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

[Leeroy ST]

4 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

CDTV was to be seen as the first affordable multimedia platform. 

 

 

Things didn't go well, Hutchinson's Encyclopedia and Lemmings not ready for launch

 

Commodore were busy telling people Kodak's new Photo CD system worked on the CDTV, Kodak said the standard was yet to be finalized and CBM had made the announcement in a knee jerk reaction to news Phillips had signed Mario to the CD-i. 

CDTV was $300-500 more costly than the RadioShack/Tandy VIS depending on bundle. Commodore must have had a terrible market research team.

 

Not naming it Amiga CDTV also seemed really strange to me considering Amiga name recognition.

 

Speaking of strange, I dont recall if it was Nolan who made the statement, I recall it was an ex Atari guy who was quoted, it may have been Nolan or someone else, but the quote was that Nintendo signing over Mario and Zelda to Philips was a sign of transition, and that Nintendo saw their fad wouldn't last and were "surrendering" to Philips so they could participate in the "modern age" lol.

 

Of course Nolan or whoever said that ate a lot of crow with such a bold belief. 

 

I will give Philips one thing, they may have had the most successful multimedia product family with CD-i players in the 90s. Assuming they weren't telling tales about their one million units sold.

 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[+davidcalgary29]

2 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Hmm? There was still a decent marketing campaign and game releases till entering 95 for Lynx.

 

Yeah, about that...

 

Atari released seven games for the Lynx in 1993, none in 1994, and two in 1995. Sure, Telegames added a few more titles to the mix during that time, but let's be honest: they were Telegames games and had just about zero market impact.

 

While it's certain that Atari had limited marketing campaigns in limited markets until 1995, the last widespread advertising I saw was the Batman Returns tie-in and subsequent pricing reduction to $99 in 1991. I'm sure that Atari could have doubled the sales of the Lynx in the end if they gave it any attention whatsoever, but that means it still would have sold less than the Game Gear.

 

And I'm not sure that Atari completely killed off its old lines on January 1, 1992. That batch of internal memos on the "Super XEGS" that Curt released a few years ago shows that the company was still getting income from the sale of the XEGS into July of 1992. But maybe that income was from liquidation sales.

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, davidcalgary29 said:

And I'm not sure that Atari completely killed off its old lines on January 1, 1992. That batch of internal memos on the "Super XEGS" that Curt released a few years ago shows that the company was still getting income from the sale of the XEGS into July of 1992. But maybe that income was from liquidation sales.

 

Either way 1992 seems to be the last year any product line outside Lynx and Jag were around, which means zero safety net with them gradually tuning out the Lynx while going all in on the money losing Jag.

 

You'd think in 1995 after things were clearly not working out, they would have thought to create 2-3 other products to make additional money someway, but instead they just continued throwing money down a hole for nearly another year. Then poof, dead.

 

The exact opposite problem of Sega. Who had too many products that took too much spending and provided little to no profit.

 

(Also, too bad none of those memos told us how much the XEGS had sold. Seeing how it did compared to 7800 would be interesting.)

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[empsolo]

Killing the ST line was a smart idea. It was barely an also ran in the North  American market, struggling with the Amiga for that remaining 1-3% that weren't PC or Apple consumers.

[Leeroy ST]

2 hours ago, empsolo said:

Killing the ST line was a smart idea. It was barely an also ran in the North  American market, struggling with the Amiga for that remaining 1-3% that weren't PC or Apple consumers.

The ST could have still made money as a cheap productivity or music computer. It only seems sane to kill it when looking at it "competing" but it still had the potential to make money by itself. Same with Falcon, it could have been a niche for many types of people, and a gaming machine for enthusiasts.

 

And considering where Apple ended up nearly going, slow and steady may eventually have been proven beneficial.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[empsolo]

4 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

The ST could have still made money as a cheap productivity or music computer. It only seems sane to kill it when looking at it "competing" but it still had the potential to make money by itself. Same with Falcon, it could have been a niche for many types of people, and a gaming machine for enthusiasts.

 

And considering where Apple ended up nearly going, slow and steady may eventually have been proven beneficial.

Here’s the thing though. By 1993, no major retailers were carrying the ST or Amiga. Even computer specialty shops had long made the switch to either Apple or the vast PC clone army. One of the reasons Tremiel bought Federated was because of the inability for Atari to get into retail spaces and computer shelves.

[DavidD]

One thing has been buzzing in my mind... if Bushnell had either kept the company OR kept control of it (after the Warner purchase), isn't it likely that Atari would have stayed focused on arcade and home games, and never entered the computer market?

 

It seems to me that if they had done that, AND Bushnell had kept his designers happy, Atari might well be around today.  I mean, the parts of Atari that were the games division are still around -- ex-designers founded Activision (still thriving) and Warner kept the arcade division, which still produces games.

 

 

17 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Literally monopolising the shelves so the competition had no space to put their stock?

Er...  how did Nintendo do that?  Do you mean "sold well enough that retailers didn't stock much Atari stuff" or "Nintendo sent ninjas into stores to convert Atari hardware displays in Nintendo ones"?

 

I mean, I remember hearing complaints that Nabisco was hiding Hydrox cookies BEHIND Oreo packages, so it's not literally impossible, but I'm trying to understand exactly what you mean here.  How was Nintendo robbing Atari (and/or Sega) of shelf space?

Edited August 29, 2021 by DavidD

[DavidD]

4 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

The ST could have still made money as a cheap productivity or music computer. It only seems sane to kill it when looking at it "competing" but it still had the potential to make money by itself. Same with Falcon, it could have been a niche for many types of people, and a gaming machine for enthusiasts.

I'm not sure there was a market for that at the time.  IBM compatible computers dominated the market, part of that being the open nature of them did allow for prices to drop over time.  By the time Atari gave up, I don't think there was much demand for that level of computer.  If they had managed to make it to the rise of home internet, perhaps they could have competed as a general internet access device, but that would be several years down the road.

[Lostdragon]

6 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

The ST could have still made money as a cheap productivity or music computer. It only seems sane to kill it when looking at it "competing" but it still had the potential to make money by itself. Same with Falcon, it could have been a niche for many types of people, and a gaming machine for enthusiasts.

 

And considering where Apple ended up nearly going, slow and steady may eventually have been proven beneficial.

Weren't they pitching the STacey as the music computer? 

 

Not as a cheap machine, but portable, having  built-in MIDI, ports, ideal for running music - sequencer software etc. 

 

 

They tried rebranding the ST during it's commercial life as it already was, moving from giving away 'hundreds of pounds of free games software' (old titles that had finished their initial retail life, from a publishers point of view), to a more serious, productivity-based machine. 

 

 

Looking at the point Davidcalgary29 made, even at the peak of Lynx sales momentum, Atari only promised to launch 5 new Lynx titles a month for at least a year and they couldn't fulfill that promise. 

 

Things like Cabal, Rolling Thunder, Vindicators, EOTB, Daemonsgate, 720.. were badly needed to make the machine an attractive purchase and fill gaps in it's library. 

 

But the rest as they say, was history

Edited August 29, 2021 by Lostdragon

[Lostdragon]

11 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

CDTV was $300-500 more costly than the RadioShack/Tandy VIS depending on bundle. Commodore must have had a terrible market research team.

 

Not naming it Amiga CDTV also seemed really strange to me considering Amiga name recognition.

 

Speaking of strange, I dont recall if it was Nolan who made the statement, I recall it was an ex Atari guy who was quoted, it may have been Nolan or someone else, but the quote was that Nintendo signing over Mario and Zelda to Philips was a sign of transition, and that Nintendo saw their fad wouldn't last and were "surrendering" to Philips so they could participate in the "modern age" lol.

 

Of course Nolan or whoever said that ate a lot of crow with such a bold belief. 

 

I will give Philips one thing, they may have had the most successful multimedia product family with CD-i players in the 90s. Assuming they weren't telling tales about their one million units sold.

 

 

It looks like it was marketed as Amiga CDTV here in the UK. 

 

But why you'd want to trade in your existing Amiga and fork out another £399.99 is beyond me ?

[Lostdragon]

Bit of a Press Spurge but covering lot of the points raised so far. 

 

Epyx woes.. 

 

Sam Tramiel on CDTV, CD-I, CDST, Atari going to blow Amiga away... ?

 

Nintendo threat.. 

 

CD-I

 

CDTV woes.. 

 

 

Tramiel blames Nintendo.. 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Lostdragon
Extra material added

[Leeroy ST]

7 hours ago, empsolo said:

Here’s the thing though. By 1993, no major retailers were carrying the ST or Amiga. Even computer specialty shops had long made the switch to either Apple or the vast PC clone army. One of the reasons Tremiel bought Federated was because of the inability for Atari to get into retail spaces and computer shelves.

Uh...

 

Atari brought federated in the 80's.

 

6 hours ago, DavidD said:

Er...  how did Nintendo do that?  Do you mean "sold well enough that retailers didn't stock much Atari stuff" or "Nintendo sent ninjas into stores to convert Atari hardware displays in Nintendo ones"?

 

 

I don't understand your confusion. They (Nintendo and WoW as proxy) took over shelf space and made it hard for competition to have space for their product. If at all.

 

I'm not sure why you're confused with "how" they do that, considering threats aside(though contributed as mentioned by a previous user), Nintendo was bringing over large amounts of cash from japan, and had the production access to stuff the shelves with stock. 

[Leeroy ST]

5 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Weren't they pitching the STacey as the music computer? 

 

Not as a cheap machine, but portable, having  built-in MIDI, ports, ideal for running music - sequencer software etc. 

 

But see that's the thing. Atari made the wrong move (again) with the Stacy.

 

Instead the ST should have become a cheaper entry level computer aiming for niches over time, just like the what the A8 machines did. At least there would be some profit instead of zero 

 

3 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

It looks like it was marketed as Amiga CDTV here in the UK. 

 

But why you'd want to trade in your existing Amiga and fork out another £399.99 is beyond me ?

 

But strangely it was marketed as Commodore in several places. Of course either way, you'd have a much better deal keeping your Amiga computer and adding a CD Drive instead of buying a CDTV.

 

But with hit games like "Town With No Name", I can understand why it was tempting.

 

Lol.

 

At least CDi gave you more for less. Sony technically got their gaming start there too.

 

1 hour ago, Lostdragon said:

 

 

4000 Lynx units in Britain, we got them now!

 

Victory.

 

1 hour ago, Lostdragon said:

 

 

 

Lol, "Spicey Spikes".

 

Now, I dont know if you have the full page or not but at least Sam was right about CDTV being a con job.

 

But I'm curious as to what device he was referring to. The one that would "do the same at half the price" as Sam said.

 

Was there a prototype Atari Multimedia machine at one point? Or was Sam just acting like there was?

 

[Xebec]

8 hours ago, empsolo said:

Here’s the thing though. By 1993, no major retailers were carrying the ST or Amiga. Even computer specialty shops had long made the switch to either Apple or the vast PC clone army. One of the reasons Tremiel bought Federated was because of the inability for Atari to get into retail spaces and computer shelves.

Curious on that - The ST was definitely dead by 1993, but the Amiga managed to sell on through Escom as late as 1996 (Amiga 1200) and 1997 (Amiga 4000).  Did Europe already drop the Amiga by 1993 from retail?  

[Lord Mushroom]

9 hours ago, DavidD said:

One thing has been buzzing in my mind... if Bushnell had either kept the company OR kept control of it (after the Warner purchase), isn't it likely that Atari would have stayed focused on arcade and home games, and never entered the computer market?

Yes, he was against venturing into computers.

 

9 hours ago, DavidD said:

Warner kept the arcade division, which still produces games.

The Atari arcade dvision, Atari Games (later renamed Midway Games West, among other names) shut down in 2003.

[Xebec]

2 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Yes, he was against venturing into computers.

 

The Atari arcade dvision, Atari Games (later renamed Midway Games West, among other names) shut down in 2003.

 

Silver lining, this doesn't preclude the Amiga from being born.  The engineers would still have design the 400/800 chipset for the Atari 5200 under Bushnell then and probably still found a way to GTFO and create the Amiga as they really wanted to build a computer.  Though I think they learned a few things building the 400/800 chipset into a full computer they might not have learned with the 5200 (example:  no SIO port..  which later influenced USB 1.0 on the PC).  

[Lostdragon]

7 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

But see that's the thing. Atari made the wrong move (again) with the Stacy.

 

Instead the ST should have become a cheaper entry level computer aiming for niches over time, just like the what the A8 machines did. At least there would be some profit instead of zero 

 

But strangely it was marketed as Commodore in several places. Of course either way, you'd have a much better deal keeping your Amiga computer and adding a CD Drive instead of buying a CDTV.

 

But with hit games like "Town With No Name", I can understand why it was tempting.

 

Lol.

 

At least CDi gave you more for less. Sony technically got their gaming start there too.

 

4000 Lynx units in Britain, we got them now!

 

Victory.

 

Lol, "Spicey Spikes".

 

Now, I dont know if you have the full page or not but at least Sam was right about CDTV being a con job.

 

But I'm curious as to what device he was referring to. The one that would "do the same at half the price" as Sam said.

 

Was there a prototype Atari Multimedia machine at one point? Or was Sam just acting like there was?

 

Sony backed the MSX range before the CDI? 

 

As for the STacey did Atari really glue the battery compartment shut after discovering the batteries didn't last long or did they just leave it empty? 

 

Reports seem conflicted. 

 

But yep, i never quite understood why after pushing the ST to musicians, you'd put resources in another Atari music machine to push to the musicians

 

That quote from Sam about the prototype device would I assume of been the CDST, annouced in various UK press at the time, Sam keen not to let CBM steal the headlines 

[Leeroy ST]

Nolan wasn't a fan of getting into Home computers, especially Micro, but if he ended up getting decent backing he may have bid on Amiga.

 

He probably would have took the risk of launching a $500-$600 console as originally planned, instead of going the computer route. That may not be as crazy of an idea in hindsight. It would drop to $300 by 89 and consumers would see a 3D adventure game like Midwinter next to Mega Man 2 and Zelda, that would shift new console entrants to maybe skip a generation in power, and consumers would likely look at the NES/7800 as very outdated.

 

Of course I'm curious how much Commodores winning bid was. Atari Corp either was low balling or Commodore over bid. I'm curious how much they were worth because there weren't many bids.

 

[Leeroy ST]

3 minutes ago, Lostdragon said:

Sony backed the MSX range before the CDI? 

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

 

4 minutes ago, Lostdragon said:

As for the STacey did Atari really glue the battery compartment shut after discovering the batteries didn't last long or did they just leave it empty? 

 

Reports seem conflicted. 

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.

 

13 minutes ago, Lostdragon said:

That quote from Sam about the prototype device would I assume of been the CDST, annouced in various UK press at the time, Sam keen not to let CBM steal the headlines 

 

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

 

 

 

[DavidD]

12 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

I don't understand your confusion. They (Nintendo and WoW as proxy) took over shelf space and made it hard for competition to have space for their product. If at all.

 

I'm not sure why you're confused with "how" they do that, considering threats aside(though contributed as mentioned by a previous user), Nintendo was bringing over large amounts of cash from japan, and had the production access to stuff the shelves with stock. 

Well, it's because I seem to be detecting an undercurrent of "Nintendo did something shifty, bad, and borderline illegal in order to prevent its competitors from being on store shelves" in what you've said, but I don't think I've seen any evidence presented of that.

 

Instead, everything I've seen so far appears to point to "Nintendo products were in high demand and thus stores dedicated more/all space to Nintendo products and not the competitors."  I mean, what does "stuff the shelves with stock" even mean in this context?  Nintendo actually provided stuff that stores sold, and was able to provide it consistently?

 

I mean, Nintendo/WoW did several things that got them in trouble in the 80s (alleged price-fixing, refusing to send stock to stores with unlicensed Tengen software), and we do know that Nintendo/WoW had some sort of requirements linking NES-Ruxpin toys at one point, but do we have any evidence that anything illegal or unethical done that prevented Atari, Sega, or other hardware from being sold in stores?

 

 

 

[DavidD]

9 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Yes, he was against venturing into computers.

 

The Atari arcade dvision, Atari Games (later renamed Midway Games West, among other names) shut down in 2003.

I thought the staff was moved/merged into a different division?  If not... that was the end of Atari!

[Matt_B]

8 hours ago, Xebec said:

Curious on that - The ST was definitely dead by 1993, but the Amiga managed to sell on through Escom as late as 1996 (Amiga 1200) and 1997 (Amiga 4000).  Did Europe already drop the Amiga by 1993 from retail?  

Commodore still had some retail presence in the UK up until the point they collapsed. It just wasn't anything like what they'd had in the late 80s though. Most regular stores would only be selling DOS PCs and/or consoles, so you'd have to go somewhere rather more specialized to find anything else.

 

Escom had their own retail stores, so I'd guess that you could probably still find Amigas there until they were discontinued. They just weren't sold much anywhere else. That they collapsed barely a year after acquiring the Amiga rather suggests that there wasn't a viable market for it.

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

2 hours ago, DavidD said:

Instead, everything I've seen so far appears to point to "Nintendo products were in high demand 

They were in high demand because it was the only product people saw in stores, which gave them money, which resulted in more marketing and more retailer space.

 

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.

 

[Lord Mushroom]

2 hours ago, DavidD said:

I thought the staff was moved/merged into a different division?  If not... that was the end of Atari!

Mark Beaumont had been promoted in 2002 from his position at the helm of Midway Games West to the position of Senior Vice President - Publishing for Midway Games.

 

But it says that in 2003 the remaining 30 employees were let go.

[SoundGammon]

If Nolan didn't sell Atari back then and kept it, we probably would have never seen companies like Activision or Imagic. Those guys probably wouldn't have left back then.