Was it true about a late 80s' Atari/Sega tie up possibility

[carmel_andrews]

Like it says on the tin (to quoting ronseals marketing strapline) was it true about the late 80's possible tie up between atari and sega concerning the megadrive (or genesis to most of you people)

 

I think there was a post or thread on Atariage that seemed to infer/imply or intimate as such, somewhat like the proposed tie up a few years earlier between atari and nintendo over the NES (or NAV's to give it it's original name)

 

The Question is, why would sega chose someone like Atari for, remembering that Atari was haemoraging market share faster then atari could sell a vcs (or 7800 for that matter) and the fact that you could put atari's R&D capacity/capabilities onto the back of a postage stamp (compared to the likes of sega/nintendo etc at the time), since atari had long forgotten how to actually create, design and make it's own tech/products and preferring instead to buying in tech/products and just slapping atari's name on it (remember the likes of the lynx, jaguar, portfolio etc)

 

I think the reason why the tie up didn't happen is because like always, tramiel tried to bite off more then he could chew and just got plain greedy, if i recall the thread or post correctly, sega was offerring atari the US/NA rights to sell/market and distribute the megadrive/genesis) but tramiel for some reason had delusions of grandeur and still thought atari was something in the gaming biz and demanded worldwide rights to the sales/marketing and distribution of the said console outside the asian/japanese markets....to which i guess sega said 'we'll think we'll pass thanks'

 

There again, i think Sega caught the 'Atari' bug , since i seem to recall that a few years later as part of the out of court settlement over sega contravening atari patents/IPs etc that sega/atari entered into a software sharing deal (as well as sega acquiring over 7 p/c of atari's shares)...can anyone actually remember any sega/atari titles that were actually released under this deal (apparently virtual racing/chequered flag was possibly one)

[tz101]

Actually, with Sega and Atari now merely shells of their former selves, it would make perfect sense for them to join forces and re-enter the console scene. That would be interesting to see. Kind of like how Sears and K-Mart have teamed up in the retail sector.