If Atari were still here today.

[mos6507]

>>

I don't think anything could've saved Atari at that point. The critical mistake by that time was when Kassar blew his lid when he saw the Coleco version of Donkey Kong. If only Kassar signed the Nintendo deal, Atari would've had an iron strong grip on the NES. But then again, if Kassar signed the deal, would Tramiel have taken control of Atari? And if so, considering his horrendous business practices, would the NES and Atari survived even then?

<<

 

The NES hardware was no magic bullet. The NES only _seemed_ more advanced in retrospect because in the mid to late 80s it took full advantage of falling memory prices. Mario like games were going to arrive because of the new vistas opened up by larger capacity games and american game designers were fully capable of writing those kinds of games (just look at Pitfall II). Inside the NES there is little more advanced than a Colecovision.

 

 

It's possible that any NES deal with Atari would have been detrimental to Nintendo when Atari went down the tubes. Exclusivity clauses might have made it wind up where the NES never made it onto our stores anyway.

 

The end result might have been having the Sega Master System clean up instead of the NES, assuming Sega had enough faith to keep plugging along.

 

Given the timing of the NES deal, I don't think the NES on store shelves circa 1984 would have been enough to dig Atari out of its fiscal mess even if it had become a big hit. Remember that Atari at the time was 3 divisions, consumer, home computer, and coinop. They had problems to address in all 3 realms.

[Ben_Larson]

The NES hardware was no magic bullet.

 

Yes...actually if you look at the specs, the only place that the NES really out-paced the 7800 was in screen resolution. As far as addressible ROM space, I believe both systems can do 64K at a time. And they both have 4K of RAM.

 

Bottom line is that Atari just didn't have the vision to take advantage of the 7800's ROM capabilities (which was more than 10 times what the 2600 was capable of), and create the really epic, jaw-dropping games like Super Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. I mean, when the NES came out it had probably the best initial release of games of any system ever, IMO. Those games were at another whole level compared to everything else out there...and there was no way Atari could've made up that much ground at that point.

[Stella'sGhost]

>>

I don't think anything could've saved Atari at that point. T.

 

I think so too.

 

Bottom line is that Atari just didn't have the vision to take advantage of the 7800's ROM capabilities (which was more than 10 times what the 2600 was capable of),

 

I think so too, which is why if the 7800 had been released earlier with a better sound chip and full support Nintendo would not have gotten such a hold on the market over here. But its all about price - cost - time... sucks in the end! The 7800 could have been a much better machine had they spent the time to make it right, even the 5200 could have been better but its typical Atari mentality - such as the 2600jr - "lets milk it till its dry boys.",

 

I also think Atari was spreading itself too thin with their 3 departments... focus on video games thats what they should have done.

 

Its all water under the bridge or chips under the silicon?, but it's still interesting to look back and see where things went wrong and right.

[Witchfynde]

It is evident by the 6 million coleco units sold in just 2 years that people also wanted better graphics, even though we all say that gameplay is more important, back in those days graphics were just as important because this was all new to everyone and we were impressed by higher resolution, better sound and more colors....  

 

People aren't going to rush out and by a new gaming system just because the graphics are better: one, if it's a new system, that's just a given, and two, people are going to buy a new gaming console because they WANT one (XBox with it's poor sales/ho-hum games, anyone?). Even though I liked a buddy's Colecovision a lot, a lot of the arcade ports ran a lot slower, were easier and a bit boring as compared to the originals, like Looping and Space Panic, even though I liked the latter a lot.

 

By the way, is that the Microvision Pinball in your new icon? That's so cool!! I used to have one, but sold it and it's games at a garage sale...one of my few video game regrets, as I was a young lad who didn't know any better back then...

[Stella'sGhost]

 

It is evident by the 6 million coleco units sold in just 2 years that people also wanted better graphics, even though we all say that gameplay is more important, back in those days graphics were just as important because this was all new to everyone and we were impressed by higher resolution, better sound and more colors....  

 

People aren't going to rush out and by a new gaming system just because the graphics are better: one, if it's a new system, that's just a given, and two, people are going to buy a new gaming console because they WANT one (XBox with it's poor sales/ho-hum games, anyone?). Even though I liked a buddy's Colecovision a lot, a lot of the arcade ports ran a lot slower, were easier and a bit boring as compared to the originals, like Looping and Space Panic, even though I liked the latter a lot.

 

By the way, is that the Microvision Pinball in your new icon? That's so cool!! I used to have one, but sold it and it's games at a garage sale...one of my few video game regrets, as I was a young lad who didn't know any better back then...

 

Yes I know what you mean, I remember seeing Colecovision and liking the graphics but I was not convinced that it had better games than the 2600... but I was pretty young too, I don't think I noticed any difference really, I just knew Atari and thought Atari was the best, brand name loyalty even as I was just turning 13. How old are you??

 

I also remember seeing the Bally Astrocade and thought it was interesting but the console seemed so flimsy and ugly that I just passed on it.

 

I didn't know anyone who had a colecovision, though I did like its graphics and I saw some really good games, better than the 2600, but it wasn't cheap and I didn't have a job, I was only a kid! However if I had really wanted one I would have gotten one for my birthday, but instead I got a computer.

 

Intellivison was nice, but here in Canada it was EXPENSIVE and so were the games and even as a young kid I remember thinking that the graphics on it was pretty good but the games were not good at all, the kind of games I wanted to play anways (not sports) thats the impression I got. I also didn't like the controllers, that I DO remember well.

 

But in the end, during the 1980's I never did buy another system, not even the NES, I just stuck with Atari because I liked its games and later Sega, and I had a Texas Instruments computer, which by the way had better graphics than the 2600 and the atari 800 but only had a few good games.

 

Yes... that is the MicroVision Pinball, good eye... too bad you sold it.

[Witchfynde]

Yes I know what you mean, I remember seeing Colecovision and liking the graphics but I was not convinced that it had better games than the 2600... but I was pretty young too, I don't think I noticed any difference really, I just knew Atari and thought Atari was the best, brand name loyalty even as I was just turning 13. How old are you??

 

(

 

It sounds like I'm roughly the same age as you are: 33. Err...34 in a couple of weeks, actually.

 

I also remember seeing the Bally Astrocade and thought it was interesting but the console seemed so flimsy and ugly that I just passed on it.

 

(

 

Heh...I played their Wizard of Wor (I think it was called Incredible Wizard or something) port at a store once, it was pretty good, but other than that I can't really speak for the system...

 

Yes... that is the MicroVision Pinball, good eye... too bad you sold it.  

 

Yeah, no kidding...like I said, I was about 10 or 12 or so and didn't really know any better, or I'd still have it today, it's pretty hard to find or expensive on E-bay. It's interesting that it was discontinued while it was still making a profit (!), but they realized they couldn't really do anything with it, as it wasn't expandable or anything. (It's also interesting that the guy who designed it also designed the Vectrex...I guess he had portability on his mind?)

 

So I take it you still have yours?

[Stella'sGhost]

Turns out we are the same age.

 

And no, I never did own a Microvision, but I certainly remember it and if I can find one that works I will buy one. I've heard that the chances of finding one today with a good and working LCD screen is very rare, so I fear that Ebay may not be the best place because you can't try it out and I don't know if you can trust some sellers. On the other hand if it is cheap enough it may be worth the risk.

 

I think its a very cool retro system, conceptually it was ahead of its time by many years and it looks like something out of Star Trek. And what about the super hi rez 16 * 16 resolution, gotta love that!!!