Wikipedia Gets It Wrong

[Mirage]

Yes, and then it was brought up again about an April release date. I don't think the timing of my comment was out of line at all. So sorry to contribute.

 

Wasn't complaining about your contribution or calling it out of line, just simply pointing out for both parties that it had already been proven. No need to take it the way you are.

 

Okay, fair enough, it just sounded snarky to me when I read it. Point taken. Carry on then.

[Retro Rogue]

Here's the story I was told (from the 4th edition of Phoenix):

 

The Pac-Man that Atari had released for the 2600 simply didn’t resemble the game that was in the arcades at all. The maze looked nothing like what fans of the game had been accustomed to, and the sound was nothing more than irritating. Although Atari claimed that this was due to the 2600’s limitations, many industry watchers speculated that the game was developed on the fly to get it into stores in time for the 1982 Christmas buying season. Tod Frye, who was not a fan of the original arcade game, was only given 4k with which to program it. Although the monsters blinked so terribly that they could barely be seen, and the joysticks couldn’t control Pac-Man adequately, Pac-Man became the best-selling game cartridge to date simply because of its name, which had been what Atari had figured would happen. Approximately 70% percent of all households owning a 2600 purchased a copy of Pac-Man, accounting for seven million copies sold. While this number was indeed staggering, in reality Atari produced twelve million copies of the game, anticipating that people would go out and buy 2600s just to play Pac-Man. Some did, but the total number was nowhere near as many as Atari had expected.

 

 

Len, who were you told that by? And I'm assuming that's a typo and its 1981 Christmas buying season that they didn't make it to?

[Nukey Shay]

By somebody annoyed by the port's shortcomings? This seems to be a common factor in skewing the facts. I don't understand it myself (I am NOT a fan of Atari's Pac-Man in any sense of the word).

Edited October 16, 2008 by Nukey Shay

[+batari]

Good to see the release date fixed, but the part about rushing to the 1981 Xmas season is still there so the page now contradicts itself.

[Retro Rogue]

Good to see the release date fixed, but the part about rushing to the 1981 Xmas season is still there so the page now contradicts itself.

 

Not really, rushing it is mentioned in regards to why one version was used over the other. It does not state or imply it was rushed and released during the 1981 Christmas season. In any case, I've fleshed out the text to explain this further.

[Nukey Shay]

Actually, the word "rushing" is an assumption unless Frye or somebody else with first-hand observation of the project said it. The company saturated every corner of media with the news of the upcoming game waay before work actually started on it. And I'm not even going to touch upon the cause of the console gaming crash here (which affected all console producers across the market...whether or not they produced two particular infamous titles).

 

/nitpick

 

Another thing that bugs me is when it's said that it was stupid to make [X] carts when only [Y] consoles exist (failing to recognize the number of [Z] competitors that had their own means of compatability with the product). It was stupid to make [X] carts, yes, but for a different reason entirely (the fact that [A] the market was on a major downswing already and management knew it).

 

OK...so I lied about mentioning the crash