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


Lord Mushroom

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  1. 1. Would Atari had been better off if Bushnell hadn´t sold it to Warner?

    • Probably yes
      50
    • Probably no
      38
    • I have no idea
      37

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1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

Again I didn't get your confusion it's clear how they did it I already explained that. They had cash from Japan, they had WoW. Some forms of ultimatum were posted by another user. They also just brought access to shelf space and also had the production to cover that space.

 

There's a reason why in part Atari brought federated, part of the reason was a work around  Sega partnered with Tonka for a similar reason, this was already an issue when all three consoles launched in 86. Nintendo had retailers blocked.

 

I'm sorry, but I'm not making the connection.  Could you possible repost/source the ultimatum that Nintendo/WoW gave that prevented stores from carrying competitors' products?  Tied to that, where is the evidence showing that Nintendo outright purchased shelf space in stores and thus prevented Atari from stocking products?

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, and I'm sure that quotes from Atari reps said all sorts of things during the 90s, but during all my reading of game industry history, I've never come across anything showing that "Nintendo forced retailers not to carry Atari products" -- and that seems to be what you're saying.

 

I could just be misinformed, of course.  However, I always had the impression that it was lack of interest on the part of retailers that was the problem, not a mafioso-type arrangement being done by Yamauchi.

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4 minutes ago, DavidD said:

I'm sorry, but I'm not making the connection.  Could you possible repost/source the ultimatum that Nintendo/WoW gave that prevented stores from carrying competitors' products?  Tied to that, where is the evidence showing that Nintendo outright purchased shelf space in stores and thus prevented Atari from stocking products?

 

That's the kicker. If any of this evidence existed, Atari Corp would have found it in the discovery phase of their lawsuit against Nintendo. Also some of this might be projection on Atari's part. We know from Pheonix: The rise and fall of video games that this type of behavior was something that Atari, Coleco, and Mattel electronics were alleged to have engaged in against each other between 1982 and 1984. Specifically, Pheoniix alleges that all three would approach department store upper management and allege that each other's units were defective in an effort to clear store shelves of their competitors. Tremiel may have assumed that  Nintendo's approach to the competition was in the same vein as Atari Inc's old gameplan.

Edited by empsolo
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Now in regards to the Nintendo v. Atari Corporation lawsuit, the jury was deadlocked on the question of wether Nintendo was under delivering units to retailers as according to They Create Worlds' history of the Nintendo lawsuits. Nintendo defended itself by saying that the under deliveries were mostly the result of CPU chip shortages that affected manufacturing of the NES worldwide in the late 80's. The ones that were intentionally under delivered were the result of retailers ordering more than could be realistically sold to consumers. Nintendo pointed out that this was a standard practice at Warner era Atari Inc to ship roughly half of the ordered units to try and prevent retailers from overheating the market and that because Tremiel's predecessors had been the first to engage in this practice, Nintendo of America felt justified. But because the jury found Nintendo of America not guilty of attempting to create an illegal monopoly, the second charge of shrifting retailers had to be dismissed because no monopoly means that even if there was shrifting, it was not a vehicle to harm competitors. The judge in the case basically said the delivery issue was a matter now the business between retailers and Nintendo and no longer Atari Corps business.

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1 minute ago, empsolo said:

Now in regards to the Nintendo v. Atari Corporation lawsuit, the jury was deadlocked on the question of wether Nintendo was under delivering units to retailers as according to They Create Worlds' history of the Nintendo lawsuits. Nintendo defended itself by saying that the under deliveries were mostly the result of CPU chip shortages that affected manufacturing of the NES worldwide in the late 80's. The ones that were intentionally under delivered were the result of retailers ordering more than could be realistically sold to consumers. Nintendo pointed out that this was a standard practice at Warner era Atari Inc to ship roughly half of the ordered units to try and prevent retailers from overheating the market

...not to mention that that particular issue would actually benefit Atari and other competitors (Nintendo undershipping systems/games).

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9 minutes ago, DavidD said:

...not to mention that that particular issue would actually benefit Atari and other competitors (Nintendo undershipping systems/games).

The only way it makes any sense is if you have an insanely popular product and then use the popularity of the product and withheld stock to strong arm retailers into clearing rivals from the shelf space. But this argument has two obvious problems.

 

1. According to Atari loyalists, the NES did not pick up steam until 1988.  Long after the 7800 and the Master System had been on store shelves. The question must be asked is Whence did this alleged strong arming practice begin?

 

2. If the ultimate motive of corporation is to make profit, why would you limit the number of retailers who can realistically sell your product? Why would you limit yourself to distribution and logistics choke points that prevent your ability to sell your product to any large population area and thus drive down consumer satisfaction?

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10 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

True, I was thinking the CDi>SNES CD>PlayStation lineage for CD interactivity I firgot about MSX.

 

I had heard the same rumors from computer store salesmen and repair shops back then. Also heard it was fairy tale from others, never confirmed nor denied.

 

What was funny to me, at least in US, I didn't see Stacy in any music or specialized audio electronic stores.

 

But I did see them in luggage shops and places where you could get office supplies like pens, folders, etc, along with computer shops.

 

 

Was there a prototype, documentation, or any developer mention of the CDST? Or was it just Sam hyping up vaporware that never existed? 

 

 

 

Prototypes and documentation are fields others like the late Curt Vendel and Atari Historian Scott Stilphen specialized in, so i am of no use there. 

 

My impression, given Sam released the CDST Press Statements at exactly the same time as CBM unveiled the CDTV, was that it was a typical Sam tactic.. 

 

We can offer consumers the same, but cheaper, Sam then waited to see how the CDTV fared, watched it bomb. 

 

 

You have to remember, CDTV itself was originally planned  to be a sub-£500 CD AMIGA Games Console, then  CBM decided it wanted to be a complete home entertainment system and pitched and priced it at the high end consumer market. 

 

When that backfired, they started cutting the price, knocking £100 off during a run up to Xmas marketing campaigns and justified the cut by saying the machine had now passed through the 'critical acceptance threshold', what a load of hot air, it wasn't selling. 

 

They also set up a CDTV consortium. In Japan as they saw Japan as a vital marketplace. 

 

Put some misc press up ABOUT CDST, Atari talking STacey and another Nolan CDTV quote. 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, empsolo said:

That's the kicker. If any of this evidence existed, Atari Corp would have found it in the discovery phase of their lawsuit against Nintendo. Also some of this might be projection on Atari's part. We know from Pheonix: The rise and fall of video games that this type of behavior was something that Atari, Coleco, and Mattel electronics were alleged to have engaged in against each other between 1982 and 1984. Specifically, Pheoniix alleges that all three would approach department store upper management and allege that each other's units were defective in an effort to clear store shelves of their competitors. Tremiel may have assumed that  Nintendo's approach to the competition was in the same vein as Atari Inc's old gameplan.

This lawsuit? 

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This seems to be Atari Games v. Nintendo, not the Atari Corp v. Nintendo lawsuit. You can tell because the main complaint is over the lockout mechanism on the NES and Nintendo's control over their own platform. This suit was dismissed because without comment because of Tengen's boneheaded decision to raid the patent office. 

 

Edit:Seriously, who thought that would be a good decision in any circumstance?

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8 hours ago, DavidD said:

I'm sorry, but I'm not making the connection.  Could you possible repost/source the ultimatum that Nintendo/WoW gave that prevented stores from carrying competitors' products?  

A user already gave you an example of one way through WoW. Did you forget?

 

8 hours ago, DavidD said:

Tied to that, where is the evidence showing that Nintendo outright purchased shelf space in stores and thus prevented Atari from stocking products?

The evidence is literally Atari and Sega trying to find work around in 1987 specifically because they couldn't get shelf space in 1986. The year all 3 consoles launched. Both companies weren't doing that because they imagined they couldn't get on shelves, they couldn't, and Nintendo threw a crap ton of stock around which is why they sold beyond what people expected by end of the year

 

Also keep in mind Atari sold all their produced stock too, which in normal circumstances would be seen as a positive at some retailers, and would also result in more orders. SHOULD have resulted I should say.

 

8 hours ago, empsolo said:

That's the kicker. If any of this evidence existed, Atari Corp would have found it in the discovery phase of their lawsuit against Nintendo. 

Why would a retailer who is scared of x company because they want their money, agree to jeopardize that money by appearing in court? Especially that late in?

 

This is also the same Atari that lost suits others won. Not exactly competent.

 

7 hours ago, empsolo said:

 

1. According to Atari loyalists, the NES did not pick up steam until 1988.  Long after the 7800 and the Master System had been on store shelves. The question must be asked is Whence did this alleged strong arming practice begin?

It's not a loyalist thing, you're imagining this.

 

NES didn't "take off" until late 87. The coverage shows this.

 

Sega and Atari had issues with shelf space in 86. 

 

So why would you be confused if Nintendo stuffed stock and and brought space? If they didn't then all 3 consoles should have had at least suitable availability in 1986. Except they didn't and Sega and Atari had to change tactics in 87.

 

Remember, Sega and Atari were preparing since 1985. Yet they had limited presence and had to double down on what they had.

 

So if Sega and Atari couldn't get retailer space that far ahead what's the alternate explanation? Magic?

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5 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Prototypes and documentation are fields others like the late Curt Vendel and Atari Historian Scott Stilphen specialized in, so i am of no use there. 

 

My impression, given Sam released the CDST Press Statements at exactly the same time as CBM unveiled the CDTV, was that it was a typical Sam tactic.. 

 

We can offer consumers the same, but cheaper, Sam then waited to see how the CDTV fared, watched it bomb. 

 

 

You have to remember, CDTV itself was originally planned  to be a sub-£500 CD AMIGA Games Console, then  CBM decided it wanted to be a complete home entertainment system and pitched and priced it at the high end consumer market. 

 

When that backfired, they started cutting the price, knocking £100 off during a run up to Xmas marketing campaigns and justified the cut by saying the machine had now passed through the 'critical acceptance threshold', what a load of hot air, it wasn't selling. 

 

They also set up a CDTV consortium. In Japan as they saw Japan as a vital marketplace. 

 

Put some misc press up ABOUT CDST, Atari talking STacey and another Nolan CDTV quote. 

Most CDTV info seems to be UK based, and posted here. No one on various forums seem to know or have seen a prototype.

 

It's likely as you say, Sam blowing air. Likely he was just trying to keep attention away from CDTV by making the press "anticipate" the cheaper multimedia machine Atari was supposedly working on. But didn't actually exist.

 

But strange, if they went the console route instead of the expensive multimedia setup, the CDTV may have had a chance. Instead they waited years later to do that with CD32. After they were already standing in the grave.

 

I feel like Atari, Sega, and Commodore got infected by the same virus. Lol

 

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1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

Most CDTV info seems to be UK based, and posted here. No one on various forums seem to know or have seen a prototype.

 

It's likely as you say, Sam blowing air. Likely he was just trying to keep attention away from CDTV by making the press "anticipate" the cheaper multimedia machine Atari was supposedly working on. But didn't actually exist.

 

But strange, if they went the console route instead of the expensive multimedia setup, the CDTV may have had a chance. Instead they waited years later to do that with CD32. After they were already standing in the grave.

 

I feel like Atari, Sega, and Commodore got infected by the same virus. Lol

 

 

Does make sense with the UK taking to the ST far better than the USA, Sam would focus leaks and press about ST Console, CDST, Panther etc over here.. 

 

 

Bit more press on the CDTV, Atari and CD, including a quote from the wonderful, but sadly no longer with us, Les Player and some reporting on Atari vs Nintendo. 

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2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

A user already gave you an example of one way through WoW. Did you forget?

 

The evidence is literally Atari and Sega trying to find work around in 1987 specifically because they couldn't get shelf space in 1986. The year all 3 consoles launched. Both companies weren't doing that because they imagined they couldn't get on shelves, they couldn't, and Nintendo threw a crap ton of stock around which is why they sold beyond what people expected by end of the year

 

Also keep in mind Atari sold all their produced stock too, which in normal circumstances would be seen as a positive at some retailers, and would also result in more orders. SHOULD have resulted I should say.

Why would a retailer who is scared of x company because they want their money, agree to jeopardize that money by appearing in court? Especially that late in?

 

This is also the same Atari that lost suits others won. Not exactly competent.

 

It's not a loyalist thing, you're imagining this.

 

NES didn't "take off" until late 87. The coverage shows this.

 

Sega and Atari had issues with shelf space in 86. 

 

So why would you be confused if Nintendo stuffed stock and and brought space? If they didn't then all 3 consoles should have had at least suitable availability in 1986. Except they didn't and Sega and Atari had to change tactics in 87.

 

Remember, Sega and Atari were preparing since 1985. Yet they had limited presence and had to double down on what they had.

 

So if Sega and Atari couldn't get retailer space that far ahead what's the alternate explanation? Magic?

1. I dont know from what planet you reside, but I am an American. I can only respond from my knowledge of American law. It is a crime to intentionally hide or destroy evidence of any activity that is pertinent to a criminal or civil case. Furthermore, in all criminal and civil trials there is a phase called Discovery. It is in this phase that both the prosecution/plaintiffs and the criminal and/or civil defense attorneys have the right to trawl through each others looking for evidence to bolster their cases and to prepare defenses. In the Atari Corp v. Nintendo lawsuit, Atari Corp literallly had the right to trawl through Nintendo's internal documents and memos. If anything had whiffed of even the hint of criminal collusion with retailers to hurt Nintendo's competitors, they would have found it during Discovery.  Retailers were also forced to take the stand and to testify under oath as to their business relationship. As part of discovery rules, retailers would have bee party to the same issue about preserving documents through Atari's subpoena requests.

 

2. If Nintendo did not initially have a hot product or had a product that was viewed as somewhat dubious due to lingering feeling from the crash, how could retailers be somehow coerced into by Nintendo into dumping their competitors product? Your argument is completely circular. NES did not become popular until Nintendo leveraged its popularity to coerce retailers but that coercion requires the NES to have been an earlier hot commodity a priori.

 

 

 

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On 8/27/2021 at 5:13 PM, DavidD said:

Yes, but that shows that WoW/Nintendo required bundling of their own products -- not that WoW/Nintendo threatened to withhold stock if the company sold a competitor's product.  The whole "Atari suffered because of Nintendo's unfair business practices" seems a bit weak if this is the only evidence.  It would also seem to imply that the retailers had a preexisting distrust of the Atari brand when it came to "video games," providing a fairly solid reason for the lack of ordering of such things in the future.

Ah, I missed your original question of being tied to whether or not the threat had anything to do with the retailer carrying competitors.  No, the threat itself was specifically WoW withholding Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag (the hot retail items at the time) from stores who weren't interested in placing orders for the NES.

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5 hours ago, empsolo said:

1. I dont know from what planet you reside, but I am an American. I can only respond from my knowledge of American law. It is a crime to intentionally hide or destroy evidence of any activity that is pertinent to a criminal or civil case.

 

And as an American you shouldn't be naive and think those who dont think they will get caught wouldn't do this very thing. Even these days 

 

5 hours ago, empsolo said:

Atari Corp literallly had the right to trawl through Nintendo's internal documents and memos. If anything had whiffed of even the hint of criminal collusion with retailers to hurt Nintendo's competitors, they would have found it during Discovery.  

No they wouldn't have. Why would Nintendo record their threats to retailers? Which also wouldn't impact WoW in either case, and even if it did, why would WoW record their threats either? 

 

It's been discussed about WoW threatening retailers or withholding, that was supposedly revealed years after the fact by someone who worked there. Technically that's grounds for digging, but are they going to do that decades later? No.

 

Discovery isn't going to find threats Nintendo (or wow) made to retailers unless they documented evidence they did so, and you'd have to be insane to believe they would do that. Just like it's insane to think retailers pressured because they want Nintendo or WoWs money would willingly testify potentially jeopardizing their money if there's low risk of being caught, which was common in the 80's not too.  There would be nothing to prove or even cause suspicion without their cooperation. Unless for the later someone within the company knew and spoke up, which is not likely something someone would do since it potentially jeopardizes their career. 

 

This isn't just something that has (or rather hadn't) happened in the video game industry either. Your putting in an awful lot of faith here on something with a poor historical track record of results.

 

And Ataris court/Lawyer incompetence shouldn't be left out either, since they have failed were others succeeded.

 

5 hours ago, empsolo said:

How could retailers be somehow coerced into by Nintendo into dumping their competitors product? 

 

 

There's is an illogical question.

 

First I never said dumping. I said they brought shelf space and stuffed it which they clearly did given (the large) shipments and availability.

 

Secondly, to your first line it's called cash. I have no idea why you would ask "how" when we are talking about businesses. They also had WoW for extra "motivation" some which has already been discussed earliar by another user, and of course as a proxy for Nintendo to increase retail footprint and stock, which also require money.

 

The dumping of competitors would apply later on when the sales and marketing gap widened of course, you would keep the mega popular product selling boat loads, but that has to start somewhere first before it gets to that point.

 

 

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I'll never believe that the "Tramiel Atari" wanted to do video games! Jack fought tooth & nail against Warner about who is going to pay for the 7800!  Also, he could easily put the 7800 on the shelves in the fall of 1984. They were all ready to go! All they had to do was put stickers over the Warner labels to Atari Corp! Like the one on my 7800 box! It also stickers over the text saying it it could become a home computer!

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And as an American you shouldn't be naive and think those who dont think they will get caught wouldn't do this very thing. Even these days 

This is an argument from silence. You can not assume your conclusion and use the lack of supporting evidence as evidence for your argument.

 

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No they wouldn't have. Why would Nintendo record their threats to retailers? Which also wouldn't impact WoW in either case, and even if it did, why would WoW record their threats either? 

You don't think in the depositions of retailers or of relevant NoA employees that somebody somewhere would have hinted at there exists or having existed smoking gun or some sort of corroborating evidence or testimony or somebody who could act as a whistleblower? Atari Corporation v. Nintendo of America, Inc. was one of the largest and most expensive video game related lawsuits in the history of the industry, dwarfing that of Universal Studios v. Nintendo of America, Inc in 1982-84. Millions of dollars and thousands of man hours were spent in depositions, interviews, document examinations, subpoena requests and legal fees between 1989 when Atari Corp filed the suit to it's judgment in 1993. And all Atari could show for it was evidence that Nintendo had under shipped some retailers some product during the 1988-1990 period. Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.

 

 

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It's been discussed about WoW threatening retailers or withholding, that was supposedly revealed years after the fact by someone who worked there. Technically that's grounds for digging, but are they going to do that decades later? No.

Except we know from as early as David Sheff's book in 1990 (and was quite public knowledge) that WoW had engaged in bundling of the NES to Ruxpin and Lazer Tag toys in order to force some retailers to take the the system. But here is the thing though, bundling is not not a crime. Leveraging your product in order to get retailers to take your other products is perfectly legal as long as done with the view of getting your product into the doors of retailers. Bundling is only illegal if and ONLY if it's done with the aim of forcing retailers to remove direct competitors. How retailers want to reorganize shelf space to make room for the bundled product is up to the retailer like any new product they take in. And besides we also know that WoW ended up in a messy divorce with Nintendo when Nintendo left the partnership in early 1987 after seeing public news reports that WoW had kind of over extended themselves with the whole Ruxpin fad instead of diversifying. Without the Nintendo partnership, WoW would soon fold thereafter and declare chapter 7 bankruptcy. (It also did not help that WoW execs had been accused of insider trading which may have contributed to the divorce). If there had any instance of illegal leveraging, you would think that disgruntled WoW employees would act as smoking guns in exchange for prosecutorial immunity, since the US government had been considering launching a criminal probe into Nintendo's rumored "practices." But this never happened either.

 

 

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Discovery isn't going to find threats Nintendo (or wow) made to retailers unless they documented evidence they did so, and you'd have to be insane to believe they would do that. Just like it's insane to think retailers pressured because they want Nintendo or WoWs money would willingly testify potentially jeopardizing their money if there's low risk of being caught, which was common in the 80's not too.  There would be nothing to prove or even cause suspicion without their cooperation. Unless for the later someone within the company knew and spoke up, which is not likely something someone would do since it potentially jeopardizes their career. 

Except, as pointed out, by the time of the Atari Corp v. Nintendo lawsuit, there had been books and news articles published on the relationship between Nintendo and Wow. Specifically interviews by journalists with WoW executives who talked about the early partnership between Nintendo and WoW and how the NES was promoted by WoW. They seemed to almost blame Nintendo for the company's demise as without the NES to keep themselves propped up, WoW went belly up as soon as retailers believed that the Ruxpin and Lazer Tag fads were over and there was nothing in the company catalog that could keep them afloat. Yet in these interviews and later deposition no information was proffered that even hinted that the Nintendo/WoW partnership was aimed at killing Atari and Sega in their cribs through retailer manipulation. Had there been a whiff, the government would have publicly offered former WoW execs immunity in exchange for testimony against Nintendo for something as serious as racketeering. Either WoW staff were really good at resisting temptation from the government or there was nothing there to begin with.

 

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This isn't just something that has (or rather hadn't) happened in the video game industry either. Your putting in an awful lot of faith here on something with a poor historical track record of results.

 

And Ataris court/Lawyer incompetence shouldn't be left out either, since they have failed were others succeeded.

Again, this is just an argument from silence.

Edited by empsolo
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1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

First I never said dumping. I said they brought shelf space and stuffed it which they clearly did given (the large) shipments and availability.

But this is simply not illegal in the United States. Product bundling is perfectly legal. What is illegal is the type of bundling that Microsoft was found guilty of (which by the way there were whistleblowers aplenty). What Microsoft did was grant licenses to PC manufacturers like Dell and Gateway to sell pre-built PC's with Windows 95 installed so long as they included a copy of Internet Explorer pre-installed free of charge to the explicit exclusion of competing browsers like Netscape Navigator and AOL.

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38 minutes ago, empsolo said:

You don't think in the depositions of retailers or of relevant NoA employees that somebody somewhere would have hinted at there exists or having existed smoking gun or some sort of corroborating evidence or testimony or somebody who could act as a whistleblower? 

Why do you think this is an extremely common thing especially in the time period?

 

No, and considering other things about Nintendo that came out later or got Nintendo to flip over policies, there's already precedent of employees or retailers saying nothing. So this wouldn't be a new thing in that sense.

 

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Except, as pointed out, by the time of the Atari Corp v. Nintendo lawsuit, there had been books and news articles published on the relationship between Nintendo and Wow.

 

The post you quoted in this response was about Nintendo, not WoW, they were only mentioned in passing, you basically skipped over Nintendo with this whole paragraph.

 

And you still haven't addressed the space buying and stuffing. Or Sega and Ataris attempt to circumvent the obstacles preventing them for expanding their foot print.

 

And this goes beyond the 7800 too, as in 87 XEGS entered selling out as well, and it was harder to spread that out then the 7800.

 

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44 minutes ago, SoundGammon said:

I'll never believe that the "Tramiel Atari" wanted to do video games! Jack fought tooth & nail against Warner about who is going to pay for the 7800!  Also, he could easily put the 7800 on the shelves in the fall of 1984. They were all ready to go! All they had to do was put stickers over the Warner labels to Atari Corp! Like the one on my 7800 box! It also stickers over the text saying it it could become a home computer!

Yeah, Tramel Technology had one product in the shape of the ST. They needed a company with the engineering, production and distribution capabilities to bring it to market. Atari had all that and could be acquired for next to nothing.

 

The rest of the company was dead wood to them though, and as refugees from Commodore they were also computer guys with no experience of consoles. It's only when they started to notice how well the existing inventory of consoles was shifting that they started to take an interest.

 

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7 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Why do you think this is an extremely common thing especially in the time period?

 

No, and considering other things about Nintendo that came out later or got Nintendo to flip over policies, there's already precedent of employees or retailers saying nothing. So this wouldn't be a new thing in that sense.

 

Yet Microsoft, a company already in the fortune 500 as a massive multinational conglomerate, was somehow raked over an open spit by the government for illegal bundling. 

Quote

 

The post you quoted in this response was about Nintendo, not WoW, they were only mentioned in passing, you basically skipped over Nintendo with this whole paragraph.

 

And you still haven't addressed the space buying and stuffing. Or Sega and Ataris attempt to circumvent the obstacles preventing them for expanding their foot print.

 

And this goes beyond the 7800 too, as in 87 XEGS entered selling out as well, and it was harder to spread that out then the 7800.

 

Again, there is no evidence of buying space. Inventory was sold bundled to retailers. It was up to retailers how they wanted to distribute new inventory to their stores. Like any new inventory some things have to be cut to make space. If anything, Atari and Sega should have sued the retailers for supposedly giving preferential treatment to Nintendo and not Nintendo for selling the product. But then retailers would have yanked Atari and Sega faster due to an ongoing legal dispute.

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6 minutes ago, empsolo said:

But this is simply not illegal in the United States. Product bundling is perfectly legal. 

I didn't say the part with channel stuffing and space buying was illegal (though some argue that), I was pointing out how it put the competition in a position so it was hard to compete, and also address the "demand" myth.

 

Now the threats and ultimatums are another story.

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3 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

I didn't say the part with channel stuffing and space buying was illegal (though some argue that), I was pointing out how it put the competition in a position so it was hard to compete, and also address the "demand" myth.

 

Now the threats and ultimatums are another story.

By this logic Atari's partnership with Sears was anticompetitive because Sears guaranteed massive shelf space to Atari to the exclusion of other platform holders. But even the Sears partnership was not illegal either despite the natural monopoly Atari had the time.

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Just now, empsolo said:

Yet Microsoft, a company already in the fortune 500 as a massive multinational conglomerate, was somehow raked over an open spit by the government for illegal bundling. 

 

Why are you pretending one company is an indicator that this was common when it wasn't? You'd have to be blind not too pick up what MS was doing. Especially in the 80's. Your using a large obvious target.

 

2 minutes ago, empsolo said:

Again, there is no evidence of buying space. Inventory was sold bundled to retailers. 

 

No Nintendo clearly brought space for the NES at retailers and stuffed stock in that space. Yes there's plenty of evidence. Your not separating WoW from Nintendo and are mixing them together.

 

WoW didn't produced hundreds of thousands of NES to bring into retailers, including ones that had nothing to do with the test runs. Nobody saw those large shipments coming. 

 

There was no way for Sega or Atari to expand their stock availability without the work arounds after 86, which is why they used work around, which only brought some time in the end with temporary results.

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, empsolo said:

By this logic Atari's partnership with Sears was anticompetitive because Sears guaranteed massive shelf space to Atari to the exclusion of other platform holders. But even the Sears partnership was not illegal either despite the natural monopoly Atari had the time.

You literally just quoted me saying I never said buying space and stuffing channels was illegal.

 

Also Sears is one retailer, Atari didn't stuff channels across multiple retailerS and make it impossible for Mattel and Coleco to get space to sell stock. In fact Coleco was gobbling up share, and so did Mattel earlier.

 

They didn't need an out of the box solution outside traditional norms to circumvent the issue. Unlike Atari and Sega. That was the only time in US gaming history that happened. It is a big part of why the NES was as big as it was and why many barely knew of the competition.

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