Was killing the 5200 early one of the most fatal mistakes Atari ever made?

[Lost Dragon]

My memory wasn't quite as off as i had feared

 

From RetroGamer magazines feature on Atari Corporation :

 

The XEGS was meant to be "the 5200 done right".

 

Knew i had heard it referred to as such somewhere, just couldn't think for the life of me exactly where.

 

As for Biff and his Crusty Sock puppet accounts..if that's the case.

 

Personally just chalk it up to yet more time which i will never get back,wasted on individuals with fake accounts or having ulterior motives.

 

I do try and give newbies the benifit of the doubt when they join here,but there have been a few noticeable characters appearing on A.A over the last few years that link back to a certain site and certain individual..

 

So it makes a refreshing change this isn't yet another of those.

[BassGuitari]

The XEGS was meant to be "the 5200 done right".

 

The XEGS was meant to Trojan Horse A8 hardware and software into toy stores.

[JaguarVision]

The 7800 was not quite ready but planned for release in fall 1984. It also was rushed, not having time to include a proper sound processor. Putting sound chips on the cartridges was not a solution.

 

Regarding the c64 losing money; Tramiel was definitely in a price war to defeat texas instruments. My understanding is that it's illegal to produce and sell something at a loss. Perhaps they can argue predicted drop in costs of technology means it's not selling at a loss over the products life.

I think if it was mandated putting Pokey chips in the cartridges would have been fine. Also, arguably less expensive than having it built in.

 

But the fact the 7800 shipped with a worse sound chip than the 5200 is still baffling to me. Dollarstore chips in the 80's sounded better than the 2600 chip.

 

 

The XEGS was meant to Trojan Horse A8 hardware and software into toy stores.

It did boost 8-bit sales a bit but nowhere near what Atari was hoping most likely. It was also one of Ataris most expensive hardware when it came out as well.

 

I think XEGS might have been Ataris main home device and more successful, especially in Europe, if they made the XEGS strictly a gaming device that played 8-bit software. They could have sold the console for less than the 7800 with an actual library of games.

 

Not that I'm saying the 7800 library was bad mind you.

[ubersaurus]

My understanding is that they were committed to a specific board size that would fit in the preexisting Atari 2800 console shell molds, and weren't able to cram the POKEY onto the board. Including the ability to have on-cart audio expansions was a fine compromise by Warner-era Atari (and GCC, who thought they could sell them on their own custom sound chip), but Atari Corp was definitely much more cash strapped and unwilling to spend that kind of cash. It probably would have been cheaper to just have the POKEY on the console itself if the mandated board size wasn't a factor.

[JaguarVision]

My understanding is that they were committed to a specific board size that would fit in the preexisting Atari 2800 console shell molds, and weren't able to cram the POKEY onto the board. Including the ability to have on-cart audio expansions was a fine compromise by Warner-era Atari (and GCC, who thought they could sell them on their own custom sound chip), but Atari Corp was definitely much more cash strapped and unwilling to spend that kind of cash. It probably would have been cheaper to just have the POKEY on the console itself if the mandated board size wasn't a factor.

 

Possibly. However it would raise the price of the console. It may have been more profitable to not have it built in, but Mandate Pokey, which could be partially paid by developer partners instead of just Atari, and save Atari cash while having every game released on the 7800 have pokey.

 

Having it built in would have raised the price of the console, and every unit sold Atari would take the full hit. Not just on Pokey but also on sales as well. One advantage Atari had at launch was costing less than the NES/SMS, if Atari rose the price to be near the SMS or higher they would have bit the dust hard.

[empsolo]

My understanding is that they were committed to a specific board size that would fit in the preexisting Atari 2800 console shell molds, and weren't able to cram the POKEY onto the board. Including the ability to have on-cart audio expansions was a fine compromise by Warner-era Atari (and GCC, who thought they could sell them on their own custom sound chip), but Atari Corp was definitely much more cash strapped and unwilling to spend that kind of cash. It probably would have been cheaper to just have the POKEY on the console itself if the mandated board size wasn't a factor.

I still maintain that even considering the use of a separate audio chip was a particularly dumb idea. They had the Famicom specs in their laps. The NES’ CPU does double duty by also acting as the main audio generator. What they should have done was push for an integrated CPU that had audio capabilities. That would have solved the problem of getting POKEY to fit in the 7800’s shell nicely.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NinjaWarrior]

The 5200 was released when people had there 2600's

 

At the time people didn't want to upgrade, Also the Controllers are crap

[NE146]

Agreed about the controllers.. when they worked I was a total pro at them. But it was the reliability that was the killer. I was just a kid at the time and both my 5200 Joysticks broke relatively quickly. So my only recourse was to ask my mom for some new ones and she bought me 2 more I think.. and they broke as well! By "broke" I mean the buttons got unresponsive and more importantly the "start" button wouldn't work so I basically couldn't play anything. So I would literally go for long periods of time where I couldn't play the console I had which really made me sad at the time Then the Sears catalog came and the Wico joystick was in it.. we got it eagerly but then realized we didn't have the keypad for it (it wasn't shown in the Sears catalog), so I STILL couldn't play most of my games. And that is pretty much my 5200 experience of the early 80's as an "average consumer".

Edited September 12, 2018 by NE146

[+wongojack]

Another perspective: a sarcastic and mostly sort of accurate retrospective of 5200's place in history: https://www.anchorofgold.com/2015/4/17/5794428/schadenfreude-fridays-atari-5200-video-game-failures-coleco-intellivision

 

I got around to reading this today - great article.

[phoenixdownita]

I got around to reading this today - great article.

Yeap!!!

 

"Without the internet, the Atari 5200 was 1983's #1 way for teenagers to rub their palms raw at home."

[Eltigro]

A good article, yes. But they used that tired old joke about needing three hands to use the N64 controller. I never once played a game that required use of both the analog stick and the d-pad. No, you didn't need 3 hands to use it. That's like saying you need four butts to drive a car because it has four seats. No, you don't use all the seats at the same time just like you don't use all the controls on the controller at the same time. I mean, there may have been some that I just never played, but still... you can move your hands. I don't even like the N64 that much... it's the only console I have that isn't actually hooked up. I only have one game for it. But this joke is a pet peeve of mine, I guess. Sorry... don't mean to change topics. Carry on...

[Spike Danton]

Bah! 5200 shouldn't have been made to begin with. All they needed to do was release a revision of the 2600 with a unique name (Mega 2600?) with support for two-color sprites and the ability to run games better with less flicker. Have all 2600 releases be compatible with both, but have the Mega as a higher-end option. Maybeeeeee for $50 more?

 

Instead we got hubris/arrogance taking over the company thinking they could slap a pc in a console shell with no effort. Also some stores I saw had it for $300 at launch, yeah have fun with that.