Ray Kassar What went wrong at Atari?

[+Random Terrain]

I couldn't find these InfoWorld articles posted at AtariAge, so here they are in case you haven't seen them. They're at archive.org, but I'll include copies in case the magazines eventually get removed.

What went wrong at Atari?

InfoWorld - November 28, 1983 - Volume 5, Number 48

 

archive.org/stream/Infoworld-1983-11-28#page/n152/mode/1up

Next week: Why Atari and Ray Kassar failed to keep up with the video-game market and why Warner hired another "marketing man" to replace Kassar.

What went wrong at Atari

InfoWorld - December 5, 1983 - Volume 5, Number 49

 

archive.org/stream/Infoworld-1983-12-05#page/n146/mode/1up

[+Random Terrain]

Here's more for humans who like to read words that were written by other humans. Be sure to check out the timeline.

A NEW ATARI CORP.
The house that Jack Tramiel emptied

InfoWorld - August 6, 1984 - Volume 6, Issue 32

archive.org/stream/Infoworld-1984-08-06#page/n51/mode/1up



ATARI: FROM STARTING BLOCK TO AUCTION BLOCK

[pacman000]

Bravo! It's great to read a contemporary history of the companies! Good find!

[Shawn]

Thanks for the fun read.

[tremoloman2006]

Awesome post - Very interesting read!

 

Thank you RT!

[+Nathan Strum]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting those. Atari's collapse completely caught me by surprise at the time, but it was certainly clear enough to those who were paying attention.

[lazzeri]

Great read, amazing find. Thank you for that!

[Tickled_Pink]

Great find. A real eye opener. I knew nothing about Ray Kassar until I read this.

[Schizophretard]

It is amazing that Space Invaders was ported in four days. Atari must have had the best cocaine.

[Atari_Bill]

Extremely interesting. I never knew Ray Kassar was such an ass.

[zzip]

It is amazing that Space Invaders was ported in four days. Atari must have had the best cocaine.

Is it? I bet some homebrewers here could crank out a space invaders clone in 4 days. I think I could do it, but just not on the 2600 as I've never programmed for it.

[Flojomojo]

These old stories are really interesting to me now, even though I never would have read them when they were new. Kassar's mismanagement really brings home how healthy, well-run, and resilient the big companies like Sony Computer Entertainment, Nintendo, and Microsoft's XBOX divisions are. We might not like the practices of Electronic Arts or modern Activision, but there's little doubt that these firms are here to stay. Atari's history is like an MBA class in what not to do.

[Osgeld]

Is it? I bet some homebrewers here could crank out a space invaders clone in 4 days. I think I could do it, but just not on the 2600 as I've never programmed for it.

 

 

yea they also have the luxury of 2017 computers and software vs back in the day where a port might start as a asm listing written on dead trees

[Flojomojo]

 

yea they also have the luxury of 2017 computers and software vs back in the day where a port might start as a asm listing written on dead trees

 

Zzip thinks modern consoles are still "coded to the metal." Discuss (but leave me out of it, I don't care enough to argue the point)

[zzip]

Zzip thinks modern consoles are still "coded to the metal." Discuss (but leave me out of it, I don't care enough to argue the point)

Don't take my word for it

 

Shuhei is a top PlayStation executive:

https://gamingbolt.com/developers-will-be-able-to-code-to-the-metal-on-ps4-yoshida

 

Or read about Naughty Dog's struggle to bring Last of Us to PS4, lots of very low-level stuff they had to worry about

[Flojomojo]

I'm not a developer, so this stuff quickly goes over my head, but I stand by my belief that modern developers rely on libraries and abstracted hardware to a much greater extent than in ye olden days, despite the catch phrases used by industry executives.

 

Not arguing with you, not taking issue with the stuff you've read (which I'm sure is true "from a certain point of view" as the guy in the robe said), just suggesting that times have changed.

 

I think we can all agree that Atari-style development and management would never work today, and articles like the top post bring home that it didn't even work well for Atari.

[zzip]

I'm not a developer, so this stuff quickly goes over my head, but I stand by my belief that modern developers rely on libraries and abstracted hardware to a much greater extent than in ye olden days, despite the catch phrases used by industry executives.

 

Not arguing with you, not taking issue with the stuff you've read (which I'm sure is true "from a certain point of view" as the guy in the robe said), just suggesting that times have changed.

 

I think we can all agree that Atari-style development and management would never work today, and articles like the top post bring home that it didn't even work well for Atari.

Well, let me put it this way. Nobody is writing in 100% ASM anymore for modern systems. You are correct that a lot of the development is done at a high level and don't have to worry about the hardware details so much. But on the other end, the people responsible for the modern game engines are often coding at a very low level to optimize things for the weaker hardware found in consoles.

Edited November 8, 2017 by zzip

[Bill Loguidice]

Yeah, I don't think "coding to the metal" can mechanically be the same as it used to be, but it's certainly the same in spirit. If it wasn't, we really wouldn't see the types of progressions from launch stuff to mid-/late-life stuff on the same hardware we still see today. I think the spirit of "coding to the metal" is more about pushing a system in new ways than necessarily going "low level."

[pacman000]

Back on topic...

 

It's interesting to note that the 1st article said, point blank, that video games weren't a fad. I always thought most folks at the time thought video games were a fad, and they game up on them after the crash for more versatile computers.

[zzip]

Back on topic...

 

It's interesting to note that the 1st article said, point blank, that video games weren't a fad. I always thought most folks at the time thought video games were a fad, and they game up on them after the crash for more versatile computers.

They became a fad from maybe 1981 until 82/83 when Pacman and Donkey Kong reigned. A lot of casuals fad-followers jumped on that bandwagon then turned their backs on games completely after and moved onto the next 80s fad.

 

But with any fad, you will find people in the midst declaring it to be a fad, while others believing it isn't. (like the people allegedly pouring their investment money into Beanie Babies in the 90s)

[Flojomojo]

Maybe it depends on what is meant by fad.

 

The early home consoles were too primitive, limited, and expensive to catch on in any big way. No fad there (I like this Odyssey promo video that pacman000 shared) because they never got popular enough until Atari VCS arrived.

 

Arcades came and went, I'd call that a fad. They sprang up like mushrooms (or, "like taverns after Prohibition" as the authors above said), but now they're rare and mostly about winning tickets, not high scores.

 

Atari itself feels like a fad. Video gaming does not.

[pacman000]

I'd say arcades were more like movie theaters; very good back-in-the day when they were the best/only option, but today consumers can get nearly the same thing at home. Arcades had a good run; they were still fairly popular in the early-to-mid 90's, and there are still some good ones around today. They're just not the massively popular be-all end-all everything of gaming anymore.

 

(I hate saying this because I like both movie theaters and arcades; to me the home experience isn't the same. Going out to do something, be it seeing a movie or playing games at an arcade is an event; you can't replicate that at home.)

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/movie-theater-attendance-is-declining-as-cord-cutting-becomes-more-popular-2016-9

[Schizophretard]

Is it? I bet some homebrewers here could crank out a space invaders clone in 4 days. I think I could do it, but just not on the 2600 as I've never programmed for it.

 

Yes.

[mr_me]

It is amazing that Space Invaders was ported in four days. Atari must have had the best cocaine.

The article doesn't say it was done in four days.

 

Maybe it depends on what is meant by fad.

 

The early home consoles were too primitive, limited, and expensive to catch on in any big way. No fad there (I like this Odyssey promo video that pacman000 shared) because they never got popular enough until Atari VCS arrived.

 

Arcades came and went, I'd call that a fad. They sprang up like mushrooms (or, "like taverns after Prohibition" as the authors above said), but now they're rare and mostly about winning tickets, not high scores.

 

Atari itself feels like a fad. Video gaming does not.

Pong clones were very popular in the 1970s; almost everyone had one. Maybe not everyone but they were common.

 

In the 1980s, to see the latest and greatest computer game technology you had to go to the arcades. Eventually, that shifted to home computers and consoles making the arcades obsolete. I'm not sure that would be called a fad. In 1982 pac-man seemed like a fad.

Edited November 9, 2017 by mr_me

[Schizophretard]

The article doesn't say it was done in four days.

 

In the 1980s, to see the latest and greatest computer game technology you had to go to the arcades. Eventually, that shifted to home computers and consoles making the arcades obsolete. I'm not sure that would be called a fad. In 1982 pac-man seemed like a fad.

 

"programmer Rick Mauer stayed up for four days and four nights converting Invaders to the VCS. The game converted beautifully, and soon kids all over the country were beginning to play it at home."