Would Atari had been better off if Bushnell hadn´t sold it?

[DavidD]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Yes but that was just a small piece of the 86 pie. Most of their produced units were when they strong armed the other retailers, or started to. After 86 they had 1 million sold and could expand to even more retailers making it hard for the competition to get shelf space despite them also selling out. This is where the japanese money and channel stuffing comes in as well as Sega going to Tonka, and partial reason for Atari buying federated in order for both to temporarily work around the blocked shelf space.

At the risk of being wrong, do we have any evidence of Nintendo / WoW threatening to withold shipments if "rival systems" were sold?

I know that something like that happened when Atari Games released Tengen games without a license -- either Nintendo or WoW (can't remember the year) did the threatening to withhold, which led to SOME sort of legal inquiry.  However, I've always had the impression that "Nintendo blocked Atari from selling systems" wasn't some shadowy cabal thing as much as most stores not wanting to carry Atari merchandise anymore, and dedicating most/all of their video game space to Nintendo.

 

Again, I could be wrong, but while I remember coming across lots of speculation, I don't remember ever seeing any evidence/proof/etc. of this point... sort of like the whole "if the Playstation sells for THAT low of a price, we (Atari) are going to sue them for DUMPING PRODUCT!".

[Leeroy ST]

5 minutes ago, DavidD said:

At the risk of being wrong, do we have any evidence of Nintendo / WoW threatening to withold shipments if "rival systems" were sold?

I know that something like that happened when Atari Games released Tengen games without a license -- either Nintendo or WoW (can't remember the year) did the threatening to withhold, which led to SOME sort of legal inquiry.  However, I've always had the impression that "Nintendo blocked Atari from selling systems" wasn't some shadowy cabal thing as much as most stores not wanting to carry Atari merchandise anymore, and dedicating most/all of their video game space to Nintendo.

 

Again, I could be wrong, but while I remember coming across lots of speculation, I don't remember ever seeing any evidence/proof/etc. of this point... sort of like the whole "if the Playstation sells for THAT low of a price, we (Atari) are going to sue them for DUMPING PRODUCT!".

It wasn't just threatening, they also just took shelf space, hence why Atari and Sega needed alternative ways in.

 

As for the threatening proof it was posted in an old thread here before. We'd have to do some digging. I think Wgung was in the thread so that may help using Google site search.

 

I plan to centralize all the historic discussion threads and article scans so everything is accessible quickly.

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[empsolo]

It was enough of a success that FAO Schwartz and Toys r US, two of the largest toy stores in the NYC region agreed to take on more NES stock after the 85 holiday. This is not up for debate. Alex from TCW also talked to retailers, specifically those who worked in the front office of FAO Schwartz and WoW and Toys r Us, and all agree that they were quite pleased with NES sales going into the New Year from 85 into 86. 

[empsolo]

1 hour ago, DavidD said:

At the risk of being wrong, do we have any evidence of Nintendo / WoW threatening to withold shipments if "rival systems" were sold?

I know that something like that happened when Atari Games released Tengen games without a license -- either Nintendo or WoW (can't remember the year) did the threatening to withhold, which led to SOME sort of legal inquiry.  However, I've always had the impression that "Nintendo blocked Atari from selling systems" wasn't some shadowy cabal thing as much as most stores not wanting to carry Atari merchandise anymore, and dedicating most/all of their video game space to Nintendo.

 

Again, I could be wrong, but while I remember coming across lots of speculation, I don't remember ever seeing any evidence/proof/etc. of this point... sort of like the whole "if the Playstation sells for THAT low of a price, we (Atari) are going to sue them for DUMPING PRODUCT!".

 

David Sheff claimed in Game Over that WoW coupled the NES to the Teddy Ruxbin dolls, telling retailers that in order to take one they had to take the other. Though in this case, it may have been the other way around. That in order to keep steady the flagging sales of Ruxbin dolls in 1986-87, WoW demanded retailers purchasing the NES must also take the Ruxbin dolls as well. In either case, Sheff cites no sources to back up his assertion.

 

Also strong arming was an accusation that Atari Corp made in its lawsuit against Nintendo. One of the fatal wounds to Atari's case was the fact that Jack Tremiel's lawyers could not find any retailers who could confirm if such an alleged practice existed.

Edited August 27, 2021 by empsolo

[Leeroy ST]

13 minutes ago, empsolo said:

It was enough of a success that FAO Schwartz and Toys r US, two of the largest toy stores in the NYC region agreed to take on more NES stock after the 85 holiday. 

That doesn't mean it's performance was a success it means those retailers saw potential. The "failure" quote was specifically about the amount of consoles Nintendo sold from what they shipped. Not whether toys r us would order more. this is where people mix things up. You're looking at the "failure" statement not from the retailers perspective but from Nintendo's perspective.

 

Yet you already mentioned before some retailers didn't know or understand Nintendo's strategy, so you shouldn't be mixing up the viewpoints. Here:

 

Quote

Then there is the issue that press that called it a failure most likely didn’t understand that the 100,000 units was an intentional limited run to try and gauge the markets response. 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[empsolo]

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

It wasn't just threatening, they also just took shelf space, hence why Atari and Sega needed alternative ways in.

 

As for the threatening proof it was posted in an old thread here before. We'd have to do some digging. I think Wgung was in the thread so that may help using Google site search.

 

I plan to centralize all the historic discussion threads and article scans so everything is accessible quickly.

 

 

 

The problem here is the Nintendo v Atari Corp lawsuit. Atari couldn't convince a jury to a preponderance of the evidence that Nintendo was violating antitrust laws. Especially after NoA's lawyers brutally cross examined Sam and Leonard Tremiel.

Edited August 27, 2021 by empsolo

[Leeroy ST]

1 minute ago, empsolo said:

The problem here is the Nintendo v Atari Corp lawsuit. Atari couldn't convince a jury to a preponderance of the evidence that Nintendo was violating antitrust laws. Especially after Noah's lawyers brutally cross examined Sam and Leonard Tremiel.

It wouldn't make sense for the retailers to tell Atari anything either way. And Nintendo had been caught doing so in other ways.  They had the tengen and price fix threat scandals too.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[empsolo]

4 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

That doesn't mean it's performance was a success it means those retailers saw potential. The "failure" quote was specifically about the amount of consoles Nintendo sold from what they shipped. Not whether toys r us would order more. this is where people mix things up. You're looking at the "failure" statement not from the retailers perspective but from Nintendo's perspective.

 

Yet you already mentioned before some retailers didn't know or understand Nintendo's strategy, so you shouldn't be mixing up the viewpoints.

 

Except as I pointed earlier, NoA didn't give a toss if any systems were sold. If half the inventory was sold through, then great. That is just cherry on the sundae. What they were more interested in is this: did retailers see promise in the system? Enough so that they would order more when the system went national? The answer was yes and gave Nintendo the shot in the arm for its 86 west coast test launch.

[empsolo]

3 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

It wouldn't make sense for the retailers to tell Atari anything either way. And Nintendo had been caught doing so in other ways.  They had the tengen and price fix threat scandals too.

It's kind of against the law to withhold evidence or to lie on the stand even in a civil case. Especially if Atari had gotten any whiff of any whistleblower existing in the wind.

[Leeroy ST]

3 minutes ago, empsolo said:

Except as I pointed earlier, NoA didn't give a toss if any systems were sold. If half the inventory was sold through, then great. That is just cherry on the sundae. What they were more interested in is this: did retailers see promise in the system? Enough so that they would order more when the system went national? The answer was yes and gave Nintendo the shot in the arm for its 86 west coast test launch.

Yes but that's not what the press/retailer perspective was. What Nintendo wanted doesn't change the coverage. 

 

If Atari inc was still in at that time the coverage would have been worse and magnified regardless of Nintendo's internal plans.

[Leeroy ST]

3 minutes ago, empsolo said:

It's kind of against the law to withhold evidence or to lie on the stand even in a civil case. Especially if Atari had gotten any whiff of any whistleblower existing in the wind.

Atari corp was In no position to pressure or convince any retailer who they had a hint of being threatened to admit it in court. In fact the reason the threat worked because they didn't want to lose the money generated from the product.

 

There were already shady things going on with Nintendo before, Atari Corp just wasn't competent enough to pull off getting the proof needed.

 

Remember despite Atari losing a separate case, others were able to pressure Nintendo to remove policies which benefitted the Genesis right when it was taking off. The failed suit for threatening was an Atari corp blunder like everything else. Not an indication of no actual proof.

[empsolo]

Just now, Leeroy ST said:

Yes but that's not what the press/retailer perspective was. What Nintendo wanted doesn't change the coverage. 

 

If Atari inc was still in at that time the coverage would have been worse and magnified regardless of Nintendo's internal plans.

I already gave you the retailer perspective from Alex's comments on interviews with former front office staff working at WoW, Toysrus, and FAO Schwartz. They were pleased well enough. The press on the other hand can be explained away simply stating they don't know what they are talking about. The negative press comments about NES sakes weren't about future promise but rather a comparison to the sales of yesteryear and the Halcyon days before the Crash. Because the NES didn't blow up immediately, therefore to the average beat writer working at the Boston Globe, therefore the NES failed. Which by the way didn't understand the nature of 85 test launch and failed to predict the blow up of the NES during the 86 west coast test and national launch.

[empsolo]

1 minute ago, Leeroy ST said:

Atari corp was In no position to pressure or convince any retailer who they had a hint of being threatened to admit it in court. In fact the reason the threat worked because they didn't want to lose the money generated from the product.

 

There were already shady things going on with Nintendo before, Atari Corp just wasn't competent enough to pull off getting the proof needed.

 

Remember despite Atari losing a separate case, others were able to pressure Nintendo to remove policies which benefitted the Genesis right when it was taking off. The failed suit for threatening was an Atari corp blunder like everything else. Not an indication of no actual proof.

Nice theory however not a shred of evidence exists other than hearsay and innuendo 36 years on. At some point we must apply Hitchens' razor and call it a day.

[Leeroy ST]

Just now, empsolo said:

I already gave you the retailer perspective from Alex's comments on interviews with former front office staff working at WoW, Toysrus, and FAO Schwartz. They were pleased well enough. The press on the other hand can be explained away simply stating they don't know what they are talking about. The negative press comments about NES sakes weren't about future promise but rather a comparison to the sales of yesteryear and the Halcyon days before the Crash. Because the NES didn't blow up immediately, therefore to the average beat writer working at the Boston Globe, therefore the NES failed. Which by the way didn't understand the nature of 85 test launch and failed to predict the blow up of the NES during the 86 west coast test and national launch.

That's not the retailer perspective, that's a select corporate perspective, the retailers going to the press about failing were not as impressed.

 

And you are admitting my point. The retailers who did so we're gauging interest on sold vs. shipped, and did not know of Nintendo intentions. So the coverage was mixed.

 

With a bigger spotlight on that coverage with Atari inc still in the game hypothetically, Toys r us may have hesitated or backed off.

 

Remember even in 86 some retailers still weren't very interested. 

[Leeroy ST]

4 minutes ago, empsolo said:

Nice theory however not a shred of evidence exists other than hearsay and innuendo 36 years on. At some point we must apply Hitchens' razor and call it a day.

Evidence was posted on this forum years ago but again the issue is digging through threads.

 

Which is why I said as we find these things we put them in a central place for easy access. So we have everything in one place.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[Lostdragon]

On 8/6/2021 at 8:41 PM, pacman000 said:

Voted no. Bushnell's a visionary, but he's not a good business man. Atari needed someone who was both, & I'm not sure they ever got it.

 

Jack Tramiel might've been close, but by the late 80's he seemed to be repeating what he did in the past. That's the opposite of visionary. And he had a tendency to burn bridges, which hurt him on the pure business end of things as well.

The Press have always liked to roll Nolan out for his predictions on how one of the big players is now destined to fail.. 

 

Nintendo were on the path to irrelevance according to Nolan in 2011,people had smart phones and tablets they weren't going to want dedicated hand held consoles anymore.. 

 

And look at the Switch now. 

 

Sony would struggle to sell a million Playstation 3 consoles.. they ended up with lifetime sales of over 87 million. 

 

The Press tended to forget Nolan himself backed an awful lot of wrong horses in his time, the Commodore CDTV, affordable home robotics (twice), affordable home V. R, the list goes on.

 

And now he's joined forces with Jane Whittaker and the hype machine is in full swing but they've still yet to announce an actual title for any platform i believe? 

 

Nolan is an important figurehead it seems, but no, not the legendary business man he's often made out to be. 

 

 

Seems he announces a new venture every 18 months or so at times. 

[Lostdragon]

On 8/10/2021 at 12:43 AM, davidcalgary29 said:

Fun fact that we like to forget: NO ONE ELSE wanted the Lynx. Can you believe that? Atari was the place where dreams went to die. They knew it, Atari knew it, and the consumers knew it too: it was the company that had extremely cool tech that was coveted by an audience of three people. 

Did Epyx approach anyone besides Sega and Nintendo, before going to Atari? 

 

 

Nintendo i believe already had the Game Boy well into development in their R+D labs, was it a similar situation with Sega and Project Mercury aka The Game Gear? 

 

Sega in effect not needing the Handy, as their plan was to in effect produce a portable version of the Master System hardware? 

[Lostdragon]

On 8/17/2021 at 6:58 AM, Matt_B said:

There were two kinds of cost-cutting in Sinclair computers. The obvious kind from the outside where you've got the cheap plastic cases, rubber or membrane keyboard and the minimal set of interfaces.

 

Then there's the rather more impressive kind you can only appreciate when you open one. They were able to integrate the functions of what would otherwise have been around a hundred discrete logic chips or, in more advanced computers a set of three or four custom chips, into a single ULA which could be mass produced at relatively low cost. This necessitated things like the one-size-fits-all graphics mode, single sound channel and the need for extra adapters on the bus even to add something as simple as a joystick or a printer, but they were never in danger of losing a price war.

 

Upon learning of how Sinclair were doing this, Jack Tramiel was undoubtedly influenced. He never took things to quite the same level, but you can find lots of instances of integrating the functions of multiple chips into one to save on costs throughout the XE and ST ranges, as well as Commodore's Plus/4 and C16.

Who can forget the Cambridge Calculator (1973) which refused to power down due to low quality components used.. 

We ZX81 owners having to Blu Tack the 16K Ram Pack in place to prevent the dreaded wobble crashing the machine.. a top heavy add on, just perched on an edge connector, with no support...

Launch QL machines were a disaster Some had half the ROM held on a dongle aka 'The Kludge' plugged into the back of the machine, there were firmware bugs in the built-in SuperBASIC language and  the  Microdrives, which were chosen as they were  lower cost than floppy disks but offered higher speeds than cassette tapes, were blighted by reliability issues. 

 

 

Pre-orders were being taken at a time when there were only 2 working prototypes and Sir Clive engaged in a brief, but bitter war of words with Jack Tramiel, with Sir Clive saying the ST was pure vapourware, Atari didn't have a machine in the form of the ST, which they could deliver. 

[Leeroy ST]

3 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

The Press have always liked to roll Nolan out for his predictions on how one of the big players is now destined to fail.. 

 

Nintendo were on the path to irrelevance according to Nolan in 2011,people had smart phones and tablets they weren't going to want dedicated hand held consoles anymore.. 

 

And look at the Switch now. 

 

Sony would struggle to sell a million Playstation 3 consoles.. they ended up with lifetime sales of over 87 million. 

 

The Press tended to forget Nolan himself backed an awful lot of wrong horses in his time, the Commodore CDTV, affordable home robotics (twice), affordable home V. R, the list goes on.

 

And now he's joined forces with Jane Whittaker and the hype machine is in full swing but they've still yet to announce an actual title for any platform i believe? 

 

Nolan is an important figurehead it seems, but no, not the legendary business man he's often made out to be. 

 

 

Seems he announces a new venture every 18 months or so at times. 

To be fair I dont see him predicting Nintendo would drop out the direct home market and consolidate their software around Switch.

 

But then again backing the $999, sometimes $1299 CDTV is really strange to be honest. Did he give a reason why he thought that would work?

Edited August 27, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[Downland1983]

9 hours ago, DavidD said:

At the risk of being wrong, do we have any evidence of Nintendo / WoW threatening to withold shipments if "rival systems" were sold?

I know that something like that happened when Atari Games released Tengen games without a license -- either Nintendo or WoW (can't remember the year) did the threatening to withhold, which led to SOME sort of legal inquiry.  However, I've always had the impression that "Nintendo blocked Atari from selling systems" wasn't some shadowy cabal thing as much as most stores not wanting to carry Atari merchandise anymore, and dedicating most/all of their video game space to Nintendo.

 

Again, I could be wrong, but while I remember coming across lots of speculation, I don't remember ever seeing any evidence/proof/etc. of this point... sort of like the whole "if the Playstation sells for THAT low of a price, we (Atari) are going to sue them for DUMPING PRODUCT!".

Worlds of Wonder was hugely successful with Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag at the time.  They were able to use that as leverage with retailers on Nintendo's behalf.  As WoW salesman Jim Whimms told it, if a retailer didn't want to place an order for the NES, they needn't bother placing an order for the currently hot toy items of Teddy Ruxpin or Laser Tag either.

 

To retailers who were bitterly adamant against hearing the words "video game", WoW salesman Jim Whims distinctly recalled delivering an ultimatum: "if you want to sell Teddy Ruxpin and you want to sell Lazer Tag, you're gonna sell Nintendo as well. And if you feel that strongly about it, then you ought to just resign the line now." Historian Steven Kent wrote, "Anyone who wanted to sell Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag, including Sears and Toys R Us, was going to hear about the Nintendo Entertainment System."

 

[Leeroy ST]

Is there a corroborating source for the Jim Whims ultimatum?

[Lord Mushroom]

13 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

This doesn't proof they were wrong, this is just a small sample independent controlled study. NES had mixed reviews by retailers. Not Nintendo, RETAILERS out their own mouths. To the press.

I presented the study to disprove an earlier claim that kids didn´t like the NES. Not as an attempt to disprove that retailers and/or the press thought it was a failure.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Lord Mushroom

[Downland1983]

On 8/23/2021 at 2:58 PM, zzip said:

It's not a binary that people either buy games or they don't.   Some people were still really into it as a hobby.  Some were still mildly interested,  but there were still a lot of people who lost interest in games when it stopped being the cool thing.   Computer sales were growing, but did not make up for the lost revenue of console sales.

 

I don't buy the media narriatives.  They don't add up.  To believe them,  ET destroyed it all.  What?  So people stopped buying Colecovision, Intellivision games and stopped going to arcades all because Atari released ET on the 2600.   That makes no sense whatsoever.  

 

But the arcades did start to die off, so did the Intellivision and Colecovision.  Popular videogames magazines were folding.   Something was affecting the entire games industry that couldn't be simply explained by ET or bargain bin carts.  Demand started to fade across the board.   Not completely, but enough that it turned big profits into big losses in a short space of time. 

Coleco Industries prided themselves on being able to follow trends, from electronics (Coleco Vision) to dolls (Cabbage Patch Kids).  But, they famously made a bad bet on the Adam when trying to follow the shift towards home computers which launched with faulty hardware.  They were never able to recover from the bad reputation and losses acquired by that misstep.  They never tried to make the next ColecoVision after failing to turn it into a computer since management wanted to get out of electronics completely at that point.  And so they focused on Cabbage Patch Kids, Sectaurs, Alf dolls, and later hoping the acquisition of Scrabble and Parcheesi would keep things going.

 

I don't buy the viewpoint that video games were cool in 1984, then uncool from 1985 through 1986, and suddenly cool again in 1987.  When a fad becomes unpopular to the point that it's taboo for the "cool kids" to be seen with, and the hangers on get ridiculed, it doesn't make a comeback in 3 years.   Cavaricci jeans didn't suddenly become ubiquitous in high schools 3 years after they went out of style.  Pogs returned to obscurity.  Disco stayed dead.  Etc.

 

Retailers got themselves burned in the early 80's by carrying a glut of bad third party games they couldn't sell at full price, because they didn't understand the market yet, and so they stopped carrying everything.  I personally remember trips with my father in the mid-80's to Toys R Us in the tri-state area of the US looking for "new" games for our ColecoVision and being disappointed that there weren't any anymore.  My older brother and I had to use our TRS-80 CoCo2 to get through those years until the NES arrived.  That's when gaming mags started circulating around the school buses and cafeterias again.  Not because it was a cool fad again, but because it was something that was available again.

[Lord Mushroom]

12 hours ago, empsolo said:

Except as I pointed earlier, NoA didn't give a toss if any systems were sold. If half the inventory was sold through, then great. That is just cherry on the sundae. What they were more interested in is this: did retailers see promise in the system? Enough so that they would order more when the system went national? The answer was yes and gave Nintendo the shot in the arm for its 86 west coast test launch.

Retailers order what the customers want, so I am sure Nintendo would prefer that it sold well amongst a few retailers who ordered it, over lots of retailers ordering it and it selling poorly.

[Lostdragon]

5 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

To be fair I dont see him predicting Nintendo would drop out the direct home market and consolidate their software around Switch.

 

But then again backing the $999, sometimes $1299 CDTV is really strange to be honest. Did he give a reason why he thought that would work?

He didn't predict they'd drop out, he challenged their marketing strategy.. 

 

 

Nolan stated  said that Nintendo is in a "very difficult situation" and could one day become irrelevant if it continues to target the younger demographic.

"When it comes to the console market, I think the market is truncating," he told BBC News. "Nintendo always had a soft spot for young people - they sort of did the 12-and-under pretty well, and the other guys did the 12-and-over.

"Now I think the other [consoles] are good enough on those things, and the rush to upgrade from the 12-and-under is not nearly as important."

 

 

 

Nolan went onto say that handheld gaming consoles "don't make sense anymore" since iOS and Android devices have become popular gaming platforms.

 

 

Nintendo proved him wrong, Sony Proved him wrong about struggling to sell more than a million Playstation 3 consoles. 

 

He's rolled out because he's an industry veteran, a regonized name, but nobody ever says to him, to be fair Nolan, you were way off the mark with many of your own projects  so you didn't have the midas touch yourself, not by a long shot. 

 

 

CDTV will truly change the way people learn and are entertained. It's the real new media of the nineties."
Nolan Bushnell, CDTV Project Manager

 

No it wasn't and at least others have been open enough to explain why it wasnt.. 

 

 

Kelly Sumner of Commodore UK, commented after the CDTV's failure;

"We got the basics wrong. Wrong price, wrong spec, no support. It came out with Workbench 1.3 when we were launching Workbench 2.0 [on the Amiga] so the operating system was out of date. It could have done with a bit more RAM and I think it should have come with a built-in 3.5" floppy disk drive."