the 7800 vs nintendo nes (could the 7800 have done better?)

[darklord1977]

as everybody knows the 7800 was developed years before the nintendo nes came to america. when atari was purchased by new owners they put the 7800 in mothballs...then a few years later the nes comes into play... then atari quickly puts out the 7800 to go up against nintendo.(and later sega with their master system.).. my thoughts are could the 7800 really have competed and had a better chance against the nintendo juggernaut with better marketing and better 3rd party games ...i think atari could have done better any thoughts on this?

[jaybird3rd]

This subject has been discussed (and exhausted) MANY times before in this forum. Here's two examples:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...opic=73083&st=0

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44179

Edited March 26, 2006 by jaybird3rd

[Feralstorm]

The answer is... maybe.

[The_Laird]

Yes!!

[walter_J64bit]

You see Atari had the problem called the "Tramiels" pushing the 7800 to the max wasn't done at all, I think the 7800 could pull off SMB.

[DracIsBack]

Yes, it should have done better.

 

No, it didn't bu in the end, it lost the war.

Some of the issues were out of their control:

- Nintendo locking up the best gamers

- Nintendo threatening retailers and distributors who carry competition.

Many of the issues were their own fault:

- No money spent on advertising

- No money spent on licensing

- No money spent on proper, competitive game development

- Confusing the channel by selling 2600 jr, XE Game System and 7800 all at once.

- Retailers and distributors were really screwed by Atari in 1983-4 so they were nervous about doing business.

- No money spent on ongoing R&D for the system. Where were the 7800 equivilant of 4 megabit games, MM3 chips, battery saves etc?

[ZylonBane]

I think the 7800 could pull off SMB.

The 7800 DID pull off SMB. It was called Scrapyard Dog.

[supercat]

The 7800 DID pull off SMB. It was called Scrapyard Dog.

 

I'm not an NES fan, but Scrapyard Dog really isn't SMB, and the 7800's hardware isn't really up to the task.

 

The 7800 can't do a decent tiled background in 320-wide mode, so the NES offers 60% better resolution (256 dots instead of 160). Further, while the Atari 7800 has more colors to choose from and can do better gradient effects than the NES, the NES can use more colors on its tiled backgrounds than the 7800 (which is basically limitted to 3+background).

 

Some small changes to the 7800's hardware would have allowed it to compete much better with the NES. For example, in the 16-pixel character modes, allowing the LSB of the character code to select between two palettes would have allowed for more colorful backgrounds. A 320 read mode which used separate palettes for even and odd pixels would also have been very useful, especially if combined with a write mode that could really take advantage of it.

 

The 7800 is well-suited to displaying many small objects per display line. I believe it could do about 21 8-pixel-wide (3-color) objects per line (with no background) with no flicker. That's far more than what the Nintendo can manage. Unfortunately, it is less-well suited to displaying tiled backgrounds. A background of 21 8-pixel (3-color) tiles would take 68 cycles (out of 114) per scan line to display. Using 15-color tiles would require 136 cycles, exceeding the number available.

 

If it were possible to use different color palettes on alternating scan lines, games could be made more colorful. I don't know any way to do this without keeping the CPU busy during the entire display, however.

[jbanes]

(Note: The images appear to have attached in reverese order. So look at them from right to left.)

 

I'm not an NES fan, but Scrapyard Dog really isn't SMB, and the 7800's hardware isn't really up to the task.

 

I'm not really sure I agree. If we were talking a port of SMB3 to the 7800, then we might have issues. But a port of SMB should be possible, as long as you throw away the idea of tiling. The 7800 is good at sprites, so let's treat everything as sprites. If you look at the reference image (3x normal size), you'll see that SMB has a maximum of 16 sprites of 16 pixels wide on any given scanline. Most Mario screens tend to have a maximum of three or four lines of bricks/mushrooms that actually take up a significant portion of the screen. The biggest exception would probably be the block-mountain leading to the flag area at the end.

 

Now if we deleted the decorative sprites (which are really tiles on the NES), we shouldn't have any trouble rendering SMB.

 

The 7800 can't do a decent tiled background in 320-wide mode, so the NES offers 60% better resolution (256 dots instead of 160).

 

And yet, if you look at the attached Scrapyard dog image, that's exactly what it's doing: 16 sprites across, 20 pixels wide, two colors per sprite. The result is very believable bricks.

 

Further, while the Atari 7800 has more colors to choose from and can do better gradient effects than the NES, the NES can use more colors on its tiled backgrounds than the 7800 (which is basically limitted to 3+background).

 

Granted, the Scrapyard Dog background does appear to be 2 colors instead of 3. Which means that an SMB clone might not look as nice. Using 2 colors as a reference, I've done a mockup of what a 7800 version might look like. All the colors might not be exact, but every sprite has been reduced to two colors. A realistic version would probably be able to either use more colors, or create sprites that would better make use of the colors available.

 

Just my 2 pennies.

Edited March 27, 2006 by jbanes

[Feralstorm]

People have speculated on porting NES games to the 2600, including SMB.

 

It's pretty much a given that the 7800 could not do an exact copy of Super Mario, but the point of porting, especially in the world of early consoles, is to work around the limitations, modifying gameplay and graphic elements where necessary, and exploit the system's strengths where applicable.

 

I still believe someone will eventually make Super Mario for the 2600 (not just a Smurfs hack) if only to try it, though it may bear only a vague resemblance to the original.

[DracIsBack]

Who says anything has to be 100% the same? In the old days of computing, did versions of games that appeared on the Atari XL, C64 or Apple II all look 100% the same in every way?

 

My feeling is that, with proper effort, the 7800 could do a decent port of Super Mario Bros.

[EricBall]

Why a port of SMB? If someone were to sment the time and effort porting SMB to the 7800, would it prove the 7800 was equal to the NES? Wouldn't a later generation game be a better test? Or try a port of an NES homebrew.

 

Or maybe we should look at games which were on both the 7800 and NES (i.e. arcade ports).

 

I also did a summary of the NES versus 7800 along with a porting think exercise: http://atari7800.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/NES

[DracIsBack]

Why a port of SMB? If someone were to sment the time and effort porting SMB to the 7800, would it prove the 7800 was equal to the NES?

 

Why try and prove the equality or inequality of two systems from the same era that had somewhat different hardware goals?

 

I think it would just be fun to play Super Mario without owning an NES and to wig friends out by showing them a Nintendo game on an Atari.

[jbanes]

Why a port of SMB?

 

I think that many owners of the 7800 have an unconcious need to learn exactly what their system was capable of. Since Nintendo was the king of the hill at the time, most attempts at defining system power revolve around comparisons with the Nintendo. The Nintendo had a lot of games, but its specialty was platformers. Platformers, of course, are the very genre that are so amazingly under-represented on the 7800. Taking the situation to its natural conclusion, these owners look for a comparison between the de-facto platformer (SMB) and the 7800 titles.

 

Or maybe we should look at games which were on both the 7800 and NES (i.e. arcade ports).

 

I'm not sure what that would accomplish. The 7800 has precious few titles, and the ported arcade games were "old hat" by the time the Nintendo came along. Thus Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac Man may have been really good on the 7800, but no one is really interested. They were also good on the Colecovision and 5200, but the 7800 and Nintendo were next-gen systems. Owners wanted to see next-gen games.

 

Things weren't helped by the Double Dragon port. The Gameplay on the 7800 may have been more intact than the Nintendo version, but the Nintendo graphics just plain looked better without sacrificing that much gameplay. Many gamers didn't even notice issues like the missing two player functionality.

 

All in all, the 7800 was like the home computer of the age. The games were lots of fun, but just different than their console counterparts. Had the 7800 survived, it might have seen a port of games like Wing Commander, King's Quest, Sim City, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, R-Type, etc. Basically, all the games that had to wait for the Super Nintendo before being released on a console. Sure, some of those games might have required extra chipping, but I have no doubt that they could have been accomplished.

 

(Did you know that the cart has a line to halt the CPU? Looking at the specs, they actually suggest disabling the Sally chip to run a processor in the cart! Perhaps the 7800 might had the FX chip of the 80's.)

 

The keyboard addition would have furthered the console's home gaming abilities. More complex games like EGA Trek and Zork could have been produced.

 

Personally, I've got an itching to port Xero to the 7800. The heavy sprite capabilities of the hardware would make a shoot 'em up like this a perfect match.

[ZylonBane]

I think it would just be fun to play Super Mario without owning an NES and to wig friends out by showing them a Nintendo game on an Atari.

You mean another Nintendo game on an Atari, right?

 

Anyway, Midnight Mutants demonstrates quite nicely that it's possible to do good-looking colorful scrolling backgrounds on the 7800 with lots of moving objects.

[NovaXpress]

Aside from people already on AtariAge, I don't think I know anyone who'd be impressed by a 20+ year old game playing on a 20+ year old system. I've never met anyone under 30 who even recognized my 5200.

[DracIsBack]

I think it would just be fun to play Super Mario without owning an NES and to wig friends out by showing them a Nintendo game on an Atari.

You mean another Nintendo game on an Atari, right?

 

Anyway, Midnight Mutants demonstrates quite nicely that it's possible to do good-looking colorful scrolling backgrounds on the 7800 with lots of moving objects.

 

 

I know the 7800 can do more than people think. Midnight Mutants, Alien Brigade, Commando and Scrapyard Dog all proved that.

 

I meant having one of the most famous NES games on the 7800 to wig people out.

[Godzilla]

I still feel that the 7800 is more powerful than the nes, ive never seen anything on the nes close to 7800 robotron or food fight. and honestly, the 7800 never even got to its second generation of software, imho. If it had years of dev, it would have eaten the nes in terms of capabilities (tho probably still failed market wise.)

[ZylonBane]

and honestly, the 7800 never even got to its second generation of software, imho.

Of course it did. First-generation was the GCC launch titles (Xevious, Food Fight, Pole Position, etc). Second-generation was Midnight Mutants, Alien Brigade, Ninja Golf, MotorPsycho, et al.

[128bytes]

and honestly, the 7800 never even got to its second generation of software, imho.

Of course it did. First-generation was the GCC launch titles (Xevious, Food Fight, Pole Position, etc). Second-generation was Midnight Mutants, Alien Brigade, Ninja Golf, MotorPsycho, et al.

 

...and the third generation (namely, the Cuttle Cart 2, Q*Bert, Frogger, and Pac-Man hacks, and upcoming homebrews) is certainly making me feel that the 7800 is really starting to live up to its potential.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

and honestly, the 7800 never even got to its second generation of software, imho.

Of course it did. First-generation was the GCC launch titles (Xevious, Food Fight, Pole Position, etc). Second-generation was Midnight Mutants, Alien Brigade, Ninja Golf, MotorPsycho, et al.

 

 

That's a good point, I think people tend to forget those later titles when discussing the 7800's graphical capabilities. I was particularly impressed with Midnight Mutants and Alien Brigade. I also think that graphically Scrapyard Dog looks better than SMB1, although it's gameplay is slightly different. The resolution may be slightly lower, but graphics aren't always about resolution.

[DracIsBack]

Of course it did. First-generation was the GCC launch titles (Xevious, Food Fight, Pole Position, etc). Second-generation was Midnight Mutants, Alien Brigade, Ninja Golf, MotorPsycho, et al.

 

I'm torn on this.

 

To me, "generations", equals the same developers working on their next game, with the knowledge that they've learned and improving upon what they've done in the past. It's the Super Mario, Super Mario 2, Super Mario 3 transition.

 

Those later titles you mention were developed by dentirely different developers than the earlier titles.

 

Had Radioactive Software done Midnight Mutants 2, for example, that's what I'd consider 'next generation'.

 

I do recognize that talent is only part of the equation though. Dev tools, documentation, sample code etc etc can all get improved to help new programmers. That said, anyone know how much Atari invested in their 7800 development programs? My gut is probably almost nothing.

Edited March 27, 2006 by DracIsBack

[jbanes]

To me, "generations", equals the same developers working on their next game, with the knowledge that they've learned and improving upon what they've done in the past. It's the Super Mario, Super Mario 2, Super Mario 3 transition.

 

Those are sequels. Generations are distinct differences in the games as the platform matures. For example, Super Mario Bros, Excite Bike, Metroid, and Kid Icarus were all first gen Nintendo games. (These are actually quite easy to identify thanks to their "pixelated" cover art.) Punch-Out, TMNT II, and Legend of Zelda were all later generations that sought to futher push the hardware beyond its humble beginnings. By the time that SMB3 came out, the games were already 3 or 4 generations down the line.

 

 

That said, anyone know how much Atari invested in their 7800 development programs? My gut is probably almost nothing.

 

The anti-nintendo pep-talk line at the end of the 7800 documentation doesn't inspire much confidence.

[Trip_Cannon]

I'd say the 7800 only had like 2 generations then...

[DracIsBack]

Those are sequels. Generations are distinct differences in the games as the platform matures. For example, Super Mario Bros, Excite Bike, Metroid, and Kid Icarus were all first gen Nintendo games. (These are actually quite easy to identify thanks to their "pixelated" cover art.) Punch-Out, TMNT II, and Legend of Zelda were all later generations that sought to futher push the hardware beyond its humble beginnings. By the time that SMB3 came out, the games were already 3 or 4 generations down the line.

 

I used sequels as an example to illustrate my point but I wasn't necessarily restricting myself to them. IIRC, very few development teams made sequential 7800 games. (ie. finished one and then got to work on the next). Therefore, I'm not convinced that many developers learned to improve upon their work over time.