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

[Lord Mushroom]

1 minute ago, Leeroy ST said:

The 2600 likely would have sold more if it was in more stores.

Yes, if it was available in more stores, it could have sold more than the Channel F even if the Channel F sold the same or more in the stores where both were available.

[leech]

5 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Yes, if it was available in more stores, it could have sold more than the Channel F even if the Channel F sold the same or more in the stores where both were available.

On the flip side, almost everyone (of the right age) remembers the 2600.  I don't think I had ever even heard of the Channel F until recently.

[Lord Mushroom]

2 minutes ago, leech said:

On the flip side, almost everyone (of the right age) remembers the 2600.  I don't think I had ever even heard of the Channel F until recently.

I think there is some miscommunication going on. What I am saying is that I think the 2600 was available in more stores, and that it sold more than the Channel F in 1977, even though the Channel F did as well or better in the stores where both were available. 

[Leeroy ST]

8 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Yes, if it was available in more stores, it could have sold more than the Channel F even if the Channel F sold the same or more in the stores where both were available.

That's a rather odd conclusion. 

 

I think your putting to much face value in wikipedia.

 

Both were already known to have been more competitive in 77 and Fairchild had a year head start in mind share.

 

Sure it'll take some digging to find a more direct article, but I dont see it impossible Fairchild won in 77. Atari doesn't seem to pick up press sds until 78 from what I see as well. 

 

It may have just taken some time for Warner to use their money to make deals and get the marketing campaign in full gear. Which would explain why 78 has a lot more Atari marketing, and why it started outselling Fairchild by a good margin.

[Lord Mushroom]

5 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

That's a rather odd conclusion.

I think it makes perfect sense. According to Wikipedia, the 2600 outsold the Channel F in 1977. And according to your articles, they sold the same or the Channel F sold more in stores where both were available. If the 2600 was available in more stores, that would make both statements true.

 

9 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Sure it'll take some digging to find a more direct article, but I dont see it impossible Fairchild won in 77. 

I don´t think it is impossible either, just unlikely. It should also be mentioned that the 2600 was launched in September of 1977, while the Channel F´s 1977 sales stretch over the entire year. So comparing sales figures for the whole of 1977 would overestimate the Channel F´s competitiveness with the 2600. Sales are of course highest before Christmas, though.

[Leeroy ST]

1 minute ago, Lord Mushroom said:

 or the Channel F sold more in stores where both were available. .

None of the articles say this. That's why I said it seemed like an odd conclusion.

 

But like I said there's a missing piece that's needed to fully confirm, but things do hint Fairchild may have won, and both were selling comparatively according to retailers.

[pacman000]

5 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

It depends what you mean by "stayed involved". If it means he would have remained as CEO and had the same influence as before he was fired, I think it would have worked out very well. If it means he would have stayed on as a director (whatever that means), I think things would have gone better than it historically did, but how much better all depends on how much influence he would have had.

I was probably thinking of Bushnell as a creative director, or as the head of R&D, with someone else handling the business side of things.

[Lord Mushroom]

31 minutes ago, pacman000 said:

I was probably thinking of Bushnell as a creative director, or as the head of R&D, with someone else handling the business side of things.

I think Nolan would have been overruled a lot, so it wouldn´t have made much of a difference. But I think the small difference would have been positive.

[Lord Mushroom]

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

None of the articles say this. That's why I said it seemed like an odd conclusion.

One article says the Channel F sold more, but doesn´t say where (nationwide? regionally? in one store?). The other says they sold equally in most stores where both were sold.

[Leeroy ST]

Just now, Lord Mushroom said:

One article says the Channel F sold more, but doesn´t say where (nationwide? regionally? in one store?). The other says they sold equally in most stores where both were sold.

It was a general toy industry statement. The article is talking about hit popular toys look at the article again.

 

 

[Lord Mushroom]

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

It was a general toy industry statement.

It doesn´t say that. Some guy (we don´t know who) says Channel F outsold the 2600 in 1977 (we don´t know where). The only guy in the article we know who are was an assistant manager of a single toy store.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Lord Mushroom

[Matt_B]

3 hours ago, pacman000 said:

I was probably thinking of Bushnell as a creative director, or as the head of R&D, with someone else handling the business side of things.

Yeah, but can you see him staying on to work under Kassar after being ousted by him?

 

Besides, by that point he's got Chuck E Cheese to run. ?

[DavidD]

Dear everyone:

 

Please don't get this topic locked.  I still have to post my stunning analysis and comparison of the genre breakdown of the 2600/5200/Colecoversion/Intellivision vs. NES.

 

It would be quite annoying to finish that over the weekend and find it wasn't worth posting anymore.

 

Cough.

Edited September 10, 2021 by DavidD

[zzip]

14 hours ago, leech said:

On the flip side, almost everyone (of the right age) remembers the 2600.  I don't think I had ever even heard of the Channel F until recently.

yeah, the only reason I even knew about Channel F was my friend got one cheap at a yard sale (about 1981ish).  I had never seen ads for it, don't recall seeing it in stores.  The kids at school never talked about it at recess.   It just seemed like a really obscure system that we made fun of a lot.   Still we did have some fun playing it, even though the games & graphics were basic compared to even the 2600. 

[high voltage]

15 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

The 2600 likely would have sold more if it was in more stores.

 

Unless you meant Fairchild.

The 2600 was in all stores.

[leech]

13 minutes ago, high voltage said:

The 2600 was in all stores.

Yeah, and sold insane amounts.  Our 2600 was won in some contest from Godfather's pizza, and we played the hell out of it.  For the longest time I could not remember why we sold it and our games off, but something tells me it was my older brother had convinced my mom to buy an Atari 800xl and 1050 instead.  Probably the last really cool thing he did until he turned into a jerk.  Haha

[Leeroy ST]

3 hours ago, high voltage said:

The 2600 was in all stores.

Not in 1977.

[high voltage]

11 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Not in 1977.

In 1976 and 1978

[Lostdragon]

I honestly never knew the Fairchild Channel F was a thing until Retrogamer Magazine ran a feature on it. 

 

The Intellivision, not until i saw it on an old Telegsmes What Videogame System VHS tape and was later amazed to find it had a 16-bit CPU. 

 

The 2600 simply dominated that era of my childhood, everyone i knew as a kid had one, be it a woody or a Jr. 

 

I was in the first year of secondary school before i even knew of the Colecovision, friend of mine had one, let me borrow it for a weekend, blew me away, couldn't get my head around why it hadn't beaten the 2600...

[Leeroy ST]

6 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

I honestly never knew the Fairchild Channel F was a thing until Retrogamer Magazine ran a feature on it. 

 

The Intellivision, not until i saw it on an old Telegsmes What Videogame System VHS tape and was later amazed to find it had a 16-bit CPU. 

 

The 2600 simply dominated that era of my childhood, everyone i knew as a kid had one, be it a woody or a Jr. 

 

I was in the first year of secondary school before i even knew of the Colecovision, friend of mine had one, let me borrow it for a weekend, blew me away, couldn't get my head around why it hadn't beaten the 2600...

Well in the US it was beating it, but of course 2600 had a 7 year head start. 

 

Though it did beat the 5200 and all the other new gen systems.

 

Not sure how CV did in uk.

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

12 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

everyone i knew as a kid had one, be it a woody or a Jr.

[leech]

On 9/7/2021 at 11:12 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

CD-i suffered from having poor focus.  Nobody at Philips could decide if it was a gaming console, video player, educational tool, or the ever-nebulous multimedia wonder device that was so hot in the early '90s.  A family member worked on a couple of titles for it (scriptwriting and editing, mostly, not development as such), and we had one with the MPEG card on loan as a result; I remember it being the first system I was really excited to see and totally let down to experience.  When it left our care, its return to Eindhoven (or wherever in Holland that it went to) was not mourned.

 

Out of curiosity, if Nuon doesn't count as a system, then where does that leave MSX?

I always thought Nuon was intended as an uprade module for DVD players.  Hence why it wouldn't be considered a system.

On 9/7/2021 at 8:41 PM, Matt_B said:

It's only really software that makes consoles distinct from computers, so anyone who can make an OS for one can make a console. While the ability to make custom graphics hardware was essential to make competitive consoles until the mid 90s, that had already ceased to be the case by the end of the decade. Both the Dreamcast and Xbox were both basically designed out of off-the-shelf computer components with only a modest amount of customization, making the hardware side the comparatively easy bit.

I differentiate the difference between a console the same way I would RAM vs ROM.  A conputer is meant for both consumption and creation, which is why they get keyboards and disk drives to save new things to.  Consoles had cartridges for software (up until the optical drive era) and did not contain any data storage beyond save games until more recently where the lines started to blur between simple consumption of entertainment, and information.  Now a Console these days are very close to computers in possibilities, but not in function.  While you can certainly hook up keyboards and mice to the last few, you can't then open an IDE develop on it, or run a word processor.  At least not without some shenanigans.

[+x=usr(1536)]

14 minutes ago, leech said:

I always thought Nuon was intended as an uprade module for DVD players.  Hence why it wouldn't be considered a system.

You know, I'll happily admit that I've never really been 100% clear on this point: was Nuon a spec, a hardware configuration, or both?  This is where I see it as being similar to MSX in a lot of ways: any manufacturer could incorporate the Nuon technology in their player as long as it met the Nuon spec, much the same as any manufacturer could crank out MSX machines by name provided that they stuck to the MSX spec.

 

If @Yak is inclined to take a look at this and comment, it would be much appreciated.  If anyone around here would know, he's the most likely suspect

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, x=usr(1536) said:

You know, I'll happily admit that I've never really been 100% clear on this point: was Nuon a spec, a hardware configuration, or both?  This is where I see it as being similar to MSX in a lot of ways: any manufacturer could incorporate the Nuon technology in their player as long as it met the Nuon spec, much the same as any manufacturer could crank out MSX machines by name provided that they stuck to the MSX spec.

 

If @Yak is inclined to take a look at this and comment, it would be much appreciated.  If anyone around here would know, he's the most likely suspect

It was a custom developed architecture that excelled at MPEG decoding, but was a general purpose CPU.  While any DVD player technically could use their decoder, if a system was Nuon enabled, it had their hardware.  I consider it a full hardware environment.  For the systems that did get released, Toshiba or Samsung may have provided the physical DVD mechanism, but it was VM Labs who provided the PCB that made it a DVD player, since MPEG-2 decoding was required.  It would normally use a dedicated chip which could only decode - if it used the Nuon board to do so, it was also a fully programmable, general purpose system.

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 hours ago, Stephen said:

It was a custom developed architecture that excelled at MPEG decoding, but was a general purpose CPU.  While any DVD player technically could use their decoder, if a system was Nuon enabled, it had their hardware.  I consider it a full hardware environment.  For the systems that did get released, Toshiba or Samsung may have provided the physical DVD mechanism, but it was VM Labs who provided the PCB that made it a DVD player, since MPEG-2 decoding was required.  It would normally use a dedicated chip which could only decode - if it used the Nuon board to do so, it was also a fully programmable, general purpose system.

Thanks for that - it makes things a lot clearer for me.

 

Would it be fair to say that in a Nuon-capable DVD player, it was effectively a split-personality machine - Nuon using the DVD side for disc reads and A/V output, and the DVD side relying on Nuon for features beyond what DVD was capable of?