etschuetz Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 (edited) Ok, technically speaking, I have heard that the NES is more powerful than the 7800, and vice versa. Which is it? By looking at the games that both machines shared, the NES had anywhere from just slightly better, to amazingly better versions. If Atari had better programmers working on the machine at the time, would it be a different story? Would the 7800 actually made a turn around for Atari? Both the Atari 7800 and Famicom machines were made roughly the same time. So, the issue of when they were made really isn't an issue. Now, I know the history on the 7800 and the NES for the most part. I am just curious as to which is actually a more powerful system in terms of specs and capabilities. I know that the NES is the ultimately more successful platform, but we have seen time and time again when inferior systems out do the more compitent and powerful machines thanks to software. And of course, when a company like NES gets away with practically Monopolizing the market with contracts and such, what do you expect? Examples: 2600 vs Intellivision (However, I think Intellivision was overrated) NES and SMS Game Boy vs Lynx /Game Gear/TurboExpress Genesis and SNES Edited October 9, 2008 by etschuetz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 Dunno which is more powerful, I just play 'em. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 I don't know. I've stopped thinking rationally about games industry The most amazing thing is that Nintendo could get away with the Gameboy and its almost invisible screen The screen of the Lynx was at least visible in most conditions (sprite scale was jaw-dropping btw) and the Turbo-Express' was stellar. When Shenmue was released on the DC most agreed it was a good game. Later when it was released on the XBOX everyone complained that it had too few polygons blabla... Say what!?!? And everyone hyped about PS2's GTA beeing so cool while I thought, just run around in a city and do bad things... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 It's about time someone discussed the relative merits of the 7800 and the NES. My humble opinion is that the 7800 is a cool piece of hardware and is closer to what the 5200 should have been, but the NES produced more arcade-like results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 Ok, technically speaking, I have heard that the NES is more powerful than the 7800, and vice versa. Which is it? Both use 6502 processors running at 1.79 mhz. Processing power isn't the right way to think about it. :-) By looking at the games that both machines shared, the NES had anywhere from just slightly better, to amazingly better versions. If Atari had better programmers working on the machine at the time, would it be a different story? Would the 7800 actually made a turn around for Atari? Both the Atari 7800 and Famicom machines were made roughly the same time. So, the issue of when they were made really isn't an issue. Read this thread from the beginning. http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=130170 Lots of crap in here, but lots of good nuggets to. Also read this: http://atari7800.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/NES You'll get an idea of pros and cons. I am just curious as to which is actually a more powerful system in terms of specs and capabilities. Again, same processor with same speed and roughly equivalent computational capabilities. "power" is irrelevant. They do have differences in sound (very NES in favor) and they do have differences in how they create graphics (each has advantages but the NES's fixed form is better at the type of game that was popular at the time). But rather than starting another "vs" thread, suggest folks go to the one that already exists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atarifever Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 Trust me, you better hope you never actually make it mad, or you'll see pretty quick what it's capable of. Once I saw it shoot a guy for looking at it sideways. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etschuetz Posted October 9, 2008 Author Share Posted October 9, 2008 Went and read the Atari 7800 programming wiki. That really answers a lot of questions for me. Essentially, the two machines share a lot of similarities, minus the fact that Sound on the 7800 is inferior from several technical and practical aspects. They way the Atari 7800 was setup may have been technically a good idea on paper, and before we got the spectacular titles that NES was giving us, the 7800 fell short delivering the pixel pushing power it would have needed to really stay in the race. One major thing that would have given the 7800 a much needed push to be more aggressive would be if the engineers would have redesigned the memory mapping techniques the 7800 implemented. If they would have done so, we would have probably seen better conversions, for one. We may have also seen more competent games that would have been able to better compete with the NES. Sound wise, nothing could be done there. However, I really think that Atari should have went with a slightly larger case design to allow for the implementation of the Pokey chip directly on the board, if not actually taken the time to create a completely new sound processor. At the time the 7800 was designed, and if it were to come out at that time, it would have been successful as hell. However, by 1988, they would have needed to update the hardware anyways, but at least would have still been in the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monzamess Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 As long as machines are in the same ballpark, marketing and game quality (and/or quantity) are the major factors. We all know the 7800 was developed to compete in the pre-crash market, but was held back and released too late, only after the NES's success showed that the public once again wanted to buy video game systems. Like many Tramiel-era Atari products, it was marketed poorly, not only to the public, but to developers and licensees. Some of the games are true gems but didn't have public recognition or interest. In hindsight, I think "Power Without the Price" was a terrible way to go (I realize the slogan was for Atari computers but it really was their philosophy for everything during those years), since it reinforced the (mistaken) notion that Atari was making cheap toys for the low-end market. Have I strayed far enough off topic yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 Apart from the lower res display - the 7800 was far better positioned to replicate arcade games with both scrolling multilayer backgrounds and coloured sprites. It's also capable of displaying high res bitmap graphics with restrictions. The NES has a single fixed background and 8 sprites per line ( total of 64 sprites ) but works at a higher resolution ( 256 vs 160 ) so backdrops look more detailed - however changes to the background can only occur during the vblank as the ppu takes almost 100% of the video memory bandwidth. Extra mapper chips would extend the NES graphics capabilities - no add on chips were available for the 7800 ( except for the pokeys ), but they could have been produced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted October 9, 2008 Share Posted October 9, 2008 (edited) Went and read the Atari 7800 programming wiki. That really answers a lot of questions for me. Suggest reading the thread as well. Even though there's a lot of crap and a lot of heated debate in there, there's also some really good information. They way the Atari 7800 was setup may have been technically a good idea on paper, and before we got the spectacular titles that NES was giving us, the 7800 fell short delivering the pixel pushing power it would have needed to really stay in the race. The big issue that's problematic is that the 7800 was designed to be highly flexible but that architecture also means its very demanding. The NES does tile-based side-scrollers beautifully, and that's what the public wanted. Step outside that realm, though (ie. games like Space Harrier, flight simulators, Rescue on Fractalus, Ball Blazer etc) and it becomes trickier. Regardless of how they compare at playing specific types of games, there's also the fact that the NES was pushed by a strong development community and the 7800 was not. Better developers, bigger budgets, more space to play with, several generations learning new tricks, better tools, additional hardware etc. On these forums, a few have misinterpreted the 7800 not having the same tile capabilities as the 7800 being "unable to play NES like games" ... which is incorrect. There are lots of examples of the 7800 playing NES-style games from later in its life. Put head to head at this style of game, the most challenging will always be easier on the NES because of it's design, but that isn't the same as "the 7800 can't do at all". Comparisons with the NES aside, the world did not really see "the best of the 7800" and that's always bugged me a lot. Sound wise, nothing could be done there. Atari had a strategy ... they wanted to enhance sound by including specific low-cost sound chips in the cartrides. Initially, they planned to use POKEY but wanted to follow through with a low-cost successor, GUMBY. When Atari was sold to Tramiel, all of those ideas went by the wayside. Gumby was cancelled before it was done and POKEY was only used twice, due to Tramiel cheapness. Edited October 10, 2008 by DracIsBack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 It seems fashionable to blame the Tramiel's - but they 'saved' Atari in some ways - it was losing so much money under Warner. ( In a dream world, rather than 'relaunch' the 7800 they would have redesigned the maria to use 16 bit wide memory, upped the line ram from 160x5 to 320x5 - and used it in the ST. I'd even have preferred a pokey ( or two ) over the AY chip used ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 It seems fashionable to blame the Tramiel's - but they 'saved' Atari in some ways - it was losing so much money under Warner. ( In a dream world, rather than 'relaunch' the 7800 they would have redesigned the maria to use 16 bit wide memory, upped the line ram from 160x5 to 320x5 - and used it in the ST. I'd even have preferred a pokey ( or two ) over the AY chip used ) The tramiels started of good but really became a collection of horses asses the way they handled many things. The ST is a perfect example. Great start to a machine already more capable than a PC and a third the price WITH 1 meg and a color screen. Then they completely dropped the ball after that. No support, thinking the word of mouth nonsense would do the work for them. I think they have plenty to be blamed for. I hated the yamaha chip. One of my biggest disappointments on the ST. It should have been a bank of pokeys.....like four. With all the left over inventory from the 8 bitters, it could have saved them dollars. Has anyone ever hooked a pokey up to an ST? That would be sweet. I agree though that a 16 bit Maria would have rocked, along with the ST blitter, it would have been a nice precursor to Jaguar with similar features. I think that just a little more effort on the Tramiels part would have gone along way in keeping Atari at the forefront of conputer and game console techonlogy. The biggest mistake the Tramiels made was abandoning Atari's rich game legacy. The handling of the 7800 was absolutely the height of idocy. They were right in rejecting the NES as the 'next' Atari but should have sealed the NES's fate with the immediate release of the 7800. Not two years AFTER NES already owned in the market place. So sad.....the name still lives....maybe just maybe....someone wil buy it up and do the right thing. Then maybe we will see that floating fuji billboard in our coming future....I'll not hold my breath though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 One nice thing about the yamaha chip was the volume being log based, rather than linear.. Quick work with a scope, and suddenly we had a table to give 8 bit precision sample playback.. ( Could actually get more than 8 bits, but the first ADC in Replay was only 8 bit ) Everything else about it sucked though.... With a maria style chip a blitter wouldn't have been needed as much, it would have been possible to do many things just with sprites.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 It seems fashionable to blame the Tramiel's - but they 'saved' Atari in some ways - it was losing so much money under Warner. Completely agree. One of the natural by-products of any discussion forum is that it brings out the armchair CEO in all of us. Hindsight is always 20-20. :-) I completely understand why they mothballed the 7800. I just didn't agree with their strategy when they decided to move forward with it later. They were right in rejecting the NES as the 'next' Atari but should have sealedthe NES's fate with the immediate release of the 7800. Not two years AFTER NES already owned in the market place. I don't think they rejected the NES. I'm pretty sure that happened under Warner and that any possibility of the NES being licensed was already dead before Tramiel took over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 I hated the yamaha chip. One of my biggest disappointments on the ST.It should have been a bank of pokeys.....like four. With all the left over inventory from the 8 bitters, it could have saved them dollars. It sucked, but the Yamaha was cheap and provided extra IO that was needed. Pokey isn't really suited for interfacing to the 68K and would have required rework/new silicon which Atari was trying to avoid. Given the "cheap as possible" design constraint, the YM2149 was the most logical choice. Personally, I would have liked to see one of the Yamaha FM synthesis chips used (like the AdLib/Soundblaster). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 I don't think they rejected the NES. I'm pretty sure that happened under Warner and that any possibility of the NES being licensed was already dead before Tramiel took over. From what I've heard, the main reasons Atari negotiated with Nintendo for so long was to buy time for the 7800 to be completed. Every month Atari dragged their feet was another month someone else wasn't bringing the NES to market. Then the crash happened. Someone pointed me to a really cool interview once that had much of the story of how Atari jerked Nintendo around. I don't remember where I saw it now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atarifever Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 It seems fashionable to blame the Tramiel's - but they 'saved' Atari in some ways - it was losing so much money under Warner. Completely agree. One of the natural by-products of any discussion forum is that it brings out the armchair CEO in all of us. Hindsight is always 20-20. :-) I agree as well. I know many of the Atari projects (2600 Jr., 7800, XEGS, etc) were already pretty well underway when they took over, but they still put out a bunch of stuff we may never have seen without them. They pushed the computers pretty hard early on, and there are still tons of Atari computer fans today. They released the Jaguar, Lynx, 7800, and second life of the 2600. A lot of the time Atari was around was under tham, so they are responsible for a lot of the legacy we all enjoy. Sure they didn't release the 7800 in 1985, but no competent person would release a console into the market that led Mattel, Coleco, and Atari to hundreds of millions in losses the year before, when the company you bought also had a computer division just as computers were turning into a huge business. Sure I'd have liked to see them focus more marketing on the 7800, but by the time it was clear a console was a good idea, Nintendo had the market anyway, so if I were in charge would I spend an extra $10 million for an extra two or three percent of the already cornered market? Sure they could have retained more mindshare by putting more money into making more games (like Sega) but they were a company trying to turn it around, not Microsoft with billions they can afford to lose. If you look at it rationally, here's the business plan of Tramiel Atari at first: 1: Cut expenses in company bleeding money (most obvious first choice is "dead" console market). 2: Focus marketing and planning on profitable division (computers) 3: Do as much as you can with as little money as possible to bring costs down. Here's a later step: 1: As the console market is big, release some of the consoles you already have developed by the previous Atari. 2: Keep costs down, as you can't win the market anyway. This way what you do make in that market is profitable. 3: Release all three consoles, as the 2600 and 7800 play 2600 games, the XEGS plays a massive library of NES level games, and the 2600 already has a massive amount of product left on store shelves. This way, you offer consumers a lot of choice, at no cost to yourself. Here's a little later: 1: Release a handheld product, as the console market is too well cornered, while the main competition in the handheld market is actually a pretty weak system. And a little later: 1: Try to release extremely powerful system offering 3D "next step" software before the big names in the console market (Nintendo and Sega) do the same. Hopefully, this lets you get your name back on top. Keep costs down otherwise, as your company is bleeding money. I don't think any of those plans are irrational. Perhaps they were too stingy overall, and didn't do the whole "takes money to make money" thing, but conservative business models can work in gaming. Look at Nintendo. Look at how Majesco makes money compared to how they lose it. It's easy in hindsight to say what could be done, but I don't think anything they did was irrational or stupid. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 From what I've heard, the main reasons Atari negotiated with Nintendo for so long was to buy time for the 7800 to be completed. Every month Atari dragged their feet was another month someone else wasn't bringing the NES to market. Then the crash happened. Someone pointed me to a really cool interview once that had much of the story of how Atari jerked Nintendo around. I don't remember where I saw it now... They talk about that in the 7800 20th anniversary reunion. http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/cons...7800/7800-20th/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 10, 2008 Share Posted October 10, 2008 They talk about that in the 7800 20th anniversary reunion. Very cool. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etschuetz Posted October 10, 2008 Author Share Posted October 10, 2008 Thanks for the input from everyone. Always nice to see this information pup up. Anywho, In regards to a statement about someone snatching up Atari, never happening. The current iteration of Atari is doing very well. They have a large line of popular titles that are selling very very well. However, I would like to see someone get rights to using the Name/Logo for Atari and try their hands at creating a good system, not being a retro style machine. Will it ever happen? Not unless one of us comes up with a few 100 million dollars and do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted October 11, 2008 Share Posted October 11, 2008 The tramiels started of good but really became a collection of horses assesthe way they handled many things. The ST is a perfect example. Great start to a machine already more capable than a PC and a third the price WITH 1 meg and a color screen. Then they completely dropped the ball after that. No support, thinking the word of mouth nonsense would do the work for them. I think they have plenty to be blamed for. Wake up. IBM-compatable PC's had one major aspect that lent itself to getting a foothold across the entire consumer market: Open-ended architecture. No single company could compete with that. Apple tried, so did Commodore. Both of them were way ahead of Atari for product support. Passing blame for their financial woes to their own user base didn't help Johnny-come-lately any. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CV Gus Posted October 11, 2008 Share Posted October 11, 2008 While it is unfair to blame the Tramiels for everything- the 1984 crash was not their fault!- everything that happened afterwards was. Look, they must have known what the deal was with Atari when they took over. But throughout the 7800's pitiful time, it always seemed as though every single time they could do something right, they'd find some way to foul it up. They decided to go ahead with the 7800- meant to compete with the CV- against the NES! O.K. fine. There were quite a few people willing to go with "Atari" (including the sap typing this). When you decide on something like this, you either do it right, or not at all. The 2600 and 5200 were systems of their times, with current games. Look at the boxes, and instruction booklets. It was a good, solid effort. But the 7800? Cheap, ugly booklets and boxes. Very few then-current games, and whole genres missing. All of this, against a system far more dangerous than the CV! How could they not lose? If they had wanted to fail, they left nothing to chance. So while it is unfair to blame them for anything, the Tramiels cannot be bashed enough. How about a homebrew 7800 game, in which you try to make the 7800 a major player in 1988 with the Tramiels blocking your every effort so you cannot possibly win? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 11, 2008 Share Posted October 11, 2008 While it is unfair to blame the Tramiels for everything- the 1984 crash was not their fault!- everything that happened afterwards was. Who blames the Tramiels for the crash (1983 btw)? But the 7800? Cheap, ugly booklets and boxes. Very few then-current games, and whole genres missing. All of this, against a system far more dangerous than the CV! How could they not lose? If they had wanted to fail, they left nothing to chance. They only released the 7800 because it was finished and sitting on the shelf. Jack figured he could milk a few bucks from it as a budget system. Eventually the computer market became too competitive and Atari took new interest in releasing new products like the Lynx and Panther/Jaguar. So while it is unfair to blame them for anything, the Tramiels cannot be bashed enough. This sentence made my head asplode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artlover Posted October 11, 2008 Share Posted October 11, 2008 with the 7800- meant to compete with the CV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted October 11, 2008 Share Posted October 11, 2008 While it is unfair to blame the Tramiels for everything- the 1984 crash was not their fault!- everything that happened afterwards was. Look, they must have known what the deal was with Atari when they took over. But throughout the 7800's pitiful time, it always seemed as though every single time they could do something right, they'd find some way to foul it up. They decided to go ahead with the 7800- meant to compete with the CV- against the NES! O.K. fine. There were quite a few people willing to go with "Atari" (including the sap typing this). When you decide on something like this, you either do it right, or not at all. The 2600 and 5200 were systems of their times, with current games. Look at the boxes, and instruction booklets. It was a good, solid effort. But the 7800? Cheap, ugly booklets and boxes. Very few then-current games, and whole genres missing. All of this, against a system far more dangerous than the CV! How could they not lose? If they had wanted to fail, they left nothing to chance. So while it is unfair to blame them for anything, the Tramiels cannot be bashed enough. How about a homebrew 7800 game, in which you try to make the 7800 a major player in 1988 with the Tramiels blocking your every effort so you cannot possibly win? Isn't that more a problem with the 'support' rather than the machine itself. It can be more expensive to produce games for the less popular machine .. The 7800 H/W could hold up to the NES though - in some cases ahead, in others behind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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