Why was 7800 discontinued

[John Stamos Mullet]

58 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

And it would have had the price tag to match.  I'ts whether they were so much better than comparable Intellvision and 2600 games to justify it that is the question.

 

 

Technically true, but Astrosmash and Frog Bog are not really what I meant.  Yes, I know about Utopia and B-17 Bomber and all that, but were these kinds of also-ran home computer style games ever going to be a real draw for the home consoles?  Maybe.  I doubt it.

 

 

This is another piece of received wisdom about gaming of that era that I just don't buy.  The biggest selling games for the NES were far and away Nintendo's own first-party games, and it ain't even close, not even when you account for some of them being sold as pack-in games later.  I don't care how many third party titles all the competing consoles could have come up with, they weren't going to have the SMBs, the Zeldas, Metroid, Punch-Out!!! and so on.  And so it is to this day when their third-party support is substantially weaker.  

 

The SMS had similar games, and none of them were as good.  Sorry, Sega partisans; we had an SMS with all the big games for it, too.  Alex Kidd was no SMB, Golvellius was no Zelda, Zillion was no Metroid.  Good games all, but there's a reason none of them were as memorable or well received that had nothing to do with Nintendo's agreements with third-party developers.  I'm not arguing that those policies weren't anti-competitive; they clearly were, but I don't think there's any basis for saying, but for these policies, they would not have been the runaway leader through the first half of the 90s.  Even in the absence of restrictive deals, third-parties have always gone where the money is, and Nintendo's marketing for the NES was great while Sega's for the SMS, at least in America, was pretty bad.  The early sales reflected that.

 

Re: the arcade ports.  That's true of the first two years of the NES (though they did also have two of the biggest games ever in those years with SMB and LoZ).  It's also true of the SMS, and both of them were head and shoulders above the competition from whatever the American console guys would have had at the time, at least in graphics and sound.  That ought to put to bed any notion that, well if only Atari'd gotten Donkey Kong in '83 or whatever, they might be okay.  NES was going to happen in 1985 regardless, and I've never seen anything that leads me to believe Atari, Coleco, Mattel, Bally, or whoever had anything in the pipeline that could have traded blows with it.  

 

 

 

 

Two things:

 

1. This is not in any way, shape, or form "received wisdom". It is lived experience. I'm older than you. I was in my late teens/early 20's when NES was in it's heyday. It was CLEARLY OBVIOUS to everyone over the age of 13 what was going on with NES getting all the big name licensees and Sega and Atari begging for table scraps. Your experience is not everyone else's experience.

 

2. Sega's same ports and conversions when comparing directly NES vs. SMS - Sega's versions blow them away, both graphically and gameplay-wise on nearly every single game. Shit, even the Atari 7800's version of Commando blows the NES version away. These are opinions, obviously. But I would think that anyone with functioning eyesight can see how much better SMS was graphically almost across the board. Their downfall was lack of access to premier titles and 3rd party devs.

 

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by John Stamos Mullet

[Allpaul]

1 hour ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

Your experience is not everyone else's experience.

Having read through this thread, I think this quote sums up the major disconnect  happening here. 

[zzip]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Technically true, but Astrosmash and Frog Bog are not really what I meant.  Yes, I know about Utopia and B-17 Bomber and all that, but were these kinds of also-ran home computer style games ever going to be a real draw for the home consoles?  Maybe.  I doubt it.

It was compelling stuff for 1981-1982 when Intellivision was making waves.   the VCS games of that era were weak by comparison.   But when Colecovision entered the picture, it became a war over graphics and the best arcade titles, and the INTV offerings started to pale by comparison.

 

[MrTrust]

4 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

1. This is not in any way, shape, or form "received wisdom". It is lived experience. I'm older than you. I was in my late teens/early 20's when NES was in it's heyday. It was CLEARLY OBVIOUS to everyone over the age of 13 what was going on with NES getting all the big name licensees and Sega and Atari begging for table scraps.

 

Like what?  Are you telling me that if Sega had only gotten Chubby Cherub and 1942 in '86, that would have made all the difference?  Please; the big license at the time was Super Mario Bros., and they got it because they made it.  They were 4 million deep on it within 2 years and off and running to 40 million.  Nothing else from those years even sniffs at those kinds of numbers.  Not Mega Man.  Not Castlevania.  Not Ghosts & Goblins.  Nothing. 

 

Sorry, but Teddy Boy and My Hero were not going to move a million SMS units in 1986.  You can argue that TransBot and The Ninja were worth getting over ExciteBike and SMB if you want.  That's your prerogative.  It's much more reasonable to argue that NES outsold the others like 10-1 early on because Nintendo brought the system sellers, first-party, year on year through the second half of the 80s, and the competition did not.

 

46 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

Your experience is not everyone else's experience. Please stop stating things as fact that are opinions, and stop speaking for everyone else as an authority on everything. It doesn't help your arguments. 

 

Did I say my experience was everyone else's experience?  If you can't distinguish when someone's stating an opinion or a fact without them qualifying it, then I respectfully suggest that's a "you" problem.  Or if you can tell, and it just bothers you when they don't for some reason, I don't know what to tell you.  Maybe you should just learn to be okay with people disagreeing with you about trivial things.  What I said was an opinion based on fact.  Do you dispute that Nintendo's own titles were the biggest-selling games on the NES?  Do you dispute that, whatever your personal feelings about them, the Nintendo games I listed were much more warmly received than the Sega ones?  If so, why?  What's your basis for saying that wasn't true?

 

51 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

2. Sega's same ports and conversions when comparing directly NES vs. SMS - Sega's versions blow them away, both graphically and gameplay-wise on nearly every single game.

 

You mean Double Dragon?  Shinobi?  After Burner?  But I thought only the NES got any big third-party games.  Generally, I would concede this point, but there aren't many examples where the games were released in close proximity time-wise, so it's not the fairest comparison to make.  A lot of the games they have in common hit the SMS much later.  But again, who cares if Bart vs. The Space Mutants had better graphics on the SMS?  Historically, people bought game consoles to play games on, not just oooh and aaahh over graphics.  If that weren't true, the 3D0 would have sold 8 million units in '93.  It didn't, though, because even after big price cuts on the machine, the fact remained that more people wanted to play Star Fox than they did Total Eclipse.

 

1 hour ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

Shit, even the Atari 7800's version of Commando blows the NES version away.

 

I don't know if I'd say it that emphatically, but to say it was better I don't think is controversial.  It was also 1989 and the game was pretty hopelessly dated by that point for a home console game.  Could the 7800 have handled, say, The Battle of Olympus from the same year easily enough for it to be worth the effort?  Let's even go nuts and give the 78 a POKEY and 5 million units sold, no exclusive deals with Nintendo.  Would it happen?  I suppose it could.  We're apparently supposed to assume that it would.  I don't know what anyone's basis for this assumption is, and nobody so far has been able to explain it.

 

1 hour ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

These are opinions, obviously. But I would think that anyone with functioning eyesight can see how much better SMS was graphically almost across the board. Their downfall was lack of access to premier titles and 3rd party devs.

Yeah, it was better graphically.  I don't think anyone argues this point.  So what?  Phantasy Star might blow Dragon Warrior out of the water, but JRPGs were not what moved consoles worldwide at the time.  Kenseiden may have 100 more colors on the screen at once and bigger sprites than Ninja Gaiden, but the former was a nice-looking-yet-mediocre game and the latter was a classic.  Access to premier titles?  Sega were not some bums off the street that just hopped onto a moving train; they were a well-established games company by that point.  They could have brought premier titles, on their own, without Capcom or Konami, and sold some consoles.  For the most part, they didn't.  If they had, maybe they could have courted more third parties to support them over Nintendo, but they blew it right out the gate with a relatively weak slate of launch titles and butt-ugly branding in the biggest market.  The thing didn't sell, and there was no good reason for third parties to support it even if Nintendo's shady practices weren't operative.

I admit to being puzzled as to how your being in your 20s in 1987 changes any of this.  Again, if you want to argue that Teddy Boy was a suitable competitor to SMB in 1986, then by all means.  That would be an interesting debate.  But if your original claim is true, then you have to explain how the third party games they had in those first few years, stuff like Ninja Kid and Tag Team Pro Wrestling were enough to tip the scales in Nintendo's favor such that they had a massive advantage in market share by '88, which is known to influence third party support whether there are exclusivity deals or not.   

[8th lutz]

17 hours ago, oracle_jedi said:

But how to create a higher-margin deluxe 7800 package?  Atari killed off the keyboard attachment and the XM expansion (or whatever it was going to be called) and had torched the relationship with GCC.  Nintendo had their light gun and a dance pad.  For the 7800 Atari had.... a sexy euro-style controller?

Atari did not kill of the XM expansion, but did kill off the keyboard attachment. Warner had plans of making the 7800 into a full blown computer by able to use the Atari 8 bit computer peripherals despite not able to use Atari 8 bit software. The expansion port was for something else. The XM was not in plans or anything under GCC or Atari. The only stuff that could have a connection with the XM and Atari was the high score cartridge, the pokey sound chip and the keyboard. The difference is Atari had the high score as cartridge and the XM was going to have the high scores as a built in feature. 

 

The expansion port for the original Atari 7800 model was rumored for a laser Disc add-on. I have a bad feeling that the Laser Disc add-on would have been a flap. I don't think a physical prototype of it exists for the 7800, but I would not be surprised if the laser Disc add-on was planned though because Atari was doing laser disc games in the arcade such as Firefox and Coleco had plans of a laser disc player for the Colecovision/Adam computer. If that Laser Disc add-on was actually  planned, Tramiel canceled it like did to some other 7800 stuff.

 

Tramiel was the person responsible for canceling the keyboard, canceling GCC's design of a new sound chip for putting in 7800 games, and canceling a duel joystick holder for games such as Robotron 2084. 

 

Curt Vendel first mentioned about the XM in 2009 on this forum. Curt had the keyboard stuff including software for the 7800 that was planned before Tramiel canceled it. Curt wanted that stuff to be available for 7800 owners. Curt also did look at sound chip and ram being a potential program for homebrew 7800 games in the future back in 2009. Homebrew programmers back in the 2009-2010 time frame gave import on what stuff stuff like sound chips and amount of ram. The XM also was supposed to be able to use keyboards and the Atari 8 bit computer peripherals. The xm had 128k ram, Pokey sound chip and YM2151 sound chip. The amount of ram, and the YM2151 sound was too expansive for being part of an add-on if happened in 1985 or 1986. The ram in the XM and the 2 sound chips were planned for homebrew programmers and keep the price down for Atari 7800 homebrew cartridges. There was no 7800basic in 2009, but there was a small amount of home programmers attempting or completing games for the 7800 at the time. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by 8th lutz

[Lynxpro]

Before we lock this discussion, let's recap many topics based upon what we know today concerning the complicated reasons why the 7800 didn't beat the NES and why Atari Corp ultimately died... including the problems Warner's management had caused which doomed not only Atari Inc but the successor Atari Corp too.

 

*Warner forced Atari Inc to discontinue the 5200 in favor of the GCC developed 7800 which was cheaper to produce and had the backwards compatibility with the 2600 that Atari Inc's own engineers wanted to provide to the 5200 in 1982 but Warner said "no" to them.

*Warner wouldn't even consider what Atari Inc's engineers offered to design in opposition to GCC according to Jerry Jessop.

*Warner never intended to release the Nintendo Famicom outside of Japan after Nintendo had approached them with their extremely arrogant demeanor and demands. Warner intended to lock up the non-Japanese worldwide exclusive rights to the Famicom, sit on them, and release the [superior] 7800 instead. The deal fell through when Atari Inc's CEO Ray Kassar's alleged insider trading was exposed and he was sidelined at Atari Inc.

*Warner required GCC to package the 7800 in a case design matching the dimensions of the Atari 2800/Sears Video Arcade II. GCC claimed they didn't have room on the motherboard for a POKEY sound chip which led them to adding sound lines in the cartridge slot and selling the idea to Warner to either include a POKEY or their own promised GUMBY sound chip in various cartridges depending upon the title Warner/Atari Inc desired advanced audio to be included in. 

*Warner hires James Morgan to turn Atari Inc around. He made a massive mistake in freeze everything in 1983 while most of the computer manufacturing was shifted to Taiwan in response to Commodore's price war and consequently, there wasn't enough stock on store shelves in time for Christmas 1983 so many families bought the Commodore 64 (C64) instead of the Atari 800XL [or the 600XL]. Then in early 1984, the 1400XL, the 1450XLD, the 1090 Expansion Module, and other hardware were delayed as Morgan made getting the 7800 done and released as Priority #1. Morgan's plans would've ultimately worked but that's a different story. And this massively damaged the potential installed user base for the XL series and put it at a permanent disadvantage to the C64.

*The 7800 was scheduled for release in Christmas 1984 but Warner sold Atari Inc's Consumer Division's assets to Jack Tramiel in July 1984 which started a payment dispute with GCC.

*Regardless of the dispute as to which party was to compensate GCC, Jack Tramiel wanted to release the 7800 for Christmas 1984 for $59.99 and GCC refused.

*Warner did not include Atari Coin/Games or AtariTel in their assets sale to Jack Tramiel's TTL/Atari Corp.

*The above fact led to Atari Corp not having exclusive rights - or any rights - to arcade games Atari Games developed in 1984 and thereafter which severely hurt the "Atari" brand in console gaming.

*Atari Games created the "Tengen" brand to market their arcade titles on the NES. The "Atari" consoles then didn't receive those titles until years later after Atari Corp and Atari Games patched things up at the insistence of Steve Ross at Time Warner which at that point owned Atari Games again and maintained a 25% stake in Atari Corp.

*Amiga Corp defrauded Atari Inc and Warner over the Amiga Lorraine chipset so Atari Inc/Corp didn't gain the Amiga which was scheduled to be released as the "Mickey" 16-bit Console for Christmas 1985 followed a year later by the computerized version which would've been called the "1800XL" had Atari Inc survived. Atari Games also lost access to the use of that chipset in arcade games.

*The above fact was the original agreement between Atari Inc and Amiga Corp. They defrauded Atari Inc because Atari Inc was going to take ownership of Amiga Corp which would've freed Atari Inc to immediately release a computer using the Amiga Lorraine chipset instead of waiting a full year after the release of the console version. To this day, various ex-Amiga employees have claimed to their fan base that it was mean ol' Atari and mean ol' Jack Tramiel that had tried to stomp out innocent Amiga and delivering their messianic product to appreciative computer enthusiasts.

*Prior to the Amiga Corp mess, Warner and Atari Inc allowed the staff at the Advanced Research Division who were developing the incredible OMNI chipset to leave the company and seek others to fund the continued development of that chipset. They failed to gain funding. What they were accomplishing didn't truly hit the market until years later with Sharp's X68000 computer and SNK's NeoGeo console and arcade chipset with their sprite capabilities and arguably the VGA standard concerning screen resolution and the number of onscreen colors.

*Also originating with Atari Inc's Advanced Research Division, all of the tech related to the Gaza and its SnowCap GUI layered atop BSD left the office during the Tramiel acquisition period. The powerful workstation-class Gaza computer was completed in 1983 but Warner prevented Atari Inc from releasing it and competing against Sun and HP in the [graphics] workstation market.

*Digital Research (DRI) apparently double-billed Atari Inc/Corp for the license to the GEM GUI and CP/M-68K/GEMDOS. DRI was a nuisance and it took ex-Atari Inc game programmers like Landon Dyer to clean up everything so the ST's version of GEM was a worthy GUI competitor to the Mac's GUI. DRI dragged their feet on completing GDOS so the ST didn't have "pretty" fonts to go along with that GUI. The lawsuit and settlement between Apple and DRI most likely kept GDOS from being directly included in the Atari ST's GEM/TOS operating system thereafter. 

*The dispute with GCC isn't resolved until August 1985 so the 7800 and its launch titles weren't nationally/internationally released until early 1986.

*By that time, all of GCC's video game development staff had left the company as GCC shifted to producing Apple Mac products and laser printers. Consequently, the GUMBY* sound chip isn't completed.

*Commodore immediately sues all of the ex-Commodore staff who left them for Tramiel's TTL/Atari Corp claiming they had absconded with their IP. When Leonard Tramiel discovers the Amiga Corp/Atari Inc contract at Atari HQ, Atari Corp requests Warner to pass them the rights so they could counter-sue Commodore and Warner agreed. The legal battles delayed the release of both the Atari ST and the Amiga 1000 and the dispute wasn't settled until late 1987. The settlement details are still secret to this day although apparently Commodore paid Atari Corp money. They should've agreed to combine both platforms into a single standard for a fighting chance against the WinTel avalanche and the Mac but alas, it was not meant to be. Atari Games never gains the rights to use the Amiga Lorraine chipset in their arcade games as originally intended.

*The revolutionary AMY sound chip Atari Inc's Advanced Research Division nearly completed wouldn't work in the Atari ST while it was still being developed. Cash-strapped Atari Corp decides to sell the AMY to Sight+Sound (S+S) to complete in exchange for the right to include the completed AMY in future Atari Corp computer systems [not just for the Atari ST but the Atari 65XEM] and consoles. The Tramiels had dealings with S+S back at Commodore when S+S developed a musical keyboard attachment for the C64. 

*Atari Corp approaches Yamaha about selling the YM2151 for use in the Atari ST. Yamaha refuses. Yamaha only offers to sell the inferior YM2149 [PSG] sound chip for inclusion in the Atari ST. Yamaha wants to include the YM2151 in their CX5M MSX-based 8-bit MIDI computer and they didn't want the ST to have parity with it in terms of its internal audio capabilities. Meanwhile, Yamaha sells the YM2151 to Atari Games for use in their arcade games. The ST ultimately crushes the CX5M outside of Japan amongst MIDI enthusiasts and professionals.

*S+S defrauds Atari Corp and won't share their completed AMY sound chips. The legal dispute went to the courts for several years and consequently, all alleged finished documentation and the first production run of all completed S+S AMY sound chips are destroyed in a suspicious warehouse fire. Allegedly, former S+S employees asserted to the late Curt Vendel that allegedly 3-letter intelligence agencies were involved in the suspicious fire.

*Since the Nintendo Famicom is a success in Japan, there were already a large number of titles readily available for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) but not for any potential competitors. Nintendo locks these titles up in exclusive 3rd Party Contracts even while the NES is still being test marketed in New York City (NYC) for Christmas 1985.

*Retailers had rebuffed Nintendo all throughout 1985 because they were uninterested in stocking any new console that wasn't automatically backwards-compatible with the 2600 because they still hoped to sell their 2600 cartridge inventories they were stuck with. For that reason, they had been extremely disappointed that the 7800 wasn't available for sale during Christmas 1984. It wasn't until the success of the NYC test market and the media making Super Mario Bros a cultural success that they agreed to readily stock the NES in 1986 and also because of the light gun and the R.O.B. gimmick. The media loved to peddle their story that the small kind-hearted Japanese company was devoted to saving the video game industry from itself and the Industry Crash "Atari" had caused.

*Atari Corp hires Michael Katz to run their console business. Katz had famously made the Colecovision a success for Coleco. He was responsible for their strategy of cherry-picking arcade titles Atari Inc had overlooked in licensing... or outbidding them on others. Katz names the division Atari Entertainment Electronics. Obviously, he couldn't name it Atari Games [something that decades later, AtGames couldn't grasp] and he also intended to release other cool electronic games and gadgets.

*Dan Kramer saves 2 of the 7800 Joystick Couplers from being trashed. King Trak-Ball finishes work on the SECAM versions of the 8-bit computers before leaving the new Atari Corp. Years later, 1 of the Couplers ends up in the National Video Game Museum and the other in my possession. A 3rd Coupler ends up in the possession of the late Curt Vendel. These are the only known joystick couplers produced by Atari Inc - or Corp - for the 7800. 

*Atari Corp releases the 7800 in early 1986. Thanks to Nintendo's monopolistic practices, Michael Katz at Atari Corp is forced to license computer titles for the 7800. Atari Corp and Atari Games become involved in a legal dispute over which company owned which assets of the former Atari Inc. This poisoned relations between the two companies even though Atari Games programmers like Ed Logg were also enthusiastic Atari ST owners [he brought Tetris to the attention of Atari Games' executives since he was a huge fan of Mirrorsoft's licensed release of Tetris for the Atari ST].

*The 7800 LaserDisc Player, the 7800 Keyboard, and the 7800 High Score Cartridge are not released with the 7800. Several titles like Elevator Action, Demolition Derby, and Track & Field go missing. 7800 BASIC, 7800 AtariWriter, and 7800 versions of the AtariLab educational cartridge modules are not released.

*Since the LaserDisc Player isn't released, Atari Corp. drops the 7800 Expansion Port from later revisions. They also add a timing circuit so that 2600 Dark Chambers plays on the 7800. It's possible Atari Corp feared a lawsuit over that discovered incompatibility since they had marketed the 7800 as being compatible with all 2600 games. The timing circuit nearly causes insanity for numerous 7800 enthusiasts trying to enhance the 7800 and/or produce solid state memory card cartridge adapters years later.

*American retailers tell Atari Corp they don't want to stock the 65XE computer [they were already selling the C64 to varying degrees of success] but that they'd carry a video game console that could also double as an affordable home computer. Meanwhile, software publishers wanted to make an example out of the Atari 8-bit computer line and drop support in retaliation for the platform's perceived software piracy issue. So the XE Game System is born. The system is also unencumbered from Nintendo's exclusive contracts since brave 3rd Party software publishers could claim the titles were being developed for the Atari 8-bit computer line and not a competing "console". Atari Corp repackages several disk-based titles for cartridges and also commissions several titles to be ported to the "XE Game System" which Atari 8-bit owners wouldn't have had available to them otherwise. This helped the 8-bit line out more than most like to give credit to Atari Corp for. But critics perceive the move as hurting the 7800's potential sales.

*Atari Corp experiences massive issues with contracted chipfabs such as GE over producing the BLiTTER chip for the Mega ST and subsequent ST computers. Atari Corp goes on a multi-year search to purchase a chipfab company hoping to replicate the success Commodore experienced with vertical integration following the acquisition of MOS Technologies - the creator of the 6502 CPU - in 1977.

*Atari Corp is having success with the ST line and the ST is outselling the Amiga 1000. However, the Reagan Administration finally retaliates against Japanese price fixing and "dumping" of DRAM which had already driven most of the domestic DRAM manufacturers out of business. They impose tariffs on Japanese DRAM as punishment. This hurts the ST line. Atari Corp shifts most of the exports from their Taiwanese manufacturing plant to Europe since the European Commission opted not to impose tariffs on Japanese DRAM imports into the European Community's Common Market at that time. On a side note, there is an FBI investigation of Atari Corp's foreign divisions remarking Japanese DRAM and apparently selling it to other parties such as Sun Microsystems.

*In an effort to capture every dime of profit off ST sales in the US, Atari Corp acquires The Federated Group chain of electronics stores to become Atari Corp's premiere retail partner. Apparently, Federated's execs allegedly defrauded Atari Corp out of millions with "creative accounting practices". Atari Corp ends the infamous "Fred Rated" character Shadoe Stevens portrayed for years that put Federated on the map in the first place. Federated struggles while Circuit City and The Good Guys! expands into its home turf. Atari Corp loses hundreds of millions of dollars on the endeavor.

*During its ownership of The Federated Group, Atari Corp plans to release Atari branded televisions and other electronics, plus an Atari branded credit card. Only the Atari calculators are released.

*Commodore begins turning around the Amiga with the release of the Amiga 500. They finally start outselling the Atari ST. Commodore chairman Irving Gould rewards the Commodore CEO's success by firing him.  

*In its quest to become a titan of computer and console gaming, Epyx over-extends itself in developing the Handy portable game system. They approach Nintendo over it and apparently made fools of themselves and Nintendo's execs reveal to them that they're uninterested and show them the Gameboy which was still in development. Epyx approaches Atari Corp to fund and release the Handy [Lynx]. Atari Corp screws Epyx over. It should be noted that the developers of the Handy had worked on the Amiga Lorraine chipset and Epyx's president was the former president of Amiga Corp which had defrauded Atari Inc - and thus in turn, Atari Corp - over the Amiga Lorraine chipset. Sorry not sorry.

*The 7800 outsells the Sega Master System (SMS) to become the distant #2 console behind the NES. Sega of Japan takes notice and is angered with the perceived failings of Tonka who had marketed the SMS in North America. They approach Atari Corp with the offer to market the upcoming Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in North America. Sega had previously purchased the holographic patents Atari Corp had inherited from Atari Inc.

*Since the loss of the Amiga Lorraine chipset, Atari Corp explored several times creating an "ST Game System" but one was never released to market.

*Michael Katz is interested in the Sega deal. Katz was responsible for the success Atari Corp had in the console biz and had set up internal software development outside of Chicago to mainly handle the Lynx. Atari Corp is having major success with the ST in Europe. Jack Tramiel wants Sega of Japan to also include Europe in the deal. However, Sega of Japan is happy with the performance of the SMS with their UK/European subsidiaries and refuse to include that market in the deal. Tramiel walks away from the deal. It is still argued amongst Segaphiles and Atarians whether an Atari Corp employee actually named the console the "Genesis".

*Combined with the disappointment over not concluding the Sega deal plus Tramiel refusing to release the Lazer Tag competitor Katz had purchased from Midway, Katz decides to retire from Atari Corp. and ends running Atari Entertainment Electronics. One month later, Sega of Japan hires Katz to run Sega of America and shortly thereafter releases the Sega Genesis. Katz coins the famous Genesis Does What Nintendont marketing slogan. The Genesis is a huge success.

*Atari Corp releases the Atari STe computers after several years of promising enhanced STs. At this point, it is unknown if there had been hopes to use Sega's talents to enhance the graphics and sound which might've been ruined with the end of the Genesis negotiations. The STe is improved but does not match the Amiga's graphics capabilities nor arguably its sound capabilities. Atari Corp returns to developing its own 16-bit/32-bit console with the British engineers who had previously developed the Konix MultiSystem. The console is known as the Panther. The STe does include the Enhanced Joystick Ports which the Panther most likely would've also used since the Jaguar ends up using them. Also, there have been reports of an Enhanced XE Game System that was planned for as well but it was never released.

*Atari Corp releases the Lynx. A few months later, at the behest of Time Warner CEO Steve Ross, Atari Corp and Atari Games settle their disputes and Atari Games licenses their library to Atari Corp first for the Lynx but later on some titles are developed for the 2600 and the 7800. A falling out happens a few years later over disputed royalty payments and consequently, the Atari Games library is not available to Atari Corp at the launch of the Atari Jaguar until another settlement is hammered again at the behest of Time Warner.

*Atari Corp apparently rebuffs an offer from Time Warner to acquire them and merge into Atari Games.

*Tetris is never released for the 7800 [not that there were any known plans]. Nintendo through BPS licenses the console rights to Tetris from ELORG. The rep for Mirrorsoft who supposedly licensed all video game rights to Tetris from ELORG - including the console and coin-op rights Atari Games/Tengen thought they owned - and the Soviet authorities seize the rep's passport and prevent him from leaving the Soviet Union and thus he's unable to appear in court for the Atari Games/Nintendo lawsuit. Nintendo wins. Atari Games is ordered to recall all copies of Tengen Tetris from the market and pay damages to Nintendo. Atari Games later develops KLAX as a response. International media mogul Robert Maxwell, the head of the Mirror Group/Mirrorsoft, and father of Ghislaine Maxwell, later falls to his death from his yacht. He had previously boasted he would defeat Nintendo since he had excellent personal relations with numerous members of the Soviet Union's leadership.

*Bob Brodie, an Atari computer enthusiast known throughout Atari computer users groups is hired to head users group relations at Atari Corp. He advocates for the Atari Chicago game developers and execs to license MIDI Maze so that it can be released for the Atari Lynx. MIDI Maze has become a huge hit amongst Atari ST owners since it popularizes what is years later known as deathmatching through networking 16 Atari STs together into a MIDI Maze Ring for competitions. The Atari Chicago staff are uninterested. BPS swoops in and licenses MIDI Maze and then releases their version as Faceball 2000 for almost every non-Atari console and handheld system currently on the market. Atari Corp later licenses MIDI Maze for the XE Game System and the 7800 but only the XE Game System's version is apparently developed but not officially released before the discontinuance of the console/platform.

*In 1992, Atari Corp discontinues the 2600, 7800, Atari 8-bit computers, and the XE Game System. Atari Corp focuses on getting the Atari Falcon030 released to shore up what's left of the ST platform's potential future and finishing up the Jaguar. The Panther's development was cancelled in 1991 based upon the unexpected development progress on the Jaguar. And the Lynx was kept going as well with the hope that the Jaguar's success would bump the success of the Lynx.

 

[Lynxpro]

2 hours ago, 8th lutz said:

Atari did not kill of the XM expansion, but did kill off the keyboard attachment. Warner had plans of making the 7800 into a full blown computer by able to use the Atari 8 bit computer peripherals despite not able to use Atari 8 bit software. The expansion port was for something else. The XM was not in plans or anything under GCC or Atari. The only stuff that could have a connection with the XM and Atari was the high score cartridge, the pokey sound chip and the keyboard. The difference is Atari had the high score as cartridge and the XM was going to have the high scores as a built in feature. 

 

The expansion port for the original Atari 7800 model was rumored for a laser Disc add-on. I have a bad feeling that the Laser Disc add-on would have been a flap. I don't think a physical prototype of it exists for the 7800, but I would not be surprised if the laser Disc add-on was planned though because Atari was doing laser disc games in the arcade such as Firefox and Coleco had plans of a laser disc player for the Colecovision/Adam computer. If that Laser Disc add-on was actually  planned, Tramiel canceled it like did to some other 7800 stuff.

 

Tramiel was the person responsible for canceling the keyboard, canceling GCC's design of a new sound chip for putting in 7800 games, and canceling a duel joystick holder for games such as Robotron 2084. 

 

Curt Vendel first mentioned about the XM in 2009 on this forum. Curt had the keyboard stuff including software for the 7800 that was planned before Tramiel canceled it. Curt wanted that stuff to be available for 7800 owners. Curt also did look at sound chip and ram being a potential program for homebrew 7800 games in the future back in 2009. Homebrew programmers back in the 2009-2010 time frame gave import on what stuff stuff like sound chips and amount of ram. The XM also was supposed to be able to use keyboards and the Atari 8 bit computer peripherals. The xm had 128k ram, Pokey sound chip and YM2151 sound chip. The amount of ram, and the YM2151 sound was too expansive for being part of an add-on if happened in 1985 or 1986. The ram in the XM and the 2 sound chips were planned for homebrew programmers and keep the price down for Atari 7800 homebrew cartridges. There was no 7800basic in 2009, but there was a small amount of home programmers attempting or completing games for the 7800 at the time. 

 

 

 

 

 

No.

 

GCC didn't finish the GUMBY and it wasn't directly because of Jack Tramiel. Jack Tramiel didn't cancel the 7800 Joystick Coupler either. Atari Inc only made 3 of them in a test production run and Dan Kramer saved 2 of them from accidentally getting trashed during the chaos that happened during the transition to Atari Corp. I have 1 of them in my possession and you could say I personally know the story behind that.

 

LaserDisc as a viable media platform for video games ended in circa 1985. The players were expensive and didn't really catch on for home movies outside of Japan which added another reason not to release a dedicated LaserDisc Player for the 7800 when it was finally released in 1986. Plus, Atari Corp didn't have the rights to the Atari Inc arcade game Firefox and Atari Games wasn't exactly open to licensing anything to them at that time. Atari Corp would've also had to have paid developers to create a cartridge that could handle I/O between the console and the LaserDisc Player and most likely for every single different LaserDisc title. Another developer did create such a scheme for use on the Atari ST but it required a $1,000+ LaserDisc Player with a built-in RS232 Port and that was in circa 1988. So again, it wasn't due to allegedly evil Jack Tramiel robbing you of your childhood.

 

By 1986, Atari Corp wasn't interested in releasing a keyboard for the 7800 since they were trying to shore up the Atari 8-bit computer line at the low end of the market. Parents were no longer demanding video game consoles be expandable to full-fledged computers at that point either. After all, Nintendo didn't end up releasing any keyboards for the NES despite having developed them for the Famicom in Japan and demoing them earlier in 1985 with a previous version of the NES shown to the reps of the electronics and toy chains, not to mention the press.

 

The reason why the late Curt Vendel championed the YM2151 in the XM is because it was used by Atari Games in their arcade games from 1984 onto nearly 1996. That and the fact that Atari Corp had tried to get Yamaha to sell them the YM2151 for inclusion in the Atari ST originally but Yamaha refused to do so. The 128K RAM was set in the XM because not only had it first been pioneered amongst 7800 homebrewers with the previous XBoard PCB but also because that was the set amount of RAM Atari Inc had planned to include in the Amiga Lorraine based 16-bit console code named "MICKEY" that Atari Inc would've released had it survived and Amiga Corp had not defrauded them. All of those were winks to what-could-have-been by Curt.

 

The ROMs for the unreleased 7800 BASIC are out there but would have to be rewritten to accommodate any other keyboard scheme since it was written to support GCC's proprietary bidirectional I/O chip that was used in the unreleased 7800 Keyboard that provided SIO Port support and also a pass-thru feature for a DB9 joystick port.

 

Seriously, it's 2021. Stop peddling the rumors we all thought were true and accurate back in 2010 on here...

Edited April 7, 2021 by Lynxpro
Yo Mama

[John Stamos Mullet]

5 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Did I say my experience was everyone else's experience?  If you can't distinguish when someone's stating an opinion or a fact without them qualifying it, then I respectfully suggest that's a "you" problem.  Or if you can tell, and it just bothers you when they don't for some reason, I don't know what to tell you.  Maybe you should just learn to be okay with people disagreeing with you about trivial things.  What I said was an opinion based on fact. 

It's not what you're saying. It's how you're saying it. The way you're carrying on is the kind of stuff that gets threads locked, users banned, and drives people away from forums in general. Flame wars can be funny if  they're allowed by the forum (they aren't here) and if the participants are genuinely funny (*ahem*).

 

I'm not a mod. I'm not going to run to the mods to complain. I'm just trying to tell you as a fellow poster on this board - this isn't how things go down in the 7800 forum. We're all pretty chill over here. This ain't the Jaguar forum. This ain't reddit. Just chill out a bit. Take it as friendly advice from someone who was on mod preview here for a long time, for being too pointed with my opinions.

Edited April 7, 2021 by John Stamos Mullet

[MrTrust]

47 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

It's not what you're saying. It's how you're saying it. The way you're carrying on is the kind of stuff that gets threads locked, users banned, and drives people away from forums in general. Flame wars can be funny if  they're allowed by the forum (they aren't here) and if the participants are genuinely funny (*ahem*).

 

Okay, man, then a simple goddamn personal message is all it takes.  I know I'm new here and don't know where the guardrails are.  You wanna' be there one to explain them?  Nobody else has taken the time to, but somehow I'm just supposed to know this shit.  Little help, dude.

[John Stamos Mullet]

12 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

 

Okay, man, then a simple goddamn personal message is all it takes.  I know I'm new here and don't know where the guardrails are.  You wanna' be there one to explain them?  Nobody else has taken the time to, but somehow I'm just supposed to know this shit.  Little help, dude.

I don't set the guardrails. 
 

all I'm saying is "read the room" before you come in guns blazing.

[+Mitch]

2 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

*Dan Kramer saves 2 of the 7800 Joystick Couplers from being trashed. King Trak-Ball finishes work on the SECAM versions of the 8-bit computers before leaving the new Atari Corp. Years later, 1 of the Couplers ends up in the National Video Game Museum and the other in my possession. A 3rd Coupler ends up in the possession of the late Curt Vendel. These are the only known joystick couplers produced by Atari Inc - or Corp - for the 7800. 

 

I bought one of the couplers from Dan. I wasn't aware that Curt or NVGM had one.

 

Mitch

[+x=usr(1536)]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Okay, man, then a simple goddamn personal message is all it takes.  I know I'm new here and don't know where the guardrails are.  You wanna' be there one to explain them?  Nobody else has taken the time to, but somehow I'm just supposed to know this shit.  Little help, dude.

This is a good example of how not to do things around here.  Since you've requested to have the lay of the land spelled out for you, here are some of the behaviours I've noticed you engaging in:

• Being completely inflexible in your opinions, which are the only right ones and all must agree with them or they're an idiot
• Being unable to face up to being corrected when wrong, which leads to:
• Being overly-defensive about positions that are blatantly wrong, and doubling down on the defensiveness if anyone attempts to explain where the flaw in your argument and/or opinion lies
• Being needlessly offensive when people are trying to help you fit in (see above quote of yours for an example)
• Not being seen making any sort of effort to figure out how to fit in on your own, instead preferring to keep on being irritating, obnoxious, condescending, and arrogant even after being called on it
• Expecting others to kowtow to your behaviour and superior attitude
• Willfully ignoring advice given to you on how to fit in

I could continue to add bullet points to that list, but others should also have the opportunity to state their positions on the subject since you did open the subject up to public commentary.

 

Incidentally, I notice that you make allusions to having a background in IT, or a part of tech pretty close to it.  After recently retiring from 29 years in IT with the last 15 or so of that being in a few different levels of management, I find your attitudes towards the users you've anecdotally referred to at times to be not dissimilar to those in certain employees I've had to fire for being incapable of interacting with people on anything approaching a normal basis.  You're basically painting a picture that fulfills the stereotype of the person who is good at troubleshooting and / or building things, but who cannot get along with others.  No-one wants to be around that person.

Edited April 7, 2021 by x=usr(1536)

[MrTrust]

1 hour ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

I don't set the guardrails. 
 

all I'm saying is "read the room" before you come in guns blazing.

 

Will do.  What I'm reading right now so far is "Don't disagree with me and my buddies here, and ESPECIALLY don't do it once we've pulled rank on you.". If thete's there a different message I'm really supposed to be getting let me have it.  Otherwise, I see how it is.

[MrTrust]

42 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

This is a good example of how not to do things around here.  Since you've requested to have the lay of the land spelled out for you, here are some of the behaviours I've noticed you engaging in:

 

Thanks.

 

42 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

• Being completely inflexible in your opinions, which are the only right ones and all must agree with them or they're an idiot
• Being unable to face up to being corrected when wrong, which leads to

 

I admit to being inflexible in my opinions because I think they're correct.  Otherwise they wouldn't be my opinions.  I'm fine with being corrected when I'm wrong so long as I'm being corrected when my wrongness is establishable.  If I have my facts wrong, or my opinion is based on an erroneous reading of the facts, then fine.  Show me where that's the case.  If you can do it without just screaming "you're doing it wrong" then I'm very inclined to listen.

 

Again, where the hell did I say or even suggest that my opinions are the only possibly correct ones and anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot?

42 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Being overly-defensive about positions that are blatantly wrong, and doubling down on the defensiveness if anyone attempts to explain where the flaw in your argument and/or opinion lies

 

Blatantly wrong according to whom?  We've talking about why a marginal piece of tech from nearly half a century ago failed.  Not exactly establishable to any degree of certainty, and many of the facts we might rely on are lost to us forever.  We're all speculating.  My own speculations are worth no more than yours, but that's not going to stop me from offering them to those who want to hear them.  You may not want to, but others do, and I post what I do for them and not you.

 

I'm more than happy to discuss the flaws in my reasoning if anyone actually wants to point those out and make the case for why I'm wrong.  No, I will not just accept l wrong on your say so or anyone else's here unless my participation in the forums is contingent on that. In which case, I'd like a list of whose opinions I'm not allowed to disagree with and and then I won't.

 

Is being overly defensive continuing the debate past the point where it's amusing for you and you've decided you want the last word? That's what it seems like to me.  Again, open to correction.

42 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Being needlessly offensive when people are trying to help you fit in (see above quote for an example)

 

Well, if that's what anyone's trying to do, I missed it.  I think anyone honestly trying to do that would make an effort to have a private word and explain what, specifically, was the "offensive" thing.  That is, unless disagreement is itself the offense. In which case, that's fine.  Just say that so I know.

 

You're not "helping people fit in" by lording a secret unwritten code over them that you won't explain except to say that they violated it.

42 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Expecting others to kowtow to your behaviour and superior attitude

 

Wow.  If that's what anyone thinks I expect, I'd certainly like to know what gave them that impression, other than the fact that i don't shut up once I was "informed" I was wondering on multiple occasions.  I don't think anything I've said here can be reasonably read that way unless you're trying to be uncharitable.

 

42 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

You're basically painting a picture that fulfills the stereotype of the person who is good at troubleshooting and / or building things, but who cannot get along with others.

 

Well this sentence is pretty accurate even if I don't think anything else in your assessment is.  Certainly I'm obligated to make more effort to get along better with others, but I don't think that absolves others of making any effort to treat me with basic respect.

 

If I can be counted on to be "good at" X things that require a decent amount of cognitive overhead, then I think I'm entitled to not simply accept I'm wrong simply because someone who was here first disagrees with me.  If I have it that upside-down, then a simple factual or logical refutation that stand up to counteraegument should not be that big a deal.

 

Or, if the rule is, in fact, we were here first, this is our playground, we have our ways and we don't want your kind aroibd here, then that's fine too.  Say that and I'll see myself out.   But "it's the way you say it" and "you're blatantly wrong and won't admit it" without any sort of specific explanation are not constructive, and I think everyone here saying those things knows that.

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by MrTrust

[+x=usr(1536)]

9 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

 

Thanks.

 

 

I admit to being inflexible in my opinions because I think they're correct.  Otherwise they wouldn't be my opinions.  I'm fine with being corrected when I'm wrong so long as I'm being corrected when my wrongness is establishable.  If I have my facts wrong, or my opinion is based on an erroneous reading of the facts, then fine.  Show me where that's the case.  If you can do it without just screaming "you're dating it wrong" then I'm very inclined to listen.

 

Blatantly wrong according to whom?  We've talking about why a marginal piece of tech from nearly half a century ago failed.  Not exactly establishable to any degree of certainty, and many of the facts we might rely on are lost to us forever.  We're all speculating.  My own speculations are worth no more than yours, but that's not going to stop me from offering them to those who want to hear them.

 

I'm more than happy to discuss the glass in my reasoning if anyone actually wants to point those out and make the case for why I'm wrong.  No, I will not just accept l wrong on your say so or anyone else's here unless my participation in the forums is contingent on that. In which case, I'd like a list of whose opinions I'm not allowed to disagree with and and then I won't.

 

Is being overly defensive continuing the debate past the point where it's amusing for you and you've decided you want there last word? That's what it seems like to me.  Again, open to correction.

 

Well, of that's what anyone's trying to do, I missed it.  I think anyone honestly trying to do that would make an effort to have a private word and explain what, specifically, was the "offensive" thing.  That is, unless disagreement is itself the offense. In which case, that's fine.  Just say that so I know.

 

You're not "helping people fit in" by lording a secret unwritten coffee over them that you won't explain except to say that they violated it.

 

Wow.  If that's what anyone thinks I expect, I'd certainly like to know what have them that impression.  I don't think anything I've said here can be reasonably read that way.

 

Well this sentence is pretty accurate even if I don't think anything else in your assessment is.  Certainly I'm obligated to make more effort to get along better with others, but I don't think that absolves others of making any effort to treat me with any kind of respect.

 

If I can be counted on to be "good at" X things that require a decent amount of cognitive overhead, then I think I'm entitled to not simply accept I'm wrong simply because someone who was here first disagrees with me.  If I have it that upside-down, then a simple refutation should not be that big a deal.

 

Or, if the rule is, in fact, we were here first, this is our playground, we have our ways and we don't want your kind and here, then that's fine too.  Say that and I'll see myself out.   But "it's the way you day it" and "you're blatantly wrong" without any sort of specific explanation are not constructive, and I think everyone here saying those things knows that.

 

Neither I nor anyone else is responsible for saving you from yourself.  Other new people manage to figure out how to fit in without pissing off the community; you should now have a reasonable set of examples to work from in order to figure that out.  I will, however, reiterate the following:

2 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

It's not what you're saying. It's how you're saying it. The way you're carrying on is the kind of stuff that gets threads locked, users banned, and drives people away from forums in general.

How you decide to proceed is up to you.

[MrTrust]

I think that speaks for itself and we all know how the Old Boys' Club works.  Cool.  I'm not going to shut up, and I will also not treat anybody disrespectfully, not will I initiate personal arguments, as I already was not doing, and we'll just see what happens, I guess.

 

In the meantime.  Feel free to ignore my posts and I will do the same in return.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

[John Stamos Mullet]

9 hours ago, MrTrust said:

I think that speaks for itself and we all know how the Old Boys' Club works.  Cool.  I'm not going to shut up, and I will also not treat anybody disrespectfully, not will I initiate personal arguments, as I already was not doing, and we'll just see what happens, I guess.

 

In the meantime.  Feel free to ignore my posts and I will do the same in return.

There is no old boys club. You registered your account 3 days before I did here. Most of the people here can't stand me, because of opinions I shared in the off topic sections of the board that rustled their jimmies. One of the mods follows my account because he's just itching to ban me.

 

learn from my experience - ease up. It's just atariage. It's not Twitter or Reddit or 4chan. 
 

[Keatah]

3 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

learn from my experience - ease up. It's just atariage. It's not Twitter or Reddit or 4chan.

Not even that. It's just post America Online. The time when they let everyone use the internet.

[Keatah]

In thinking about the 7800 I got wondering about Missile Command. And I couldn't find it anywhere! Has there been anything in the last two decades of sleuthing history that'd give us a reason why MC hasn't been ported to the 7800?

 

The old lady says it's just a case of port fatigue and wasn't necessary - since the 7800 plays VCS games anyway. How many versions are needed when you have the excellent VCS and 400/800 iterations? I tend to agree because I've not sought out anything beyond those and the actual arcade cab.

 

There's this thread, but it's 20 years out of date and stagnant.

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by Keatah
Fix punktshooayshun.

[Lynxpro]

19 hours ago, Mitch said:

I bought one of the couplers from Dan. I wasn't aware that Curt or NVGM had one.

 

Mitch

So that means there's 4 out there?

[Lynxpro]

38 minutes ago, Keatah said:

In thinking about the 7800 I got wondering about Missile Command. And I couldn't find it anywhere! Has there been anything in the last two decades of sleuthing history that'd give us a reason why MC hasn't been ported to the 7800?

 

The old lady says it's just a case of port fatigue and wasn't necessary - since the 7800 plays VCS games anyway. How many versions are needed when you have the excellent VCS and 400/800 iterations? I tend to agree because I've not sought out anything beyond those and the actual arcade cab.

 

There's this thread, but it's 20 years out of date and stagnant.

 

 

It's more like GCC only had a certain amount of time to get the launch titles ready for Christmas 1984 and Missile Command wasn't a high priority for that original launch window. If there truly was port fatigue involved, the successor Atari Corp wouldn't have commissioned a version for the Atari ST. Or for the Lynx. Or for the Jaguar.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Lynxpro
Onions make your feet stink, yo...

[+Mitch]

2 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

So that means there's 4 out there?

I was only aware of two. Where did you hear that Curt or NVGM had one?

 

Mitch

[RevEng]

On 4/6/2021 at 9:48 PM, Lynxpro said:

GCC didn't finish the GUMBY and it wasn't directly because of Jack Tramiel. [...]

According to Steve Golson, The mini-gumby design was complete, GCC had prototype chips manufactured, and they also had a "minnie rag" demo playing music. In my book that's finished.

 

Steve looked over that wiki entry, and while he had some suggestions for the technical sections, he had no objections for the assertion "the chip ultimately never made it to production, due to the Warner sale of Atari to Jack Tramiel, which marked an end to GCC's relationship with Atari."

[+x=usr(1536)]

15 hours ago, Keatah said:

In thinking about the 7800 I got wondering about Missile Command. And I couldn't find it anywhere! Has there been anything in the last two decades of sleuthing history that'd give us a reason why MC hasn't been ported to the 7800?

 

The old lady says it's just a case of port fatigue and wasn't necessary - since the 7800 plays VCS games anyway. How many versions are needed when you have the excellent VCS and 400/800 iterations? I tend to agree because I've not sought out anything beyond those and the actual arcade cab.

Which is a good point, but the corollary to that is that PAL 7800s were sold with Asteroids built-in and Asteroids had already made it to the 2600, 5200 (albeit unreleased), and A8.  Not sure what to think about that in relation to Missile Command, honestly.

14 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

It's more like GCC only had a certain amount of time to get the launch titles ready for Christmas 1984 and Missile Command wasn't a high priority for that original launch window.

Which makes sense, and is probably Occam's Razor in this case.

Quote

If there truly was port fatigue involved, the successor Atari Corp wouldn't have commissioned a version for the Atari ST. Or for the Lynx. Or for the Jaguar.

True, but Atari was also running low on ideas at that time, and none of the platforms mentioned above were ones on which that game was a massive seller.  There were a lot of retreaded first-party games from them and many made no sense in the market at that time.  The 1988 A8 version of Mario Bros., for example, was a game that by then people had moved on from, but they went ahead with it anyway.

Edited April 8, 2021 by x=usr(1536)