Quantum Leap parody

[AtariDude]

Hi everyone.

 

With the new Star Trek Enterprise being manned by Scott Bakula, formerly of the TV series Quantum Leap, I started thinking about something.

 

In the series, Scott Bakula played a character called Sam Beckett who would assume other people's identities in the past and right some of the things that had gone wrong in their lives.

 

If it were someone possible to Quantum Leap into either Nolan Bushnell, Ray Kassar or Jack Tramiel and change the history of Atari so that it would still be around today, what would you do as Sam Beckett?

[Jess Ragan]

If I were Jack, I'd find the nearest sharp object and run myself through with it. Oh wait, I'd have to finish off the other Tramiels first.

If I were Ray, I'd fire Todd Frye on the spot. In fact, I'd rehire him just so I could fire him again. Anything to keep him from making that rotten version of Pac-Man that may have led to the downfall of Atari and the video game industry.

If I were Nolan, I would never have sold Atari. The man could have turned it into his own personal empire, but instead he wimped out and sold it to the highest bidder. Bad, Nolan, bad!

 

JR

[Hakogame 箱亀]

whoa, hold on there, don't be so tough on Pacman's programmer. It's not his fault that they only gave him 4k to work with, and rushed the game through production.

 

Although if I quantum leaped, I'd have to try something to stop the game crash...Eliminate Atari soft?? Enforce stringent quality controll for 3rd parties?

[AtariDude]

I like your idea of enforcing quality control for 3rd parties. There were too many crappy games released for the 2600 and people began to stop spending $30 to $40 for games that had no replay value. After a while, people didn't trust any games for the 2600 and this really hurt Atari.

 

Look at what Nintendo did when they released the NES here in the US. They put stringent controls on what could be released and therefore avoided having a glut of software that would still on dealer shelves. This really helped since people knew that only quality games were going to be sold.

[Jess Ragan]

Bad news... Nintendo's no longer doing that. Sounds like they're so desperate for GameCube licensees that they're willing to let the system get polluted with filth from the likes of T*HQ and Acclaim. Arrgh...

 

JR

[AtariDude]

I wouldn't worry about the Gamecube from Nintendo's point of view. They are marketing it to a different class of gamer than say The PS2. Nintendo's gamecube is probably going to be marketed towards the younger player segment (under 13 years of age) and include no doubt other variations of Pokemon.

 

I sometimes wonder if Pokemon is the only thing that keeps Nintendo going now adays. Certainly the Gamecube is not a match for say Microsloth's XBox.

[Hakogame 箱亀]

*pokemon*

Possibly, I read somewhere (before the GBA) that the gameboy color was the only thing nintendo was profiting from, due to huge losses from manufacturing N64's.

Nintendo still has quality controll over 3rd parties, at least for GBA titles. Where I work, we have to submit our games to nintendo to have them approved before they can be published.

[AtariDude]

Racoon Lad,

 

Do you or your company ever hate the fact that you need Nintendo's approval first in order to release a game for GBA?

 

Don't you worry that they would disallow your company the opportunity to sell a specific type of game first and put it out on the market sooner but give someone else the opportunity to get to market before you do?

 

I am wondering if that is the case. I know that I would hate having to go through red tape just to release a game on the market.

[Gunstar]

Well guys, even though I know as much as the next person the many ways that the Tramiels screwed up Atari, I didn't become a die-hard Atari fan until the second half of the '80s, due to Jack's products, so I wouldn't quantum leap back as far as some of you and stand a chance of losing my favorite systems; the 130xe, Lynx and Jaguar. I'd have to quantum leap back to right around the release of the Jaguar, when the LYnx was still viable and could be rescued. I would have (as Jack), gotten the 100 million loan to go into marketing and development that was promised to the shareholders, development houses and consumers, that would have given the Jaguar a running start. I would have made sure that it had quality games made for it, even if it meant waiting another year for it's release until it had a respectable library. The games like dino dudes and cybermorph and clubdrive would have either been completely rewritten or dropped altogether. I would have let companies like Rebellion take the time they needed to get games like checkered flag right. The Jaguar and Lynx would have gotten proper marketing with loads of advertising like the other companies did for their systems. If the Jaguar needed more power to compete with even newer systems, I'd have given it some; like new chips in the cartridges and a cd player that had upgrade chips that would have put the Jaguar over the top again. I would have released an all in one unit of both cart and cd at the same time the Jagcd was released, which would have also been set back to afford time for quality titles. With this plan, the Jaguar would have sold for very cheap to attract customers, who could later upgrade to the Jagcd (at about the 99 dollar pricepoint), or, people could buy the new "combo Jag" with it's one piece design and advanced chips built in for cd (the chips that would be added to carts and the jagcd). With someone who was willing to spend the money on marketing, constant upgrading like Nintendo did with the fx chips, and a doorway to the future, the Jag and Atari could have succeeded. Money attracts developers too, and between the 100 million loan, the 50 million from Sega, the 50+ million Atari already had, they could have payed for top dollar development. Maybe if one goes back to Ray Kassar and changes things there, Atari would have had a bright future too, but it wouldn't have been the Atari that I fell in love with...so I don't know if I'd be a fan or another Apple computer fanatic (which is what I was before I got an Atari 800 in '82, still not a die-hard, but no longer on Apples band wagon, but if the 800 was where it ended for Atari, I would have gone back to Apple). I was an Atari fan before this, but Atari was for gaming and Apple for computering(up until the 800 I got), Jack's Atari really changed that for me, and I became an Atari computing and gaming freak! I hate the Tramiels for the way they eventually ruined Atari, but I would have cared either way had it not been for them saving it from oblivion in '84.