What is it about Atari?

[jaybird3rd]

Atari and NES can coexist side-by-side without either being judged as better or worse. Just very different.

Exactly. Space considerations aside, there's no reason that old games need to be thrown away to make way for new games; they can be enjoyed side-by-side, and on their own merits. My collection of what would now be considered "vintage games" is so extensive that I couldn't possibly exhaust them all even if I were to spend the rest of my life trying, so I haven't even felt the need to move on to the current generation of games. (To be honest, the last "new" console that I purchased was the Sega Dreamcast, and even that was deferred until shortly after it was discontinued.)

 

As for your second question ...

 

2) Why do we keep coming back to it? For the money I've put into my Atari hobby (Refurbishing, modding, controllers, fleshing out my game collection), I could have bought a $35 RetroN NES console and several NES games. The NES had more advanced games, better graphics (even though the 7800 console was more powerful), and better controllers. So why do we stick to Atari? What is it about Atari that gets us excited?

 

... there are several things that keep me coming back to the classics, including the Atari machines. Nostalgia obviously plays a part, but not as much as one might think. I don't limit myself only to playing the specific games that I grew up with; they're still part of the mosaic, of course, but thanks to databases like Atarimania, I've long since branched out to games that I didn't have access to as a kid. I also get a lot of enjoyment from systems like the Mattel Intellivision and Aquarius, which I didn't get to experience at all until I was in my 30s.

 

If playing the games was all I was interested in, switching to pure emulation may have sufficed. However, I also found that collecting vintage hardware and keeping it in good repair was also a convenient way to learn about electronics. This was something I'd wanted to do for years, but I never quite found the motivation until the need to repair and upgrade my old hardware "forced" the issue. That in turn lead to designing new hardware upgrades and accessories, as well as programming for vintage computers. Both of these deepened my enjoyment of my hobby, but they also benefited my career, because they gave me the necessary background to branch out into IoT (Internet of Things) development, and the study of secure development for embedded and control systems. I've since developed a series of new courses and workshops in these areas for my university, and I've also written a few journal articles (which I hope to add to before this summer is over). To a large extent, my tinkering with those classic Atari computers and games made it all possible.

 

So, to sum it up, I still find classic computers and games enormously enjoyable to explore. They are a way to revisit simpler times, and by bringing to them the experience and resources that I have today, I can now deepen my enjoyment of them in ways that were not possible (at least for me) in their own time. Very satisfying, on multiple levels.

[Lord Thag]

The reason it isn't as loved is simple: Atari isn't a household name like Nintendo is. For example, if I were a kid, and I owned a Switch, I could see all kinds of Nintendo properties on it. If I liked it, my interest might lead me to pursue older Nintendo consoles, which would eventually lead to the SNES and NES, so there are always new fans.

Not so, Atari. It's basically a dead name. Add to that, the fact that the games are primitive, arcade-only style affairs, and not early gen versions of things you still buy nowadays (Zelda, Mario etc.), so there is a difference in tastes too.

So basically, it's now obscure, funny looking, and simple. Doesn't make for a neon sign that says 'hey kid, come collect me' the way NES does, sadly.

[Keatah]

Atari was once a generic name. As in, "let's go play Atari!" That encompassed all game consoles and most low-end computers. We were quite liberal with it back in the day. It was either go to the arcade or stay home and play Atari.

[Osgeld]

something about premature, hype, and one hit wonder crossed my mind when reading the op

[Rom Collector]

Atari doesn't seem that old to me.

I remember seeing Pong for the first time in about 1973 or 4, when I was about 6 or 7. My family was on vacation in Monterey CA, in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, and it was a cocktail table model in the lobby. All I wanted to do was play Pong with my dad, when my parents wanted to go see Big Sur, Cannery Row, etc. It seemed like a few years before the home model from Sears was available. A long time for a kid.

Maybe about 1975 or so, I remember seeing Space War in the downstairs arcade at Sears. It was so cool. It seemed complicated, and I had a hard time playing it, but it left a big impression.

Then in about 1978 I saw the Atari at Sears. (We obviously spent a lot of time at Sears.) (This was because malls weren't very common yet.) I played Air Sea Battle for as long as I could, until it was time to go. I received it for Christmas that year I think.

Anyway, nowadays I play Atari, NES, Game Boy (Color & Advanced), and occasionally SNES, Sega Genisis, and Game Gear. (The last 3 through emulation)

So, to me,the GameBoy Advance seems like amazing new technology.

[NISMOPC]

Salvation Army Columbus, OH had 4 Atari cartridges. today for $6.99 a piece. Complete BS! Never would I imagine common games to be that much.

[iesposta]

Why Atari? Many reasons.

 

The 2600 being the first successful rom on cart system, sold in stores in different forms 13 years from 1977 to 1990. And the Atari on a chip plug & play Flashback 2 and the Flashback 2+ sold in early to mid year 2000.

 

Having 128 colors when others had 4 or 8 or 32 colors into NES, even early computers were color challenged.

 

I like the feeling because every game has to run as fast as the TV display. Other computers and systems slow down to do draw or remove and draw to displays.

 

Don’t understand arguments that new tech and new tricks for 2600 are “cheating”. The entire NES was “cheating” — mappers in the carts pushing early 80’s tech way farther than expected. The Wii? Cheating. It’s ancient Japanese secret using a repackaged old Game Cube tech with modern Bluetooth infrared controller and selling a new way to move and play.

Then the computer side is all upgrade / improve replace what you originally bought. Add more RAM, replace faster Processor, sound card, graphics card.

And the developers returning to make new 2600 games in the 90’s to the present day still limited to the consoles processor not upgrade able still using 76 of its cycles per scan line, and it’s Pong Tank “graphics” still the same 7 “objects”, 2 8-pixel sprites, 2 1-bit missiles / line, 1 1-bit Ball, the 1 Playfield object of 40 horizontal very wide pixels by scanlines used vertically tall, and 1 background object make everything from Combat to KABOOM! to Pitfall II to multi-load RAM cart Supercharger using cassette to extend game play time and depth to today’s Scramble, Super Cobra, Mappy, a Pac Man that follows the behavior of the arcade Pac Man, to beginners with easy to use 2600 tools to have a hobby and can say I made a game for this console system. I had an Atari 8-bit home computer, but Basic never let me make a game I could finish and be proud of. I always ended lost in spaghetti code.

[spacecadet]

When I started here, we divided everything into pre-crash and post-crash. Post-crash was the modern era. That included all Nintendo, even the NES. This site itself has been around long enough for that.

 

For me, I still think of it that way, and probably always will. Call me old (I'm 46 - I don't think that's that old for this hobby), but I kind of think of any "retro" game store that flat-out tells you that they don't take Atari seriously as a bunch of posers. That's not a retro store, that's just a used game store. It's like all these clothing stores that call themselves "vintage" when they're really just thrift shops; it's not like you're going to walk in and buy a zoot suit and a flapper outfit. It's a lie. They're conflating "vintage" or "retro" with "used."

 

And it may well be that most so-called retro game stores are like that nowadays; that doesn't change the fact that they suck and don't know what they're talking about. There will always be a group of people who know better, and there will always be certain stores that know better too, and those are the ones I'll shop at.

 

btw someday these same retro game stores will only be selling Xbox 360 and newer games, and will be saying they don't take NES stuff seriously. To me, a store selling "retro" of anything shouldn't be "updating" its lineup like that. Retro/classic/vintage is what it is. You can add to it over time, but you cannot subtract. That's what separates real stores from fakers.

[high voltage]

Bruce Willis in Hudson Hawk: What's Nintendo?

[lingyi]

As to why stores are reluctant to carry Atari carts has been covered above. Anything more than a dollar or two won't sell and take up space that could be used to sell something more profitable. Even if they double or triple the price they paid for the cart, it's still a $1 profit max vs probably $5 or more for selling other carts. The floor space and employee cost (training, customer service, ringing up the sale) is the same in both cases.

 

As stated above, to the general public, Atari as a brand is dead. It's been over two decades and a new generation is coming of age in which Atari has no relevance in their gaming experience. Ask anyone under 20 about the history of Microsoft prior to the XBox and Win 8 and you'll probably get a blank stare. Nintendo on the other hand is still a household name with the Switch, DS and Mario series. Parents are buying and supporting Nintendo for their kids because they (the parents) grew up with the NES and SNES. Sad as it is to acknowledge, those of us who cut our teeth on the 2600 are two generations away from the current one. Unless the Ataribox/VCS does something miraculous, a generation from now (~20 years), Atari and the 2600 will be nothing more than a footnote in videogame history.

Edited July 8, 2018 by lingyi

[lingyi]

To clarify, I meant to say "It's been two decades since the Jaguar, and a new generation is coming of age in which Atari has no relevance in the their gaming experience."

Edited July 8, 2018 by lingyi

[Keatah]

It's very apt to say that VCS games have to operate at a fixed speed. Too many computer games allowed for slowdowns. And that was just icky - not state-of-the-art in any way.

 

It's also very true that original Atari and now fake atari are becoming less and less relevant these days. Some childhood mentors and even adult friends I jammed games with (bitd) have keeled over already! And so far no "replacements" have entered the scene. My scene. So..?

 

Nearly all my non-videogame-playing buddies think electronics from the 70's are firmly in the old man camp. Especially the videogames themselves. And not in a kind way. The senility kind of way. Or guy that never grew up way. The stigma is as strong as ever!

Edited July 8, 2018 by Keatah

[Jim Pez]

I think it is kind of a good thing because if young people like the nes and sega better the prices

For those systems will go up and the prices for the Pre nes stuff will go down making it Cheap to collect for.

[theor]

 

Hmmm, I feel caught between generations (age 42). All I ever had was Atari, but I was definitely of-age when Nintendo and Sega were rockin' it. I would play Atari at home and Sega at my best friend's house. I get the history of the Atari, but I see the advantages of the other systems. As a middle-aged guy trying to recover my youth, I'm drawn back to what I had, but all of the sudden, I wonder why I'm going back to what I had, when I now have the money to get something that might be more enjoyable. For that matter, I do alright financially, so what's stopping me from buying a PlayStation 4 (or whatever generation they're up to now)? If it was all about graphics and technology, I'd be all over that. But there's still something about the Atari that I can't put my finger on. I guess it's the history thing, or the sentimental thing, but somehow that doesn't seem to be it for me.

 

I don't think that's related to Atari in itself, but to what it represents in your subconscious. The longing to simpler times, to the innocence of the youth, when there was joy and love and excitement. And going back to playing those games is first and foremost a way to connect back to that safe space, and disconnect for a moment from the dullness of life.

[RugglesTx]

For me its the simplicity of the games. Playing the newest generation of PS4, Xbox One, Switch is awesome. What they can now do with games is stunning.

 

 

But at times its too complex to just relax and enjoy. A single button control is nice to use when you want to just enjoy a simple game. Playing Atari classics on the PS4 just aint the same! Feels cheap to me.

 

The stuff is the middle (PS1, GameCube, Dreamcast, NES etc) is a great compromise of both the old and the new so those are interesting. Played Gunsmoke on the NES last night as well as Sea Of Theives on the Xbox One. Both enjoyable :0

 

If forced to narrow now the console to just 3 to own Id go Atari 7800, PS1 and PS4 that would give me about the perfect mix of games.

 

But man Id miss the Dreamcast.

And NES

And even the Jaguar

And...

 

Yeah not going to reduce down any consoles!

[RugglesTx]

I think it is kind of a good thing because if young people like the nes and sega better the prices

For those systems will go up and the prices for the Pre nes stuff will go down making it Cheap to collect for.

So true. Some NES stuff is insane in price. Glad that the crappy ole Atari is ignored.

[pacman000]

If it's ignore too much it's thrown out.

[RugglesTx]

If it's ignore too much it's thrown out.

Good point. As long as enough pay attention, lets hope that continues going forward.

[OldAtAtari]

something about premature, hype, and one hit wonder crossed my mind when reading the op

 

Osgeld, can you elaborate, please?

[OldAtAtari]

Why Atari? Many reasons.

 

The 2600 being the first successful rom on cart system, sold in stores in different forms 13 years from 1977 to 1990. And the Atari on a chip plug & play Flashback 2 and the Flashback 2+ sold in early to mid year 2000.

 

Having 128 colors when others had 4 or 8 or 32 colors into NES, even early computers were color challenged.

 

I like the feeling because every game has to run as fast as the TV display. Other computers and systems slow down to do draw or remove and draw to displays.

 

Don’t understand arguments that new tech and new tricks for 2600 are “cheating”. The entire NES was “cheating” — mappers in the carts pushing early 80’s tech way farther than expected. The Wii? Cheating. It’s ancient Japanese secret using a repackaged old Game Cube tech with modern Bluetooth infrared controller and selling a new way to move and play.

Then the computer side is all upgrade / improve replace what you originally bought. Add more RAM, replace faster Processor, sound card, graphics card.

And the developers returning to make new 2600 games in the 90’s to the present day still limited to the consoles processor not upgrade able still using 76 of its cycles per scan line, and it’s Pong Tank “graphics” still the same 7 “objects”, 2 8-pixel sprites, 2 1-bit missiles / line, 1 1-bit Ball, the 1 Playfield object of 40 horizontal very wide pixels by scanlines used vertically tall, and 1 background object make everything from Combat to KABOOM! to Pitfall II to multi-load RAM cart Supercharger using cassette to extend game play time and depth to today’s Scramble, Super Cobra, Mappy, a Pac Man that follows the behavior of the arcade Pac Man, to beginners with easy to use 2600 tools to have a hobby and can say I made a game for this console system. I had an Atari 8-bit home computer, but Basic never let me make a game I could finish and be proud of. I always ended lost in spaghetti code.

 

Yep, I don't believe in the "cheating" view. I'm in favor of designers exploiting every trick in the book to come up with fantastic games using a given set of hardware. If they can slow it down, speed it up, whatever, go for it. That's just innovation.

[OldAtAtari]

When I started here, we divided everything into pre-crash and post-crash. Post-crash was the modern era. That included all Nintendo, even the NES. This site itself has been around long enough for that.

 

For me, I still think of it that way, and probably always will. Call me old (I'm 46 - I don't think that's that old for this hobby), but I kind of think of any "retro" game store that flat-out tells you that they don't take Atari seriously as a bunch of posers. That's not a retro store, that's just a used game store. It's like all these clothing stores that call themselves "vintage" when they're really just thrift shops; it's not like you're going to walk in and buy a zoot suit and a flapper outfit. It's a lie. They're conflating "vintage" or "retro" with "used."

 

And it may well be that most so-called retro game stores are like that nowadays; that doesn't change the fact that they suck and don't know what they're talking about. There will always be a group of people who know better, and there will always be certain stores that know better too, and those are the ones I'll shop at.

 

btw someday these same retro game stores will only be selling Xbox 360 and newer games, and will be saying they don't take NES stuff seriously. To me, a store selling "retro" of anything shouldn't be "updating" its lineup like that. Retro/classic/vintage is what it is. You can add to it over time, but you cannot subtract. That's what separates real stores from fakers.

 

Yes, I agree. In fact, if the guy at the store had just said "We don't carry Atari. When we tried that, we only lost money because we couldn't sell it." I'd get that. It's a business decision. No problem. But he kind of rolled an insult into it at the same time. He belittled it in addition to saying it doesn't make money. That gave me an icky feeling.

[Flojomojo]

something about premature, hype, and one hit wonder crossed my mind when reading the op

 

Osgeld, can you elaborate, please?

I am not he, but I get where he's coming from.

 

Premature: Atari was the first popular programmable (as in swappable games) game system. It was quite primitive, and Atari would have replaced it had it not become the leading system and a runaway hit. It's unique among its era, it actually has a lot of games many people still enjoy.

 

Hype: It was insanely popular in its day, and the name Atari was synonymous with video games. Let's play Atari in your basement. The name was so strong, there are still people lining up to throw money at the shell of a company holding the Atari brand, just for a shot at a "new Atari system."

 

One hit wonder: Atari released a whole lot of computers and game systems, but none of them came close to the popularity of the Atari 2600. I'm not sure about the number of computers sold, but I know that if you added up numbers of 5200, 7800, XEGS, Lynx, and Jaguar, you still wouldn't hit the 30 million Atari 2600 units sold, not even close.

[OldAtAtari]

Bruce Willis in Hudson Hawk: What's Nintendo?

 

Supposedly one of the worst movies of all time, which only makes me want to see it more. :-)

[Flojomojo]

Supposedly one of the worst movies of all time, which only makes me want to see it more. :-)

If you haven't seen it in the thirty years since its release, one could wonder about how badly you really want to see it.

 

I am content to know that it was roundly panned, and not in a "so bad it's good" Buckaroo Banzai kind of way.

[OldAtAtari]

As to why stores are reluctant to carry Atari carts has been covered above. Anything more than a dollar or two won't sell and take up space that could be used to sell something more profitable. Even if they double or triple the price they paid for the cart, it's still a $1 profit max vs probably $5 or more for selling other carts. The floor space and employee cost (training, customer service, ringing up the sale) is the same in both cases.

 

As stated above, to the general public, Atari as a brand is dead. It's been over two decades and a new generation is coming of age in which Atari has no relevance in their gaming experience. Ask anyone under 20 about the history of Microsoft prior to the XBox and Win 8 and you'll probably get a blank stare. Nintendo on the other hand is still a household name with the Switch, DS and Mario series. Parents are buying and supporting Nintendo for their kids because they (the parents) grew up with the NES and SNES. Sad as it is to acknowledge, those of us who cut our teeth on the 2600 are two generations away from the current one. Unless the Ataribox/VCS does something miraculous, a generation from now (~20 years), Atari and the 2600 will be nothing more than a footnote in videogame history.

 

So I choose to believe that Atari really is going to release this new Ataribox thing, that it's not vaporware. But I also think it's catering to us old guys and doesn't move the ball forward in the gaming arena in a way that's going to put Atari back on the map again. In fact, Atari has said that it's not trying to compete with the high-tech gaming systems. I hope they sell enough of these systems to finance a newer, more ground-breaking system in the future. I would love to see Atari as a major competitor again. I doubt that day will come, but it would be super neat.