How do/did you feel about "Atarisoft"?

[segasaturn]

I recently got an Apple IIgs, and one of the games I got was Jungle Hunt by Atarisoft CIB. In reality, I'm curious about everyones opinion about the "sub-sidery". Was it a good idea in 1983 to make their games for other companies? One idea is that they could of had more exclusives for themselves and their systems. Do you think it would of been better for them to make games for other companies and make extra money, or have more exclusives making people want their systems even more?

Did you guys like that Atari was making their games for other systems? Did you buy any and enjoy them?

Edited July 19, 2014 by segasaturn

[Keatah]

I think atarisoft was a great institution. As more and varied systems came out on the market, atari had less and less marketshare. They had to do it. I thoroughly enjoyed what was made on various platforms. But mostly on the Apple II is where I had the best of times.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Keatah

[Osgeld]

indifferent, it was the times, everyone made games (or snagged them in the case of atarisoft pacman vs taxman on apple II) to cash in on every available market they could in the time of 100,000 different standards

[jaybird3rd]

I think Atarisoft was great! Atari was prescient enough to realize that they could have a presence even on competing platforms, and their efforts sometimes rivaled what the first-party publishers were doing. I especially like the Atarisoft games for the Intellivision, but they also did good work on the TI-99/4A and Apple ][. Their IBM PC games don't hold up quite as well when viewed from today's context, but within the limits of what an unexpanded PC could do, they were respectable efforts also; I remember playing lots of IBM PC Defender on my Tandy 1000 years ago.

 

Atari tried to diversify again years later under the Tramiels with the Atari Interactive label, but I get the impression that this initiative came about too late to save them. It's too bad, too; Tempest 2000 for the PC was a great port of the Jaguar original (I like it better in certain ways), and I would have loved to see more from them.

[zylon]

The Atarisoft titles were some of my best games back then on my Vic-20 and C64, though the C64 versions seemed a bit weak compared to the A8 releases. A few other standouts for me were TI99 defender and INTV Centipede.

[mos6507]

If you were already loyal to Atari, considering how religious those platform wars tended to be, AtariSoft probably felt like somewhat of a betrayal. It did to me. I also didn't understand why companies like Coleco and Mattel would make games for the 2600 while also trying to compete against it (so often taking the form of actively bashing the platform's capabilities).

[+save2600]

I remember thinking it strange that Atarisoft produced games for Intellivision and Colecovision BITD, but seemed only natural that they would do so for computers.

 

Glad that they did as Atarisoft games across the various platforms are some of my favorite conversions! Especially on the TI.

[John_L]

Everyone copied everyone back on those days, why not Atari?

[Rybags]

It was good in that it brought in needed revenue and expanded the libraries of other systems which would have been appreciated by many.

It also allowed comparison of different systems although of course some conversions of arcade games didn't utilize the host hardware as well as they could have.

 

Downside was it probably took resources away from development sorely needed for Atari's own machines. And later on it did hurt somewhat to see other machines get games which Atari's own machines missed out on.

Although the release wasn't necessarily from Atarisoft which makes it kind of moot, but it wasn't exactly nice missing out on the likes of Pole Position 2, Klax, Marble Madness etc. on the A8.

[Goochman]

It was fine except some of the Atarisoft versions were better on other platforms than Atari and I believe some titles weren't even released on the 8bit!

[segasaturn]

It was fine except some of the Atarisoft versions were better on other platforms than Atari and I believe some titles weren't even released on the 8bit!

Thats one of the ideas/points I had.....wouldn't atari be better off not selling games for other systems? That way they would have more exclusives for their own consoles. For example, what if Microsoft made Halo for ps4? And sony made Infamous for Xbox One? Yes, they could of made extra money, but would of that been a good idea to do? Their consoles would have less exclusives to make people buy their own consoles. Same thing with Atari.

Edited July 20, 2014 by segasaturn

[RickR]

They should have let Atarisoft make the 2600 version of Pac-Man.

Business wise, it was probably a bad idea. Short term gains yes. But making those titles exclusive to Atari systems would have boosted sales.

From a collector perspective, though, I think it was great. They did a really good job on most other systems, and it makes it fun to compare the same titles on different systems.

The VIC-20 Atarisoft games are amazing to me. And Intellivision Pac-Man is spectacular.

[AtariLeaf]

I've been looking to collect some of the IBM Atarisoft titles but they seem incredibly hard to come by, and in the box of course

[+save2600]

This business of exclusivity makes little sense when you're dealing with consoles that carry little in the way of margin. I'd think you would want your software on as many systems as possible today. Especially with what it costs to produce some of these games!

 

As much as it pains me to say it, I believe Sega made the right move getting out of the hardware business. They just didn't need to abandon the Dreamcast so quickly!

[am1933]

Mixed feelings when it comes to Atarisoft, some TI conversions were very good and others were piss poor, a lot of the conversions were a case of "too little, too late"-as most of the games which were released on home computers had already been copied by other manufacturers/developers and were usually quite a bit cheaper than the Atarisoft versions.

[Gregory DG]

Like mos6507 said, I felt betrayed. How could Atari make games for other competing systems!?

 

But at the same time, I was immensley proud that they were able to make games better than the originators of the system. Colecovision Defender for example has better scrolling than most CV games.

[Keatah]

I absolutely loved Atarisoft titles on the Apple II. The game speed was very consistent across the library and they were just plain fun. BBS' sysops liked them too because of their small size. I always amusingly thought Atari was doing some sort of magic on a mysterious undocumented chip in the system.

 

I still get a head of steam going when I play Robotron or Dig-Dug.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Keatah

[BydoEmpire]

Not having had an Atari 8-bit until about 10 years ago, I think Atarisoft was great!

[skosh]

Atarisoft was awesome and like Keetah I had an A][ and loved Joust, Robotron, Defender, Dig Dug, and others for the system. Compared to the those who created systems(Coleco / Intelivision) and produced software for other systems they were the best hands down overall. I found it refreshing to see titles being produced for various systems as opposed to being just exclusive to a system. Granted there may have been duds however overall Atarisoft produced quality ports.

[BassGuitari]

My personal Top 10 lists for Apple II, Commodore 64, TI99/4a, Intellivision, and ColecoVision each include at least one Atarisoft game. That probably speaks for itself.

[carlsson]

In those days, game concepts were easy to clone and plagiarize. Many gamers would not pay much attention if it was Pac-Man or Snakeman, if it was Donkey Kong or Krazy Kong. Copyrights only protected you so far, so either Atari, Nintendo, Namco etc would have to sit by and watch small companies make money on their ideas (and yes, I know there were a few cases and lawsuits but far from every clone ended up in the court), or they would have to make licensed versions available also on foreign systems. I think that is an important aspect of it.

 

For all we know, were Atarisoft titles strictly programmed inhouse by the same teams who otherwise made Atari home versions of (Atari) arcade games, or were they outsourced to unnamed 3rd party teams? If the latter, they would not have used up any resources, possibly just money but then again there was a potential to sell more games.

[BSA Starfire]

I've played quite a few on the Vic 20 and on the whole they are very good, not sure on the enormous boxes tho! Defender, dig dug and donkey kong are all solid conversions tho, well worth a play or 10. Centipede is a good 'un too.

[Mayhem]

For all we know, were Atarisoft titles strictly programmed inhouse by the same teams who otherwise made Atari home versions of (Atari) arcade games, or were they outsourced to unnamed 3rd party teams? If the latter, they would not have used up any resources, possibly just money but then again there was a potential to sell more games.

 

All the Commodore Atarisoft games (for C64 and Vic20) were written by third parties afaik. I've spoken to a few of them over the years about their work.

[Ransom]

I felt grateful that they made available some of the greatest games of the time on all the popular platforms. So when I got an Apple ][, I was able to have some of my favorites on there, along with all the new stuff.

[+FujiSkunk]

AtariSoft was great, I think, and really not all that unconventional as it might seem. Cross-pollination was the norm back then, even among companies making their own hardware. Mattel and Coleco both did it. Atari's efforts maybe garnered a little more attention because they were the only computer company to offer games for other computers, but even the games that Commodore released "exclusively" for their systems often weren't all that exclusive thanks to third-party licensing, and Apple and IBM weren't much in the gaming business even for their own systems. Whatever the convention, though, AtariSoft put out some great ports, and even the not-so-great ports were usually playable enough to make those system owners happy to have their arcade fix.