Chuck the Plant

Anything that sells in the millions is not a failure. Whether it could have done better with more compatibility and PIA is another issue. And I don't like the multi-button stuff. It's too confusing; it's better to keep interfaces simple for humans just like the mouse. It's better to have one or two button mouse than a 10 button mouse. Same for joysticks especially for action-based fast shoot-em-up type games. Only few exceptions where you need so many buttons and in those cases, it's better to use keyboard or separate keypad rather than carry the extra baggage for all games. Just like imagery, if you only use 10 colors or b&w images mostly, it's useless to keep saving as 24-bit BMPs-- it's slower in loading/saving and hogs up more space. Similarly, if most games are fine with one or two buttons, no use in having 10+ buttons to confuse things. And analog is inferior to digital as already discussed. I think we're defining "failure" different ways. They sold a lot of 5200s...that was certainly a success. When I call the 5200 a failure, I am referring to two things: 1. the experimental features that didn't pan out, and 2. the fact that the console did not greatly assist Atari in continuing its prior market dominance. Regarding the experimental features, I agree the keypad sucks. I loved that they tried adding more button options, but they did it in a very bad way. Too many buttons (14 total!), bad response and bad locations. A very confusing setup, but an idea that would later be refined into something like the PS2 controller, (10 buttons plus directional controls). Ditto with the analog, the thing was too floaty even if it didn't break all the time, but eventually analog control was better implemented in modern consoles. Anyway, I think we pretty much agree on this. ... Yeah, analog controls were better implemented in modern consoles. But analog gameport of PC was worse than the A5200 analog ports. Atleast A5200 analog ports were mostly readable via hardware but gameports required mostly software polling. One other thing about having one or two buttons is that it's easier to switch from one game to another and it doesn't involve some learning curve to figure out which button to use. Modern consoles have like 10+ buttons and figuring out what to use requires reading the manual especially if you have many games and they are defining buttons. Of course during fast action games, you don't want to have all those buttons to make decisions. And those XBOX buttons which are analog is another problem. To survive the crash, any company would need more. Perhaps, having more titles using the A5200 trackball would have helped as that's a nice controller and the two buttons are not in a bad position. And they could have left out the keypads or made them plug in separately to reduce the cost. I love that trackball.

Rolfe seems to be taking a documentary angle of late...I like it. The recent Pong feature was nice, too.

Competent ports of Sega's arcade games Quartet (1986) and Alien Syndrome (1987) would have been great. Since these were Sega properties, and since Sega often licensed ports of its own games to competing systems during this era, these games could have avoided Nintendo's lock-down software policy and actually made it to the 7800. Too bad it never happened. Shinobi would have been nice, too, if it had been given the TLC necessary to coax a good version out of the 7800 hardware, or if cartridge-based hardware had enabled expansion of the system's capabilities. Although I can in no way justify this, I have an irrational love of Krull, the arcade game, (not the 2600 version) and would love to have seen that on the 7800. Also, although it has already been noted above, I have to mention Gauntlet. The game is a shocking omission to the 7800 library considering the system's lineage. Does anyone know why there was never a true Gauntlet on the 7800? Did they really think we wanted Dark Chambers? I agree with the statements by previous posters that these games would have done little to change the 7800s fortunes in the late 1980s. But since we're playing in the realm of the wishful and hypothetical, these are my "they could theoretically have actually happened so why the hell not?" choices.

Anything that sells in the millions is not a failure. Whether it could have done better with more compatibility and PIA is another issue. And I don't like the multi-button stuff. It's too confusing; it's better to keep interfaces simple for humans just like the mouse. It's better to have one or two button mouse than a 10 button mouse. Same for joysticks especially for action-based fast shoot-em-up type games. Only few exceptions where you need so many buttons and in those cases, it's better to use keyboard or separate keypad rather than carry the extra baggage for all games. Just like imagery, if you only use 10 colors or b&w images mostly, it's useless to keep saving as 24-bit BMPs-- it's slower in loading/saving and hogs up more space. Similarly, if most games are fine with one or two buttons, no use in having 10+ buttons to confuse things. And analog is inferior to digital as already discussed. I think we're defining "failure" different ways. They sold a lot of 5200s...that was certainly a success. When I call the 5200 a failure, I am referring to two things: 1. the experimental features that didn't pan out, and 2. the fact that the console did not greatly assist Atari in continuing its prior market dominance. Regarding the experimental features, I agree the keypad sucks. I loved that they tried adding more button options, but they did it in a very bad way. Too many buttons (14 total!), bad response and bad locations. A very confusing setup, but an idea that would later be refined into something like the PS2 controller, (10 buttons plus directional controls). Ditto with the analog, the thing was too floaty even if it didn't break all the time, but eventually analog control was better implemented in modern consoles. Anyway, I think we pretty much agree on this. As for the financial success, kudos to Atari. But the 5200 didn't set them up well for what was coming. Granted, the folks at Atari weren't prophets, and can't be entirely blamed for their lack of foresight. But a different approach to the hardware and software would have likely deepened their market share before the crash, and quality exclusives that never materialized might have allowed them to weather that storm and emerge on the other side. Atari was synonymous with video games during the first and middle parts of the 2600 era, but the 5200 did little to either cement or expand this image and arguably contributed to erosion of the company's prestige. The 5200 is hardly alone in culpability for this...Pac Man, E.T. and rotten third party titles did their part, too. But at a time when Atari really needed a strong boost, the 5200 provided only a gentle shove. By your definition of success in this issue, I agree with you. They sold a ton of 5200s. But they needed more at that hour than just sales...they needed branding power that could weather an industry shakeup. If the 5200 had been more cohesive, reliable and playable out of the box and received better original software support, the future of the company might have been very different indeed. We'll never know, of course, but ain't speculation grand?

I appreciate the responses by cafeman, zylon, atariksi and kool kitty. You raised some really good points. I have a lot of affection for the 5200...it was a noble failure. Just to clarify, I don't really like keypad controllers either, but they were on the right track with multiple action buttons, a pause feature and a general effort to add more input options for advanced games. I knew about the 400/800 having multiple inputs, but I didn't count them because they weren't pure consoles.

Apoligies...I meant the console itself, boxed and complete.

The 5200 was a grease fire. The controller design was an abomination, and the software library was uninspired. The pack-in was a joke...Super Breakout is a fine game, but not a system seller, especially without a paddle. Back-compatibility was far more important to people than Atari estimated, and they paid the price. The poor thing never had a chance. I doubt true 400/800 compatibility could have saved it. If they wanted to play 400/800 games they had a 400/800 for that. They wanted their old 2600 games to work, and they wanted new games or superior arcade ports they'd never seen before, like Colecovision offered. The 5200 gave them neither. There just wasn't much software worth buying a 5200 to play. It's a sad testament to Atari's mismanagement that the best game on the 5200, Adventure 2, was a homebrew effort developed 20 years later by a talented hobbyist. Atari should have been developing games like that, 5200 exclusives that you had to play. It's a shame. The 5200 was innovative. The four controller ports were ahead of their time, as was the idea of analog control and multiple button input. The 5200 is a case study of good ideas implemented in a terrible way.

I have one of the Game Boy Lights you mentioned...I got really lucky and found one for sale in Japan. They're rare...I've been living here a year and a half and I've only ever seen one for sale, even in Akihabara. Mine's the Tezuko Osamu World Shop edition, red with Astroboy and other characters on the front. It works great, and appears to be an evenly placed backlight with a greenish sheen which reminds me of the Timex Indiglo watches. It has easily the best playable display on any Game Boy until the Game Boy Micro. I've never had the courage to open the thing and look inside at how it's set up. I've never found any online resources where someone has cracked a case and dissected on of these, but if something like that does exist it might be a good helping point for someone adding a GB backlight.

I'm curious, what do you think a complete boxed Japanese 2800 would go for?