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

[mr_me]

Yes the 5200 is technically superior to colecovision.  Even the intellivision has graphics features that colecovision lacks as well as a better controller.

 

The internal situation at atari in the early 1980s is well documented in the book "Atari Inc.: business is fun".  Wait until you find out why they chose to go with the atari 7800.

Edited September 19, 2020 by mr_me

[ColecoKing]

Like Game Over that book is filled with holes that are in conflict with other sources, not everything but it's not entirely reliable.

Not sure what Intellivision has to do with anything Coleco is stronger than the Intellivision small details don't matter the gap is huge. 5200 was actually a new generation of hardware for home consoles.

My point was that 5200 could have resolved the issue about it's early bleeding quickly by using the redesign which came quickly to fix the controllers get more developers, and make the console a major value in price. They didn't. Not the most well run company.

All we got was a slightly smaller console that replaced the price of the original with two ports instead of 4 and not as sturdy with the same controllers.

[zzip]

On 9/19/2020 at 9:52 AM, ColecoKing said:

The 5200 is a 400 8-bit computer it's the same cartridge that works on the same machine except it now plugs into the TV. If what you said was true why did the XEGS not have that problem? Don't forget the XEGS can play ALL library of 8-bit machines including those who Atari needed permission from to put on and no one came and attack Atari for using their games and the regulations were no different.

Because by the time of the XEGS, Coleco left the business and the licensing models would had to have changed.   Either that or the legal team at Tramiel's Atari weren't aware of the legal issues or were just rolling the dice that they weren't going to get sued.

 

It's a fact that Coleco had the console license for DK/DKjr and Atari had the Computer license in 82.   It's also pretty established that Atari management threw a fit when they saw DK running on Adam, so much that it ended the NES deal.

 

It was the early days of games, and everyone one was trying to figure out how licensing was going to work.   Sega seemed to license Frogger by media type, and that lead to getting two different vesions of Frogger on the same machine--  Parker Bros on Cart, and Sierra or Starpath for Cassette/Disk

Edited September 21, 2020 by zzip

[Leeroy ST]

I don't think people here realize how much the 5200 was bleeding warner to cut it from the market. Sure maybe as said they should have fixed the problem with the revision although I'm not sure how wide spread that revision was. 

 

But Warner was expecting huge sales and hype as was Coleco and the CV did proof to be a major seller but the days of selling a 3rd of your console LTD in 1-2 years was over, even the NES didn't have a year that big just multiple great sized years that helped the overall ltd (unless you include japan as well) and the 5200 didn't sell gang busters out the gate the 2600 outsold it every year it was out by wide margins where only the CV managed to outsell it the year AFTER launch and in 1984 for obvious reasons. 

 

Warner had a new consoles with software lineeup, some not ready to release yet, and their start sequel to their breakout hit was selling less software, backstock had to be brought from retailers that had too much stock, it didn't move even half as well as they expected, game delays hampered adoption later and delays made software sales of popular selling titles move less copies than they should have, lawsuits, massive consumer distrust with the controllers and "switch box" malfunctions, and the fact they couldn't drag the computer price wars to the 5200 without filing for bankruptcy keeping the price relatively high when prices were dropping, this is a massive pool of red ink that warner was swimming in.

 

7800 was much more powerful and cheaper to produce, development was licensed out and it was easier to port arcade games, but Warner still had to deal with other costs and Warner understandably didn't want to take the risk in 1984 even before the crash when they announced it's release date they hesitated because they couldn't find a way to place a band-aid on the wound so they ended up screwing over GCC in an attempt to have their problems resolved by selling to Jack so they wouldn't take the fall while they focused on other industries.

 

A sequel to the 2600 with all the bells and whistles that the 5200 had was expected to sell minimum 2 million within the first year or more and it didn't even do 500k.

[carlsson]

Funny that you mention Sega and different media. A month ago when we played Zaxxon and Super Zaxxon in the A8 HSC, I looked up some info and found a reference on Mobygames that on the C64, the cartridge versions of both games were published by Sega/US Gold while disk versions were published by Synapse respective HESware. However HESware had their disk version of Super Zaxxon ready before Synapse's disk version of Zaxxon and Sega's parent company Paramount paid (!) HESware $200,000 to postpone their version of Super Zaxxon in order to let Synapse sell Zaxxon first.

[ColecoKing]

zzip

Because by the time of the XEGS, Coleco left the business and the licensing models would had to have changed. Either that or the legal team at Tramiel's Atari weren't aware of the legal issues or were just rolling the dice that they weren't going to get sued.

It's a fact that Coleco had the console license for DK/DKjr and Atari had the Computer license in 82. It's also pretty established that Atari management threw a fit when they saw DK running on Adam, so much that it ended the NES deal.



It was the early days of games, and everyone one was trying to figure out how licensing was going to work. Sega seemed to license Frogger by media type, and that lead to getting two different vesions of Frogger on the same machine-- Parker Bros on Cart, and Sierra or Starpath for Cassette/Disk

I don't believe licensing changed. But that's not very relevant overall, Atari had a good many games they could have had work or converted to 5200 already available and they still didn't do it! 5200 was an Atari computer for the TV and they had original prototype play games already, even if you don't do a full sweep for all 8-bit games they could have released or converted cartridges for games Atari made or partnered with. Just like at 5200 revision they could have gotten more third party which Atari was still pissed over, fixed the controllers, lowered the price, add 2600 converter. Instead we got less reliable revision with same broken controllers, and only two controller ports making 4 player games impossible.

Atari picked the short straw in division management because these people can't run a grocery cart.

[Leeroy ST]

So I found these crucial pieces of information (Atari Museum) on Tramiels Atari which corroborate all those news scans people don't like because it hurts their feelings pages back:

 

Quote

  According to product scheduling logs from Tom Brightman, the Tramiels were actually focusing on video games as part of their future. The Atari 2100 (which would become the Atari 2600jr) was on the schedule.    The Tramiels and Warner Communications were at odds as to who owed GCC payment for all of the work on the "MARIA" chip and the 7800 system.   After nearly 9 months the Tramiels were the ones who owned the debt to GCC.    Reluctantly Jack Tramiel paid a one time "Go away" amount to GCC, who cashed that check immediately before it bounced (according to a GCC engineer.)         

Now the next issue arose...  7800 games.     While the Tramiels now owned the 7800 console, they didn't own any games for it.    More negotiations with GCC would ensue...   finally by late 1985 a deal was made with GCC for nearly a dozen games for the 7800.    With 1986 fast approaching, Atari could finally prepare the 7800 for retail sale and it would not be alone, Nintendo and Sega would also have their consoles in the marketplace as well.

Quote

Atari Corp,  since the day the Tramiels had bought Atari in July of 1984 had already planned a strong return into the Video game industry.  The Atari "2100" project (In development since 1983) which would become the Atari 2600jr was being readied for release in early 1986.  The Atari 7800 after nearly 18 months of legal wrangling between Atari Corp, Warner Communications and GCC along with Atari Corp. paying GCC a $3.2 million settlement for the rights and ownership to the MARIA chip, the Atari 7800 was also readied for a 1986 release.  

Atari however found itself in a sudden and rapid disadvantaged position... 

Atari Corp. would hit a major brick wall when it came to licensing games.   Nintendo had created far reaching exclusive license agreements with many major and even new software companies, blocking Atari from gaining access to games on their console.   Sega didn't have this problem for its Master System because it had a large library of arcade titles that had never been ported to the home console market, so it faired better.   Atari was stuck with having a large, but aging library of titles and an unfair position in the market due to Nintendo.

 

Basically this proves not only what the articles I found said or implied at the time and some of my theories, but it also adds that the 7800 console was received first but none of the games for it which had to be done separately which explains why GCC is on some of the earlier titles. Although I don't think all 12 of those GCC games came out and byu don't think I mean we have the game list so yeah.

 

It also shows that Atari Corp had games as a strategy from the start, maybe not jack specifically was fond of that but he had to run a company and wasn't a fool.

 

Also $3.2 million for a new Atari Corp company short on cash for ONLY the console is batshit insane, but this matches some of the articles I've seen which only mentioned the system and/or Maria and never any software now it make sense, because they never had the software!

 

This also proves the other point that Nintendo's legally questionable third-party lockdown was from near the start of their run and by the end of 1986 Atari was already in a bad position. However, guys is wrong about Sega, sure they would be able to bring in more games (and some of those are shit ports like After Burner that could barely run on the master system, but ironically may have ran decently on the 7800), but they still lost out on third-party games that were hits, and both Sega and Atari didn't convince western publishers to jump on consoles.

 

Also this:

Quote

  Basically Atari was putting everything and everyone into the 7800 to make it a winner.   To make sure the system had every bell and whistle possible, the system was slated to be released with not only a computer keyboard, but also a High Score cartridge (Designed by GCC), and a new add-on module for the Atari 5200 which would have given the Atari 5200 system full Atari 7800/2600 compatibility to ensure its existing base of 5200 owners could immediately take advantage of all the hot new games that the 7800 was capable of producing (Designed by Gary Rubio).

 The Computer Keyboard add-on plugged into  joystick port #2 with an accompanying cartridges turned the 7800 into a full blown 8-bit computer system.   The keyboard even had an Atari SIO (Serial I/O) connector for using Atari XL Computer System peripherals like cassette recorders, printers and even a disk drive.  OSS (Optimized Software Systems) wrote OSS/Atari 7800 Basic so that users could do Basic programming on the 7800 with the Computer add-on.

 The one truly key feature was the on-board "Out of the Box" Atari VCS 2600 compatibility.   Atari also wanted to avoid any chance of another flood of poorly written games for the console, so they had GCC add an encryption key system into its cartridges and console.  If the checksum key was valid the MARIA chip would become active and the 7800 was ready to go, if not then the system would stay in 2600 compatibility mode.

Too bad the only thing that came out of that was the 2600 compatibility and the software encryption key. 

 

Also the 5200 dual compatibility seems a bit ridiculous. Might be why Tramiel decided to sell the 5200 by itself and add some new exclusive software not before released and re-circulate old hits with newly produced cartridges. He likely figured he'd make more profit that way and he would be right.

 

But then again, I guess that 2600-5200-7800 release strategy isn't that different from the current gaming consoles or PC's that "downcale and upscale" based on the hardware.

 

You could release Defender on the 7800 with all the bells and whistles, then playing the same cart on the 5200 the graphics would drop and some enemies on screen may be cut, the resolution and color count would shrink, but still play, then the 2600 version would be flat with few colors and terrible music, or no music, and be very basic.

 

But that still seems stupid. Even current consoles with Xbox One X and PS4 Pro are aimed at the high-end market for those who want it and isn't a completely different system at it's core form the original Xbox One and PS4.

 

This would be three consoles with different architectures entirely all being compatible, I can't see how this would work. Then there would be the issue of console sales, how would you get more people to adopt a 7800 which would be your most expensive consoles with the highest profit margins?

 

I would also assume since it's the same cartridge regardless of what console you would want to play it on it would be the same price which doesn't make much sense. Why play $70 for Super Adventure Sword Man 3 if you only own a 2600 and the game will basically be garbage due to how weak the hardware is?

 

Maybe I'm misreading their strategy here. 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[zzip]

27 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

I don't believe licensing changed. But that's not very relevant overall, Atari had a good many games they could have had work or converted to 5200 already available and they still didn't do it!

They probably would have brought more games over if they hadn't abandoned the 5200 in less than 2 years.

 

28 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Atari picked the short straw in division management because these people can't run a grocery cart.

no arguments here!

[Leeroy ST]

28 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Just like at 5200 revision they could have gotten more third party which Atari was still pissed over, fixed the controllers, lowered the price, add 2600 converter. Instead we got less reliable revision with same broken controllers, and only two controller ports making 4 player games impossible.

 

I don't know why you keep saying this, Atari was working on self-centering controllers with better builds the CX-52L, which would have replaced the regular CX-52's but they weren't able to release those due to the 5200 being cancelled.

[ColecoKing]

5200 prototypes were made after cancellation of the console which many Atari staff didn't know about. First console revision was LESS than a year with some shipments from launch so you're telling me they only started fixing the controllers with PROTOTYPE in over 2 years which means maybe near 3 years for it to come out??? They should have started fixing the controllers at release!

Now I find this revelation from interview

Although the 5200 enjoyed moderate success during its heyday, the

gaming public never completely warmed to the SuperSystem, and the
"Great Videogame Crash of 1983" helped to seal its fate along with
the rest of the home videogame consoles. It should be noted,
however, that the 5200 was outselling the Colecovision when Atari
decided to pull the plug on its advanced video game system in 1984.

No I am more mad than I was before.

Why the ******(*** did Atari pull out the winning console? I though the gap between 1 million and 1.5 million was small but that was by October 1984 and 5200 already erased by Atari. So before the can, earlier in 1984 right before it was closed, the 5200 was WINNING AND THE PULL OUT THE CONSOLE?

Hey Sony PS2 smashin Gamecube and Xbox, 80 million PS2 to 20 million Xbox, to 17 million Gamecube, Sony is crushing it, but we need to cancel console guys time to pull out PS2 discontiuned.

I need a drink.

[ColecoKing]

zzip

They probably would have brought more games over if they hadn't abandoned the 5200 in less than 2 years.

Worse than that, not I know they were beating Colecovision when they cancel console!

PS1 5 million ahead of Satun and N64 just come out sell 1.5 million in launch window and we is winning says Sony. Time to cancel the console we are winning to much let's let out competitors beat us we are succeeding too much we feel bad no more PS1.

I though I knew what was happening at Atari now this madness pops up?

[zzip]

45 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Why the ******(*** did Atari pull out the winning console? I though the gap between 1 million and 1.5 million was small but that was by October 1984 and 5200 already erased by Atari. So before the can, earlier in 1984 right before it was closed, the 5200 was WINNING AND THE PULL OUT THE CONSOLE?

Maybe they didn't realize the industry was in a slump at the time, and they assumed the 5200 failure was due to its design, so they commissioned the 7800 because it must be a hardware problem, right?

 

Never mind that Coleco had Donkey Kong for Christmas '82.

 

Never mind that nothing in the 7800 launch titles screamed "Must Own".  Most were games that had already released on other Atari systems.   If the 7800 had released on schedule, its sales would likely have still been disappointing because the industry was still in the slump, and the 7800 didn't have the games to pull it out of the slump.

52 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Hey Sony PS2 smashin Gamecube and Xbox, 80 million PS2 to 20 million Xbox, to 17 million Gamecube, Sony is crushing it, but we need to cancel console guys time to pull out PS2 discontiuned.

Sony has shown they understand the games market.   Atari didn't, and they were making all the wrong decisions at the time.

[ColecoKing]

^ industry wasn't in a slump when 5200 was pulled out. 7800 also had the games the console had mass coverage and good response but Warner never put it out because of money so the 7800 reveal was pointless pointless pointless.

Even than 7800 never made sense, and now even more so with reveal that 5200 was outselling, yes, OUTSELLING COLECO when it was pulled out. So you say they may have though 5200 failure in design and pilled out?That would only make sense imo if 5200 was losing but it was WINNING the whole time!!

So 5200 was beating Colecovision with more games and Donkey kong and instead of more games and support and fixed controllers, they can it so fast people didn't even know at first???

Atari again, picked people from the asylum to run company 100% guarantee.

Edited September 22, 2020 by ColecoKing

[zzip]

7 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

^ industry wasn't in a slump when 5200 was pulled out.

It's hard to get an exact timeframe for the videogame crash, but seems like it lasted from 83-85.   1984 was in the thick of it when the 5200 got cancelled

 

9 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Even than 7800 never made sense, and now even more so with reveal that 5200 was outselling, yes, OUTSELLING COLECO when it was pulled out. So you say they may have though 5200 failure in design and pilled out?That would only make sense imo if 5200 was losing but it was WINNING the whole time!!

So 5200 was beating Colecovision with more games and Donkey kong and instead of more games and support and fixed controllers, they can it so fast people didn't even know at first???

The 7800 wasn't designed overnight,  so I would guess that when Coleco initially started outselling 5200,  Atari panicked and reached the wrong conclusions about why:   1)  it didn't have 2600 compatibility  2) it's hardware was too weak.   So they decided to commission a replacement.    When the 7800 was ready to go,  Atari decided they couldn't have both on the market, and cancelled the 5200.

 

The reality was Donkey Kong was the reason CV was beating 5200.   But Atari had the stronger portfolio of hit arcade games overall, apart from some notable exceptions like DK and Zaxxon,  that might be why 5200 started to close the gap and outsell CV later.

[ColecoKing]

^It's been discussed to death on here the crash was mostly in 1984 and 1983 only set the stage and you can see that in game releases for consoles as they greatly stop later in 1984. 83 was foundation and if Atari thought there was slump why even have 7800 ready for 1984? Doesn't make sense.

you're other thought also don't make sense, I told you sales were 1 to 1.5 million after discontinuation of 5200 in oct so why would you think CV outsell 5200 so much that they immediately did 7800? 7800 was starting development in 1983! Sure 7800 was made to be stronger but it make no sense to put out 7800 and quickly cancel 5200 with people not knowing what's going on while you are WINNING in 1983. It's hardware was also not too weak and Atari knew this just based on 8-bit computer games compared to CV and in interview. If Donkey Kong was the reason for CV win, than why was Atari winning until pull out? And even before I found out that revelation the gap was only 1 to 1.5 million, that is astronomically small and that was oct 1984 the 5200 was cancelled early that year way before!

Also you must mean portfolio of hit arcades not released on 5200? The ones that did were very late and near it's cancellation I can't believe 5200 losing to Colecovision and suddenly catch up and win in just a few months, Atari had to be ahead earlier and CV only had temporary starting lead.

It's clear with this revelation that Atari may had only started losing at the beginning and then quickly overtook Coleco and kept ahead until it was pulled. Terrible management.

[mr_me]

"1984 August 13:  Atari had informed its advertising agencies of plans to "pursue the videogame market this Christmas with the long-awaited introduction of its 7800 model." (adWeek 8/13/84)"

 

It was known that Tramiel planned to liquidate the large quantity of video game stock he acquired from Warner.  Atari 2600 consoles and cartridges, the discontinued 5200 consoles and cartridges;  and there were atari 7800 consoles and cartridges as well as parts for unfinished units in his 1984 inventory as well.  I don't think selling a 1977 video game system in the late 1980s, reintroducing two other game systems based on older generation technology, alongside your latest game system coming out two years late is much of a video game strategy for analysis.  All the atari 7800 stuff: a launch library of cartridges, the computer keyboard, the 5200 adapter, the high score cartridge, were mostly created in 1984 prior to the sale to Tramiel.

 

Regarding being locked out of third party developers; third party developers and publishers go wherever is the install base.  A video game company creates that install base by creating their own first party library of relevant titles.  The NES launch library of 17 cartridges were all nintendo developed.  There were some nes cartridges in 1986 by other japanese developers and publishers and in 1987 we saw the first nes cartridges by western developers or publishers.

 

The market may not have seen the effects of the video game crash until 1983 but the industry was effected as early as 1982, that's both home and arcade video games.  Atari Inc. announced 1700 layoffs in February 1983 and 1983q1 losses of more than $310M.  Layoffs and losses continued until the asset sale to Tramiel.  The first public sign of trouble was on 1982 December 8 when Warner warned of a dramatic slump in fourth quarter earnings due to disappointing sales of video game cartridges.  That news caused stocks to fall and halted IPOs.  Even the arcade industry was affected.  "'The first quarter of 1982 was very good. The second quarter was a good quarter. The third quarter was a rotten quarter and the fourth quarter is a disaster.''  A 1985 stockholder lawsuit revealed that signs of trouble were known internally at Atari much earlier in 1982.  It may have influenced some of the cost cutting measures in the atari 5200 console.

 

Regarding atari 5200 sales and colecovision sales; 550k colecovisions reported for 1982, 1.4M total reported in august 1983 and 2M through 1984q1.  The same august 1983 report had 800k atari 5200.  A may 1985 report had 1M total atari 5200.  So where when did the atari 5200 outsell colecovision.  No matter by 1984 the commodore 64 outsold them all taking the bulk of the market share,

 

 

[zzip]

19 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

^It's been discussed to death on here the crash was mostly in 1984 and 1983 only set the stage and you can see that in game releases for consoles as they greatly stop later in 1984. 83 was foundation and if Atari thought there was slump why even have 7800 ready for 1984? Doesn't make sense.

you're other thought also don't make sense, I told you sales were 1 to 1.5 million after discontinuation of 5200 in oct so why would you think CV outsell 5200 so much that they immediately did 7800? 7800 was starting development in 1983! Sure 7800 was made to be stronger but it make no sense to put out 7800 and quickly cancel 5200 with people not knowing what's going on while you are WINNING in 1983. It's hardware was also not too weak and Atari knew this just based on 8-bit computer games compared to CV and in interview. If Donkey Kong was the reason for CV win, than why was Atari winning until pull out? And even before I found out that revelation the gap was only 1 to 1.5 million, that is astronomically small and that was oct 1984 the 5200 was cancelled early that year way before!

Also you must mean portfolio of hit arcades not released on 5200? The ones that did were very late and near it's cancellation I can't believe 5200 losing to Colecovision and suddenly catch up and win in just a few months, Atari had to be ahead earlier and CV only had temporary starting lead.

It's clear with this revelation that Atari may had only started losing at the beginning and then quickly overtook Coleco and kept ahead until it was pulled. Terrible management.
 

This is from the Jan 1984 issue of Electronic Games Magazine,  which would have been on newstands by Dec 1983, and written by Oct 1983.    As you can see it was already apparent that the game industry was in a slump at that time.   It also recognizes that that Coleco started off winning but Atari was catching up.   What I was saying is CV's early lead was due to Donkey Kong.   Coleco released their hottest games early on, Atari released hot games later.  Every time a big game comes out on one of these systems, they could expect a flurry of sales.  That's why 5200 would catch up over time.

 

 

I don't know exactly when Atari decided to start the 7800 project.   I think they were disappointed in early 5200 sales, but came up with all the wrong reasons to explain why 5200 sales were disappointing.  As you point out they were closing the gap.  But by 1984, the 7800 is ready to go.  Atari had to decide whether to have both 5200 & 7800 systems on the market and confuse consumers,  keep the 5200 and axe the 7800, or launch the 7800 and axe the 5200.   None of them were good choices.

 

 

[zzip]

13 hours ago, mr_me said:

The first public sign of trouble was on 1982 December 8 when Warner warned of a dramatic slump in fourth quarter earnings due to disappointing sales of video game cartridges.  That news caused stocks to fall and halted IPOs.  Even the arcade industry was affected.  "'The first quarter of 1982 was very good. The second quarter was a good quarter. The third quarter was a rotten quarter and the fourth quarter is a disaster.''  A 1985 stockholder lawsuit revealed that signs of trouble were known internally at Atari much earlier in 1982.  It may have influenced some of the cost cutting measures in the atari 5200 console.

E.T. was certainly a sign of trouble.   I know the revisionist history on that game is the game failed to sell because it was so horribly bad.  But how did people know it was bad until they played it?  People didn't buy the carts in the first place!   Think of who the market for such a game was:  Parents buying it for their ET-crazed kids for Christmas, it was the hottest movie at the time.  The young kids wouldn't care so much if the game was considered "good" or "bad", they would be happen to see ET's face pop up on screen and play as ET.

 

Those parents failed to buy up the game anywhere close to the numbers Atari expected.   Probably because there was something much hotter than ET that Christmas--  Cabbage Patch Kids!   And that I think is the real cause of the rapid growth and crash.  Pac-man was a huge fad, DK was a fad to a lesser extent.  All fads have expiration dates.  By late 82/83, those were wearing off,  there was no games as huge to take their places, and the new fads were non-videogame things like Cabbage Patch Kids, MTV, etc.   And games/arcades/consoles could no longer get the kinds of sales numbers they had become accustomed to. 

[ColecoKing]

^Don't know what Nintendo has to do with this.

Also i don't know where you are getting these reports, q4 October 1984 was all over the media that Colec sold 1.5 million consoles, if they sold two it was after they could not have sold 2 million coleco in quarter 1 1984 that's impossible.

Also with news of 5200 outselling CV, likely after CV had was ahead for a few months at launch, that makes these numbers even unbelievable. If Coleco sold 2 million they would have put that out why wait nearly a year till the last quarter to put out 1.5 million? Doesn't make sense. Unless it's international sales but if you have international sales reports than you should post them so we can have hint of full Coleco LTD.

But if it's not international, it's impossible.

Also you are confusing issues with the industries structure with the industry itself actually being in trouble, in 1983 the foundation as set for the industry and retail to lose a lot of money and that's what happened in 1984 when profits were hard to make because low prices. Less profit, higher expenses, that's actually happened in recent years but at a different angle, that's why game development exploded as early as 2001, and why there is mass consolidation with traditional developers and hardware, and why one competitor had to aim for a different audience to stay in business and even that was starting to crack so now they had to sacrifice a core part of their business.


Atari was also never run efficiently, they were the leaders with the best consoles and had more internal problems than Mattel which was by late 1983 was running with skeleton crew without much investment. Atari had a problem over producing too which was well known, that's why Atari lost so much money so fast when the crash did hit, they didn't have billions in the bank despite them helping generate billions in sales and with other competition creating multi billion dollar industry but Atari was never had a saving account of billions people though they had, I don't even think they had 100 million. Then with the computer price war with the computer department continuing into 1984 they had less than half that.

CV survive because Coleco actually was a company with actual reserves and so was Mattel Atari had no reserves, that why they were the only major company to go near bankruptcy and be sold off.

[ColecoKing]

zzip

This is from the Jan 1984 issue of Electronic Games Magazine, which would have been on newstands by Dec 1983, and written by Oct 1983. As you can see it was already apparent that the game industry was in a slump at that time. It also recognizes that that Coleco started off winning but Atari was catching up. What I was saying is CV's early lead was due to Donkey Kong. Coleco released their hottest games early on, Atari released hot games later. Every time a big game comes out on one of these systems, they could expect a flurry of sales. That's why 5200 would catch up over time.

I don't know what you are doing. Q1 1984 is when 5200 was pulled out. 5200 was winning against CV before that time, there wasn't anything to close the gap, CV is the one that closed the gap, they had good start 5200 past them, a good many of the popular properties you mention before came out late in 1983 and 1984 so Donkey Kong popular but people still still proffered powerful Atari console with Atari games and Atari name. This means that of october 1 million vs. 1.5 million CV that 1 million 5200 was from start of the year which also shows CV was behind and then caught up, so now everything is explained.

Coleco always had the media narrative but it never made sense based on those sales. q1 1984 5200 was done and they were already clearing stock and low prices before 7800 was already prepared they were just waiting to produce and get retail for launch, so sales were already dead.

I think the conclusion here the only one you can come to, is Atari did not fix the problems of the 5200 with first revision due to bad management and delayed the second revision was supposed to be "slim" some models have pictures out there now maybe even on this site I wouldn't be surprised as prototype images exist



found on reddit.

But delay too late they decided to kill console, but even from prototype they STILL did not fix controller and no adapter for this model was planned for 2600 or 7800.

So because of bad management I conclude it is likely Atari just lost too much money and decided profit was impossible and prepared 7800 and cancel all 5200 things. Because sales and CV is clearly not the problem.

[ColecoKing]

zzip

Probably because there was something much hotter than ET that Christmas-- Cabbage Patch Kids! And that I think is the real cause of the rapid growth and crash. Pac-man was a huge fad, DK was a fad to a lesser extent. All fads have expiration dates. By late 82/83, those were wearing off,

Pacman was on 2600 in 82 sold millions no fad was happening. Also how Atari age be around this long and not know cause of crash. Crash was money, to move inventory people had to cut prices, too many games at various price points, no one is paying $80 for a game when they can pay $20 for a similar game and if game happens to be decent then big trouble so guess what you drop price of $80 game to $40 and lose $X per sale, and for Atari they had to do the same so for them it's worse so they can't rely on software for profit so they keep hardware price up but then sales collapse so they have to drop price to keep up but then they make less than the software have to cut more.

This is why even before big releases stop for most consoles in q3 and q4 1984 due to crash impact games already in bargain pins and at cheap prices but no one making money and you have a ton of games retailers are stocking that aren't making no money. Nothing video games was making money and then there was arcade crash.

This goes back to my previous point that Atari had barely any cash in reserve mismanaged even during peak years 1980 to 1982.

This isn't like PS3 that quickly removed all PS2 profits quickly, and later PS1 as well, where it was due to bad decisions and a few bets on technology that ballooned in costs, and having to make a forced price cut on a device they were already making no money on, Atari could have had a billion dollars in bank they were just run like shit.

This is something almost know one wants to admit, Atari was ALWAYS run like shit, I would argue Atari was better run under Jack until his family took over who clearly weren't as resourceful.

Like I said, Mattel survive because they had cash, and set remaining cash to spin INTV to continue for small profit the intellivsion. Coleco had tons of CV cash and cash in general had no problem still selling but cut the electronic department once profit was too low and not worth it to produce more also Adam computer was a disaster but they survived that because they had money, even Adam actually made money at first before consumers realize it was unreliable piece of crap.

Company need to make money Atari has never had cash reserves, even I say Atari was better run with Jacky he still did not put cash in reserves with profits he spent most of the profits but did it in a smart way to grow companies revenue, but when kids took over they cut many revenue generating projects and messed everything up so they had no cash in reserve and no money coming in they bet on Jaguar lol ok that joke right?

[zzip]

26 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Pacman was on 2600 in 82 sold millions no fad was happening

That was months earlier and was a highly anticipated game.  It was also highly disappointing and may have gone a long way to kill the Pacman craze and consumer confidence.   When the 5200 came out, it had a much better Pacman, but nobody seemed to care anymore.  By then Donkey Kong was the hot thing, and everybody was talking about how great DK looked on CV.

 

29 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Also how Atari age be around this long and not know cause of crash. Crash was money, to move inventory people had to cut prices, too many games at various price points, no one is paying $80 for a game when they can pay $20 for a similar game and if game happens to be decent then big trouble so guess what you drop price of $80 game to $40 and lose $X per sale, and for Atari they had to do the same so for them it's worse so they can't rely on software for profit so they keep hardware price up but then sales collapse so they have to drop price to keep up but then they make less than the software have to cut more.

Because the conventional explanations for the crash don't add up.   If the cause is too many games for the 2600,  why was the pain across the board?  Why were arcades hurting,  brand new systems like 5200/CV hurting when they didn't have a flood of games yet?   Wikipedia says that sales of home video games fell from $3.2billion in 1982 to just $100 million in 1985.  Slashing prices of games by 50% don't get you down to 100 million,  slashing them by 90% don't even get you there.  And in reality, when people encountered the bargain bins,  they bought several games with the same money they would have bought a full price game with.   

 

A drop that big shows that demand dried up.   Everyone tries to explain the crash as a supply-side phenomenon.   But the game market is always over-supplied.   The real problem is demand disappeared.  There weren't enough hot games in 83/84 to keep the early 80s video game craze going.

42 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

This is something almost know one wants to admit, Atari was ALWAYS run like shit, I would argue Atari was better run under Jack until his family took over who clearly weren't as resourceful.

Plenty of criticism here.  Kassar was awful.   Jack was only better from a fiscal management standpoint.  He didn't have what it took to be competitive in video games.   Warner did,  but they spent money like water, and made some crazy decisions.   But then again Jack made dumb decisions like the Federated buyout.

[Leeroy ST]

13 hours ago, mr_me said:

It was known that Tramiel planned to liquidate the large quantity of video game stock he acquired from Warner.  Atari 2600 consoles and cartridges, the discontinued 5200 consoles and cartridges;  and there were atari 7800 consoles and cartridges as well as parts for unfinished units in his 1984 inventory as well.  I don't think selling a 1977 video game system in the late 1980s, reintroducing two other game systems based on older generation technology, alongside your latest game system coming out two years late is much of a video game strategy for analysis. 

 

Is that why he revived the Atari 2600 jr project and produced new cartridges and releases for the 5200...in 1985?

 

Games for the 7800 were even held up in a separate negotiation from the console, which was the missing piece that explains information provided in articles previous mentioned or posted. At this point you're digging in the tar pits. (Also NES was older technology when it came out.)

 

13 hours ago, mr_me said:

Regarding being locked out of third party developers; third party developers and publishers go wherever is the install base. 

What install base did the NES have in America in 1985? You do realize, once again, they had these contracts from the START right? Both the lockdown and the limited amount of games a year (hence Konami for example creating ultra games as a fake alternate label etc).

 

By mid 1987 Atari and Sega were blocked from accessing tons of software by developers who signed with Nintendo regardless of where the developers were from, you need third party games to fill in gaps between 1st party. But as we all know, Sega and Atari couldn't even get a handful of third parties at the time, even to make some of the "ports" from Nintendo signed third parties that gave Atari and Sega licenses to their IP.

 

If they were lucky they would get one or two, and have them create a game after obtaining a license, as it was usually almost never an original game. But most of the time they never had third party support and Sega or Atari often had to produce the licensed games themselves, with mixed results. This was because the original developer COULD NOT put the games on those systems themselves. This is not a problem that can be waived away.

 

Genesis sales were inconsistent after launch period until the pressure caused Nintendo to reverse course, and then Sega started selling better, especially after Sonic. Once the sales came and the policy was gone tons of developers who didn't want to touch the NES waiting on the sidelines for years jumped on the Genesis console.

 

The lockdown is also why NEC's early years had few good games in NA. In Japan most developers were random nobodies found in crack houses that could use a template to guarantee the games would "look" better than NES titles despite a large portion of them being shit in gameplay or functionality. This worked in Japan since they had more access to developers and the NES had been around for 4 years at that point so the better graphics created consumer interest, and brought NEC and Hudson time as more quality titles were released, but stuffing the channels wasn't going to work in NA. Where it ran into the consequences of the lockdown head first. This is why Namco games that were released earlier in the PC engines life where not published by Namco like in japan but instead published by NEC when the TG16 version was produced. NEC also couldn't publish every single game for every single company so you ended up with a limited library, poor sales, and retailers placing them on back shelves.

 

This leads into another problem the lockdown created that is almost never brought up, lack of publishers. Because several publishers were also developers this created a cycle, so with a high quantity of developers on NES lockdown contracts there's no one to help them publish their games, because anyone who could help was also likely locked to a contract so they couldn't publish anything either. There's nothing to downplay here, the developer lockdown had caused massive problems for Atari and Sega and things only started changing once it was removed. This isn't deniable. It also created animosity with some Japanese third parties toward Nintendo and the vast majority of western developers. 

 

13 hours ago, mr_me said:

Regarding being locked out of third party developers; third party developers and publishers go wherever is the install base.  A video game company creates that install base by creating their own first party library of relevant titles.  The NES launch library of 17 cartridges were all nintendo developed.  There were some nes cartridges in 1986 by other japanese developers and publishers and in 1987 we saw the first nes cartridges by western developers or publishers

 

This is a disingenuous argument. For one you're wrong third parties are vastly important to a console especially if they are exclusive. Also bringing up a test launch as some example of library isn't sensible.

 

Secondly, you do realize those contracts are two years minimum so games that were on the famciom would be locked for a NA release for two years (and sometimes the contract would be made twice) so Sega and Atari had zero access to potentially 100's of games in development for 3 years from the developers that would have to wait until 87-89 before the contracts would end, and what's the point of supporting Sega and Atari as far as 3 years later with low sales and poor software revenue?

 

Atari had to publish Xevious because on the Famciom it came out in 1985 so Namco couldn't publish games until 1987, and by that time the Famciom was dominant in Japan and the PC Engine was released with it's own success, and with an active arcade division and NES software sales bringing in dough, which is actually more important than console sales btw for developers like Namco because they want their games to make money, they decided to not release anything on the Sega Master or Atari machines, even in Japan. 

 

And that was one of the larger companies, smaller companies in comparison that don't have the cash support multiplatform releases (which were more expensive then) especially since they want as much money from their software as possible, aren't going to risk producing games on two consoles that had two or more years without support. The fact the SMS and 7800 sold over 1 million consoles in NA was a miracle in itself, and Sega had the additional baggage of doing poorly in Japan as well, further impacting their third party support.

 

 

 

[mr_me]

48 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Also i don't know where you are getting these reports, q4 October 1984 was all over the media that Colec sold 1.5 million consoles, if they sold two it was after they could not have sold 2 million coleco in quarter 1 1984 that's impossible.

Also with news of 5200 outselling CV, likely after CV had was ahead for a few months at launch, that makes these numbers even unbelievable. If Coleco sold 2 million they would have put that out why wait nearly a year till the last quarter to put out 1.5 million? Doesn't make sense. Unless it's international sales but if you have international sales reports than you should post them so we can have hint of full Coleco LTD.

But if it's not international, it's impossible.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/01/business/coleco-strong-in-marketing.html

Above is the August 1983 new york times article reporting 1.4M total colecovision sold.  It says about 900k of that was in 1983 compared to 800k for Atari.  It does not say if those 800k atari units are atari 5200 or atari 2600; probably both.  Atari and Coleco would be reporting worldwide sales.   When and where did the Atari 5200 outsell colecovision?

 

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

Warner and Mattel both survived the massive losses of their consumer electronics divisions because they were large enough to absorb them.  In both cases the losses were so big they chose to get out of the business altogether (Warner did continue with arcade video games).  Coleco, however, went bankrupt and folded.  Coleco started their spending and suffered the consequences a couple of years after Atari and Mattel.  Coleco always financed their ventures through the banks but in 1985/86, for various reasons, the banks were out.  Mattel Electronics had built a large video game development team with over one hundred programmers in three offices including France and Taiwan.  They started cutting staff in summer 1983 but their financial reports warned of trouble towards the end of 1982.

 

Demand for video games did not dry up; the unsustainable growth of 1981/82 leveled off.  Millions of commodore 64 systems were sold during the crash.  Those units and their video game software sales, not to mention those pirated, are not counted in video game accounting and analysis.

[ColecoKing]

zzip

It was also highly disappointing and may have gone a long way to kill the Pacman craze and consumer confidence. When the 5200 came out, it had a much better Pacman, but nobody seemed to care anymore. By then Donkey Kong was the hot thing, and everybody was talking about how great DK looked on CV.

Because the conventional explanations for the crash don't add up. If the cause is too many games for the 2600, why was the pain across the board? Why were arcades hurting, brand new systems like 5200/CV hurting when they didn't have a flood of games yet? Wikipedia says that sales of home video games fell from $3.2billion in 1982 to just $100 million in 1985. Slashing prices of games by 50% don't get you down to 100 million, slashing them by 90% don't even get you there. And in reality, when people encountered the bargain bins, they bought several games with the same money they would have bought a full price game with.



A drop that big shows that demand dried up. Everyone tries to explain the crash as a supply-side phenomenon. But the game market is always over-supplied. The real problem is demand disappeared. There weren't enough hot games in 83/84 to keep the early 80s video game craze going.

5200 pacman came out the same year.

Yes while wiki number is off slashing prices does drop things that low. If no one in the industry from hardware to software developers is making money than the only cash going into the industry is consumer spending and if consumer spending dropped from paying hundreds of dollars or more for hardware and $80 for software to less than $200 for hardware and $10 for software than that's not a lot of money coming in and almost all of it would be spend immediately!!!!

Demand never dried up! People buying more games at bargain bin prices if retailer still carried games. Console is the only one you could say that but not because they were tired of them but because you can get new TV compatible computer for same price or less and then still consoles were sold once those prices drop after crash finally hit.

$80 x 1 million is $80,000,000
$10 x 1 million is $10,000,000

What if company had small loss for their game and they had big budget to get ads in paper, TV commercials promoting and only made $10,000,000 because they had to cut the price to move stock to compete with a large pool of cheaper software? Where's the profit?

What about console?

$150 x 1 million is $150,000,000
$80 x 1 million is $80,000,000

That's a $70 million dollar loss and sometimes prices may be lower than that but just using this example that is $70 million dollars down the drain in profit and the console needs ads, needs tv commercial, needs to sell software.

Of course the prices hurt worth of the industry if it didn't where would the money come from? Only consumer spending was high but that didn't matter because of low prices this is why crash caused so many layoffs, firings, acquisitions, and bankruptcies, because when the wave hit it took the industries money and ran.