Why Did You Buy A 7800 Instead Of An NES?

[Tempest]

After seeing the number of people who said they owned an Atari 7800 instead of an NES, I thought this would make a neat topic.

 

Personally I got an NES in 1989 (before that I was using my Atari 400, 2600 jr., and an Apple IIe). I don't really remember the 7800 being in stores other than Toys R Us, where it was ignored by everyone who passed by. The only time I remember longing for a 7800 is when I realized it had Food Fight and my NES didn't (that really ticked me off). So I'm not really fit to judge why anyone would have bought a 7800 instead of a NES. I did simply because I didn't know there WAS a 7800 until well after I had my NES.

 

So for all of you who did own a 7800 instead of an NES, why did you do it?

 

Tempest

[joeybastard]

I wanted a 7800 over the NES but couldn't find one. I bought the NES because I searched 4 stores and no Atari. It didn't hurt that the NES had SMB too.

 

I don't regret it 1 bit though. The NES is one of the best consoles of all time, IMHO.

[chrisbid]

a friend of mine had a 7800 and "Mario Bros", but it was the 2600 version. Im guessing the 7800 was cheaper and his parents duped him. The kid was kindof young.

[DracIsBack]

So for all of you who did own a 7800 instead of an NES, why did you do it?  

 

A couple reasons for me.

 

1. The NES was sold out.

 

2. My friends all had consoles with graphics much better than my Atari 2600 console and I wanted one that had what I called "cartoon graphics" instead of "block graphics". The 7800 box showed games like WINTER GAMES and SKY FOX.

 

3. My Gemini was dying and I still wanted to play my 2600 games. The 7800 could do it out of the box. Side joke: I thought my 2600 WINTER GAMES would transform into the WINTER GAMES I saw on the back of the 7800 box when I plugged it in. I was pissed when it didn't.

 

4. I loved KARATEKA and looked forward to playing this game on a console (we didn't have a computer at the time) as well as the other games that you normally needed a computer to play - IMPOSSIBLE MISSION, WINTER GAMES etc. (note: This was one area where I was let down).

 

5. I liked to be different. Everyone had an NES and people assumed that if I had an "Atari", it would have graphics like adventure. It was fun to show them Ballblazer, Commando etc. Note: This continued all the way up to the Jaguar. They'd expect 2600 Pac Man and be shocked when they saw ALIEN VS PREDATOR.

 

6. I saw BALL BLAZER and almost fell over.

 

7. POLE POSITION II had better graphics (IMO) on the 7800 than it did on the arcade machine at the front of the store where I bought the 7800.

 

8. Games were cheaper. At the time, I only had a paper route so Xevious on the 7800 for $19.99 CDN was more cost effective than Xevious on the NES for $54.95. While it is much debated over which is "the better version", the 7800 definitely offered more bang for the buck.

 

9. The 7800 itself cost less.

[Lemmi]

After seeing the number of people who said they owned an Atari 7800 instead of an NES, I thought this would make a neat topic.

 

Personally I got an NES in 1989 (before that I was using my Atari 400, 2600 jr., and an Apple IIe).  I don't really remember the 7800 being in stores other than Toys R Us, where it was ignored by everyone who passed by.  The only time I remember longing for a 7800 is when I realized it had Food Fight and my NES didn't (that really ticked me off).  So I'm not really fit to judge why anyone would have bought a 7800 instead of a NES.  I did simply because I didn't know there WAS a 7800 until well after I had my NES.

 

So for all of you who did own a 7800 instead of an NES, why did you do it?  

 

Tempest

 

i didnt reply to that other thread, but the 7800 was the first system i bought myself and was my 3rd console i owned (robert sportramma8, vader 2600 were the previous 2)

 

one day i saw an ad for the 7800, and it made me dig out my 2600 to play it, but it was dead. then i remembered the ad said it could play 2600 games so i saved up for 3 weeks and went to Toys-R-Us and got one (the only place i think that carried them, in metro det.)

 

i didnt regret it one bit, because when everyone else paid though the nose for the NES system and the games (all my friends constantly begged mom and dad to get them games), i saved money and had alot more games to pick from at first (including the 50 or so 2600 games i had)

 

but basicly backwards compatibility is what really sold me on the 7800, and if more systems woulda done that i think i would have bought more systems when they first came out - that said - the 7800 was the only system i got within the first year of its release

[jeepnut24]

I know why I didn't.

 

1) Didn't even know they exsisted until much much later. We really only had Kiddy City

 

2) We got a PC around then instead.

 

Seeing the how much it played, I would like to have purchased one when they were new. All I ever heard about was the NES, and it was out of my childhood price range so I stuck to what I had, the PC and the games I could get off of BBS boards or could program myself.

[Trip_Cannon]

Damn, this must have been back in 87ish, something like that... I remember a couple weeks before Christmas me and the fam went out looking for presents at our local supermall.. My bro and I went into the Kay Bee Toystore looking for what we wanted.. There was the NES set at $150 while the Atari 7800 was right next to it.. and it had just lowered its price!! $60?!?! Right on! Our dad will go for that in a heart beat! And he did.

 

I wasn't really thinking about which system would be better. I already knew Atari's namesake..After all, the system we owned before this one was a 2600... we were able to make up our minds pretty quickly.

 

We took a quick scan over the games that were available for both systems. At that time they were pretty close to the same thing. Both systems had Donkey Kong, DK jr., Mario Bros, etc... Then my bro saw Xevious and Karateka for it and that sold it.

[SteveW]

At some point in early 1987, I got my brother to take me to a Toys 'R Us so I could buy an NES with one of my first paychecks. I had fun with it, but my first love was the Atari 2600. My old VCS was dead, so I bought a 2600 jr. so I could keep playing my old games. Nintendo started doing some shady business dealings, and I got turned off of their company around the Super Mario Brothers 2 time period. Forcing retailers to drop Sega and Atari consoles, and if they didn't, shortchanging their orders. Price gouging, assorted unfair trade practices, etc. I started getting interested in the 7800, so I got one at an Atari computer store that a friend of mine worked at. I've never looked back. I have always enjoyed my 7800, even though it had a lot less games than the NES. Heck, because of how put off of Nintendo I was, I haven't bought a single piece of Nintendo merchandise since 1987, up until I bought my GameCube around Christmas 2002.

[ubersaurus]

Pretty straightforward...

 

We had an atari and a crapload of games from when they were clearanced in the crash.

 

While using the atari, I broke the controller port, and, hearing that the 7800 could play 2600 games in addition to it's own, my parents picked that up instead.

 

Eventually we saw the NES in action at my uncle's house, and that one night showcase of duck hunt and SMB was enough to convince my pops to pick up an NES too.

[Vic George 2K3]

I wanted the 7800 because I didn't want to throw away my 2600 games, excluding those that were remade for the 7800.

[Gregory DG]

I remember getting a 7800 long before I got a NES because I wanted that awesome Atari system I saw hyped in Electronic Gaming magazine! Wow! It had been so long from the time I originally saw those articles compared to the time it came out, there was a part of me that said, "This might be valuable one day."

 

Oh well. Bottom line was: I wanted a new console and Atari was my favorite. Screw Nintendo!

[elliott]

I got my Atari 7800 for $15 at Big Lots. Games were $1.99 I think this was around '89-'90. I pulled out my games recently and started going through them and i found a Condor Attack in perfect condition with instructions. I think it is worth a little more than the $2 i paid for it.

[Zaxxon]

NES makes my penis soft.

[Clock]

I got my A7800 last year and only because it could also play 2600 games. I thought it would make an easy console to collect for, but I lost interest in the 7800, tended to just play 2600 games on it.

[Room 34]

I never got either of them, way back then. Granted, where I lived it was unlikely anyone (myself included) even knew the 7800 existed.

 

I was in 7th grade at the time. All of my friends had NESes, and naturally I wanted one too. But my parents decided to be practical and bought me a computer (a Tandy 1000 EX) instead!

 

 

Well... over the ensuing years I spent every penny I scraped together or (once I reached 16 and started bagging groceries) earned, and most of that cash went to buying the 2600 carts ShopKo was selling for $5.99, or to the "gray market" PC games on floppy disk with photocopied instruction sheets that every little electronics-oriented shop in town seemed to have in a big bin on the back wall of the store.

 

 

So eventually I did buy a 7800 before I got an NES. I bought my 7800 NOS from Telegames in 1997. All the glue on the box was dried up and brittle and the box just fell apart upon opening. But it was pretty sweet, and thanks to O'Shea and the Radio Shack Unlimited catalog I managed to acquire a fairly impressive selection of games. Then about a year ago I finally entered the NES realm in a trade with someone right here on AtariAge!

[tillenterprises]

I bought my 7800 at Suncoast Pictures at the local mall in 1988 or 89. I grew up with the 2600, and when I discovered girls, the 2600 started to gather dust... :wink: I never got a 5200, but remembered how much I liked it when I tried it at the stores in the early 80's. So, when I saw the 7800 at the store, I assumed that it was even better than the 5200, and could also play all my old 2600 games, and that sold me (not to mention being able to finally play Food Fight at home). I had friends who had the NES, but, for some reason, it never appealed to me as much as Atari products- maybe because I grew up with Atari, and it held (and still holds) a special place in my heart. The NES game I tried just didn't seem as addicting to me as even the old Atari 2600 games, which were so addictive, you ended up wearing out the reset switch! Today, I have a complete 7800 collection, and also a sizable NES collection, but most NES games still don't "grab" me and hold my interest for long, other than the classic arcade game ports, like Donkey Kong, Popeye, etc. I tried getting into Zelda and other NES "classics," and still prefer Atari games more.

[tillenterprises]

double post- sorry!

[snorlaxnut]

I wanted a NES on my 14th birthday, but my parents got me a 7800 instead because they said it works with my old 2600 games. But in the next year I sold my Odyssey 2 with almost 2 dozen carts and some other items at a garage sale to help pay for a NES.

[NintendoDieScreaming]

Although technically I wasn't alive during the 7800/NES period (I only got to spend half a year in the 80s.), I have faced the descision before.

 

And I chose the 7800 because, well, please people, Atari made it!

 

After being pleased with my 2600 (And having a certian record with Nintendo products.), the 7800 won that one pretty quick.

[VidGameKing]

I had a 2600Jr. instead of a NES! you remeber "under fifty bicks!" makes my dad say "the 2600jr. has beeter graphics!" and makes me say "thanx dad.......... "

[Trip_Cannon]

"under fifty bucks!"

 

Well isn't that nice!

[Cap5750]

Easy answer:

 

1) The 7800 promised new and improved graphics AND it would play the 2600 games that I already had.

 

2) Every Nintendo game had that silly music and every character looked like Mario.

 

Cap

[jedijeff]

The 7800 was the first console I ever bought waaaaay back when. I liked the new games and I also liked the fact I could play all my old 2600 games on it. Besides, I thought those Nintendo controllers sucked!

 

Jeff

[SS]

Besides, I thought those Nintendo controllers sucked!  

 

So you went with the Prolines instead?!?

[jedijeff]

I liked the prolline controllers. It did make my hand hurt after playing for extended periods, but then again, most controllers do.

 

Jeff