How Atari Could Have Saved The 5200

[Inky]

I aggree on the pack-in not being a system seller. However, I did have a ton of fun playing thSuper Breakout (and fwiw, I must be the only person who liked the Space Invaders port)

 

 

Space Dungeon would havbe been a good launch title, but I agree that Tempest would have been the killer app.

[Zonie]

BTW, what would we be saving it from?

From traveling too fast through the bowels of time? The best you can hope for is to be like undigested meat in the colon of a fat guy and cling to the sides for as long as possible. You don't want to splash down into the cold porcelain whirlpool before your time. The 5200 was devoured and shot out the other end faster than a contaminated Chalupa from Taco Bell.

I gotta save that one.

[Zonie]

Pac Man as the pack in would have been enough. That's what everyone wanted then. Galaxian would have been good too. Super breakout was DOA. The 2600 version was better.

 

If I read above correctly, 400/800 Donkey Kong was released the same time as the CV version? Hmmm.. Maybe a 400/800 to 5200 adapter and digital controllers would have been an interesting way to get through the loophole. "look, the 5200 comes with Pac man. With this available adapter, you can play Donkey Kong too!" LOL

[NovaXpress]

If I read above correctly, 400/800 Donkey Kong was released the same time as the CV version?

No, the CV edition came out at least a year earlier. Atari figured out the "console vs computer loophole" after Coleco already hit the shelves.

 

If the 5200 was able to play Donkey Kong in any way aside from the 2600 cart, Coleco would have sued the shit out of them.

[Bryan]

Pac Man as the pack in would have been enough. That's what everyone wanted then.

 

Especially since Atari had already shown consumers they weren't getting a good version of it without getting a new console.

 

-Bry

Edited March 29, 2006 by Bryan

[Nukey Shay]

Pac Man as the pack in would have been enough. That's what everyone wanted then.

 

Especially since Atari had already shown consumers they weren't getting a good version of it without getting a new console.

 

-Bry

 

...or an existing computer. Tho to be fair, AppleII's Taxman outshined Atari's 400/800 attempts. It eventually would be hacked into "Atarisoft"'s port for the II family.

[supercat]

Especially since Atari had already shown consumers they weren't getting a good version of it without getting a new console.

 

IIRC, in one of the ads for the 5200, Atari actually attacked the 2600 and its Pac Man cartridge. The ad was responding to Colecovision's having a bigger game library than the 5200 thanks to its 2600 "adapter". "Here's the Colecovision Pac Man" (show flickery mess) "Here's the 5200 Pac Man" (show what looks like the Atari 800 Pac Man).

[Nukey Shay]

How the tables have been turned these days...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...e=post&id=18692

Edited March 29, 2006 by Nukey Shay

[mos6507]

There never should have been a 5200 in a conventional sense. It should have been an XEGS-like product. Atari screwed over 3rd parties by forcing them to release two variations of their titles, one for the 400/800 and one for the 5200. Activision was willing to do this. I'm sure it turned off other 3rd parties. Atari itself wound up focusing on 5200 titles rather than simultaneously supporting both platforms. They updated 8-bit titles and only released them for the 5200 without back-porting them to the 8-bit. This fragmentation hurt both the console and the home computer line. The home computer line needed a shot in the arm and this was not the way to do it.

 

The only justification in making the 5200 incompatible was the removal of the PIA chip and I'm not sure that really saved them that much money in the grand scheme of things. They probably could have saved just as much money by making it into a smaller form-factor and not having to make all new controller hardware.

 

The XEGS probably did more to help the 8-bit platform survive than the 5200 ever did in its middle-age.

[ZylonBane]

They probably could have saved just as much money by making it into a smaller form-factor and not having to make all new controller hardware.

Alas, an all new controller was necessary. A one-button controller was acceptable for the computer line because they had a keyboard to pick up the slack, but a console doesn't have that luxury. By the time of the 5200, one button really wasn't sufficient anymore.

[Zonie]

There never should have been a 5200 in a conventional sense. It should have been an XEGS-like product.

I totally agree. Too bad they didn't think of the idea sooner. Just made it sleek and black, not pastel.

[Lord Helmet]

How the tables have been turned these days...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...e=post&id=18692

 

Man, that's for sure...now if it would only get released!

[jaybird3rd]

There never should have been a 5200 in a conventional sense. It should have been an XEGS-like product. Atari screwed over 3rd parties by forcing them to release two variations of their titles, one for the 400/800 and one for the 5200. Activision was willing to do this. I'm sure it turned off other 3rd parties. Atari itself wound up focusing on 5200 titles rather than simultaneously supporting both platforms. They updated 8-bit titles and only released them for the 5200 without back-porting them to the 8-bit. This fragmentation hurt both the console and the home computer line. The home computer line needed a shot in the arm and this was not the way to do it.

 

The only justification in making the 5200 incompatible was the removal of the PIA chip and I'm not sure that really saved them that much money in the grand scheme of things. They probably could have saved just as much money by making it into a smaller form-factor and not having to make all new controller hardware.

 

The XEGS probably did more to help the 8-bit platform survive than the 5200 ever did in its middle-age.

I absolutely agree. I tried to make a similar point in a related thread: it was a mistake from the beginning for Atari to pursue the 5200, and in my opinion, the 7800 (developed by GCC in direct response to the 5200's shortcomings) was truly the system that the 5200 should have been. If Atari had released a 7800-like system in 1982 and immediately dropped development of new 2600 games, it would have allowed them (via the 7800's cartridge validation) to control the release of new games and prevent the glut of bad product that contributed heavily to the crash. At the same time, they could have put the obsolete 2600 to rest while allowing existing customers to keep their old games and controllers.

 

Alas, an all new controller was necessary. A one-button controller was acceptable for the computer line because they had a keyboard to pick up the slack, but a console doesn't have that luxury. By the time of the 5200, one button really wasn't sufficient anymore.

And it was really insufficient by the time the XEGS was released; bundling that system with a CX-40 made it look old right off the bat. I'm sure that, even in 1982, Atari could have found a way of producing an enhanced controller using the existing interface while retaining backward-compatibility with old controllers, just as GCC did with the 7800. Even adding an extra action button would have been a big improvement. Edited March 29, 2006 by jaybird3rd

[ZylonBane]

Atari already had a multi-button interface working through the standard controller port-- the CX-85 keypad. Hmmm.... I'm not sure if it allowed you to read multiple key presses at once though. I'm fairly sure it didn't actually.

 

A new multi-button controller would probably have required a setup something like the NES controller, where you have to explicitly poll each controller and then read a serialized data stream describing the state of each button.

 

Has anyone ever tried hacking a modern analog console controller to work on the 5200?

Edited March 29, 2006 by ZylonBane

[jaybird3rd]

Atari already had a multi-button interface working through the standard controller port-- the CX-85 keypad.

 

Hmmm.... I'm not sure if it allowed you to read multiple key presses at once though. I'm pretty sure it didn't actually.

I was just wondering the same thing ... they could have taken either the CX-85 or the 2600 keypad controller, and using four of the buttons as directionals and the rest as action buttons, repackaged it as a joystick/gamepad. The multiple-keypress issue would have killed that idea, though.

[+FujiSkunk]

How the tables have been turned these days...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...e=post&id=18692

 

Not so much, really.

[NightSprinter]

When it came out, the 5200 was obviously a repackaging of older technology (the 400/800). True, it put them into a somewhat cheaper package, but the 5200 from the get-go seemed more backward-looking than forward-looking.

 

The Colecovision hardware was pretty much a TI 99/4A with a few hundred bytes of extra RAM (enough to make a BIG difference, to be sure). Nothing really newer than the 5200, but the games were all new and the system itself seemed new.

 

My perception at the time was that the 5200 was trying to "closeout-price" the 400/800 line (just as the 2600jr was a 'closeout-priced' 2600) but it got squeezed because it was probably still pretty expensive to make. I don't know all that much about the systems, but I suspect the manufacturing costs on the 7800 were well below those of the 5200.

 

But yet why is it the TI version of Donkey Kong had far superior graphics and such?

[ZylonBane]

Because the TMS-9918A video chip has a higher color resolution (256 horizontal), and a more advanced sprite system (32 16x16 sprites total, up to 4 on a single scanline).

[Bryan]

There never should have been a 5200 in a conventional sense. It should have been an XEGS-like product.

I totally agree. Too bad they didn't think of the idea sooner. Just made it sleek and black, not pastel.

If you read about the culture at the Warner Atari, the game and home computer divisions didn't play well together. The 5200 was purposefully made to resemble the computer as little as possible, and several accessories (keyboard, storage devices) were scrapped because they encroached on the computers too much.

 

When the 7800 was being developed (largely outside of Atari) the idea for such add-ons was given more thought.

 

-Bry

[thegamezmaster]

Having gotten one when they first came out, I would have to say Better joysticks because I had one break within a couple of months of having it. Plus I remember anyone that played it hated them.

[jpfalcon2003]

The 5200 was doomed from the start with the controllers and lousy pack in game. However, I love the system because I have the Wico Controlers and the Redemption Adapters to play my games on.

[carmel_andrews]

In the UK, the initial (tramiel) release of the 7800 featured a nintendo/sega alike joypad

[JB]

And?

Relevance, please. I'd like to see where you're going with that statement.

Edited April 7, 2006 by JB

[HP Atari King of Michigan]

There are many things that could've saved the 5200. But we have to thank two people for destroying it: The Czar (Kassar) for bad marketing, and Cheap-Ass Tramiel for abandoning all consoles, just to bring them back with little fanfare.

[SteveW]

I always found the launch titles on the 5200 a little boring. That's why I never had too much interest in one back in the day. And after I started hearing about the bad controllers, I really stayed away. And to this day, no titles that were ever released for the 5200 are really 'killer aps'.

Edited May 2, 2006 by SteveW