Why was 7800 discontinued

[Leeroy ST]

5 minutes ago, zzip said:

Japanese developers were not a significant force in the western home market prior to NES arriving.  

That has nothing to do with the fact Katz couldn't get japanese developers on board because he was locked out from getting them. He and others on his team.

 

5 minutes ago, zzip said:

Third parties will happily develop for anyone who pays the bills, technical limitations be damned, it's guaranteed income.   

 

Issue is this isn't how it happened, the smaller Amiga devs moved some stuff to console, outside that almost every third party stayed on computers because of flexibility and power,m remaining segregated with the gates opening with the PS1 and knocked over with the Xbox, which would be 15 years later from 1985.

 

Sure other third parties will put anything on anything for money, and lucky Atari got those, but there weren't very many. 

 

9 minutes ago, zzip said:

All this reeks of excuse-making by Katz.  

If it was just Katz yeah but this was basically verified by Atari itself outside of him and Sega ran into the same issues when they finally decided to try and get third parties on board after not wanting to in Japan. In 1985 Nintendo wasn't even in NYC when this happened so there wouldn't be much reason to wipe this off as excuse making. Nintendo wasn't even a factor in the US yet.

 

16 minutes ago, zzip said:

 

 

Sales in emerging markets were increasing,  not in North America where the crash happened primarily

In the US, 2-3 or so million consoles. You also had RDI launch a new console in, and game releases were picking up, not emerging markets. The crash ended in 1985 recovery was happening, it didn't stay flat the whole year. 

[+GoldenWheels]

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

You were supposed to play it on a table or some other flat surface.

 

 

I don't mean to butt into your convo but....are you saying this about the 7800 controllers? I feel like I must have lost a thread somewhere...

[Leeroy ST]

1 minute ago, GoldenWheels said:

I don't mean to but into your convo but....are you saying this about the 7800 controllers? I feel like I must have lost a thread somewhere...

Yes, why?

[zzip]

48 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

That has nothing to do with the fact Katz couldn't get japanese developers on board because he was locked out from getting them. He and others on his team.

He didn't need them, they were not a significant factor in the Western videogames market until Nintendo's success made them significant.   Remember Nintendo was so afraid to enter the western market because of Atari that they offered the NES to Atari.   That meant Atari had the power to keep Nintendo out of the market and everything that followed from it.   But after the 1984 sale, everything changed.   Katz is left to complain about Nintendo wielding a power Atari themselves used to hold just a few short years prior.   Of course he can't say the real reason without burning bridges, "My boss is too cheap to give me a competative budget, and half the industry despises him anyway and won't do business, so I have to half-ass everything and take whatever scraps I can get"

 

58 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Issue is this isn't how it happened, the smaller Amiga devs moved some stuff to console, outside that almost every third party stayed on computers because of flexibility and power,m remaining segregated with the gates opening with the PS1 and knocked over with the Xbox, which would be 15 years later from 1985.

No they stayed with computers because the conventional wisdom was that consoles were dead and computer gaming was the future.   Computer games weren't exactly bringing in huge profits either, so they would have happily worked on console projects if someone was paying them.   Money  overrides technical considerations.

 

[+GoldenWheels]

9 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Yes, why?

Are we talking about the STOCK US 7800 Pro line controllers? (not the EuroPad)

 

I am trying to picture how you would use it on a table and failing to come up with anything that seems like it would be the least comfortable, or, to be honest, even usable.

 

The bottom isn't flat so it seems like it would "rock" any time you hit the up direction, where the angle on the case changes.
It also doesn't have feet or any kind of rubberizing...so it would slide all over the place unless you hold it down.

And if the bottom is on a table...how do you get both fingers on both buttons simultaneously for two button games?

 

Is there an old marketing picture or quote from an Atari guy that supplies this idea? Ergonomics wise, it seems totally counter-intuitive to try a pro-line on a table.

[Leeroy ST]

5 minutes ago, zzip said:

He didn't need them, they were not a significant factor in the Western videogames market until Nintendo's success made them significant.   Remember Nintendo was so afraid to enter the western market because of Atari that they offered the NES to Atari. 

 

Nintendo wasn't afraid of anything, they didn't have the cash yet and they had partnered with Atari before. Also Katz did need them because it was all he would be able to get outside the small group of computer software manufacturers that were on board, so it was the only other place for him to get developers to try and close the gap. We aren't talking about 55 Japanese third parties maybe 5 max for the time period.

 

9 minutes ago, zzip said:

That meant Atari had the power to keep Nintendo out of the market and everything that followed from it.   But after the 1984 sale, everything changed.   Katz is left to complain about Nintendo wielding a power Atari themselves used to hold just a few short years prior.   Of course he can't say the real reason without burning bridges, "My boss is too cheap to give me a competative budget,

 

You're kind of mixing in your idealism with revisionism and making a very strange stew.

 

Atari never tried to block games off others systems, and Nintendo had those japanese devs on lock before it even came on shore so nothing you're saying makes much sense. They also had a competitive budget, it wouldn't seem low until Nintendo came which has more money than Atari Corp did so that's not surprising. The Jack things involving the 7800 is also overly played out was debunked on this same board numerous times years ago. But just specifically talking about the 7800 and Katz we are talking 1985 earlier in the year where there was no NES and the NES wouldn't even shock people with how many consoles and retailer deals they had until after 1986.

 

Also Atari had already started rebuilding retailer relations at the time, I'm not sure what bridges your talking about that were bruned. Computer devs quoted flexibility and power for not going on ANY of the three consoles, and Nintendo has the again, Japanese devs out of Ataris' hands before they came to shore, i don't think burning anything had anything to do with well, anything.

 

13 minutes ago, zzip said:

No they stayed with computers because the conventional wisdom was that consoles were dead and computer gaming was the future.   Computer games weren't exactly bringing in huge profits either, so they would have happily worked on console projects if someone was paying them.  

 

 

No it was due to power and flexibility, this wasn't even a new issue, it just got worse because consoles were stuck post-crash. NES wasn't a major jump from the CV and was more restrictive in the types of games it could run, Atari was more flexible but was still a cheap underpowered platform just like the NES, the SMS had the same problems as the NES but slightly better at similar types of games.

 

You also keep making authorities statements, no some developers on computers just didn't want to put thing on consoles at the time. Even independent early Amiga devs didn't, until the Genesis came out because it was stronger and it took less work to port. 

 

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

Every time we get a rehash of events, another 7800 dies. ?

[Leeroy ST]

26 minutes ago, GoldenWheels said:

Are we talking about the STOCK US 7800 Pro line controllers? (not the EuroPad)

 

I am trying to picture how you would use it on a table and failing to come up with anything that seems like it would be the least comfortable, or, to be honest, even usable.

 

The bottom isn't flat so it seems like it would "rock" any time you hit the up direction, where the angle on the case changes.
It also doesn't have feet or any kind of rubberizing...so it would slide all over the place unless you hold it down.

And if the bottom is on a table...how do you get both fingers on both buttons simultaneously for two button games?

 

Is there an old marketing picture or quote from an Atari guy that supplies this idea? Ergonomics wise, it seems totally counter-intuitive to try a pro-line on a table.

Every demonstration I've seen had some weird stand or table and the rep having his left or right hand on the bottom of the stick holding it down (or having the hand toward the front side near the buttons) with the other hand on the stick. If there wasn't either they would use their knee while sitting down and place the controller on that. I saw a couple ads that had that too.

 

All the holding it curled in your hand stuff was later after the early stuff and became dominant, but outside of some newspaper ads I didn't see that in the early days. I didn't see one demonstration guy do that either. 

 

A better description of what I usually saw is that one hand was on the stock and you had your hand sideways toward the front were the buttons are and you would move the stick with your right hand and fire with the left, but at an angle so the controller stays down on the table or stand. I do have a 7800 on the closet, maybe I should try and see which method is more comfortable playing games.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[zzip]

6 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Atari never tried to block games off others systems, and Nintendo had those japanese devs on lock before it even came on shore so nothing you're saying makes much sense

What do you think an exclusive is?  It's keeping a game off another system!  Atari had plenty of exclusives and the pre-crash marketing battles were over which system had the hottest exclusive arcade games.   Atari may not have ever abused exclusive access to the extent that Nintendo is accused of doing, but all I said is they had the power to do so at one time

 

10 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

hey also had a competitive budget, it wouldn't seem low until Nintendo came which has more money than Atari Corp did so that's not surprising

If it's low compared to Nintendo, then it isn't competitive!

 

23 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

The Jack things involving the 7800 is also overly played out was debunked on this same board numerous times years ago.

Here from the horses mouth is one of the GCC guys talking about the history of the 7800.  He said Jack came in, wanted to sell the 7800 for close-out prices in 84 and not pay GCC any royalties which lead to 'negotiations' for 2 years.  Jack-related stuff around the 57 minute mark:

 

26 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Also Atari had already started rebuilding retailer relations at the time, I'm not sure what bridges your talking about that were bruned. Computer devs quoted flexibility and power for not going on ANY of the three consoles, and Nintendo has the again, Japanese devs out of Ataris' hands before they came to shore, i don't think burning anything had anything to do with well, anything.

I'm talking about burned bridges with developers, but I think they probably burned some with retailers too. Before 1984, just about every retail that carried toys or videogames carried Atari.  After 84, there was only a handful of retailers that carried the full product line.   I had to mail order peripherals and games for my ST because no retailers locally would carry the stuff I was looking for.

 

It doesn't matter what developers preference is for development.  If a sales person strikes a deal to develop for something you didn't want to develop for, you do it anyway because that's what you are getting paid for.   I work in software development and see this all the time.   Money talks.

 

[+GoldenWheels]

51 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Every demonstration I've seen had some weird stand or table and the rep having his left or right hand on the bottom of the stick holding it down (or having the hand toward the front side near the buttons) with the other hand on the stick. If there wasn't either they would use their knee while sitting down and place the controller on that. I saw a couple ads that had that too.

 

All the holding it curled in your hand stuff was later after the early stuff and became dominant, but outside of some newspaper ads I didn't see that in the early days. I didn't see one demonstration guy do that either. 

 

A better description of what I usually saw is that one hand was on the stock and you had your hand sideways toward the front were the buttons are and you would move the stick with your right hand and fire with the left, but at an angle so the controller stays down on the table or stand. I do have a 7800 on the closet, maybe I should try and see which method is more comfortable playing games.

Huh. I have never, ever seen such a thing. But, that's why I asked.

 

You can give it a try but I think you will quickly discover why (I don't think) people ever used this method in actual practice (literally I have NEVER seen this method used anywhere in all my 7800 days). The Pro-Line is (IMO) not good even held with two hands, but on a table as you describe, I think it would be basically unplayable.

[Pete5125]

8 hours ago, GoldenWheels said:

Huh. I have never, ever seen such a thing. But, that's why I asked.

 

You can give it a try but I think you will quickly discover why (I don't think) people ever used this method in actual practice (literally I have NEVER seen this method used anywhere in all my 7800 days). The Pro-Line is (IMO) not good even held with two hands, but on a table as you describe, I think it would be basically unplayable.

No way to use both buttons on a table as the pro had 2 buttons left and right, for the few 7800 titles that used 2 buttons controller was designed to hold and button tap from the bottom with 1 hand then controll the joystick with the other, the problem isn't the button smashing so much as t h e weird knlb that hurts your hand with the joystick

 

[Leeroy ST]

On 6/15/2021 at 1:03 PM, zzip said:

What do you think an exclusive is?  It's keeping a game off another system! 

 

That's not what that was and you know it. 

 

On 6/15/2021 at 1:03 PM, zzip said:

Here from the horses mouth is one of the GCC guys talking about the history of the 7800.  He said Jack came in, wanted to sell the 7800 for close-out prices in 84 and not pay GCC any royalties which lead to 'negotiations' for 2 years.  Jack-related stuff around the 57 minute mark:

 

Debunked on this and many forums for years, are you still one of those people that believed Jack swept a console off his desk onto the floor and said "we are a computer company now!" and remember Warner owed GCC money not Atari Corp. You are spinning the context.

 

On 6/15/2021 at 10:24 PM, Pete5125 said:

No way to use both buttons on a table as the pro had 2 buttons left and right, for the few 7800 titles that used 2 buttons controller was designed to hold and button tap from the bottom with 1 hand then controll the joystick with the other, the problem isn't the button smashing so much as t h e weird knlb that hurts your hand with the joystick

 

You can have one hand toward the stock and still hold down the controller. You didn't need your hand at the bottom of the controller to hold it down. That way you can still reach the buttons.

 

On 6/15/2021 at 1:35 PM, GoldenWheels said:

Huh. I have never, ever seen such a thing. But, that's why I asked.

 

You can give it a try but I think you will quickly discover why (I don't think) people ever used this method in actual practice (literally I have NEVER seen this method used anywhere in all my 7800 days). The Pro-Line is (IMO) not good even held with two hands, but on a table as you describe, I think it would be basically unplayable.

I think for certain games the table set-up works a bit better if they focus more on movement and minimal or no attacking, but for more active games it does seem to get frustrating after a bit. But like I said that was what demonstrators did. 

[zzip]

36 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Debunked on this and many forums for years, are you still one of those people that believed Jack swept a console off his desk onto the floor and said "we are a computer company now!" and remember Warner owed GCC money not Atari Corp. You are spinning the context.

An anonymous internet poster posted something years ago that contradicts one of the GCC guys involved in the 7800 project?   Silly me, I guess I'll have to believe the anonymous forum poster then.  

[Pete5125]

19 hours ago, zzip said:

An anonymous internet poster posted something years ago that contradicts one of the GCC guys involved in the 7800 project?   Silly me, I guess I'll have to believe the anonymous forum poster then.  

He was a computer guy that bought the company for pennies durting an American resurgance of cheap Personal Computers, and a crash of Video Games, because to many systems were on the mkt. Including 2600/5200 ,both that were selling games at liquidation prices, plus he had a massive inventory of both.

 

Nothing in 84, would make you believe that adding a newer more expensive machine into a crowded mkt of similar machines that were being liquidated, would be a smart move, 2 years later the dust settled, somehow 2600 still showed life, video games were now a hit commodity the mkt had dropped from 10 different machines fighting for mkt share, to 2 machines 2600 and nes, he had a machine ready, that his lawyers had been working on deals in the background suddenly a machine that could complete with Nes and would sell backcatalog of old 2600 games was a more valuable commodity.

 

I very much believe he felt gaming was going into pc direction as it was, also while his team did work out ownership, he really didn't care if he owned the 7800 or not, it was easier, because it was available but a 2600jr relaunch and xegm would of probably landed atari in the same spot.

[zzip]

3 hours ago, Pete5125 said:

Nothing in 84, would make you believe that adding a newer more expensive machine into a crowded mkt of similar machines that were being liquidated, would be a smart move, 2 years later the dust settled, somehow 2600 still showed life, video games were now a hit commodity the mkt had dropped from 10 different machines fighting for mkt share, to 2 machines 2600 and nes, he had a machine ready, that his lawyers had been working on deals in the background suddenly a machine that could complete with Nes and would sell backcatalog of old 2600 games was a more valuable commodity.

This is why I believe the 7800 was a mistake from the start.   Atari should have put effort into addressing the shortcomings of the 5200 and improving its software library rather cancel it and replace it in less than 2 years, in such a bad market.

 

However, had the old Atari management released the 7800 in 84 as planned, with the planned marketing campaign,  I believe it would have stood a better chance, and possibly held off Nintendo's entrance in the NA market.  For all its faults, the Warner Atari was infinitely better at marketing video games than the Tramiel Atari was.  Jack literally believed that all you had to do was price it cheap and you would outsell the competition.   So launch a 1984 console with an already-dated 1984 games lineup in 1986?  No problem!    It's not hard to see why Nintendo had such an easy time winning the videogame market away from this guy.

 

3 hours ago, Pete5125 said:

I very much believe he felt gaming was going into pc direction as it was, also while his team did work out ownership, he really didn't care if he owned the 7800 or not, it was easier, because it was available but a 2600jr relaunch and xegm would of probably landed atari in the same spot.

He definitely believed that.  In fact he helped spread that idea.   His company told parents they should buy a Commodore 64 instead of a videogame console and many listened.  By the end of 83, most of the industry seemed to believe that.  When he bought Atari it was clear that his attitude was the ST was the future and got priority,  and while he was happy to sell the existing stock of games and game consoles to make a buck in the meantime, he put minimal investment into them.   Eventually videogame revenues were eclipsing computer revenue, but by then they were well behind the competition and trying to play catch up.

[Joey Kay]

On 6/15/2021 at 8:30 AM, Leeroy ST said:

At one point Atari had 20% of the market than 13%.

This is a tough one to measure. 

 

I'm too lazy to dig out the sources I've read from "back in the day," but this % was usually measured by dollars of sales, not product volume.  Because Atari was selling the cheapest games and consoles, they would have had a bigger share of the market by measure of unit sales. 

[Pete5125]

20 hours ago, Joey Kay said:

This is a tough one to measure. 

 

I'm too lazy to dig out the sources I've read from "back in the day," but this % was usually measured by dollars of sales, not product volume.  Because Atari was selling the cheapest games and consoles, they would have had a bigger share of the market by measure of unit sales. 

Yeah. I could see Atari with 20% of mkt, if we are saying 2600/7800, as Atari even being dead was in most stores thru about 89, it was Sega getting the Genesis released in 89, and the mkt shifting to Genesis/tg16/nes.

 

in my neighborhood I had 2600, so did at least 3 other people living near me, I know California Games, double dragon ghostbusters and Pete rose baseball were all bought by us, so that would of been 88, I had a Nes by late 88, my friend got a 7800, as it was backwards compatible with 2600, the other guy got master system, because it was cheaper nes games were cheaper and looked better than nes, by 1990 Sonic came in, we were teenagers with jobs, Mortal Kombat with blood had sold us on Genesis.

 

Amazing the time line when you were a kid NES, was around 10 yrs, but only hugely popular for 6 to 8, which is most of your elementary _high school years.

 

But I will say 2600/7800 was easier to find then lynx or jaguar, 2600/7800, was at hills, toys r us, Kay bee, Kmart and electronics stores, with large displays of games.

 

Jaguar and lynx were very hard to find only electronics stores, with small quantities.

[sn8k]

SEGA Genesis showed it was time to move on.

 

Case closed. It also didn't help that they held it back 2 or 3 years not knowing if they were gonna release the thing. 

 

But everyone was sick of the games. Bleeps, bloops and space were not cool anymore. 2600,5200,7800 was all the same shit. There was no progress.  Each time they got more power it was to give you the same games with marginally better graphics. There were few games that stepped out of the old format when they needed it the most.

 

That aint how you win wars. You need games. You need to constantly be pushing to change the medium. Nintendo and SEGA did just that. Then SONY. Nintendo had Miyamoto who changed the game. Then SEGA had Yu Suzuki and Yuji Naka to do it for them.

There was no one to propel the brand for Atari in a meanigful way. Why? Because your 64 bit "revolutionary" console is a suped  up SNES that plays shit games aswell as decent 3D renditions of.....Centipede? Missile Command? Defender? 

 

Was nothing learned?

 

Atari would never survive the kind of wars that followed it's final failure. They couldn't even manage the last one they participated in or the one before that. Their philosophy for gaming was officially outdated at this point. High scores became secondary, rich worlds built from the ground up that told a story was what the people wanted after Nintendo showed everyone how things could be. 

 

SEGA built on that while retaining the essence of arcade. That is why they were as a successful as they were even if only for a short time. SONY then goes in for the kill. The trend that games needed to be more hit when Nintendo changed the game.

 

Everyone has been building on what NES did ever since. Atari drove itself to irrelevance. Got cocky. Found itself not able to catch up when the heat came and still werent smart enough to copy what the clear winners were doing.....2600? Great. 2 consoles later you're still buying new hardware for yet another version of Donkey Kong, BurgerTime, Centipede, Millipede, Defender, Joust? And these are your main games? That is a tough sell when these games you have relied on for over a decade are now up against.....

 

Zelda, Super Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Versions of Back Elbow StreetFight.... I mean Double Dragon that weren't total shit, Contra, movie licenses locked to Nintendo and SEGA.....these games are already dated and now the final blow is people can now have pretty good home versions of Golden Axe, AfterBurner, and Super Hang On a year later. Who wants a 7800 when you see shit like that? Maybe as a secondary console to still be able to play the classics when you feel like it but you cannot compete with the same old shit and expect to go to war.

 

You cant keep selling Centipede and Asteroids over and over and over and over and over again and then wonder why you went bankrupt. 

 

AfterBurner2 was f@#$%ing dope come to think of it. Still is. Christmas 88 rolls around.....you'd be stupid to buy a 7800 as your only console with the options that were out or on the horizon. Thank god my older brother made the right choice.

 

SEGA rules.

 

After the Lynx, I thought Atari was on the right path. I was so wrong. But that's where they needed to keep pushing. Lynx was a legitimately good console with sick games.... there was just too much competition. A home console that continued what it was trying to do could have made things different. Batman on Lynx was dope. Jaguar needed that. It would have helped 7800 immensely aswell if it was able to acquire licenses the same way Nintendo and SEGA did.

Edited June 20, 2021 by sn8k

[sn8k]

The sickest game Atari had was Missing in Action.... never finished it and left it to die. Not saying that game would have turned everything around for the 7800, but it definitly would have helped if it got released. Ninja Golf is a fantastic game....but how do you choose that over Contra? Even though it is as awesome as it is. You need to think what the masses would choose......

 

9/10 times....they are going for Contra.

 

Nintendo brought life back into a dying format. Atari still couldn't get a clue.

[+MrZarniwoop]

1 hour ago, sn8k said:

Nintendo brought life back into a dying format. Atari still couldn't get a clue.

^

THIS

 

I think about this from time to time. It's partly why the "new VCS" from 2020 is uninteresting to me and not worth the asking price. The old Atari died around 1987 or so and didn't fully realize it until a few years later, although with a few very bright spots (Ninja Golf! The Lynx!) on the way to future irrelevancy.

[zzip]

16 hours ago, sn8k said:

That aint how you win wars. You need games. You need to constantly be pushing to change the medium. Nintendo and SEGA did just that. Then SONY. Nintendo had Miyamoto who changed the game. Then SEGA had Yu Suzuki and Yuji Naka to do it for them.

There was no one to propel the brand for Atari in a meanigful way. Why? Because your 64 bit "revolutionary" console is a suped  up SNES that plays shit games aswell as decent 3D renditions of.....Centipede? Missile Command? Defender? 

 

Was nothing learned?

exactly.   Problem was after 1984 Atari shifted from a game company that also sold computers to a computer company that also sold games.

 

Games stopped being the primary focus under new management,  but they still brought enough revenue each year that they did the minimum to service the market.   But at some point it became clear that the proprietary computers were a dead-end in a world where clones were taking over and the video game side became much more important to them.    But by that point they had already fallen so far behind, they didn't have the resources to catch up.

 

17 hours ago, sn8k said:

After the Lynx, I thought Atari was on the right path. I was so wrong. But that's where they needed to keep pushing. Lynx was a legitimately good console with sick games.... there was just too much competition

That's because Lynx was designed by Epyx, and Epyx also made some of the slickest games for it.    It fell into Atari's lap.   It had the best mobile tech at the time, but it would never be sufficiently marketed to compete.

[Leeroy ST]

On 6/17/2021 at 10:26 AM, zzip said:

An anonymous internet poster posted something years ago that contradicts one of the GCC guys involved in the 7800 project?   Silly me, I guess I'll have to believe the anonymous forum poster then.  

"anonymous poster", not Curt or Marty and people with documents and inside information. What's wrong with you?

 

On 6/18/2021 at 10:09 AM, zzip said:

However, had the old Atari management released the 7800 in 84 as planned, with the planned marketing campaign,  I believe it would have stood a better chance, and possibly held off Nintendo's entrance in the NA market. 

 

There's ignorance here, you have no idea why Nintendo won. Nintendo had game developers from Japan locked up BEFORE it was tested in NYC, most computer developers were not interested in developing downgraded games for computers so Atari was stuck with software, also before the NES hit NYC, Nintendo was already big in Japan, already had a big distribution network, and was able to produce more consoles.

 

In addition, Nintendo through their cash and middle-men distributors worlds of wonder (and later Mattel though limited in the US compared to Europe) made deals with retailers which gave them top shelf space and often made several retailers only carry there consoles and even threatened retailers.

 

How does Atari and Sega ship within expectations of industry insiders and professionals with ~100k shipped? Atari sold out all they could produce. But Nintendo in the same time frame ships over 1 million consoles with a large portion of that being most nationwide release in the fall? That's why Nintendo won, the 7800 was stronger than the NES, the SMS was also stronger than the NES, both these consoles were forces to work around retail monopoly of Nintendo i 1987 with Atari wasting money on the federrated deal (which they also hoped would helpw ith computer sales) and Sega with Tonka, which barely worked and by end 88 both quickly became unknown in the market with most buyers having no idea what those two machines were and if they heard of them, had no idea where to buy them.

 

I've seen you have this viewpoint before where you were made about the 7800 turning out as it was in retrospect but completely forgetting that the 7800 was competitive at the time it was out, I also remember you pushing the Jack didn't try narrative despite historical scans, press interviews at the time, and various other threads across the net, including here, involving several people, including curt. 

 

I feel most people who compare the NES and SMS forget that a lot of what the NES had when it was practically the only machine on the market wasn't around the first few years.

 

On 6/21/2021 at 12:02 PM, zzip said:

Games stopped being the primary focus under new management, 

Yet they were what was needed to help support the computer push.

 

On 6/21/2021 at 12:02 PM, zzip said:

That's because Lynx was designed by Epyx, and Epyx also made some of the slickest games for it.    It fell into Atari's lap.   It had the best mobile tech at the time, but it would never be sufficiently marketed to compete.

The Lynx was expensive to produce, they could barely drop the price, in fact at one point they raised the price. You're missing to much context and keep simplifying things down to "Atari didn't try" or "why weren't they more competitive I'm mad". 

 

On 6/20/2021 at 7:35 PM, sn8k said:

The sickest game Atari had was Missing in Action.... never finished it and left it to die. Not saying that game would have turned everything around for the 7800, but it definitly would have helped if it got released. Ninja Golf is a fantastic game....but how do you choose that over Contra? Even though it is as awesome as it is. You need to think what the masses would choose......

 

9/10 times....they are going for Contra.

 

Nintendo brought life back into a dying format. Atari still couldn't get a clue.

Nintendo didn't bring back any dying format, all 3 consoles were at 1985 and 1986 CES with the latter already having people see that video games were making a comeback, the market was already recovering, the only thing Nintendo did was overship the other two, lock them out of games and retailers, and get first place. Nothing was "dying" when you have price wars and games were 5 for $20 you aren't getting much value in the market.

 

The Atari 7800 could have sold 100k more than the NES by the start of 1987 and the NES still would have contributed more to the rise of the industries market revenue because the games and the hardware cost more. Some of you guys don't know how this worlds and go with the long debunked "rise from ashes" narrative, a myth that still continues to this day, despite the fact that the old "instantly sold everywhere since 1985" part of the myth has been dropped so why are we still pretending that the industry was still dead AFTER 1985? Even then it was already rising back up.

 

Half the games people bring up making out of context comparisons between the NES and 7800, and even the SMS and NES, were long after both these two consoles were irrelevant and had little access to consumers in NA.

 

On 6/20/2021 at 6:40 PM, sn8k said:

But everyone was sick of the games. Bleeps, bloops and space were not cool anymore.

Sick of the games so much that the 2600 sold millions after "the crash" and several computers were still playing those games along with the more sophisticated ones.

 

On 6/19/2021 at 6:53 PM, Joey Kay said:

This is a tough one to measure. 

 

I'm too lazy to dig out the sources I've read from "back in the day," but this % was usually measured by dollars of sales, not product volume.  Because Atari was selling the cheapest games and consoles, they would have had a bigger share of the market by measure of unit sales. 

 

No the articles were specifically about marketshare in units. Considering the sales of the 7800 and SMS during 87, most of Ataris' units would have had to be the 2600 which was dirt cheap with dirt cheap games, so you can't really have much of a market share in dollar sales when you aren't generating that many dollars, at one point Atari was close to 30% of the market so it literally has to be units because the majority of that was 2600. That wouldn't change until the XEGS at the end of 8. The LA times article also references units directly although they may not have been 100% accurate. In the US the 7800 dit not sell over 2 million, the SMS sold 1.5 million, we are looking at low sales.

 

 

 

 

[Joey Kay]

On 6/29/2021 at 8:49 AM, Leeroy ST said:

No the articles were specifically about marketshare in units.... at one point Atari was close to 30% of the market

Hmm... not so sure about those claims.

 

“For 1987, Nintendo of America had sales of $750 million out of a $1.1 billion market...  Competitors Atari Corp., with about 16 percent of the market, and Tonka Co.’s Sega, with about 10 percent” see  https://apnews.com/article/7caaeee0a2e3bb442cab12f441974a13

 

Meanwhile, for 1987 Atari themselves only claimed 20% of the market.  See https://www.nintendotimes.com/1988/06/02/nolan-bushnells-company-to-develop-games-for-atari-2600/ 

[sn8k]

On 6/29/2021 at 10:49 AM, Leeroy ST said:

Nintendo didn't bring back any dying format, all 3 consoles were at 1985 and 1986 CES with the latter already having people see that video games were making a comeback, the market was already recovering, the only thing Nintendo did was overship the other two, lock them out of games and retailers, and get first place. Nothing was "dying" when you have price wars and games were 5 for $20 you aren't getting much value in the market.

 

The Atari 7800 could have sold 100k more than the NES by the start of 1987 and the NES still would have contributed more to the rise of the industries market revenue because the games and the hardware cost more. Some of you guys don't know how this worlds and go with the long debunked "rise from ashes" narrative, a myth that still continues to this day, despite the fact that the old "instantly sold everywhere since 1985" part of the myth has been dropped so why are we still pretending that the industry was still dead AFTER 1985? Even then it was already rising back up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah that's why the Atari Switch is closing in on 100,000,000 units right?

 

Wait, that's Nintendo. Could have done this or could have done that is not the same as RESULTS.

 

NES made Atari irrelevant. Period.

 

And showing up to 86 CES means dick all. The result was the same regardless of the fact.

 

I showed up to Mcdonald's 2 days ago....I left with a BigMac combo....not my own successfull burger franchise that could compete.

Edited July 4, 2021 by sn8k

[CPUWIZ]

10 hours ago, sn8k said:

I showed up to Mcdonald's 2 days ago....I left with a BigMac combo....not my own successfull burger franchise that could compete.

 

Cool, where?