The last 7800 thread...

[Alienblue]

...or not.

Partially as way of congratulating AtariFever in his new life, I bring forth a query again on the "what if" Atari 7800....

We already argued about how the 7800, while superior in many ways, stood no chance against the 1983/84 competition of NES and SMS, with the other systems established bases/libraries.

But I think the real question is, was Jack Tramiel intentionaly destroying any hope of video game market competition? I say this because they were supporting THREE major game systems all at once; The 2600Jr., 7800 and Atari XEGameSystem! The 7800 was clearly the superior of the three and HAD 2600 compatibility, so WHY did Atari make three totally different machines, essentialy competing against itself!? I believe the 5200 failed partialy because Atari kept pushing the 2600 at the same time instead of "moving up" after a bit, as companies do today.

Would the 7800 have sold better if Atari canned the 2600Jr. and XEGS and released all 7800 specific titles, packaging the unit with a light gun and pad controls? Would third party companies have taken them more seriously?

And what of the AtariST computer? "What If" Atari had relased a 16-Bit ST game system (with a better sound chip) to compete with SNES and Genesis, rather than the doomed "64 bit" Jaguar?

Did Tramiel want Atari=COMPUTERasinPC so bad he INTENTIONALY shot the games division down, unloading intentionaly inferior and outdated hardware on consumers? Of course the sad truth is that the computer division never had a chance. The market was already thinned down to COMMODORE,APPLE and PC and would keep getting thinner as more peoople wanted a single compatible machine, and all 3 companies were "computer" while Atari will FOREVER be remembered more for home/coin-op games. Yet the king of games was dethroned too by these mistakes. I....
um....what was my point again?

[Atarifever1]

I believe the problem with that period for Atari is that they tried far too much to get a piece of the market Nintendo revived.

They probably were afraid to back one console, as they had the technology and library there to take a chance on the Jr. and XEGS somewhat cheaply from a development and support stand point.  However, packaging, producing, advertising, and distributing three systems at once is almost impossible, so the 7800, in the end, probably did suffer because Atari tried to back far too many horses.   However, I strongly believe they DID try to back those horses in the best way they believed they could.

However, I've also heard the theory, and do not believe it,  that Tramiel basically put out three cheap to produce systems in order to make some quick money to invest in the following generation.  The thing about this theory that seems plausable is that those systems were pretty much ready to go when he took over the company, as was a huge back catalog of 2600 and 8 bit games, and even the launch titles for the 7800, so indeed it was probably cheap from an R&D standpoint.  However, I find it hard to believe they were not, in fact, giving it their all (as they saw it) considering:

1) The Atari name was already established in the videogame market
2) The videogame market, thanks to Nintendo, had exploded again and was basically a goldmine with few people in it.
3) Companies like to make money.

I don't think the Tramiels ever intended to do poorly in that market because the potential for them to make a lot of money there was very, very clear to everyone by 1986.

[BigOldCar]

This is how I read it.  Please don't take offense.

Atari and its management could be the subjects of a modern-day Greek tragedy.  It was hubris that brought that company down.  Tramiel is quoted as saying that he could "[defacate] in a box and as long as the box said 'Atari' on it we'd sell millions."  The company had no respect for its customers and no idea how to deal with competition in an industry that they invented.  When their get-rich-now mentality (typical of American companies) and lack of quality control flooded the market with crap and people stopped buying, Atari figured only that the ride was over.  When Nintendo came in and ate Atari's lunch, they had no idea what to do.  They just put back out what had worked for them before: the 2600, repackaged and sold as a low-cost alternative.  They put the 7800 on the market because it was already ready to go.  They no longer understood the market that they'd created and thought that consoles were on their way out, so computers--and gaming on computers--would be the way of the future.  Hence the XEGS.

By the time the 90's rolled around, even the dunderheads at Atari couldn't help but see that PCs and consoles were going to be two separate products, so they tried to get back into the console market with the Jaguar.  At this point, however, I guess the company was so far gone that they couldn't hire or didn't have competent, forward-thinking engineers, so the machine they put together and fielded was the Jaguar.  Ugh.  Could they not have known they were sending out a stinker?  Did they really think they could compete?

What could they have done differently?  Frankly, not released crap.  If they'd treated their customers with respect, if they'd treated their programming talent with respect, if they'd actually INNOVATED, they could have survived.  Nintendo innovates.  Microsoft innovates (and outright bullies / steals).  Sony innovates.  They make mistakes, but they don't take their position and their customers for granted.

That's my take on it, but I could be wrong.

[Leo Ames]

The XEGS was produced to take advantage of Atari's inventory of 8 bit parts and game library. It wasn't really an attempt to make a viable game console to compete with the new generation of game consoles.

The 7800 would've sold worse if Atari had canned the 2600 line in my opinion. One of the systems major selling points was its compatibility with the vast 2600 line, with many stores stocking Atari 2600 classics (And Coleco 2600 titles that they had licensed) and games from Activision (And their acquired line of Imagic titles) into the early 1990s.

The 7800 didn't fail because of competition from Atari's lineup of other systems. It failed because of the Tramiel family. If a POKEY chip had been integrated into the hardware and it had launched when originally planned, it would've had a fighting chance. Letting Nintendo gain a beachhead made it all but impossible to fight back. Also, the Atari 2600 Jr. was one of the few bright spots for Atari during the late 80s and the thing keeping the company most visible on store shelfs, it sold very well with very low overhead costs for the company (Another argument against killing it, it wasn't like Atari was spending a lot of money on advertising or development to support the 2600 line, or even the XEGS). And the 7800's controller wasn’t what hurt the 7800 in the marketplace even though it sucked, so I don’t think the even suckier European gamepad would’ve helped much (Very poorly constructed with a inaccurate d pad).

"And what of the AtariST computer? "What If" Atari had relased a 16-Bit ST game system (with a better sound chip) to compete with SNES and Genesis, rather than the doomed "64 bit" Jaguar?"

Atari would've failed just as horribly. There wasn't anything wrong with the Atari Jaguar's hardware, though it isn't as great as a few individuals like the developer of the Gorf homebrew will try to convince people in the classic gaming community (Check AtariAge's Jag forum or Jaguar Sector II if you want to have a laugh at the idiots that think this thing was more powerful than things like a Nintendo 64 or Sega Dreamcast). The tools were there to produce vastly superior titles than the the Jaguar's competition were offering, but it was too little and too late, and Atari's poor management took care of the last little glimmer of hope by poorly running the company. It's a miracle we got a handful of good Atari Jaguar games like Tempest 2000, I don't think things could've gone much better without completely rewriting the past 15 years of videogame history with a new set of management for Atari.

Atari's computing line was very successful through the 1980s. Atari dominated the European market and maintained a very visible presence in North America into the early 1990s. I think it had a excellent chance, but poor Atari management did it in just like what happened to Commodore. Apple and IBM compatible machines using MS operating systems didn't really dominate until the 1990s. I think your doing a disservice to their 8 bit computer line and the ST, they were very viable machines that were a success in the marketplace and are what kept Atari going as long as it did along with the 2600 Jr. Money from profitable patents and successful lawsuits also helped.

[zenzerotron]

I think you might be missing the main cause as to why the 7800 failed.......it's game library.

Nintendo and Sega had games that were completely different then what Atari offered. Games that were entirely new genres. Games that were revolutionary. Games that were advanced in gameplay.

The 7800's library was mostly trying to sell the same old Centipede/Asteriods/Missile Command stuff, stuff we were sick of, stuff we considered "old"and "yesterday".

What was more appealing,  a revoluntary game Super Mario Bros, or buying a prettier version of Asteriods when you already played that game to death on 2600??

This is what all my friends talked about back in the day. We didn't talk about controllers or hardware specs or hardware prices, or what should be included with the system, we were like "they're still making *fill in 2600 game with prettier graphics here* and trying to sell it??".

Granted, the 7800 more modern games like Rampage, Double Dragon, and Commando, but those were few and far between, and nothing the NES and Master System didn't offer AND do better.

[m0zart1]

[QUOTE=zenzerotron]Nintendo and Sega had games that were completely different then what Atari offered. Games that were entirely new genres. Games that were revolutionary. Games that were advanced in gameplay.

The 7800's library was mostly trying to sell the same old Centipede/Asteriods/Missile Command stuff, stuff we were sick of, stuff we considered "old"and "yesterday".

What was more appealing,  a revoluntary game Super Mario Bros, or buying a prettier version of Asteriods when you already played that game to death on 2600??[/QUOTE]

I admit that when I finally got an NES, it was primarily because all of the screenshots, etc. that I had seen made it seem arcade perfect to many games I was playing in the arcades for at least a year already.  Games like Super Mario Bros., Excitebike, Hogan's Alley, Duck Hunt, Track and Field, etc.  Seeing a machine that could deliver those at home in a picture-perfect experience was a motivation for me to get one of those things as fast as possible.  Of course, that was all smoke and mirrors in retrospect, as those game systems were just running NES hardware inside and slightly modified versions of the NES games as already released in Japan, but still at that time what I wanted was an arcade experience.

However, once I got it, the game library quickly convinced me to move on.  The first times I played Metroid and Zelda, I realized that home game consoles had the potential to offers something I couldn't get in arcades.  That was why the NES wasn't just a flash in the pan for me.

So in other words, I agree with your summary here.  The new age of home consoles coming from Japan seemed like more than just poorly emulated arcade machines with the infinite credit switch flipped on.  They offered experiences that I couldn't get in arcades or other home consoles.

I know the 7800 tried to go in this direction at the end of its life.  I personally really enjoy Midnight Mutants, for instance.  But for many it was too little too late.  In order for gamers to discover great games at the end of a system's lifecycle, they actually have to own the system -- especially back then.

[Leo Ames]

I don't think I missed the main reason the 7800 failed one bit.

That early lineup of coinup ports was just what the public wanted at the time if Tramiel hadn't completely screwed things up and it had been properly marketed and released on time. Games like Ms. Pac-Man were light years ahead of console experiences and were grabbing millions of quarters from gamers, the early lineup of solid coin op ports I think would've been a success in 1984.

Atari never had the opportunity to do things on the scale of things like Super Mario Brothers because it was already a lost cause by the time things like that were grabbing the attention of gamers and the 7800 finally was released.

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=Leo Ames]I don't think I missed the main reason the 7800 failed one bit.

That early lineup of coinup ports was just what the public wanted at the time if Tramiel hadn't completely screwed things up and it had been properly marketed and released on time. Games like Ms. Pac-Man were light years ahead of console experiences and were grabbing millions of quarters from gamers, the early lineup of solid coin op ports I think would've been a success in 1984.


[/QUOTE]
Wow, me and you are in agreement on something regarding the 7800.  I am surprised.

I can see, if I try really hard, why Tramiel didn't release it in 1984 though.  Atari had bled a pile of money from Warner in the end (hundreds of millions if I recall), Mattel had lost millions and millions on videogames, Coleco's gaming had went completely under, Magnavox dropped all talk of a second removeable cart system, etc.  All that market seemed to contain anymore was losses and failures, while the home computer market was exploding.  Tramiel had a lot of experience in computers, and Atari already had a computer line.  In that position, I have to say I'd be hard pressed to invest in a console at the expense of a ready to go computer line.
 

[Leo Ames]

I've always been a fan of the console, I just don't like quite a bit of its game lineup beyond the arcade ports and a few gems like Ballblazer and Midnight Mutants.

[Zenzerotron]

The problem TODAY with the 7800, for me, is these 2 things.......

1. Many 3rd party carts phyiscally won't fit into the 7800's cartridge slot

2. Some homebrews don't work on the system.

That totally kills it for me. Weird obscure 3rd party games and homebrews are the spice of Atari life, at least, for me.

Question..........how do you select game variations of 2600 games playing them on a 7800? What about games that used the "black&white" tv switch to affect gameplay?? The novice/expert switches??

That's another thing that kills it for me, I've assumed that any 2600 game you stick into a 7800, you're stuck with  the default game-variation one, and games like "Space Shuttle" would be completely unplayable.

Bottomline..the 7800 just isn't 2600-compatible ENOUGH to justify owning one.