Was the 5200 considered a success?

[Paranoid]

The Colecovision had a mess of unique games, elegant and innovative

 

the 5200 is big, ugly, and slow.

 

 

*cough*

 

I've heard the Colecovision called a lot of things. Elegent isn't usually one that springs right to mind, though.

[Henry Lee]

The Colecovision had a mess of unique games, elegant and innovative

 

the 5200 is big, ugly, and slow.

 

 

*cough*

 

I've heard the Colecovision called a lot of things. Elegent isn't usually one that springs right to mind, though.

 

 

Elegance...

 

!Which system you think could be used to call E.T. back to earth!

[JB]

The Colecovision had a mess of unique games, elegant and innovative

 

the 5200 is big, ugly, and slow.

 

 

*cough*

 

I've heard the Colecovision called a lot of things. Elegent isn't usually one that springs right to mind, though.

 

 

Elegance...

 

!Which system you think could be used to call E.T. back to earth!

Speak & Math?

[phuzaxeman]

maybe the 5200 wasn't a commercial success to keep atari alive, but the system per se was the best in my eyes with the lynx for the simple fact that it had many great games.

 

i had the intellivision, colecovision and 2600 and those controllers at the time were terrible. the 5200 controllers when they didn't break down were easy to control for me despite what people have said.

 

from space dungeon, puzzle games like zenji, and the best baseball game at the time, closest translation of pac man, fun as hell centipede, mario brothers, joust, gyrus-great music, robotron, and countermeasure to name a few, the 5200 had many hits.

 

while big, the design looked cool too. finally, games that were in the arcade were brought home...

Edited October 17, 2006 by phuzaxeman

[Paranoid]

Welcome to the brotherhood of the Temple of the 5200. Brother JB will be around shortly to give you your membership card and teach you the secret handshake. You're among friends.

[phuzaxeman]

What's funny is the 2600 version is so much better, maybe it's just the paddles and the crazy sound effects that you can change.

 

With the 5200 it just seems odd and plays rather poorly. It would be like shipping Tetris with the Wii, a decent enough game but not exactly new and not something that shows off your new system's bells and whistles.

 

 

not even close. yeah, atari should have stuck with keeping pacman or putting a nice game like jungle hunt with the 5200 but super breakout was fun as hell....

 

there's nothing odd and the controllers felt great. the great thing was that when i was a kid i was trying so hard to get one of those cool comments after the game (i forgot what it said.."expert"?).

 

i don't like the 2600 paddles and the 5200 version of super breakout will always be on my top list of 5200 games for gameplay. playing the double and progressive games were a lot of fun.

[Paranoid]

I completely agree. I prefer the 5200 controllers for Super Breakout to the paddles on the 2600. But we're definetly in the minority on that opinion... and you do need a WELL calibrated set of controllers to enjoy Super Breakout on the 5200. If they're too loose, too tight, or not adjusted well, the game isn't much fun. But, bad paddles ruin the game on a 2600, too... Jitter sucks, regardless of the console.

[Foxsolo2000]

What I could never understand was why they didn't make the 5200 backward compatible for one of the main selling points of the Colecovision was the 2600 adaptor which enabled many 2600 owners to swap over without losing their precious collections of Atari games and which gave the Colecovision a massive games library to choose from. Atari had to have seen this factor so why didn't they use it to their advantage for surely 2600 owners would have bought the 5200 had they been able to play their 2600 games on it?

[phuzaxeman]

What I could never understand was why they didn't make the 5200 backward compatible for one of the main selling points of the Colecovision was the 2600 adaptor which enabled many 2600 owners to swap over without losing their precious collections of Atari games and which gave the Colecovision a massive games library to choose from. Atari had to have seen this factor so why didn't they use it to their advantage for surely 2600 owners would have bought the 5200 had they been able to play their 2600 games on it?

 

 

there was an adapter for the 2600 but they made it too late. had the 5200 threw in the 2600 adapter with the system, it would have sold more....

[simbalion]

The Colecovision had a mess of unique games, elegant and innovative

 

the 5200 is big, ugly, and slow.

 

 

The 5200 ugly? Slow?! The 5200 is big, sleek, and fast! I have had that system school me so many times on games from the speed that they move that I have lost count. If you want slow, try the Intellivision. Colecovisions are not elegant at all and have a nasty habit of dying for no reason. In my opinion, the 5200 walks all over the Coleco.

[JamesD]

The Colecovision had a mess of unique games, elegant and innovative

the 5200 is big, ugly, and slow.

*cough*

I've heard the Colecovision called a lot of things. Elegent isn't usually one that springs right to mind, though.

Elegance...

!Which system you think could be used to call E.T. back to earth!

Speak & Math?

Am I the only one that got a laugh out of this? I thought sure someone else would comment on it.

[jetset]

The Colecovision had a mess of unique games, elegant and innovative

 

the 5200 is big, ugly, and slow.

 

 

The 5200 ugly? Slow?! The 5200 is big, sleek, and fast! I have had that system school me so many times on games from the speed that they move that I have lost count. If you want slow, try the Intellivision. Colecovisions are not elegant at all and have a nasty habit of dying for no reason. In my opinion, the 5200 walks all over the Coleco.

 

That is a kind of funny comment. I love my CV, but the games library was anything but innovative. Most of them were 3rd rate knockoffs of hit games.

[simbalion]

The Colecovision had a mess of unique games, elegant and innovative

 

the 5200 is big, ugly, and slow.

 

 

The 5200 ugly? Slow?! The 5200 is big, sleek, and fast! I have had that system school me so many times on games from the speed that they move that I have lost count. If you want slow, try the Intellivision. Colecovisions are not elegant at all and have a nasty habit of dying for no reason. In my opinion, the 5200 walks all over the Coleco.

 

That is a kind of funny comment. I love my CV, but the games library was anything but innovative. Most of them were 3rd rate knockoffs of hit games.

 

I have a CV as well and I like it ok. Just the games never seemed as nice on it as the 5200. Intellivisions are ok systems, but they do tend to be slow on the action. Hence my earlier comment. Obviously, someone here really dislikes the 5200.

[jetset]

The Colecovision had a mess of unique games, elegant and innovative

 

the 5200 is big, ugly, and slow.

 

 

The 5200 ugly? Slow?! The 5200 is big, sleek, and fast! I have had that system school me so many times on games from the speed that they move that I have lost count. If you want slow, try the Intellivision. Colecovisions are not elegant at all and have a nasty habit of dying for no reason. In my opinion, the 5200 walks all over the Coleco.

 

That is a kind of funny comment. I love my CV, but the games library was anything but innovative. Most of them were 3rd rate knockoffs of hit games.

 

I have a CV as well and I like it ok. Just the games never seemed as nice on it as the 5200. Intellivisions are ok systems, but they do tend to be slow on the action. Hence my earlier comment. Obviously, someone here really dislikes the 5200.

 

 

Thier loss man!

[Foxsolo2000]

What I could never understand was why they didn't make the 5200 backward compatible for one of the main selling points of the Colecovision was the 2600 adaptor which enabled many 2600 owners to swap over without losing their precious collections of Atari games and which gave the Colecovision a massive games library to choose from. Atari had to have seen this factor so why didn't they use it to their advantage for surely 2600 owners would have bought the 5200 had they been able to play their 2600 games on it?

 

 

there was an adapter for the 2600 but they made it too late. had the 5200 threw in the 2600 adapter with the system, it would have sold more....

 

Yes but the adaptor was obvisously an after thougth rather than a means to boost the systems desirability at launch. Colecovision knew that many 2600 owners would not have gone for their product had they been forced to abandon their hard earned gaming collections and so cornered the market as being the best of both worlds. Atari shoudl have followed suit right from the start and it beggars belief that they failed to take the fight to their competitors right from the off

[Paranoid]

Yes but the adaptor was obvisously an after thougth rather than a means to boost the systems desirability at launch. Colecovision knew that many 2600 owners would not have gone for their product had they been forced to abandon their hard earned gaming collections and so cornered the market as being the best of both worlds. Atari shoudl have followed suit right from the start and it beggars belief that they failed to take the fight to their competitors right from the off

 

Somewhere I got lost in the most recent exchanges... but some of the quotes that look attributed to me are not.

 

I have a Colecovision and a 5200, and I did when they were new, as well.

 

I prefered the 5200 then, and I still feel the same way.

 

Not that I dislike the Colecovision. But, it certainly isn't as attractive, and the MAJORITY of games pale compared to the majority of 5200 titles. But where you CAN compare apples to apples, it is a 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, situation. For exampe, 5200 Montezuma's Revenge and Pitfall II bury Colecovision titles of the same, as far as graphics are concerned (and gameplay is superior on the 5200, for Montezuma's Revenge, as well). Now, BCs Quest, on the other hand, is a far more attractive and fun game on the Colecovision. I could give a bunch of other examples both ways... and what it points to is, both systems do what they do well.

 

As far as the backwards compatibility, if there is one thing this hobby has done for me, it has illustrated just how corrupt and greedy the gaming industry is. Not that I should be shocked by this, but I am, none-the-less... that something designed primarily for children... for play, would be designed to encourage obselecence and encourage upgrades simply for the sake of maximizing profits makes it just that much more disgusting. Pac Man 2600 versus what we now know the 2600 is capable of is just one example. The fact that an XBox could certainly be your set-top, media convergence device, but it is crippled on purpose by Microsoft is just the latest example. In the case of the 5200, backwards compatability was not designed in or included because Atari *wanted* the 2600 to go away. They had already eroded the price point of the 2600 and whittled it down in the bundled accessories and in quality and that was never going to be reversed. They wanted a new unit that was high profit and that didn't encourage continued growth of the 2600 library. It backfired on them, and so they designed the 2600 adaptor after the fact, and too late. But the reason was greed. You can step almost every mis-step of Atari after the 2600 to corporate greed. I really believe at first these guys come up with ideas because of passion, and they succeed because the passion shines through. Then they lose site of that, they get bought out by a huge corporation, and bean counters come in and start plotting how to maximize profits as a formula, without any regard for the passion that made the original concept a success. That might work for the short term, but long term, a company that loses it's core passion is doomed.

[jaybird3rd]

The Colecovision was the system that initiated the 7800!

The 5200 itself also had a role in initiating the 7800. According to the GCC guys, they got a 5200 console from Atari because they were doing development work for them, and it was so obvious that Atari screwed up the 5200 that GCC came up with the idea for the 7800 entirely on their own. The 7800 was designed by GCC and not by Atari, but Atari jumped at the opportunity to distribute it because it gave them an instant solution to the 5200 mess: simplified controllers, 2600 backward compatibility, graphics and sounds that were superior to the 5200 (the specs for MARIA included onboard sound at the time), etc. It was a top priority for Atari until the Tramiel acquisition, at which time it went into the warehouse for ~2 years until it was dragged out, cost-reduced and crippled, to compete with the NES.

[Gabriel]

In the case of the 5200, backwards compatability was not designed in or included because Atari *wanted* the 2600 to go away.

 

But they didn't want it to go away enough. Atari kept on focusing on the 2600 while apparrently hoping the 5200 would be stillborn.

 

Let's put it this way, even Sega of America seemed more intent on supporting the 32X than the dedication shown by Atari to the 5200.

[Paranoid]

The 5200 itself also had a role in initiating the 7800. According to the GCC guys, they got a 5200 console from Atari because they were doing development work for them, and it was so obvious that Atari screwed up the 5200 that GCC came up with the idea for the 7800 entirely on their own. The 7800 was designed by GCC and not by Atari, but Atari jumped at the opportunity to distribute it because it gave them an instant solution to the 5200 mess: simplified controllers, 2600 backward compatibility, graphics and sounds that were superior to the 5200 (the specs for MARIA included onboard sound at the time), etc. It was a top priority for Atari until the Tramiel acquisition, at which time it went into the warehouse for ~2 years until it was dragged out, cost-reduced and crippled, to compete with the NES.

 

Jay, so you're saying the original prototype 7800 was actually superior to the final version? Or is the 7800 as we know it pretty much how it existed as a GCC prototype? Because, I'd argue that as delivered, the 7800 is a flawed "improvement" over the 5200. The "simplified" controllers are actually a very bad compromise between the 5200 design and a badly engineered CX26 stick (inverting the circuit board was a dumb idea, put simply. I wonder what the logic for that change was, as it seems like it could have easily been avoided). Built in 2600 support and improved graphics are pretty hard to debate as enhancements, and I'm not such a fanboy that I would claim that the 5200 has superior graphics capabilities to the 7800, but, it seems like the actual gameplay on 7800 titles often leaves a lot to be desired. Of course, here the debate becomes is it a hardware or a programming issue that results in this, and, it is a somewhat subjective opinion anyhow.

 

Still... the 7800 *sounds* a lot better conceptually than the actual product, and I'm wondering if the earliest prototypes were more robust than the cost-cut console that eventually saw the light of day.

 

 

But they didn't want it to go away enough. Atari kept on focusing on the 2600 while apparrently hoping the 5200 would be stillborn.

 

Let's put it this way, even Sega of America seemed more intent on supporting the 32X than the dedication shown by Atari to the 5200.

 

No doubt about this... Atari was clearly a conflicted company when it came to the 2600. I think *this* also reflects greed. It was their cash cow and their anchor, and so they breathed life into it long after it was really competitive. Wasn't it still available after the crash as the 2600 Jr., competing with the 7800 and being offered as a $49 console new? That is such a commodity price point that it just becomes real hard to justify it at that point. Maybe if they had marketed it differently, as kind of the first generation of PnP TV game. But, I don't think the manufacturing costs were there for that, at that point. Really, they should have just retired it, especially with the 7800 having backwards comaptability (and shortly going for as little as $50 a unit, itself, anyhow).

[jaybird3rd]

Jay, so you're saying the original prototype 7800 was actually superior to the final version? Or is the 7800 as we know it pretty much how it existed as a GCC prototype? Because, I'd argue that as delivered, the 7800 is a flawed "improvement" over the 5200. The "simplified" controllers are actually a very bad compromise between the 5200 design and a badly engineered CX26 stick (inverting the circuit board was a dumb idea, put simply. I wonder what the logic for that change was, as it seems like it could have easily been avoided). Built in 2600 support and improved graphics are pretty hard to debate as enhancements, and I'm not such a fanboy that I would claim that the 5200 has superior graphics capabilities to the 7800, but, it seems like the actual gameplay on 7800 titles often leaves a lot to be desired. Of course, here the debate becomes is it a hardware or a programming issue that results in this, and, it is a somewhat subjective opinion anyhow.

 

Still... the 7800 *sounds* a lot better conceptually than the actual product, and I'm wondering if the earliest prototypes were more robust than the cost-cut console that eventually saw the light of day.

The early versions of the 7800, and especially the plans for the system that never even made it to the prototype stage, were in some ways a lot better than what was actually put into production. The original 7800 design included a new sound chip called Gumby, which was to be built into all 7800 consoles and would have given it even better sound than POKEY. Lack of development time caused it to be dropped from the design, as I understand, and the audio line was added to the cartridge port for POKEY cartridges instead. Personally, I think that the simple inclusion of better built-in sound would have made the 7800 a much better gaming platform. Then there's the unreleased hardware and accessories that would have made for a more interesting system if they had ever seen the light of day: the High Score Cartridge, the laser disc add-on, the keyboard, the two-button trackball, etc.

 

The 7800 system that was finally released by the Tramiels was stripped of most of the things that would have helped it stand out from the competition, and it had a "cheapness" about it that the very first consoles and games produced by Warner in 1984 didn't have. Those first cartridges had dust guards and more attractive labels that the later cartridges did not. The early consoles had the expansion port, socketed chips, better-quality mainboards, and thicker plastic shells than the later consoles did. Even the packaging and decorative art on the early consoles was better. I certainly won't argue with you about the ProLine controllers: they tried to remedy what was wrong with the 5200 sticks and were certainly a step up in quality and durability, but they inherited too many design flaws from the 5200 and weren't as comfortable to use as the 7800 gamepads or the venerable CX-40.

 

I think the biggest problem with the 7800 was that it was a pre-crash console trying to survive in a post-crash world. As we all know, consumer video games completely changed in the two years the 7800 languished in the warehouse. Judging from the first dozen or so games produced by GCC, the 7800 was designed with enhanced ports of popular arcade and home computer games in mind, but the gaming public wasn't satisfied with that anymore; they had already fallen in love with the NES and the new style of gaming Nintendo had pioneered. This is where the gameplay issues you mentioned come in, and I agree with you: the later 7800 titles in particular did not have the kind of polish and refinement that they should have had. One of the reasons Nintendo succeeded in that regard was because they evaluated every game according to a strict forty-point QA system. There were eight different categories (graphics, sound, playability, replayability, initial impression, documentation, translatability, and originality), each one worth five points, and if the game didn't rate a minimum of thirty points with Nintendo's playtesters, Nintendo wouldn't let it ship.

 

Atari didn't have any kind of structure like that because, under the Tramiels, they weren't a strong gaming company anymore. They had ended their fruitful relationship with GCC, they had purged themselves of most of their internal game development, and the Tramiels didn't really understand games themselves. They couldn't even bring in good third-party support because most of the best developers had already signed exclusive development deals with Nintendo or Sega, leaving Atari with the likes of "ibid, inc." and whoever designed Jinks. The 7800 hardware certainly could have handled everything the 5200 did, and even some of those NES-style games, but Atari didn't have (and perhaps couldn't afford) the kind of skilled developers that could have made it happen. As a result, the 7800 didn't get the best games: there weren't enough original titles, the games ported from other systems were poorly chosen (did the 7800 really need all those bad flight simulators?), and almost all of them have a really unfortunate half-baked feel to them.

 

No doubt about this... Atari was clearly a conflicted company when it came to the 2600. I think *this* also reflects greed. It was their cash cow and their anchor, and so they breathed life into it long after it was really competitive. Wasn't it still available after the crash as the 2600 Jr., competing with the 7800 and being offered as a $49 console new? That is such a commodity price point that it just becomes real hard to justify it at that point. Maybe if they had marketed it differently, as kind of the first generation of PnP TV game. But, I don't think the manufacturing costs were there for that, at that point. Really, they should have just retired it, especially with the 7800 having backwards comaptability (and shortly going for as little as $50 a unit, itself, anyhow).

It's so strange that Atari was almost a victim of the 2600's success, especially when it came to the 5200 and 7800. I think the mindset of Steve Woita, who was originally hired as a 5200 developer, must have been commonplace at Atari: he looked at the number of 2600 and 5200 consoles that had been sold, and at the terms of Atari's royalty agreement, and concluded that it didn't make sense to develop games for the 5200. It was Atari's newest console, but there was more potential for big royalties on the 2600 side because there were millions more 2600 consoles, so he transitioned to 2600 development instead.

 

As for the 7800, the Tramiels probably looked at it much the same way: there were a lot more 2600 consoles than 7800 consoles in the late 80s, and it was a lot cheaper to make new 2600s than 7800s. If they were going to pay for new games, it made sense to make games that were going to sell millions of copies instead of hundreds of thousands, so they continued to make 2600 games much later than they should have and shortchanged their two other game consoles (the 7800 and the XEGS) in the process.

[SoundGammon]

The Tarmiels put not 1 or 2 but 3 systems on the market: 2600jr, 7800, and the XE system, competing with THEMSELVES!!! Then they had to develop games for three systems, to cheap to license arcade games. Every time they tried something they ended up going in circles and shooting themselves in the foot! Here's a thought: Imagine the the Tramiels were in running 20th Century Fox Studios in 1975 when a guy named George Lucas comes in with a movie idea he calls STAR WARS. Anyone want to guess how they would have done it?

[jaybird3rd]

The Tarmiels put not 1 or 2 but 3 systems on the market: 2600jr, 7800, and the XE system, competing with THEMSELVES!!! Then they had to develop games for three systems, to cheap to license arcade games. Every time they tried something they ended up going in circles and shooting themselves in the foot!

How crazy was that? They must have had three different versions of Desert Falcon on store shelves at the same time, all right next to each other and incompatible with each other, confusing the hell out of people.

[Foxsolo2000]

The Tarmiels put not 1 or 2 but 3 systems on the market: 2600jr, 7800, and the XE system, competing with THEMSELVES!!! Then they had to develop games for three systems, to cheap to license arcade games. Every time they tried something they ended up going in circles and shooting themselves in the foot!

How crazy was that? They must have had three different versions of Desert Falcon on store shelves at the same time, all right next to each other and incompatible with each other, confusing the hell out of people.

 

It is incredible to think that any company would produce three systems and keep producing games for all three systems at the same time but didin't Sega do that with the Game Gear, Master System and MegaDrive? Granted they did it ten years later but they are the last company that I know off that did that as well as releasing the Sega CD and 32X but that is probably a different story. Was this all down to Jack Tramiel? Was he surrounded by nothing but yes men who kept giving him bad advice or did he make these decisions himself? I never played the XE system for it wasn't available long in the UK and by the time I saw it I was already upgrading to NES and Master System. It looked dated and uninspired and after the disapointment of the 7800 I was losing faith with Atari big time.

Another point that was raised earlier that Atari was working on a 10 bit system that would have blown the opposition away but settled for the 5200 because programmers were complaining about trying to programme the thing. Wasn't there anyone at Atari who possessed the b**** to tell these programmers to get off their high horses and get the job done? Could you imagine the possibilities, a 10-bit system that would have left all opposition floundering back in 82? I know with hindsight we can all see what should have done have been done and wasn't but the more I read these forums the more I believe that a trained chimp could have done a better job than the heads of Atari at the time

[Foxsolo2000]

The Tarmiels put not 1 or 2 but 3 systems on the market: 2600jr, 7800, and the XE system, competing with THEMSELVES!!! Then they had to develop games for three systems, to cheap to license arcade games. Every time they tried something they ended up going in circles and shooting themselves in the foot!

How crazy was that? They must have had three different versions of Desert Falcon on store shelves at the same time, all right next to each other and incompatible with each other, confusing the hell out of people.

 

It is incredible to think that any company would produce three systems and keep producing games for all three systems at the same time but didin't Sega do that with the Game Gear, Master System and MegaDrive? Granted they did it ten years later but they are the last company that I know off that did that as well as releasing the Sega CD and 32X but that is probably a different story. Was this all down to Jack Tramiel? Was he surrounded by nothing but yes men who kept giving him bad advice or did he make these decisions himself? I never played the XE system for it wasn't available long in the UK and by the time I saw it I was already upgrading to NES and Master System. It looked dated and uninspired and after the disapointment of the 7800 I was losing faith with Atari big time.

Another point that was raised earlier that Atari was working on a 10 bit system that would have blown the opposition away but settled for the 5200 because programmers were complaining about trying to programme the thing. Wasn't there anyone at Atari who possessed the b**** to tell these programmers to get off their high horses and get the job done? Could you imagine the possibilities, a 10-bit system that would have left all opposition floundering back in 82? I know with hindsight we can all see what should have done have been done and wasn't but the more I read these forums the more I believe that a trained chimp could have done a better job than the heads of Atari at the time