why did atari wait 2 years to release the lynx

[carmel_andrews]

I've always being baffled by this when i first heard it, but the things became a lot clearer when i remembered that Atari also waited 2 years to 'properly' release/launch the 7800

 

When the 7800 was originally released the nintendo/sega products had only just been launched in Japan (only) several months before, by the time tramiel took over Atari and initially killed of all games systems development (which meant the 7800), nintendo (and sega) had only just started thinking of launching their games systems into non asian markets (like the US)

 

If Tramiel hadn't been so stupid and kept the 7800 in development during the warners/tramiel transition period, it might have prevented nintendo and sega getting the sort of foothold into the US videogames market (and subsequently the international videogames market) like they did

 

As the 2600 still had a heck of a lot of 3rd part software support (during the transition period), despite the way that warners 'burned' certain software publishers, retailers etc, it wouldn't have taken much asking for these publishers to start knocking out decent product for the 7800 (and still support the 2600, as the 7800 was 2600 compatible) and make double/triple bubble (as they would have been making money on the 7800 sales, 2600 sales and those 7800 users buying their 2600 product, and not only that Atari still had a half decent dealer/retail and distribution network during the transition period (tramiel would later decimate this into non existence), Atari and the software publishers could have still got Product into the stores and sold it in a fairly decent volume, As atari's own market research pointed out that led them to initialy launching the 7800 that the consumer was 'looking for something new' or looking to trade up to a more advanced gaming platform which the 7800 apparently offered

 

Strange then that Atari virtually managed to let history repeat itself again with the Lynx, apparently orig. purchased/icensed from Epyx (who were experiencing financial problems and facing possible bankruptcy) back in 1987, Atari decided to watch till 1989/90 before they finally released the lynx, apparently the Handy was practically finished (as in,ready for mass production) by the time Atari got it's hands on it, at the time,

 

If Atari, who were still fairly popular in the states in 1987, and going great guns in europe/UK during the same period had the guts and the intelligence to release the lynx, albeit in limited quantities initially back in 1987, i reckon that Atari would have taken a lot of gameboy's market share away

 

A: because it was colour not black and white and technically superiror, secondly, by the time the gameboy came on the market Atari would have been able to position the lynx at the same price point, due to the fact that people were buying enough systems (and software) and also reduce the price of software to less then that of the gameboy

 

As Atari were still fairly popular with the software publishers (Thanks largely to the ST) it wouldn't have taken much pursuading ST software publishers (who were also making software for nintendo/sega's games systems as well) to start converting there ST games to the Atari lynx, and as atari still had some semblance of a retail/dealer distribution network, Atari (and the software publishers) could have still sold a fairly decent volume of Unit's and gained a decent market share or at least kept the gameboy's marketshare at reachable percentage, due mostly to the fact that Atari got to the market first and sold enough product to get a decent market share, if not in the US, definately in Europe or the UK where Atari were definately more popular and couldn't do no wrong

 

I will lynch tramiel (and his family) if he tried the same stunt with the Jaguar (i would'nt be surprised if he did)

[JagFan422]

there are some major flaws in your arguement. first issue, regardless of when the 7800 was released, once the NES or SMS would've been released in the US, the 7800 would've still been out the door fairly quickly. The hardware could not compete. Once people would see what the NES and SMS were capable of, the 7800 would've been no more anyway.

 

And the Lynx could never do ST games, the resolution is to low and it only can have 16 colors on screen, so why have crappy stripped down versions of ST games saturating the market. So with developers already unhappy with Atari, why should they take a risk on the Lynx?? There was no incentive. And the jaguar was the same thing. The Jaguar was released as a 64-bit system that couldn't even compete with 16-bit systems and had games that could've been done on the SNES. Again, it was a waste of time for developers.

 

I feel bad for the Lynx though. It is a great piece of kit. Had it been done right, I agree with you, it could've been great, the 7800 and Jag were doomed from the very beginning though.

[Trip_Cannon]

I don't know... I mean, the 7800 could have been a huge hit had it been released with a two year jump... Atari could have had millions of units and games sold, NES would have had to play catch up in the market, by then with the revenue Atari made they could have had another system in the works... who knows.. Same thing with the lynx... Gameboy was no match for the Lynx, it's just that the GB had such a huge jump...

 

But it does come down to the games.. NES and GB blew away all of the competition when it came to the software.. they had all the killer apps... but again, who knows, with a renewed interest in the market, maybe Atari could have spawned a few more Activisions or Imagics developing exclusively for their systems much like Capcom and Konami were for Nintendo...

[semicolo]

well the basic video mode (without any tricks) of the atari st is 16colors out of a palette of 512, ports wouldn't be so ugly.

[shadow460]

I think Sega had just as much chance to compete with the Game Boy as Atari did. AS it is, they did only slightly better than Atari, and who was best depends on what software you like.

 

The Lynx II was still a giant piece of hardware. It's a tick smaller that the Game Gear, which is quite a bit larger than the Classic Gameboy. The Gameboy fit into a back pocket easily, with an additional game or two stuffed into a front pocket. Lynx and Game gear did not, although Lynx's games are a lot smaller than either of its competitors.

 

Lynx also has some of the same power troubles Game Gear had (not so anymore, thanks to NiMH batteries). Since it would have been released much earlier, consumers would have already been wary of a color portable video game and how fast it could decimate alkaline batteries. Tying either Lynx or Game Gear to a wall outlet would remove a vital component of its portability. I hardly ever used a Gameboy with it connected to the wall outlet, whereas my only opprotunity to Lynx was when connected to a wall, and my Game Gear spends a lot of its play time hooked to the wall as well, even with the NiMH batteries.

 

What's most appealing about any Gameboy hardware is that it is completely and totally portable--it's not going to bleed your wallet in batteries.

 

If development on all three had begun at the same time, I still think Nintendo would have come out on top. Lynx seems good (I wouldn't want one if they sucked), but it's probably just not enough.

 

As for the 7800, if it had been released in 1984, I thik it would have solidified Atari's number one position in the market. I do not think we would have Xbox 360 today, though. I think portable gaming systems would be stronger than consoles, due to the fact that the 7800 would still have a good bunch of older arcade ports. This would have forced Nintendo and Sega to follow suit, and resulted in companies like Rare and Acclaim cutting their teeth on older games games instead of developing new stuff like RC Pro Am.

I think we would be buying Saturns today instead of Xboxes due to a slower progression in console technology.

[atarian1]

I've always being baffled by this when i first heard it, but the things became a lot clearer when i remembered that Atari also waited 2 years to 'properly' release/launch the 7800

 

When the 7800 was originally released the nintendo/sega products had only just been launched in Japan (only) several months before, by the time tramiel took over Atari and initially killed of all games systems development (which meant the 7800), nintendo (and sega) had only just started thinking of launching their games systems into non asian markets (like the US)

 

If Tramiel hadn't been so stupid and kept the 7800 in development during the warners/tramiel transition period, it might have prevented nintendo and sega getting the sort of foothold into the US videogames market (and subsequently the international videogames market) like they did

 

To repeat again (and to go throught this debate yet again)...Videogames were dead at the time. Everyone was moving towards to home/personal computers, and it was the only way for Atari to survive. The Tramiels put all their eggs into the ST which turned out to be the smart move. If they put all their eggs into the 7800, I don't think they would have survived. Most people wrote off Atari videogames. The videogame market was just not there until Nintendo revived it.

 

From your message, I personally don't think you were paying attention (or knew) what the market was like in 1984-85. Anyone who lived through it knew it was a bleak time for videogames.

 

Strange then that Atari virtually managed to let history repeat itself again with the Lynx, apparently orig. purchased/icensed from Epyx (who were experiencing financial problems and facing possible bankruptcy) back in 1987, Atari decided to watch till 1989/90 before they finally released the lynx, apparently the Handy was practically finished (as in,ready for mass production) by the time Atari got it's hands on it, at the time,

 

Whoa! Hold on there! Where did this come from? That is NOT true that Atari sat on the Lynx for two years. That's hogwash. Every article I've read said the Lynx (codename Handy) was in constant development by Epyx up to its debut at the 1989 CES. Atari didn't even know about the Handy until right before the 1989 CES when Epyx approached Atari to market the Handy because of their financial troubles. They signed an agreement and Handy became the Atari Portable Color Entertainment System (APCES) which later became the Lynx. The APCES was the hit of the CES show and overshadowed the Gameboy. Lynx and Gameboy were released only a month or two apart in 1989.

 

You need to get your facts straight.

[adolobe]

Not to change subjects...but does anyone actually know how may Lynx units were actually sold.

[+karri]

No idea really. But the number must be pretty big. The Lynx was released in 1990 and the largest number of carts produced for any platform in 1993 was 700000 carts. From this info I would estimate that the number of Lynxes is far less than 200000 units. This info has no background research behind it. It is just my general feeling. As the Lynx never really got to fly I believe that they sold around 10000 units during the first year and made huge amounts of units in stock waiting for the big break through. It is possible that I am completely off by a factor of ten in either direction.

 

The quarterly sales were around 8 - 25 millions and the inventory was 12.1 million USD in 1993. If the Lynx covered about 1/4 of the business then we are talking about 20000 - 100000 Lynxes annually with about 30000 units sitting in the stock in 1993.

 

I would be very interested in getting any better estimates from someone who knows what really happened.

--

Karri

[The_Laird]

I can add some facts and information to this debate.

 

Firstly Carmel Andrews is half right in the 1987 thing, the first working prototype of the Handy was developed in 1987 by Epyx, I read this in an interview with RJ Mical and Peter Engelbrite, but things like Mikey and Suzie where developed later and the Lynx as we know it was not finished until 1989 and in fact Atari hurried to get it to the market in time to compete with the Gameboy which was why only 4 games (excluding California Games) where available at launch. As Atari had only just acquired the machine they hadn't yet managed to develop any games for it so the only games where the Epyx ones, if you remember it wasn't until the third lot of game releases we saw anything from Atari. The Lynx and Gameboy where only released one month apart in 1989!

 

In terms of sales figures I believe it was around the 200,000 mark here in the UK. I remember reading in the gaming press here in the UK that one xmas (1990 I think) it outsold all consoles except the Megadrive (Genesis) partly due to Batman Returns, I remember the 10 minute long promo for it before the film started, a very clever move from Atari for once.

 

Jagfan You are talking complete crap, just for a change , as the ST (in its FM form) could only display 16 colours from a pallette of 512 in its low res mode. The Lynx could display 16 (without pallette switching) from 4096 colours and a host of hardware tricks the ST didn't. In fact the Lynx version of Paperboy is a direct port of the ST version, it even credits Elite who did the ST version in the game, and Viking Child is also (with a few graphical alterations) so that blows you argument out the water.

 

Atari 3 biggest mistakes with the Lynx were these:

 

1. Putting the intial launch price far too high.

2. Not getting any third parties involved.

3. Dropping the Lynx to concentrate on the Jag when it was still a viable platform and then trying to revive of the back of the Jag. The Jag shouldv'e been released of the back of the Lynx.

Edited April 27, 2006 by mr.kizza

[JagFan422]

yeah your right, i was thinking of the TT, not ST, which could have 256 colors

[DracIsBack]

The hardware could not compete. Once people would see what the NES and SMS were capable of, the 7800 would've been no more anyway.

We've debated this endlessly in the 7800 forum and quite frankly I stand by the same view I've always had: The problem the 7800 would have faced would not be caused by hardware.

 

However, I agree that Atari wouldn't have had success releasing early for the following reasons:

 

1 The entire channel hated Atari. They were the devil as far as retail was concerned and many wouldn't touch them.

 

2. Atari was completely unprepared for the kinds of games Nintendo and Sega were creating. Their launch lineup was a better Pac Man. They would have had to take time to catch up and Nintendo and Sega would have been there.

 

3. Atari was sold in 1984. Warner was anxious to get rid of it. Had it been released in 1984, Tramiel still would have spent squat on marketing, games, development etc.

 

the 7800 and Jag were doomed from the very beginning though.

 

The difference between the 7800 and the Jaguar is one was profitable for Atari and the other was a huge money loser.

[carmel_andrews]

I can add some facts and information to this debate.

 

Firstly Carmel Andrews is half right in the 1987 thing, the first working prototype of the Handy was developed in 1987 by Epyx, I read this in an interview with RJ Mical and Peter Engelbrite, but things like Mikey and Suzie where developed later and the Lynx as we know it was not finished until 1989 and in fact Atari hurried to get it to the market in time to compete with the Gameboy which was why only 4 games (excluding California Games) where available at launch. As Atari had only just acquired the machine they hadn't yet managed to develop any games for it so the only games where the Epyx ones, if you remember it wasn't until the third lot of game releases we saw anything from Atari. The Lynx and Gameboy where only released one month apart in 1989!

 

In terms of sales figures I believe it was around the 200,000 mark. I remember reading in the gaming press here in the UK that one xmas (1990 I think) it outsold all consoles except the Megadrive (Genesis) partly due to Batman Returns, I remember the 10 minute long promo for it before the film started, a very clever move from Atari for once.

 

Jagfan You are talking complete crap, just for a change , as the ST (in its FM form) could only display 16 colours from a pallette of 512 in its low res mode. The Lynx could display 16 (without pallette switching) from 4096 colours and a host of hardware tricks the ST didn't. In fact the Lynx version of Paperboy is a direct port of the ST version, it even credits Elite who did the ST version in the game, and Viking Child is also (with a few graphical alterations) so that blows you argument out the water.

 

Atari 3 biggest mistakes with the Lynx were these:

 

1. Putting the intial launch price far too high.

2. Not getting any third parties involved.

3. Dropping the Lynx to concentrate on the Jag when it was still a viable platform and then trying to revive of the back of the Jag. The Jag shouldv'e been released of the back of the Lynx.

 

 

 

 

Mr Kizza... Atari had no choice but to dropp the lynx like it did, as they'd already pulled out of all hardware manufacturing anyway (according to most sources mid '92) which is why they signed up IBM to manuf the Jag

 

I did hear rumours that just b4 Atari RM'd with JTS that Atari were looking to license out all hardware rights/patents etc to third parties, but there were no takers

[Trip_Cannon]

I thought I read in Leonard Herman's "Phoenix" that Atari had made a deal with a company that rented out Lynx's to airline passengers who were to fly wherever. This went over so well that the sales of Lynx's skyrocketed into the millions.

[masschamber]

Though I don't know if it's a perfect indicator I've got both a lynx 1 and a lynx 2 with serials over the 1 million mark

though I don't know how atari handled there numbering

[JagFan422]

i could believe the sales of the lynx went into the millions. It had about 100 games if i'm not mistaken. It was a good system, and i would think that with the software it had, it wouldn't have been hard for the lynx to sell 1 million units in its life time.

[The_Laird]

I can add some facts and information to this debate.

 

Firstly Carmel Andrews is half right in the 1987 thing, the first working prototype of the Handy was developed in 1987 by Epyx, I read this in an interview with RJ Mical and Peter Engelbrite, but things like Mikey and Suzie where developed later and the Lynx as we know it was not finished until 1989 and in fact Atari hurried to get it to the market in time to compete with the Gameboy which was why only 4 games (excluding California Games) where available at launch. As Atari had only just acquired the machine they hadn't yet managed to develop any games for it so the only games where the Epyx ones, if you remember it wasn't until the third lot of game releases we saw anything from Atari. The Lynx and Gameboy where only released one month apart in 1989!

 

In terms of sales figures I believe it was around the 200,000 mark. I remember reading in the gaming press here in the UK that one xmas (1990 I think) it outsold all consoles except the Megadrive (Genesis) partly due to Batman Returns, I remember the 10 minute long promo for it before the film started, a very clever move from Atari for once.

 

Jagfan You are talking complete crap, just for a change , as the ST (in its FM form) could only display 16 colours from a pallette of 512 in its low res mode. The Lynx could display 16 (without pallette switching) from 4096 colours and a host of hardware tricks the ST didn't. In fact the Lynx version of Paperboy is a direct port of the ST version, it even credits Elite who did the ST version in the game, and Viking Child is also (with a few graphical alterations) so that blows you argument out the water.

 

Atari 3 biggest mistakes with the Lynx were these:

 

1. Putting the intial launch price far too high.

2. Not getting any third parties involved.

3. Dropping the Lynx to concentrate on the Jag when it was still a viable platform and then trying to revive of the back of the Jag. The Jag shouldv'e been released of the back of the Lynx.

 

 

 

 

Mr Kizza... Atari had no choice but to dropp the lynx like it did, as they'd already pulled out of all hardware manufacturing anyway (according to most sources mid '92) which is why they signed up IBM to manuf the Jag

 

I did hear rumours that just b4 Atari RM'd with JTS that Atari were looking to license out all hardware rights/patents etc to third parties, but there were no takers

 

They did have a choice because they were sitting on hundreds of units anyway which is why they re-released it after the launch of the Jag. The reason they sold their factories was to make a quick buck and put it to the Jag, they could have made more money by supporting the Lynx further. Speculate to accumulate.

[DracIsBack]

i've heard conflicting stats. One that said Atari sold a million Lynxes and another that said they sold one million Lynx games.

[8th lutz]

i've heard conflicting stats. One that said Atari sold a million Lynxes and another that said they sold one million Lynx games.

I hope this helps according to gamepro, Atari celebrated it 1 millionth lynx cartridge sold. It said this in the July of 92 issue of game pro. I assume that the lynx by the end of lifetime sold at least 1.1 million cartridges.

Edited April 27, 2006 by 8th lutz

[Trip_Cannon]

Searching Google I was able to find this:

 

http://www.gametunnel.com/html/section-printpage-126.html

 

Nintendo Gameboy 118,420,000 93%

Atari Lynx (estimate) 750,000 1%

Sega Game Gear 8,650,000 7%

 

and on AEX:

 

http://www.atari-explorer.com/lynx/lynx.html

 

"The Lynx sold extremely well, over a million units shipped, and new units can still be purchased today from third party companies. "

[+karri]

and on AEX:

 

http://www.atari-explorer.com/lynx/lynx.html

 

"The Lynx sold extremely well, over a million units shipped, and new units can still be purchased today from third party companies. "

 

It is possible. So I was off by a factor of 5. That also means that the Lynx covered for more than half of Ataris sales. Time to start working on the Multicart 2006 again. My customer base just grew by a factor of 5

 

--

Karri