what system the twenty games for the "first console war" set are from.

[GoldLeader]

It's funny, this.

 

To understand the time frame, all you have to do is look at literature From the Time Frame...

 

IIRC,  Every magazine (from the time frame) that featured a ColecoVision referred to it as a Third Generation machine;  Some would even say Fourth Gen.  Now you may come up with the occasional oddball article wondering if the Intellivision was still relevant in the time of ColecoVision,  Just like later on you'd have an occasional article about the Turbografx 16,  asking if it was relevant during the SNES/Genesis wars.  

 

BTW,  I fully agree that Wikipedia is just revisionist history on this subject...Personally I'd rather focus on the Console Wars of a time frame,  then debate which Generation they were in...

 

PS:  This is relevant to "Console Wars",...The word Console War being in the title of this thread...I'll post elsewhere too as I'm not trying to annoy the OP

[Video]

Some will depend on years. I count the pong consoles as one generation. That's odyssey, and anything basically pong, though there was advancement through that generation too, like standalone racing, tank, and pinball games.

 

Fairchild was a 76 console, 2600, 77, and intellivision was 79, these are the true second generation, and Atari stomped the competition, not bad for a console intended to be a slight upgrade to pong, it was never intended to do things like hero, or pitfall, and certainly not Ghostbusters, rampage, double dragon and dark caverins, that's mind blowing, but yes, intv was intended as competition to 2600.

 

Coleco, odyssey2, and 5200 were intended to be a third generation, but even Atari couldn't compete with their own 2600. To many consoles, not enough game variety killed the home console market. Did blow Joe average consumer want yet another redo of (put old arcade game here) hell no, they wanted new, fresh, stuff not seen before, so onto computers.

 

Nintendo came in at exactly the right time, luckily with exactly the right game. Super Mario bros. Something fresh, new and exciting. Coleco and odyssey are both gone, as is the 5200, and unfortunately, the 7800 got shelved, for like four years, so it was already to late when they got around to a proper release...in 88. Master system already had second place locked up.

 

Sure, there are others, either not making a ripple at all, or not being released in the us, so irrelevant. To bad too, things like super cassette vision, which pumped out over 100 sprites, or vectrex, which did vector games would have been the shiznite to behold (never saw, or even heard of those bitd)

 

Yes there are console generations, and sub generations, and even with help, its a real clusterf#$% to try to follow, or definitively categorize. The best way, honestly, is, what was its intended market? Like jaguar, some count it as a different generation from snes and genesis, but those are the exact consoles it intended to compete with. Maybe you could lump it with 3do and cdi, but those were intended as something else, multimedia platforms, before that was really a thing. Yes, largely playing games, but were truly supposed to be something beyond consoles.

[atarifan88]

17 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

It's funny, this.

 

To understand the time frame, all you have to do is look at literature From the Time Frame...

 

IIRC,  Every magazine (from the time frame) that featured a ColecoVision referred to it as a Third Generation machine;  Some would even say Fourth Gen.  Now you may come up with the occasional oddball article wondering if the Intellivision was still relevant in the time of ColecoVision,  Just like later on you'd have an occasional article about the Turbografx 16,  asking if it was relevant during the SNES/Genesis wars.  

 

BTW,  I fully agree that Wikipedia is just revisionist history on this subject...Personally I'd rather focus on the Console Wars of a time frame,  then debate which Generation they were in...

 

PS:  This is relevant to "Console Wars",...The word Console War being in the title of this thread...I'll post elsewhere too as I'm not trying to annoy the OP

It's all good. Some other people just needed a clue! 😉

[+jeremiahjt]

On 10/10/2024 at 8:20 AM, Video said:

Coleco, odyssey2, and 5200 were intended to be a third generation

 

On 10/10/2024 at 8:20 AM, Video said:

Coleco and odyssey are both gone, as is the 5200

Do you mean the Vectrex instead of the Odyssey 2? The Odyssey 2 was released in 1978 I believe, and is definitely in the same generation as the 2600 Video Computer System.

Edited October 11 by jeremiahjt
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