pacman000

K-mart had been struggling against Wal-Mart for years by that point. A lot of discount chains sprang up in the 60's & 70's which went bust in the 80's & 90's. Kmart was just the biggest to fail. (Tho technically they're still around, like Ben Franklins & Sears are still around.) In my opinion, K-Mart was over when Wal-Mart started adding full grocery stores to all their stores. K-Mart couldn't afford that, so they only added an aisle or two of cold goods to most their stores.

Sears' decline was long & slow, & it doesn't have a single cause. They invested in a bunch of side businesses in the 80's which split their focus, & made them ill-prepared for the changing retail environment of the 90's. They began falling apart in the 90's, when Walmart became the dominate retailer in the U.S. Consumers wanted lower prices, & consumers didn't want to travel to malls. Then Sears got rid of their catalog program, right as online sales became possible. Classic "dodged when you should've weaved; hindsight is 20/20" move. There were a few other things, but these are what began their fall. It'll take too long to list everything, & it would be outside the scope of this forum.

Sears actually owned a lot of different things in the 80's. Coldwell Banker, Discover Card, part of Prodigy, etc. I could see Sears being a good fit for Atari, for awhile. Sears lost focus, & that kinda led to their decline. If Sears bought Atari, they probably would've sold it off in the 90's, or it would be another brand which got auctioned off right before their bankruptcy, like Craftsman.

If you pay by word I have some very, very, very good articles for your printed magazine publication about video games, computer games, and other types of electronic games. Kidding; what would you like? Does it matter if it’s been published elsewhere?

RCA was too big, bloated, & indecisive to make Atari a success; that’s why their own console failed; they released it 2-3 years after it was designed, then discontinued it’s already-developed successors when it wasn’t an immediate success.

I was probably thinking of Bushnell as a creative director, or as the head of R&D, with someone else handling the business side of things.

Back on topic, before this thread is shut down... 1) Would Atari have been better off if Nolan hadn’t sold it? 2) If he stayed involved after then sale? For #1 I say no; he had too little business experience , & he has a bad track record with his later businesses. Question 2 is more interesting, & I’m not sure what I think would happen. Any ideas?

Zero Racers, planned but canceled, along with the rest of the VB’s second wave of games: https://www.virtual-boy.com/games/zero-racers/ Someone found & released Bound High; still Hoping Dragon Hopper is found someday.

I’m sorry...

It’s illegal for individuals too; someone should’ve sent that to the FTC. Exception: Minimum & Maximum Advertised Prices are generally legal. (I’m no lawyer; I just find this interesting. This is NOT legal advise; get a lawyer for legal advise.)

Couldn’t a programmer do scrolling using a collection of large sprites as background objects?

Please don’t do that; it looks good so far. Take a break; take a breath, then begin again.

Indeed. Which is why I said there was no overt threat to retailers, only the impression of a threat. Did Nintendo really mean to threaten retailers? Can't say; in my mind it seems possible, but the courts want more than a possibility of a threat. Nintendo would be less explicit when communicating; they came from a different country, with a different communication style that the U.S. & most of Europe. A business leader would know that, & take that into consideration when dealing with them. https://www.communicaid.com/cross-cultural-training/blog/high-and-low-context/