Atari7800.com

[GaryH917]

Has anyone tried going to Atari 7800.com? Did they go under? What's up with their website?

[Curt Vendel]

Just tried www.atari7800.com and it came right up, maybe they were down shortly or you had a DNS issue momentarily or something, they are there now though.

 

 

 

Curt

[Jeffy Arensmeyer]

 

ditto

 

And their prices look a little, uh... pricey to me.

 

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[Jobf]

Yeh hehe, I wonder if anyone has bought the gold package yet...

[utamav91]

but it is a very slick site...well done though

[Atari 7800.com]

Hey guys,

 

Yeah, we were down for about 12 hours recently due to problems with our hosting company. Atari 7800.com has not "gone under" etc. and we have no plans on biting the dust anytime soon just for the record. When we launched the new Atari 7800.com I oversaw pretty much every step of the operation and we had all pledged to eachother that we were not going to let this one tank like the original 7800.com did. So again, no worries : )

 

Also, in response to the pricing comment, I know our prices are set to a premium but there are reasons for that. (I don't take offense to you guys bringing this up, I get bitched at all the time for the prices so its really no big feal) For one, I am still a college student attending Law school and that takes up more time than you could possibly imagine. On top of that, I have a serious job that consistently demands a lot out of me day after day. I love Atari and I am truly dedicated to preserving the 7800 but I just don't have the time to put into this as I wish I had. If the system and accessory prices were dirt cheap, id have more orders than I could fill in time, and then people would get mad that they weren't receiving their shipments on time. So I opted to target the upper niche of 7800 sales and include little extras like a 2-year warranty on everything, etc., to help justify the cost a little bit.

 

Another problem is scarcity. Do you guys really know how hard it is to find brand new 7800 joysticks, a/c adapters, etc., in bulk? Most Atari vendors are clinging on to their last few MIB items for the 7800, so they are not willing to supply us. If we didn't price things higher, we wouldn't have any in stock say 5 years from now, and we fully intend on having Atari 7800.com still be around then with a decent supply of all things 7800. It's just a matter of how willing we are to part with these items. To me, this ensures that we will still have these items in supply in the distant future, and that every brand new Atari 7800 console and accessory finds a loving home.

 

A third thing to consider is cost. There's a lot of other things we fund with the 7800 sales. Going into the online catalogue portion of Atari 7800.com, I had wanted to make it the "best of the best" and run it like a real business even though it is merely a hobby. Developing new software, labels, etc. costs a lot of money. Since we have the store, we ask for no donations. Plus these items, most of them being brand new, cost a lot of money to get. We were never a liquidator or longtime Atari vendor who got these things for pennies on the dollar. I'm just an Atarian. I refuse to deal with O'Shea Ltd. so I had to get the MIB games from other sources. Stuff just adds up.

 

Anyway, I don't want to drone on about our pricing. I know our prices are higher than most and that's just something I've accepted. I try to keep the prices fair, but again we're not ebay and we don't attempt to be ebay. But I can understand your complaints and we all take them seriously. And even though Atari 7800.com might look like a business or an Atari vendor, it's really intended to be mainly a fan site for 7800 enthusiasts, with a "museum store" at the end of the tour. Atari is a hobby for me, by no means do I rely on it for my income or push it as a business, there's just no money to be had in it right now, at least not when you focus only on the 7800 and Lynx. Maybe if we sold a little bit of everything it might be different. I just don't have the time or means to do that though. *sigh*

 

One other side note I'd like to mention. I'm sure some of you have noticed that Atari 7800.com hasn't been updated much in the past month or two. This isn't due to a lack of interest but a lack of time. As I mentioned earlier, I'm a student and I have a more-than-full-time job which is extremely demanding and I just don't have a lot of free time at the moment to dedicate to 7800.com. I really wish I did. My spare time has been spent working on TurboGrafx-16.com and with my family. I'm hoping that by the spring we can have a few more nifty articles up for Atari History.

 

Anyway I hope you guys don't take this as me venting... I just thought it would be a good opportunity to let you guys out there know what's going on with the site and try to explain that there are reasons behind the pricing, etc.

 

 

Game on!

 

Justin

Atari 7800.com

[t.skid]

There's a thing I don't understand: is the 7800 package ready to be ordered? Looking at the site, seems that it's not ready yet...

Only to know..

[angusjake]

Justin - congrats on the impressive site. One question I'm curious about - why no O'Sheas?

[SS]

One other side note I'd like to mention. I'm sure some of you have noticed that Atari 7800.com hasn't been updated much in the past month or two. This isn't due to a lack of interest but a lack of time.

 

 

Justin, glad to know that you guys are still alive and kicking. I sent you an email regarding a 7800 "Klax" a few days ago. No rush but get back to me when you can. I know how that pesky life thing can get in the way of fun!

[Atari 7800.com]

Thank's for the support guys. I'm glad to see that you werent dissapointed when I said that we weren't going anywhere

 

T.Skid - The 7800 prosystem packeges arent really ready to go as far as having them up on the site for sale. I have a year's worth of backorders which I am carefully trying to fill one by one. The demand is much greater than I had ever anticipated, and again, with time and quality Atari components being an issue, I just cant keep up enough to advertise the systems as ready to ship. So we just keep taking backorders for those who really want to get one.

 

Angus - 2 reasons we dont stock up from O'Shea. 1.) I know a few of the Atari vendors personally and I know the first-hand problems they have had with the Houlihan family. I have nothing against them personally, but I didnt feel a need to support someone who treats my friends like shit, pardon my French. 2.) Everybody on here know's that you can get 2600 and 7800 games brand new in the box from O'Shea for 5.00. I simply cant compete with that so what's the point of stocking up on those titles just to sell them for 5 dollars more when no one will purchase them from me? That's too much to keep up with for just a few extra bucks. I have a fair supply of the same titles that were being vented by some of the other vendors and I collected them thru other Atari sources and tried to support them with business. If someone stumbles upon our site and sees a game that they cant find somewhere else, at least we have it in stock and it's available.

 

SS - I havent been able to check my Atari 7800.com email in the past 48 hours... I'll get down to that tonite and get back w/ u asap.

 

Please feel free to address other concerns, questions, or criticisms here in this thread, or you can call us at 239.598.1862.

 

Cya!

Justin

Atari 7800.com