Do you prefer the NES or the Atari 7800? Experiement

[BladeJunker]

I have to say the Nes as it was the first system I personally owned but still I have no point of reference since I have never tried a 7800 but I do intend to get one after I get an Odyssey 2.

 

It's a bit unfair to compare them since despite being a decent system it came out too late, it sat on Atari's shelf for a while I hear before being put into production. As far as the 7800's presence in BC Canada mid 80s I never saw one and didn't know anyone who had one. The non Pro controller didn't do it any favors, nor is it ever a good idea to go backwards with sound hardware. ^_^

 

I don't think the 7800 could succeed with the market conditions at the time of its release. On the other hand I think the 5200 is the bigger failure by Atari since it was its chance to crush the competition and take back the lead in the video game arena they had when they started. They often cite oversaturation as the cause of the NA video game crash which I guess is true in the sense of producing a lot hardware for an audience still playing their old 2600 games with not enough enticements to upgrade at the price they were asking. My household had a family 2600 we bought from a neighbor that we played for years without a peep about the 5200 or 7800, just friends with Intellivision or Colecovision which were fewer. Only thing sadder was the Jaguar as it failed to get Atari back into the console market at all.

[BydoEmpire]

I remember saving money to buy a new system, and talking to the salesperson about the NES and 7800. The lady there said something like "most people seem to like the NES better." Kind of funny looking back - there wasn't a forum to ask, it was some 30 year old lady at Kay Bee (who I'm sure didn't play games) that I went to for advice! I took a long time looking at the boxes of games, and ultimately I think I just saw more games for the NES, and more new games, so that's what I went for. A year or so later I ended up picking up a 7800 as well (I think when it was discounted to $50). I enjoyed the arcade ports, especially the 2-player co-op versions. If I had to choose one I'd pick the NES due to the huge variety of games, but I do like the 7800. I'd probably take the SMS over either one...

 

These days I play the NES more than 7800 natively or SMS, but none get as much time as 2600 games (which I do through my 7800, so maybe that counts).

Edited January 23, 2014 by BydoEmpire

[mbd30]

My parents got me an Atari 7800 at the time. Then I later got a NES.

 

The 7800's backwards compatibility with the 2600 is nice, it is technically superior to the NES in some ways, and it has some decent arcade ports. But the NES library kills it. There is no comparison.

[John Mayor]

 

 

I don't think the 7800 could succeed with the market conditions at the time of its release.

 

I would like to know what you mean by this because it DID succeed and did very well the first 3 years before debatable the biggest sales drop in gaming history if the 7800 figures are true.

[BladeJunker]

   

I would like to know what you mean by this because it DID succeed and did very well the first 3 years before debatable the biggest sales drop in gaming history if the 7800 figures are true.

I guess success is a relative term like the TurboGrafx-16 had decent sales in NA but never got the marketshare Sega and Nintendo got. I guess from my perspective outside of America the 7800 didn't get terribly popular and wasn't sold many places. We call the Nes successful but it did terribly in the UK, nobody British wanted Nintendo's inferior and expensive toaster. Not trying to be mean to the 7800 but its not as remembered as the 2600 is in the global sense imo.

[108 Stars]

Master System for me.

 

Don't underestimate the number of Europeans on AA, there are quite a few here.

 

I never knew the 7800 from personal experience back in the day; we always saw it advertised in promotional stuff coming with the 2600 and its games, but I never actually saw a 7800 hooked up in a shop, or even someone who owned one.

 

I am interested in it now, since I like the homebrew scene and it has a few solid games that interest me. But back in the day I would have been bitterly disappointed, it never stood a chance against NES and SMS.

[+bennybingo]

I had a TG 16 back then and absolutely loved it, but I am 100% in love with the 7800 now...especially since PacManPlus decided to show all of us what the system should have offered back during its' heyday. What a library he has added!!!

 

I still enjoy the TG, but I have to say that the library is not exactly what I look for in a system. Give me good ole' fashioned arcade ports any day of the week!!!

[tpugmire]

I'm fairly certain that I've never even seen a 7800 in person. I was one of the first kids in my neighborhood to get a NES, and pretty much everyone followed suit. I never even saw a SMS until last year. So I guess NES for me.

[+save2600]

Some people are confusing post and past in this topic.

 

Back in the day, yes - I preferred the NES to the 7800... "no contest" as some have stated. Wanted and was looking for something different - which is why many of us went on to purchase computers to game on. By the time the NES matured, you had a really good variety of games that helped bridge the gaming console and computer. Think KOEI stuff as well as the multitude of RPG's, expanse of titles, etc..

 

TODAY though and 25+ years later, I much prefer the 7800. Definitely have more of an appreciation for the system. MOST of the 8-bit NES games I loved back then, no longer hold my attention. Outside of some of the great arcade translations, I find the graphics drab and the sounds dull. Don't care for the hard edges of the smallish controller either. NES today, really doesn't do anything for me and even when it comes to the early arcade stuff, would rather play them on some other system.

 

Long live Atari!

[John Mayor]

 

I guess success is a relative term like the TurboGrafx-16 had decent sales in NA but never got the marketshare Sega and Nintendo got. I guess from my perspective outside of America the 7800 didn't get terribly popular and wasn't sold many places. We call the Nes successful but it did terribly in the UK, nobody British wanted Nintendo's inferior and expensive toaster. Not trying to be mean to the 7800 but its not as remembered as the 2600 is in the global sense imo.

 

Well without outside U.S. number 7800 is on hiatus in terms of how it did in europe.

As for relative terms not really. the TG16 was a financial issues in NA while the 7800 made profit. NES made profit as well. Mastersystem is debatable, they say they sold more than what they have but there were many reports of the sales being a loss. Xegs I am not sure.

[John Mayor]

This thread is interesting, if we go by the statements of people not and have seeing 7800 in stores, it means that the 7800 was only really targetting certain areas of the U.S. (and certain countries in europe depending on where the current users have posted are located.)

 

This actually fills my curiosity, at least by half, as this is a very interesting conclusion we have come to.

[Greg2600]

This thread is interesting, if we go by the statements of people not and have seeing 7800 in stores, it means that the 7800 was only really targetting certain areas of the U.S. (and certain countries in europe depending on where the current users have posted are located.) This actually fills my curiosity, at least by half, as this is a very interesting conclusion we have come to.

 

   

I would like to know what you mean by this because it DID succeed and did very well the first 3 years before debatable the biggest sales drop in gaming history if the 7800 figures are true.

 

John, the 7800 was in stores in my area, New Jersey, but nobody I knew bought one. Initially I think 2600 compatibility got Atari a lot of sales they would never have gotten. Remember the 2600 Jr. was still selling quite a bit at that time as well.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Greg2600

[108 Stars]

Mastersystem is debatable, they say they sold more than what they have but there were many reports of the sales being a loss. Xegs I am not sure.

Here's an interesting interview for you. It's with John Sauer who joined the SMS team in NA wit Tonka and then stayed with Sega for a while.

 

http://www.smstributes.co.uk/view_article.asp?articleid=31

According to him, the SMS was "succssful" in the time it was marketed by Tonka.

 

Tonka provided awesome marketing support and locked the SMS in the market as one of the dominant systems, so I cannot see it as a downfall. The system saw about three years sales total, and transitioned out as Sega launched the Genesis. Video game systems tend to cycle out every 3 to 5 years, so its end of life was a natural occurence. Prior to Tonka's involvement, the SMS was on a deep slide. Tonka made the system successful.

While being "successful" is not a solid number, I understand it as the system was making a profit, even if not a big one. Same with being one of the dominant systems, which would also be accurate if it ranked behind NES and 7800, but before the old stuff still being sold like the Inty and some minor systems.

 

He has not worked for either Sega or Tonka in two decades, so he has no reason to lie. It's the best info we have in my eyes.

 

When it comes to numbers, Sega is not your friend. Sega barely released offcicial sales figures up until Dreamcast times, even the Genesis sales vary widely and are all based on guesswork. The 7800 numbers are only known afaik because Curt Vendel had insight into Atari docs.

Edited January 24, 2014 by 108 Stars

[atarian63]

7800 was available from 5 of our distributors at the time, all national ones. Should have been seen alot of places.

[108 Stars]

You know, I just thought of another thing... did people generaly even know the difference between 2600 and 7800? The 7800 was available in Germany, but as I said nobody had it. And I recall people here just saying they play Atari, or they buy Atari games. Nobody used the terms VCS, 2600 or 7800 outside of Atari's promo materials.

And the 2600 Jr and 7800 even looked very similar. Could it be that in NA it was also not well communicated that they are two entirely different systems? I can imagine the average mom or dad not really knowing what the difference is, and not every shop has decent customer support.

 

Doesn't change the sales numbers, but I find the idea interesting that some people may not have been aware in what way their 7800 was different or better.

[Austin]

Could it be that in NA it was also not well communicated that they are two entirely different systems? I can imagine the average mom or dad not really knowing what the difference is, and not every shop has decent customer support.

 

This is how it was for me growing up. Anecdotal, for sure, but amongst my friends, family and other folks I talked to, Atari's systems were simply referred to as one "Atari". Nobody in my circles knew any better. And naturally, they typically meant the 2600 in actuality. I only knew one person with a 7800, and I don't even recall them referring to it as such. Possibly that's because they played a lot of 2600 games on it? Who knows.

[retroillucid]

You guys are right,

When I was young, my friends and I though Atari 2600, 5200 and later the 7800 was just a system re-design

Except for their Atari computer wich one of my friend had

[Cynicaster]

Our next system after the 2600 was the 7800. The year was 1987, and my brother and I were in a Saturday morning bowling league. We’d always spend a bit of time in the arcade after bowling. That arcade eventually acquired a Pole Position II machine, and we fell in love with that game. As soon as we realized that PP2 was the pack in on the 7800, we set our minds to it—that would be our next console. Didn’t even look at the NES. We got the 7800 for Christmas that year.

 

We also got Xevious, Robotron, and Food Fight that Christmas and were actually pretty blown away for a while, even though we were not familiar with those games at the time. But the honeymoon didn’t last long. In 1988 the NES really started popping up everywhere, and after being exposed to it, we realized that it put our system to utter shame. Going over to friend’s house and playing Tyson’s Punch Out, SMB, and RC Pro Am, made it really difficult to be enthusiastic about Karateka, Dig Dug, and Ms. Pac Man.

 

Eventually, we begged and pleaded to our parents to get us a NES, and promptly parted with the 7800 at a yard sale. The bottom line is that the NES library was “current”—churning out ports of arcade games that were hot at the time, not games from 7-8 years prior. Not only that, but there were also all kinds of great non-arcade games to choose from.

 

Nowadays, I look at it more or less the same way, but there are even more factors going against the 7800. If I want to play “arcade games”, then I’ll just play MAME—console ports are largely redundant. On the other hand, I can still enjoy some Mega Man 2 or Cobra Triangle on the NES because they’re still fun and the NES is the only place to play them.

[John Mayor]

 

You know, I just thought of another thing... did people generaly even know the difference between 2600 and 7800? The 7800 was available in Germany, but as I said nobody had it. And I recall people here just saying they play Atari, or they buy Atari games. Nobody used the terms VCS, 2600 or 7800 outside of Atari's promo materials.

And the 2600 Jr and 7800 even looked very similar. Could it be that in NA it was also not well communicated that they are two entirely different systems? I can imagine the average mom or dad not really knowing what the difference is, and not every shop has decent customer support.

 

Doesn't change the sales numbers, but I find the idea interesting that some people may not have been aware in what way their 7800 was different or better.

Well, as I said in the other thread, it's like having 3 consoles that look like 5200's as well as a Xegs.

 

I think the redesign of the 2600 is probably the main cause of confusion and why the 7800 sales cut so big.

 

As for Europe apparently it did good in new zealand and australia so i guess it was not that confusing. Then again not sure if NZ even had the first 2 systems though.

[gamecat80]

I have to say, for POKEY, Atari engineers did at least let the option to include POKEY in the carts.

As for composite and controllers, Europe had the game pads instead of the joysticks. That was a step in the right direction! (even the Atari 2600 Jr ended being shipped with the 7800 gamepads, too) and the French model got a RGB output, so French players really prefer to play with the Atari 7800; especially with the 8 colors Atari 2600 Rf we had.

 

True about POKEY. I just wish more games used POKEY on the 7800. Only 2 original games used it = Commando & Ballblazer. But it would have been better to have the POKEY on the 7800's motherboard so all games could easily take advantage of the better sound.

 

I'm sure the game pads are nice and all, but the early Atari systems (2600, 5200, 7800) are meant to be played with joysticks. I just wish the 7800 came packed with GOOD joysticks.

 

I've seen videos of modded 7800's with s-video and composite and while the picture is better, the sound is worse -- it sounds quite thin. The RF sound is actually better. It would have been great if the 7800 had better, cleaner RF video at least on-par with the Astrocade or Odyssey 2 while keeping the good RF sound.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Here are a couple original examples of the great graphics & [POKEY] sounds the Atari 7800 is capable of:

 

Commando:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZzffnKC8h4

 

Ballblazer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSSWTY_VH4s

 

 

The 7800 version of Commando puts the NES version to shame. Ballblazer looks like it was done in hi-res mode due to the rounded, defined "ball" and the sharp, clear diagonal lines. The animation is butter-smooth, too. Very impressive game

The Atari 7800's hi-res mode is capable of 320 x 240 pixels (arcade quality) -- higher than what the NES or SMS are capable of. Most 7800 games are done in the standard 160 x 240 pixels mode, though. The 7800's MARIA graphics chip is also able to push many sprites on-screen with little/no flicker, unlike the NES or SMS.

 

Just imagine if the 7800 had better controllers, more & better POKEY games with lots of 3rd party support, good RF/composite video, on-board POKEY, and peripherals.

[MrMaddog]

I had an Atari XE and a NES during the late 80's so I was on both sides of the fence. Most of what I've read about the 7800 was in GamePro which treated all 3rd gen systems equally unlike the other gaming mags at the time. While the 7800 didn't have the populaty or huge number of games as the NES, I felt that some of the games were better to a degree. While not having a Super Mario or Zelda games, there were unique titles in the 7800's late lifecycle like Ninja Golf. The graphics were descent even they they are chunkier than otjher systems but what killed it hardwise was the TIA sound chip which was good enough for sound effects but not for music which was the norm for the competition.

 

I agree that single screen games that don't have lots of background grpahics are best suited on the 7800, but not the Nintendo licensed games like Donkey Kong which were bad rip offs of the NES versions. I would have like to have a 7800 back in the day along with more XEGS games, but I lived in a town that only sold NES stuff and the nearest KayBee Toys was an hour's drive away...so guess what was my main game system was.

Edited January 25, 2014 by MrMaddog

[108 Stars]

As for Europe apparently it did good in new zealand and australia so i guess it was not that confusing. Then again not sure if NZ even had the first 2 systems though.

Neither Australia nor New Zealand are part of Europe though.

But since they are neighbours I guess they had similar marketing and distribution.

 

BTW, the 5200 was also not released in Europe. Actually there was an article in an official German Atari magazine saying that it would not be released and that Europe would get the comparable 8-bit computer which would be better anyway.^^

[+Random Terrain]

I liked how it was possible for two players to cooperate on the 7800 instead of always fighting against each other (depending on the game), but Atari needed a ton of fresh games beyond the stale arcade games that they seemed to drag out for every console. And yes, I was happy to see improved graphics and games like Food Fight, but the NES kicked Atari's ass when it came to variety.

 

After my family got a Game Genie for the NES, we could actually play and have fun exploring all kinds of game worlds and not worry about dying. The Game Genie turned the NES into the Burger King console. Variety + Game Genie = NES wins.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=KJXzkUH72cY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJXzkUH72cY

[Bald_Bull_jr]

NES, without question. (Followed closely by the mighty SMS.) I owned and played roughly 30 or so 7800 games, and if I'm being perfectly honest and taking off the nostalgia glasses, I really had very little fun with most of those games, in comparison with the Nintendo/Sega greats of the era. When I got my first 7800, it had a dozen or so carts with it, and I remember thinking "Wow....is Atari even aware of what Nintendo, Sega, and NEC are doing??" My friends all felt the same, at the time - "This looks and plays like something from ten years earlier!"

 

Ah well, I did enjoy a FEW 7800 games over the years, and as they say; to each their own! Oh, and it was mind-bogglingly rad that the 7800 played 2600 carts, heh, almost magical at the time.

 

 

[John Mayor]

BTW, the 5200 was also not released in Europe.

I said this in that post. Also I was fairly certain back in the 80's for a part that Australia was still considered part of europe.