How powerful was the cancelled Atari Panther compared to the Atari ST/Amiga?

[high voltage]

Sometimes the postings here on AA reads like a War and Peace novel

[zzip]

19 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

I wouldn't say it was a panic move, it was more like a change of strategy since the 7800 was being made as the 5200 was still on the market and it was clear Warner figured that new consoles "may" perform better and would cut their losses instead of tying to salvage and profit off the 5200. Also we don't know about the cost of the design since the 7800 was licensed out to another manufacture and wasn't made by warner unlike most of the 5200.

The 5200 was cancelled prior to the 7800 announcement.  I found some old Electronics Games magazines that covered the 7800 announcement, and plainly stated that the 5200 was cancelled, so they were never on the market at the same time.   The 5200 needed a controller redesign as well as maybe a "slim" model.  These are two things the 7800 got anyway, so there's no way the 7800 design could have been cheaper than fixing the 5200 issues.

 

19 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Some of the games were old yes, but there were plenty of newer games as well. You are also forgetting one of the main attractions of powerful consoles which is odd since you say you remember the time back then, and that was graphical representation of the arcades.

 

Sure Dig dug was old, but there was dig dug that looked like these "atari systems":

Dig Dug in the arcade ran at 288x224 resolution.   A design issue in the 7800 means that most games run at a horizontal resolution of 160x.   This is the same resolution as most games on the 5200, and as a result most games look inferior to their arcade counterparts.   The Coleco and NES could easily do greater horizontal resoution.      This is one of my pet peeves with the 7800,  this and the TIA sound.    It had a 320x resolution, but restrictions meant most games don't use it.    There isn't enough of an improvement over the 5200 to justify replacing it with an incompatible system after less than two years on the market.   The 7800's best feature was the MARIA sprite chip,  maybe they should have kept that and saved it for a later console.   But again they panicked and wanted a new system on the market for Christmas 84.

 

The 2600 wasn't an immediate hit,  it took 3 years or so until it found its killer title in Space Invaders.   The 5200 could have been saved by releasing killer games in subsequent holiday seasons.   But Atari apparently concluded the hardware was the problem, not the library.

 

19 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Pokey was good sound the issue was it was optional and not built in due to costs.

And how many carts from that era actually include a pokey?

 

19 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

What revisionist spin? It was a fact that the 7800 was in legal limbo between Warner, GCC, and Jack. There;s nothing to argue there

The revisionist spin that "Jack was always interested in selling game consoles, but gee..  things were just out of his control"

As I said, even if they couldn't resolve the 7800 issues before 1986,  they could have easily have built an XE game system in 85,  it would have been more relevant then.   They didn't because they had zero interest in the console market at the time.

 

19 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Secondly, the 2600 did have releases in 84 and 85, I have no idea where you are getting this crap from. They cut games later in 84 during the peak of the crash impact yes, which makes perfect sense. You could argue Atari themselves did not publish games in 85 but you said stop releasing carts in general which wasn't true.

I looked up the list of Atari-produced 2600 games.   There's a gap in the list between 1984 and 1986 with no new titles.   Yes I'm talking about new games.

 

20 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Outside of you know, Atari pushing gaming on the ST early with aggression

These are the first Atari game releases for ST:

* Battlezone (86)

* Crystal Castles (86)

* Joust (86)

* Millipede (86)

* Star Raiders (86)

* Missle Command (87)

* Moon Patrol (87)

* Robotron: 2084 (87)

* Super Breakout (87)

 

Look at that list!  These are all games that are at least 3 years old, and some of them are from the 1970s.   This is not a sign of aggression, this is them recycling things they still had the rights to.  Where are the new IPs from Atari in this timeframe?   Nowhere to be found. 

20 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

What emergence? The 7800 released before the NES nationwide, the NES had a test run before that with skepticism at that, Atari released their consoles nation wide in spring iirc or early summer while the NES nationwide US launch was in September.

Coleco bowed out,  Atari was the defacto leader of the console market at that time.   So how did Nintendo manage to surpass them?   Well just look at the game list I posted above, that's how!   Atari was not serious about games.   End of story.  

 

20 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

ST was only just starting to make money and turn the Atari name around economically, and the money from the 7800 wouldn't really become significant until he end of the year, and Atari sold all the units they could produce which was limited due to costs and new manufacturing and included the forzen stock already made before the legal delay. 

I sincerely hope you never go into business.   If you sit around and wait for profits to come in in a highly competitive market, you've already lost.   You get investors, or take on debt to expand.   You can't wait for profits.   If your company is too sad and no-one will invest or lend you the money, they you go bankrupt.    How did Atari raise the cash for its boondoggles like buying Federated or the Transputer?   What if they had sunk that money into console marketing instead?

[zzip]

20 hours ago, empsolo said:

This was especially true. A great example of this was the anti-trust lawsuit that Atari Corp launched against Nintendo. Howard Lincoln and John Kirby were able to get the Tremiels on the stand and got them to admit that Atari Corps game development and licensing practices were bush league. I believe Leonard Tremiel admitted that Atari Corp had done zero courting of American or Japanese third parties and kinda expected them to fall into Atari's lap like the old Atari Inc days. In doing so, NoA was able to paint the Tremiel Atari as being run by morons who had no clue how the gaming industry worked and the jury crucified Atari for it.

If you look at the games marketing apparatus under Warner vs Tramiel,  the difference is night and day.    Sure, Warner Atari had some dunces in charge, but they knew how to market games, how to get the hottest titles, etc.   The Tramiels never had a clue on this front.   The product line shows this, the timing of release shows this.   The Jaguar is the only new console they created, and it was a last ditch effort to save the company after the computer line failed.   Everything else they released was developed under Warner, or purchased (Lynx).

[8th lutz]

12 minutes ago, zzip said:

The revisionist spin that "Jack was always interested in selling game consoles, but gee..  things were just out of his control"

As I said, even if they couldn't resolve the 7800 issues before 1986,  they could have easily have built an XE game system in 85,  it would have been more relevant then.   They didn't because they had zero interest in the console market at the time.

 

 

Tramiel sent GCC a Check in May of 1985 for the development of the 7800. There were 2 other things, but one of them shows Tramiel was not serious about the video game industry from the start at Atari.Jack had to negotiate with GCC for the initial launch titles.

 

The 2nd thing I am referring to Tramiel did not have a person to led Atari's video game department before November of 1985. Without a person running a video game division before November of 1985, there is no way to have a XE game system in 1985. If Tramiel was serious about the video game division from the get go, there is no reason for not having a person run a video game division before November of 1985.

 

 

[zzip]

2 hours ago, 8th lutz said:

Without a person running a video game division before November of 1985, there is no way to have a XE game system in 1985. If Tramiel was serious about the video game division from the get go, there is no reason for not having a person run a video game division before November of 1985

That's my point,  they were not serious about games in 84 or 85.     Jack wanted to sell ST's.  He bought Atari for the name primarily.   He was only interested in pre-existing Atari product lines to the extent that he could make cash off them to keep the business afloat.   He never sank heavy resources into them until it was too late. 

 

His interest in selling 7800s was likely due to the fact he inherited a warehouse full of them,  more than it was out of a desire to dominate the videogame industry.

[atarian1]

7 hours ago, zzip said:

That's my point,  they were not serious about games in 84 or 85.     Jack wanted to sell ST's.  He bought Atari for the name primarily.   He was only interested in pre-existing Atari product lines to the extent that he could make cash off them to keep the business afloat.   He never sank heavy resources into them until it was too late. 

 

His interest in selling 7800s was likely due to the fact he inherited a warehouse full of them,  more than it was out of a desire to dominate the videogame industry.

Do you not realize what shape Atari was in during that time? They simply didn't have the resources to do everything so they had to decide to go with the ST first and work on videogames during the few spare moments they had.

 

Putting videogames on the backburner doesn't mean they weren't serious about it. They simply had to allocate their resources to what could keep them afloat until they had enough money/time to get back into videogames.

 

I handle multiple projects at work too, but putting some projects on the backburner doesn't mean I am blowing them off or that I am not serious about them. My gosh, it's Project Management 101.

[empsolo]

1 hour ago, atarian1 said:

Do you not realize what shape Atari was in during that time? They simply didn't have the resources to do everything so they had to decide to go with the ST first and work on videogames during the few spare moments they had.

 

Putting videogames on the backburner doesn't mean they weren't serious about it. They simply had to allocate their resources to what could keep them afloat until they had enough money/time to get back into videogames.

 

I handle multiple projects at work too, but putting some projects on the backburner doesn't mean I am blowing them off or that I am not serious about them. My gosh, it's Project Management 101.

Does that include hiring cutrate contractors out of Taiwan to do ports of  three year old Famicom games? Or how about the refusal to go to any third party for support until it was well too late?

[Leeroy ST]

17 hours ago, zzip said:

If you look at the games marketing apparatus under Warner vs Tramiel,  the difference is night and day. 

Not even close. 

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

 The Jaguar is the only new console they created, and it was a last ditch effort to save the company after the computer line failed.

Even when you almost have a point it's incorrect, Atari licensed the console to IBM for creation. Unless you are just talking about the production plans, even the GCC 7800 had Atari influence on the plans for the thing despite GCC building it. They also had a third-party developer make the dev kits.

 

5 hours ago, empsolo said:

Does that include hiring cutrate contractors out of Taiwan to do ports of  three year old Famicom games? Or how about the refusal to go to any third party for support until it was well too late?

What three NES ports?

 

Also lol, Nintendo had the two-year policy before Atari realized it by the time it was obvious by the end of launch year into early 1987. 

 

14 hours ago, zzip said:

That's my point,  they were not serious about games in 84 or 85.     Jack wanted to sell ST's. 

Yes that's why he kept the 7800 in the purchase deal when it started, allowed releases of 2600 games in the years you got wrong saying their weren't any, and software for the 5200 in 86, and had an aggressive game campaign for the ST ready for launch.

 

But keep being wrong and repeating the same debunked garbage over and over until your face is blue. Maybe use a separate European strategy of being a "business" computer for the US market which had a completely different strategy (and they still pushed out a crap ton of games in Europe earlier anyway.)

[Leeroy ST]

7 hours ago, atarian1 said:

Do you not realize what shape Atari was in during that time? They simply didn't have the resources to do everything so they had to decide to go with the ST first and work on videogames during the few spare moments they had.

 

Putting videogames on the backburner doesn't mean they weren't serious about it. They simply had to allocate their resources to what could keep them afloat until they had enough money/time to get back into videogames.

 

I handle multiple projects at work too, but putting some projects on the backburner doesn't mean I am blowing them off or that I am not serious about them. My gosh, it's Project Management 101.

They also had to wait until the profits from the consoles came in which took about a year, they also had to produce and develop games early on and split the marketing budget and computers weren't cheap to market and produce and while the consoles were they still had to split development and marketing costs.

 

Also they didn't put games on the backburner that's revisionist history of the ST and of them keeping the 7800 consoles which they could have left to rot.

[Leeroy ST]

17 hours ago, 8th lutz said:

The 2nd thing I am referring to Tramiel did not have a person to led Atari's video game department before November of 1985.

 

 

Except they did have a video game division (whatever that means) they didn't have a division for the consoles and that was because that was part of the negotiations.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

The 5200 was cancelled prior to the 7800 announcement.  I found some old Electronics Games magazines that covered the 7800 announcement, and plainly stated that the 5200 was cancelled, so they were never on the market at the same time.

I never said they were on the market at the same time. Try reading "since the 7800 was being made as the 5200 was still on the market

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

 These are two things the 7800 got anyway, so there's no way the 7800 design could have been cheaper than fixing the 5200 issues.

Except it would, and for additional other reasons, because the losses from the 5200 from potential suits, retail anger, consumer complaints and lower software/hardware spending as a result, which also caused library issues among other things, it was cheaper to make a new consoles to replace the losses and stained reputation of the 5200. Notice I never said I didn't agree they should have kept the 5200, but you're wrong in how Warner saw it. They figured licensing out a console that would end up being much more powerful was the better deal.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

Dig Dug in the arcade ran at 288x224 resolution.   A design issue in the 7800 means that most games run at a horizontal resolution of 160x.   This is the same resolution as most games on the 5200, and as a result most games look inferior to their arcade counterparts. 

Again, why are you arguing over clear differences between those screenshots that also clearly show the 7800 was more powerful and trying a flawed resolution argument to cover the flaw in your argument? Especially since we are talking about 1984 for the time if it was to be originally released.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

 The Coleco and NES could easily do greater horizontal resoution. There isn't enough of an improvement over the 5200 to justify replacing it with an incompatible system after less than two years on the market. 

Except for the fact the 7800 was much more powerful by more than double the strength and was stronger than a base famicom and could compete with earlier "bumped up" titles (and could outclass the NES in everyway in pseudo3d games due to it's lack of caps on sprites), which the 5200 could never do. Dig dug screenshots also prove this and that wasn't even the game that showed among the biggest gaps. You are literally in denial altering reality to fail to have an argument. 5200 isn't running anything close to 7800 robotron or F18hornet either.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

The 2600 wasn't an immediate hit,  it took 3 years or so until it found its killer title in Space Invaders.

Yet the 2600 still sold near 1 million before that game, but regardless again I never said I never agree with Warner scrapping the 5200, I'm trying to get you to understand WHY they did it from THEIR point of view.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

And how many carts from that era actually include a pokey?

Not relevant, your initial claim was incorrect you can't add qualifiers, all I said was Pokey was a thing and that it wasn't built-in to save costs.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

The revisionist spin that "Jack was always interested in selling game consoles, but gee..  things were just out of his control"

As I said, even if they couldn't resolve the 7800 issues before 1986,  they could have easily have built an XE game system in 85,  it would have been more relevant then.   They didn't because they had zero interest in the console market at the time.

You're trying to spin your ignorance of history as fact by replacing actual history with what YOU want to believe had happened. No they couldn't have built a XEGS in 1985 and I'm assuming by they you mean Atari Corp.

 

Considering the XE series computers launched the same year as the ST, that wouldn't make much sense. Especially while Atari was doing software for both, and marketing for both, and would have to do that once the console delay went through as well not too long after with a limited budget. Doesn't make much sense to do the R&D and built a XE computer that just came out.

 

Also there's another reason why this doesn't make sense but I'll address that in a separate post.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

I looked up the list of Atari-produced 2600 games.

You didn't say Atari-produced games, now you are doing what I'd expect you to do and reduce the discussion to lying via deception.

 

This was my response to your original quote:

 

""You could argue Atari themselves did not publish games in 85 but you said stop releasing carts in general which wasn't true."

 

Then you added the "new games" qualifier (which they did release new games in 1984) which just shows your getting desperate.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

 

 

These are the first Atari game releases for ST:

* Battlezone (86)

* Crystal Castles (86)

* Joust (86)

* Millipede (86)

* Star Raiders (86)

* Missle Command (87)

* Moon Patrol (87)

* Robotron: 2084 (87)

* Super Breakout (87)

 

Look at that list! 

As said above you're being deceptive and changing claims, you never said Atari-produced titles for the consoles or the ST originally.

 

The ST had near 30 games in 1985 alone, this is nothing more than you lying via omission and is pretty sad. They went out their way to get partners on the machine.

 

18 hours ago, zzip said:

 Coleco bowed out,  Atari was the defacto leader of the console market at that time.   So how did Nintendo manage to surpass them?   Well just look at the game list I posted above, that's how!   Atari was not serious about games.   End of story.  

Coleco bowed out later in 1985 ans was the market leader and direct influence to the NES by Nintendos own words. However, Atari was being sold and part of the transaction didn't end until 1986. Atari had no idea what money nintendo had and had no idea what marketing and finances they had access to. Atari was only able to produce due to budget a limited amount of consoles which all sold out, as well as a limited amount of marketing and an uphill battle against retail.

 

It had nothing to do about your dishonest tactics at reducing game lists, Nintendo had a head start on Sega and Atari early in the market and the last console that Atari had was an aging 2600 before the 7800 came out and before that Coleco was the name everyone was huddling around.

 

Atari in 86 produced games, tried to get what few third-parties were left that weren't locked-in by Nintendo or had no interested in Nintendo and went to home computers (outside the ones that were already there years before). They also did the best marketing and retail image repairing they could (until the federated things years later).

 

They also marketed and worked on software for the XE line of 8-bit computers, got a crap ton of games at launch for the ST which was already considered a gaming computer by 86 in the US, and they supported the 5200, and the 2600 with games and a new design, and had to split the marketing and press ad budget between all of this with limited funds.

 

But yes keep saying they weren't interested in games despite doing near the best they could against an unknown consoles opponent from japan having a ~1 million unit head start out of nowhere and then later learning they were screwed out of third parties.

 

Just go ahead and remove all the context to fit your flawed narrative. 

 

18 hours ago, zzip said:

I sincerely hope you never go into business.   If you sit around and wait for profits to come in in a highly competitive market, you've already lost. Federated

Why because I'd do better than you since I actually know how it works?

 

Yes sure, company A retail store had $500,000 budget while company B retails tor has a $3 million dollar budget, but how dare Company A not be able to do more with that small budget while it's waiting for a $2.4 million dollar window check they should have been doing MORE with that IMAGINARY money in their IMAGINARY safe. Because that's how business works, when you have a limited budget and run out of money and access to capital you can just create new fucking funds out of freaking thin air. Weee...

 

Yeah brah, usually you need to wait to have money in order to you know, do things with the money and spend on things to make more money. I know shock. 

 

Oh wait you brought up federated? The buyout that was announced in summer (august) of 1987 over a year after the 7800's nationwide launch in 1986???

 

You know the buyout Atari was only able to do because they WAITED UNTIL THE PROFITS CAME IN because they couldn't have did it before?

 

Wow, you not only are wrong but ended up proving my point entirely using an example you though would help you good job. Because I'm sure in 1985 or in 1986 Atari had that spare $67 million do- oh wait they didn't have it, they had to wait until more profits from the ST came in, as well as the other computer-line, the game consoles, and anything else they had that brought in cash.

 

Whoops???

 

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

18 hours ago, zzip said:

The 5200 was cancelled prior to the 7800 announcement.  I found some old Electronics Games magazines that covered the 7800 announcement, and plainly stated that the 5200 was cancelled, so they were never on the market at the same time.   The 5200 needed a controller redesign as well as maybe a "slim" model.  These are two things the 7800 got anyway, so there's no way the 7800 design could have been cheaper than fixing the 5200 issues.

 

The 5200 could have been saved by releasing killer games in subsequent holiday seasons.   But Atari apparently concluded the hardware was the problem, not the library.

 

they could have easily have built an XE game system in 85,  

 

I wanted to address these comments about the XEGS and 5200 in this separate post as I told you before. I already went over how releasing the XEGS in 85 was not possible and how you might need glasses if you think the 7800 wasn't a large improvement over the 5200.

 

But I wanted to point out a bit of irony ignorance present here that I find hilarious.

 

Considering you deceptive attempts to spin the narrative and the consistent attacks on Atari corp I figured there may be something you might want to know that Atari Corp did, it may have even influenced why they built the XEGS.

 

As much as you attack Atari Corp they did something that Warner didn't do.

 

And that was *gasp* try to salvage the 5200!!!! LEET WHOA OMG!!>!>!>!
 

Atari Corp not only released (a few) NEW titles all by THEM and not third parties (from what I can find info on) in 1986 but they also dropped the price and tried to push them on shelves to sell off existing inventory instead of scrapping the thing entirely which was the plan by Warner. 

 

They also apparently republished older titles as well until around 1987 going by the dates on the cartridges and news paper articles I can find, you can even find pics on this very site:

 

 

1986 Atari Corp? 5200? Whaa?

 

Curious how it ended in 1987 the same year the XE game system came out. Not I'm not sure how much of an influence the 5200 had on that decision and how direct of a relationship between pushing the XEGS and discontinuing support for the 5200 was.

 

But it could possibly be that they saw something with the 5200 performance and figured a new take on the same idea (console based on 8-bit PC line) would be a good idea for extra profits. Sure there's still background information we are missing that we may or may not ever find out.

 

However that isn't relevant.

 

What is relevant is that the company you keep bashing actually tried to Salvage the system you attacked the other company for and said doesn't like teh games. 

 

 

 

 

[mr_me]

On 9/5/2020 at 1:59 PM, zzip said:

History has also shown that having the best games beats having the best tech.   The Atari 2600 beat out the Intellivision.    I think the 5200 could have done just fine vs the Colecovision with the right games and marketing.  And it's not like the 7800 was that much better,  it had a better sprite engine but terrible sound.

I agree with this but I just wanted to add that the atari 2600 defeating intellivision is arguable.  Intellivision gained market share on the 2600 despite costing twice as much.  But yes the 2600 did outsell the intellivision every year.

 

On 9/5/2020 at 1:59 PM, zzip said:

because I remember this era like it was yesterday, and don't buy the revisionist spin that the Tramiels have since tried to put on it.   In 1984, the thinking at least in the US was that consoles are dead, video games were a fad,  and home computers were the way forward.   Jack helped originate this idea by telling parents they should buy Commodore 64's instead of game consoles the previous year.  Also it was clear their intent was to polish up the Atari image as a respectable computer company and downplay the gaming past.   That's why they didn't buy the arcade division.   Yes the ST had games.  Every computer had games.    But Apple wasn't focused on games,  IBM wasn't focused on games,  Tramiel's Atari Corp  wanted to be more like them and shed their past image.   That's what the first few years of Tramiel Atari were like.   But eventually the PC clone market started eating more and more of their lunch.  The cheap Amiga 500 started playing directly on their turf in 87.   And game consoles started selling again.  They liked money, so it was only at that time that they rediscovered gaming.

 

The idea that they were interested all along but their hands were tied just doesn't pass the smell test.   If the excuse was the 7800 was tied up, what would have stopped them from building an XEGS in 1985?   Why did they stop releasing 2600 carts in 84 and resume in 86 if they were so serious about gaming?   Why did they not license or develop any new gaming IPs until at least 1987?   We all know how ruthless Jack Tramiel could be.   Yet he didn't give Nintendo the "Business is War" treatment when they emerged, which shows he was not focused on that market at the time.   Nintendo feared the Warner Atari.  They didn't Fear the Tramiel Atari.   That speaks volumes.

 

On 9/4/2020 at 6:10 PM, Leeroy ST said:

This shows you don't understand the cause for the delay. Atari Corp didn't "let" anything fester for two years. It was actually Warners fault the system as delayed in the first place since they screwed over GCC, which eventually Atari Corp caved to cover their mess and then had to create a new studio and department head for the console division.

Yes exactly.  Atari resolved the issue by cutting a check.   They could have cut that check at anytime if the 7800 was a priority.    They didn't care until they saw consoles selling again

I agree with zzip that Jack Tamiel was interested in making computers not video games.  My understanding was one of the major reasons for the 1984 Atari deal was that Tramiel thought he was getting access to Amiga technology.  He got royally screwed when Commodore bought Amiga.

 

I just want to clarify that technically Tamiel didn't buy any division of Atari.  They bought all the assets including all the arcade IP and all unsold stock of home video games.  Warner continued making new arcade games but they wanted out of the home market and fired all the staff in those divisions.  Tramiel sold that stock to fund the the development of a new computer that they unexpectedly had to create.  There was no legal limbo with GCC and the atari 7800.  GCC controlled the rights until they were paid.  Why would Warner pay them.  Over time the value of the 7800 stock was diminishing as it aged until they finally made a deal.  Also note that Atari didn't inherit any staff at all from the 1984 deal.  They did hire some video game programmers and executives because they did realise if they are going to be in the video game business they have to give it some support.

 

The Panther and Jaguar happened after Jack Tramiel stepped down and Sam Tramiel took over.

[elmer]

35 minutes ago, mr_me said:

I agree with zzip that Jack Tamiel was interested in making computers not video games.  My understanding was one of the major reasons for the 1984 Atari deal was that Tramiel thought he was getting access to Amiga technology.  He got royally screwed when Commodore bought Amiga.

 

At the beginning of the mid-1980s there was still a window in the market for a cheap home computer with a better spec than the Atari 8-bit or Commodore C64, even though the 16-bit generation that was about to hit (with high-end prices to match).

 

As remembered in the "The story of the Elan Enterprise 128",  Atari briefly considered selling the British Enterprise 128 computer into the American market ...

 

Still confident, the Elan team took the Enterprise to the 1984 Consumer Electronics Show. That confidence was rewarded: Atari executives came over and expressed their admiration for the machine. One even admitted it was “the best 8-bit home computer in the world”, remembers David Levy, though with Atari US sales would begin in Q4 1984, said Enterprise Steve Groves spokesman.

 

As it turned out, the Enterprise didn't manage to hit its target release date, and we'll probably never know if Atari was ever really serious about releasing it in the US ... but it does show that Atari executives definitely had their minds on home computers in early 1984.

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by elmer

[Leeroy ST]

Ugh,

 

Articles below

__________________

 

Jan 9th, 1985 LA times/Messenger-inquirer

 

Press and Sun bulletin Jan 8th,1985

 

Hartford Courant, Dec 24th, 1985

 

The Guardian Dec 12th, 1985

 

Chicago Tribune Dec 15th, 1986

 

The san francisco examiner Jan 8th, 1987

 

Orlando Sentinel, Jan 3rd, 1987

 

Hartford Courant, March 10th, 1987

 

Detroit Free Press, Jan 6th, 1987

 

Baltimore Sun May 24th, 1987

 

san francisco examiner, November 18th 1985

 

Billings Gazette, December 18th, 1985

 

 

 

.

 

All these articles summariezed:

 

1. Michael Katz was hired to join Atari's gaming division in 1985, Atari Corp that is, shattering this narrative they didn't care about games. Sure they wanted to appeal to the power users as well but they still provided games.

 

2. Atari Corp tried salvaging the 5200 unlike Warner.

 

3. Jack was consistently looked at as the person who revived Atari.

 

4. Multiple articles about the amount of cash made, especially during/after 1986. Showing that yes they did actually need to make money first before increasing marketing, software across computers and game consoles, and buy Federated.

 

5. Atari returned to profitability after 1985. Adding support to point #4.

 

6. A couple articles about games releasing for the ST in 1985.

 

7. Article directly breaking down the Warner deals, and an article directly stating that the video game part of the company was brought.

 

Effectively all ZZIPS points are wrong as is the common theories people believe/believed about Jack (at least in relation to this) which is constantly thrown under the bus for everything he did at Atari (he made bad moves but holy crap.)

 

  

5 hours ago, mr_me said:

I just want to clarify that technically Tamiel didn't buy any division of Atari.  They bought all the assets including all the arcade IP and all unsold stock of home video games. 

Not only is this "technically" not correct, but straws aside Atari games retained several IP so Atari Corp didn't get all the arcade Ips.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[mr_me]

Warner kept only the arcade IP that was not yet released or still in development.  The back catalog went to tramiel.  And it was warner's atari that fired all the staff in the home electronics divisions not Tramiel.  And the way the deal with warner was negotiated they put value on the stock of unsold home computers but no value on video game consoles and cartridges which they essentially got for free.

[empsolo]

11 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

 

 

What three NES ports?

 

Also lol, Nintendo had the two-year policy before Atari realized it by the time it was obvious by the end of launch year into early 1987. 

 

1. Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Mario Bros were done, not in house, but by a Taiwanese contractor that was more known for its bootlegs of Famicom games than quality programing. This shows that Atari Corp was more interested in turning out quick and cheap port jobs than investing in long term dev cycles that pushed the software and hardware of the system with quality work.

 

2. As pointed out, the Tremirls testified under oath that Atari had failed to contact any potential third about the system or pitch for games for the system in either 1985, 86 or 87. This included American and Japanese Companies like Electronic Arts and Falcom. EA would not support the NES until a shareholders rebellion in 1989 forced them to start porting games and Falcom instead would port many of its Famicom and PC-88 titles to the Master System, skipping the NES. This would include the first YS game.

 

Funnily enough, EA president Trip Hawkins would appear with the president of Brøderbund in several late 80’s commercials for the XEGS that touted reprints of mid 80’s efforts for both companies.

 

It should be noted that EA did eventually release One on One with Dr. J in late 1987 to test the waters and then quickly abandoned the system.

Edited September 8, 2020 by empsolo

[elmer]

54 minutes ago, empsolo said:

... Falcom instead would port many of its Famicom and PC-88 titles to the Master System, skipping the NES. This would include the first YS game.

 

Quick FYI ... Falcom didn't port anything to the Master System (or any other console back in those times).

 

Falcom licensed their PC-88/PC-98/other-Japanese-computer game IP to third party companies who then produced, owned and sold the ports.

 

The Famicom version of Ys was released *before* the Master System version, but "yes", you're technically right in that the Japanese Famicom port of Ys was never localized into English for the NES. That might be because Victor Musical Industries (the Japanese Famicom licensee) didn't even have a US publishing division back then.

 

Other FYI ... Falcom's first ever internally developed console title was 1994's "Legend of Xanadu" on the PC Engine.

Edited September 8, 2020 by elmer

[atarian1]

21 hours ago, empsolo said:

Does that include hiring cutrate contractors out of Taiwan to do ports of  three year old Famicom games? Or how about the refusal to go to any third party for support until it was well too late?

That has nothing to do with what I said. I don't know what  you are talking about now.

[zzip]

On 9/7/2020 at 2:40 AM, atarian1 said:

Do you not realize what shape Atari was in during that time? They simply didn't have the resources to do everything so they had to decide to go with the ST first and work on videogames during the few spare moments they had.

 

Putting videogames on the backburner doesn't mean they weren't serious about it. They simply had to allocate their resources to what could keep them afloat until they had enough money/time to get back into videogames.

 

I handle multiple projects at work too, but putting some projects on the backburner doesn't mean I am blowing them off or that I am not serious about them. My gosh, it's Project Management 101.

The whole point I'm trying to make, is you can't half-ass videogames,  the market is too competitive.   JT bought the most well-known videogame brand in the world and completely squandered the market share by neglecting it.   You cannot wait for the money from your other product lines to start rolling in.    What Jack needed to do was get in front of some investors, show them that the console market is showing signs of life, show them that Atari has a strategy to ward off the new foreign competitors and defend its marketshare and mindshare.   

 

First problem was they had no such strategy.

[zzip]

23 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Even when you almost have a point it's incorrect, Atari licensed the console to IBM for creation. Unless you are just talking about the production plans, even the GCC 7800 had Atari influence on the plans for the thing despite GCC building it. They also had a third-party developer make the dev kits.

Do you not understand how intellectual property works?    Warner Atari commissioned the 7800.   GCC was just a subcontractor.  IBM was just a subcontractor for manufacturing the Jaguar, similar to how a company like Foxconn will manufacture iPhones for Apple.   Lynx was created by Epyx and fell into Atari's lap.   Atari under Jack had released no new console designs that they commissioned until Jaguar.

 

23 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

But keep being wrong and repeating the same debunked garbage over and over until your face is blue.

History proves me right.   Jack bought the most well-known videogame company in the world and turned it into a shadow of its former glory.

[Leeroy ST]

35 minutes ago, zzip said:

Do you not understand how intellectual property works?  

No you just don't know how to read as you ignored the second half of the post you quoted.

 

History also doesn't prove you right, that's why you have zero response to all the articles I posted proving you wrong in everything you said, because you can't counter them with anything that supports you're argument. 

 

Jack bought a video game company that was on the verge, turned it around due to games and computing not matter how much you want to deny the facts, countless articles endless from 1985-1988 all show you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

But feel free to come back when you have an actual rebuke for actual cited sources that have been posted (as I've been the only one for near the entire thread who has actually done so.)

 

Now when you have anything to refute the facts which you won't, and will likely instead just dismiss the facts because YOU don't want to believe them, then you can come back. 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Leeroy ST]

13 hours ago, empsolo said:

1. Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Mario Bros were done, not in house, but by a Taiwanese contractor that was more known for its bootlegs of Famicom games than quality programing. This shows that Atari Corp was more interested in turning out quick and cheap port jobs than investing in long term dev cycles that pushed the software and hardware of the system with quality work.

 

You mean games not originally made by Atari weren't done in house? Shock.

 

Also while another user already pointed out some other issues with your post, I would like to add you're desperately taking 3 third-party ported games that released 2 years after launch (third party was already slim pickings for obvious reasons) in 1988 to try and create a hoax argument it proved that Atari didn't care about games fromt he start, which doesn't make sense because 1988 is not 1986.

 

Also 1988 was the same year Atari developed 5 games in house and managed to pick up third party support when it was already slim pickings and that's one console not including the others or the computer-lines. 

 

Going back to the relevant discussion timeframe of 1985-1986, which of course Atari 7800 was being delayed, and Atari Corp was salvaging the 5200, this notion of not caring about games is just dumb (not to mention near 30 games on the ST in 85 alone) 

Dion't forget Atari (and Sega had to do this as well) had to sometimes port third party games themselves or adjust those games to an internal/partner studio without the original makers logo on the box (though sometimes like with Xevious they'll have small print of *Xevious is trademark Namco" or something to that effect. But Namco themsevles couldn't actually put Xevious on the 7800 themselves.

[Leeroy ST]

8 hours ago, atarian1 said:

That has nothing to do with what I said. I don't know what  you are talking about now.

They are trying really hard to spin the arguments out of proper context and I don't really get why. 

 

All you did was point out the condition Atari was in at the time. 

[zzip]

23 hours ago, mr_me said:

I agree with zzip that Jack Tamiel was interested in making computers not video games.  My understanding was one of the major reasons for the 1984 Atari deal was that Tramiel thought he was getting access to Amiga technology.  He got royally screwed when Commodore bought Amiga.

 

I just want to clarify that technically Tamiel didn't buy any division of Atari.  They bought all the assets including all the arcade IP and all unsold stock of home video games.  Warner continued making new arcade games but they wanted out of the home market and fired all the staff in those divisions.  Tramiel sold that stock to fund the the development of a new computer that they unexpectedly had to create.  There was no legal limbo with GCC and the atari 7800.  GCC controlled the rights until they were paid.  Why would Warner pay them.  Over time the value of the 7800 stock was diminishing as it aged until they finally made a deal.  Also note that Atari didn't inherit any staff at all from the 1984 deal.  They did hire some video game programmers and executives because they did realise if they are going to be in the video game business they have to give it some support.

I believe much of the ST design work was completed prior to purchasing Atari.   It's not clear to me that he was after the Amiga technology or just the Atari name.   If he wanted the Amiga tech, he presumably could have purchased Amiga instead?   They were supposedly a cash-starved company with probably fewer liabilities than Atari.   But they weren't quite a household name yet.

[mr_me]

That could be true, Tramiel started his new company only a few months prior to purchasing Atari assets.  Apparently, Tramiel had some negotiations with Amiga, but was only interested in the technology and not the company.  Warner was really desperate to unload Atari, they gave Tramiel an offer he couldn't refuse.