Could the 5200 have succeeded?

[Lynxpro]

On 9/28/2021 at 7:21 PM, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

The Atari 5200 was an unfortunate system for Atari, not selling nearly as well as the 2600 or the competitor system ColecoVision. 

 

The 2600 had been on sale since 1977 and wasn't a clear success until the release of Space Invaders 2 years later. Warner didn't allow enough time for the 5200 to "succeed" similarly.

 

Despite the criticisms, the 5200 was catching up with ColecoVision's sales and was projected to eclipse it when Warner forced Atari to cancel it in favor of the 3600/7800 project. That's with the 5200 originally being $100 more expensive than the ColecoVision, not having built-in 2600 backwards compatibility [which Atari's engineers wanted but Warner nixed it] nor having a 2600 Adapter readily available at the start, and not having self-centering joysticks [which again, Atari's engineers insisted upon - and held a walk-out protest over - but Warner over-ruled them]. And the 5200 hadn't even been released in Europe yet; they had the PAL versions ready when Warner lowered the boom on them.

 

The 7800 was a cost-reduced console. Plain and simple, it was cheaper to manufacture than the 5200 just on a console basis and not even counting the cheaper costs to manufacture the ProLine joysticks over the CX52 joysticks. But had they stuck with it, Atari had designs to combine the ANTIC and GTIA chips into a single chip so that could've reduced the manufacturing costs further even without ditching the storage compartment like the 5100/5200jr case design which would've also cost less in ancillaries like shipping and storage costs.

 

Point is, the 5200 could've been a success despite the self-inflicted issues and the media flinging hate at it. 

 

Looking back, I think Atari Inc - assuming Warner didn't commit to further stupidity like selling off Atari Inc in pieces - should've released a Super 5200 in Christmas 1984. Increase the clock speeds on the chips, bump the RAM up to 32K, pay GCC for the MARIA and slap it in there with its own 2K or 4K SRAM on its own separate bus [the Famicom's graphics had its own bus] with the ability to complement the ANTIC/GTIA, add all of the R/W/CPU/Graphics/Audio lines to the cartridge slot, pack in the CX52j self-centering joystick, and Bob's Your Uncle'd it for the rest. I mention the higher clock speeds because Jerry Jessop told several of us a few years back at the last Davis Atari Party that him and Tod Frye had slapped together two different systems trying to get Warner's attention and nix the 7800 while it was being developed... one of such projects included used variants of Atari's own chips but at higher clock speeds. And then Atari Inc/NATCO could've still released the Amiga Lorraine powered "Mickey" console for Christmas 1985 or later as originally planned and bypassed the 7800 and most of GCC's royalty payments.

 

But the point is, technically speaking, the premise of this thread is wrong because the 5200 wasn't a *failure*. 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Lynxpro

[Lynxpro]

On 9/29/2021 at 6:27 AM, zzip said:

I think they could have done a lot to right the ship even if it was released in that state.   

1. release a new slimmer (cheaper) model with improved controllers.   One thing that helped Colecovision was that it was cheaper.

2. Sell new units with Pac Man or Ms Pac Man as the pack-in

3. replace broken controllers from the original system under warranty with the improved ones.

4. GAMES!   What was really needed was more innovation, the old formulas were getting stale.  Atari was on the right track with the Lucasfilm partnership, unfortunately that fell apart.

5. Don't go down the 7800 route!!   Cancelling the 5200 less than two years in created a lot of pissed off 5200 buyers and was not a good move for brand loyalty.  Maybe send the GCC guys back to the drawing board to create a better console to eventually replace 5200 by 86 or 87.   1984 was way too soon.

 

As for making it 400 compatible-   while that would be nice,  I think game licensing was a concern.   Games like Donkey Kong were licensed separately for console and computer.   So a 5200 that could play the 400 DK would have created a problem.  Remember Atari lost their shit when they saw DK running on a Coleco Adam.    I also don't think the market really wanted an XEGS-style console.   Every console announced a keyboard add-on around 83 or so that would have done just that.  Not one of them succeeded.  The people who wanted computers bought actual computers

 

The media and a bunch of parents participating in market research convinced the industry that they wanted the *option* of adding computer keyboards to video game consoles. It was basically an expensive means of preventing the consumers from *saying no* to a sale... overcoming internal objections. That's an entire science of sales. Just as Coleco never intended to sell their 2600 adapter at a 1:1 or even 1:5 *attachment rate* ratio. The point of the adapter was to say "buy the ColecoVision because if you really want a 2600 game, you have the option to play it with our adapter". What they were counting on was overcoming the initial purchasing objection and then once the consumers played the ColecoVision's native games library, they wouldn't be interested in purchasing any 2600 games. That was in terms of 1st time console buyers. For existing 2600 owners they intended to lure, it was a "ha ha" at Atari and preventing them from reflexively maintaining brand loyalty by upgrading to non-compatible the 5200.

 

The computer add-ons were also of the same train of thought. "Look at this parents... you don't have to buy a Commodore 64 or Apple II... buy this keyboard attachment upgrade and Little Johnny can have a fully functional computer later on when he's ready so he'll grow up to be successful in the future! But in the meantime, buy our video game console!"

Edited October 27, 2021 by Lynxpro

[Lynxpro]

On 9/29/2021 at 11:35 AM, zzip said:

But games were a problem area for the 5200.   What Atari needed was innovative games that couldn't be done on the 2600, not just 2600 games with better graphics.   Instead nearly every game they released in 83 was also on the 2600! 

 

This is a total myth and was perpetuated first by Nintendo in 1985 and perpetuated ever since by their legion of soi boi fans. The ColecoVision's entire marketing campaign centered upon "bringing the arcade home" [paraphrased]. Show us any original IP - that wasn't licensed properties elsewhere - that Coleco themselves brought to their screwdriver shop of a console. There's not much originality in terms of game play on the Intellivision either - except for stuff like Micro Surgeon - since most of their "original" IP were rip-offs of more famous arcade games they failed to license. And that goes for the Magnavox/Philips Odyssey 2 infinitely more so...

 

Truth be told, gaming on home computers wasn't really about "innovation" or "simulation" at that point. The lure was getting the games much cheaper via pirating cassette tapes or floppy disks. That was the Commodore 64's true lure over console gaming on both sides of The Pond.

 

Most of us early 80s kids wanted our favorite arcade games playable at home and as close to the graphics and sound experience of the arcade originals, and nothing more...

Edited October 27, 2021 by Lynxpro

[Lynxpro]

On 9/29/2021 at 4:35 PM, BIGHMW said:

They drew me, from the get-go, mainly with the (then-) 5200 exclusive Trak-Ball controller, when it was put out for Big Sexy, Coleco couldn't do much about it, but rather than capitalize on the CX53's massive capabilities like onboard keypads, start/pause/reset controls and dual fire buttons on each side, with more than just Missile Command and Centipede (and to some extent, Super Breakout) to use with her, they decided to try and double-down on the stock CX52 controllers and try and create more games that took advantage of the analog capbilities it had, games like Pole Position (and later Kaboom! by Activision) did well with it despite Coleco having a driving module for Turbo, but, it was too little too late

 

I don't care I'm going to earn a KLAX up in here, up in here...

 

Coleco wasn't going to be the only console with a Driving Controller. Dan Kramer, father of the CX53 Trak-Ball Controller, was in the initial stages of designing a Driving Controller for the 5200 based upon Atari Coin's steering wheel, shifter, and peddles used on arcade Pole Position. He had already started the project - to be followed by adapting Atari Coin's Yoke controller used in the Star Wars arcade games - when he was ordered to scrap those plans since Warner was forcing Atari Inc to discontinue the 5200 in favor of the 7800.

[Lynxpro]

On 9/29/2021 at 8:05 PM, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

I have to disagree completely on one of your points - a LaserDisc expansion would've been a complete dud on the 5200. As we know  from the 1990's, FMV games were shallow fads with poor gameplay, paling in comparison to real games. Besides, such an expansion would've been far too expensive for general use, needing to integrate a LaserDisc mechanism and electronics for audio/video playback, along with a video mixing / genlocking circuit to combine GTIA/ANTIC graphics and the live motion video. If Atari was ever to release a genlock for the 5200 or Atari 8-bit computers, it'd be much better served with a standard video input for use as a titler (or even to overlay/superimpose graphics) and early video effects graphics workstation (a home video editing box in 1983 might sound crazy but it would've been pretty awesome, the TMS9918 had the functionality built in).

 

And I'm going to have to disagree with your disagreement since the 7800's Expansion Port was designed specifically to interface with a LaserDisc - and/or an RCA Selectavision CED video disc player - player. Coleco and Atari were being goaded by the press into competing over which console would be the first to provide such functionality. Atari and Coleco both assumed LaserDisc and/or CED would gain mainstream popularity which neither did, unfortunately.

 

Such a scheme later materialized for the Atari ST. Of course it required the use of a LaserDisc player with a built-in RS-232 port.

[youxia]

35 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

Truth be told, gaming on home computers wasn't really about "innovation" or "simulation" at that point. The lure was getting the games much cheaper via pirating cassette tapes or floppy disks. That was the Commodore 64's true lure over console gaming on both sides of The Pond.

 

Most of us early 80s kids wanted our favorite arcade games playable at home and as close to the graphics and sound experience of the arcade originals, and nothing more...

Yeah, right, nobody cared about sims, rpgs, text-adventures, strategies and innovative action games. I'm sure it's yet another myth and their myriad ads, sales figures and origins of powerhouses such as EA are just a figment of imagination.

[zzip]

39 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

Looking back, I think Atari Inc - assuming Warner didn't commit to further stupidity like selling off Atari Inc in pieces - should've released a Super 5200 in Christmas 1984. Increase the clock speeds on the chips, bump the RAM up to 32K, pay GCC for the MARIA and slap it in there with its own 2K or 4K SRAM on its own separate bus [the Famicom's graphics had its own bus] with the ability to complement the ANTIC/GTIA, add all of the R/W/CPU/Graphics/Audio lines to the cartridge slot

This would never work out.   Such enhancements get almost no 3rd party support because developers code for the base model to maximize their potential audience.

 

45 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

And then Atari Inc/NATCO could've still released the Amiga Lorraine powered "Mickey" console for Christmas 1985 or later as originally planned and bypassed the 7800 and most of GCC's royalty payments.

This doesn't seem realistic given how much Amiga computers cost when first released.   I doubt Atari could have cost-reduced the chipset enough for a console by 1985.   It's also would have still replaced the 5200 after only 3 years (typically a console generation is 5-7 years)

 

32 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

 

This is a total myth and was perpetuated first by Nintendo in 1985 and perpetuated ever since by their legion of soi boi fans. The ColecoVision's entire marketing campaign centered upon "bringing the arcade home" [paraphrased]. Show us any original IP - that wasn't licensed properties elsewhere - that Coleco themselves brought to their screwdriver shop of a console. There's not much originality in terms of game play on the Intellivision either - except for stuff like Micro Surgeon - since most of their "original" IP were rip-offs of more famous arcade games they failed to license. And that goes for the Magnavox/Philips Odyssey 2 infinitely more so...

 

Truth be told, gaming on home computers wasn't really about "innovation" or "simulation" at that point. The lure was getting the games much cheaper via pirating cassette tapes or floppy disks. That was the Commodore 64's true lure over console gaming on both sides of The Pond.

 

Most of us early 80s kids wanted our favorite arcade games playable at home and as close to the graphics and sound experience of the arcade originals, and nothing more...

The "we have the hottest arcade hits" worked until about 1984.   By then, most of the major early 80s hits had been brought home.  The arcades were starting to get new tech like laser-disc and 16-bit games that did not translate very well to 8-bit consoles.   I think the bigger factor with computers was whether or not you had a floppy drive.   That's what really changed the kinds of games you could play.   Once my friend group got floppy drives, we started playing very few arcade ports and a lot of original games that were not possible before at home

[Lynxpro]

On 9/30/2021 at 10:08 PM, BIGHMW said:

They finally did it right, in 1987, when they released the XEGS. It had what you wanted in your posts, a composite a/v output, 9-pin controller ports, and yes, it even had that now-famous detachable keyboard that many of us use along with a Neo-Geo 15-pin extension cord for more versatility. Then along came Glenn The 5200 Man and others to convert (almost) all the improved 5200 ports back to the 8-bit.

 

The XE Game System sold 100,000 units. Doing it right didn't sell when compared to a success metric.

 

Upgrading to DB15 was the right choice since it could support multiple buttons without them overlapping during a heavy session of button mashing which the ColecoVision had problems with. And also the Commodore 64 with that super awesome CIA chip to go along with cardboard RF shielding suffered from that same issue.

 

That's also not counting true analog support.

 

On 10/1/2021 at 1:12 PM, DamonicFury said:

True, the ColecoVision didn’t have much more long-term success than the 5200.  The Great Video Game Crash and Coleco’s own business blunders saw to that. 
 

But Coleco did sell twice as many ColecoVisions as Atari did 5200s.  

 

Coleco's sales records are disputed.

 

The 5200 sold close to 2 million in the US. And they were ready to start selling PAL models in "Europe" right when Warner ordered them to discontinue it.

 

On 10/1/2021 at 1:50 AM, Jetboot Jack said:

It never came to the UK so never had a chance to buy one back in the day (did buy one in 2003, sold it in 2003) - but from watching across the pond it looked like a total disaster - unloved controllers, uninspiring software line up, no outta the box 2600 compatibility, technology we had already seen in the 400/800 - sadly hard to see why a consumer would choose the system over the others on the market...

 

sTeVE

 

Control Alt Rees certainly loves the 5200.

 

On 10/2/2021 at 3:05 PM, mr_me said:

If the 5200 was at 1M by mid 1983 then they were still behind the Colecovision which was at 1.4M in mid 1983.  It's hard to believe that Atari sold no 5200 consoles after that, nothing for Christmas.  It was listed in the Sears, Mongomery Wards, and JC Penney, 1983 Christmas books.

 

The 5200 has a huge colour palette, larger than the NES, compared to fifteen colours on Colecovision.  The 5200 has hardware scrolling and can put eight sprites on a line without flicker.  The only thing Colecovision had was a higher resolution which made screenshots look good.  There's certainly a technical argument for the 5200 over colecovision.  The Commodore64 would be much closer to the NES than either of these two.

 

If I recall correctly, the ColecoVision's TI graphics chip might be able to do more hardware sprites - and larger colored ones - than the ANTIC/GTIA. It also has its own dedicated external 16K RAM. The TI chip was a reaction to the ANTIC/CTIA since TI closely followed what Atari Inc's engineers were creating. Still, it still ends up with a wash. Neither console is a clear cut winner in terms of power, much like comparing the Atari 8-bit architecture against the Commodore 64 despite the C64 debuting *3 years later*. Kinda sums up Atari's engineering prowess.

 

On 10/2/2021 at 3:48 PM, Leeroy ST said:

I consider q2 and q3 mid year like some businesses do, not literally June ify course.

 

But in any case it's not hard to believe at all. I have no idea why you think the 5200 was widespread after the first few months of the year, or 4. It was being winded down by Atari and THEN discontinued.

 

Remember they were losing money on every product they put out at the time (Atari) and hesitated to drop the price of the 5200 much during the price wars, they were barely producing new consoles because they were slowly cutting the production.

 

Also remember the 7800 was on the board in 83, the rumors and finishing negotiations were in early 84, and the release was a few months after that. 

 

If they had as much out there as you implied surely they would have had a surge of stock in the holidays of 83 plus stock from before, so why was there little presence in 1984? It doesn't make sense.

 

That means EITHER, that many 5200s were sitting on shelves and no one was buying them, OR there weren't many 5200's in the first place. There's no other way to cut it.

 

It's clear by the lack of stock and slow sales pace late 83 onward it wasn't the former. Atari had been working with GCC on negotiations at that point, before it was discontinued. They aren't pushing big shipments, and as mentioned before there was already frustration with the game releases.

 

Look at this grilling example when the 7800 was announced:

 

 

 

 

These were common sentiments. The 5200 stuff was already getting hard to find along with software and this discontinuation happens just as it seems things were looking more promising to owners. It was already lacking a stable flow of new exciting games, any chance of that dried up, although that dry up unknown to the consumer happened a bit over half a year earlier.

 

So yes, it makes complete sense the 5200 production being cut in 83 with no high shipment by the holidays and barely having presence in all of 84, would indicate Atari barely sold many more consoles after they hit 1 million. With CV selling 3x as much in the same time frame until discontinuation. 

 

When GCC screwed up Atari Corp's - the successor to Atari Inc - planned release of the 7800 for Christmas 1984, Atari Corp ended up pivoting and selling a lot of 5200s through mail order and special bundles in Atari Explorer Magazine as well as continuing to sell remaining stock at retail like at Toys R Us and Kay Bee Toys. So the 5200's total sales would reflect those sales all the way up to 1986 and beyond. And also at Federated once Atari Corp acquired it.

[Lynxpro]

16 minutes ago, youxia said:

Yeah, right, nobody cared about sims, rpgs, text-adventures, strategies and innovative action games. I'm sure it's yet another myth and their myriad ads, sales figures and origins of powerhouses such as EA are just a figment of imagination.

 

Computers were in less than 10% of homes back then. You are confusing niche home computer gaming with the mass market console gaming.

 

 

11 minutes ago, zzip said:

This would never work out.   Such enhancements get almost no 3rd party support because developers code for the base model to maximize their potential audience.

 

This doesn't seem realistic given how much Amiga computers cost when first released.   I doubt Atari could have cost-reduced the chipset enough for a console by 1985.   It's also would have still replaced the 5200 after only 3 years (typically a console generation is 5-7 years)

 

The "we have the hottest arcade hits" worked until about 1984.   By then, most of the major early 80s hits had been brought home.  The arcades were starting to get new tech like laser-disc and 16-bit games that did not translate very well to 8-bit consoles.   I think the bigger factor with computers was whether or not you had a floppy drive.   That's what really changed the kinds of games you could play.   Once my friend group got floppy drives, we started playing very few arcade ports and a lot of original games that were not possible before at home

 

It would've worked out as a CONSOLE. Just like the 7800 was a "new" console. Or the NES. Or the Sega Master System.

 

You can argue all you want to about "realistic" but that was the plan then. The MICKEY console was the Amiga Lorraine chipset as a cartridge console packed with 128K RAM. Atari Inc planned to release it for Christmas 1985 as a console. That was before Amiga ripped them off and sold themselves to Commodore while fraudulently telling Atari Inc that they couldn't get the Lorraine chipset to work. That was also prior to Warner selling the assets of Atari Inc's Consumer Division to Jack Tramiel's TTL start-up company [which later renamed itself "Atari Corp"].

 

And an 8-bit console could drive a LaserDisc player. The graphics would mainly be from the LaserDisc, not from the 8-bit console's built in graphics chips.

 

Try again with the assertion about "hottest arcade hits" only lasting until circa 1984. For the longest, Tengen's - hint, that was the Atari Games Corp, the "Real Atari", the original OG coin-op division - best selling game on the Sega Genesis was Ms. Pac-Man. Arcade conversions were still huge for those who got sick of rescue the princess on nondescript "platform gaming" on the NES which was like 2/3rds of their library. Not to mention Sega's strength was from their hit arcade games.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Lynxpro

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

It would've worked out as a CONSOLE. Just like the 7800 was a "new" console. Or the NES. Or the Sega Master System.

Consumers don't want to buy a new console every year, they expect them to last for several years.   That's one mistake Atari was clearly making in this era by having too many consoles on the drawing board to be released in a short span of years (5200, NES, 7800, Lorraine-based console)

 

6 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

You can argue all you want to about "realistic" but that was the plan then. The MICKEY console was the Amiga Lorraine chipset as a cartridge console packed with 128K RAM. Atari Inc planned to release it for Christmas 1985 as a console. That was before Amiga ripped them off and sold themselves to Commodore while fraudulently telling Atari Inc that they couldn't get the Lorraine chipset to work.

I have read little bits about this plan, but it's hard to find detailed information.   The truth is Atari seemed to have rights to the Amiga chipset for only about 1 month before Commodore swooped in and bought the company and paid off the Atari loan.   This was also at a time when Atari was in great disarray and about to be bought by Jack,  so I doubt any plans they drew up in that month for the chipset were anything more than preliminary.   I also have doubts about the future of such a console under Jack even if they retained the rights.   They couldn't even get an ST-based console released.  Jack was miserly with R&D money for anything that wasn't the ST Computer line.

 

28 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

And an 8-bit console could drive a LaserDisc player. The graphics would mainly be from the LaserDisc, not from the 8-bit console's built in graphics chips.

A laserdisc player cost hundreds more than a console did back then.   It was not a realistic peripheral for the time period.

 

30 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

Try again with the assertion about "hottest arcade hits" only lasting until circa 1984. For the longest, Tengen's - hint, that was the Atari Games Corp, the "Real Atari", the original OG coin-op division - best selling game on the Sega Genesis was Ms. Pac-Man. Arcade conversions were still huge for those who got sick of rescue the princess on nondescript "platform gaming" on the NES which was like 2/3rds of their library. Not to mention Sega's strength was from their hit arcade games.

Arcade ports are still done on modern consoles.  But my point is they stopped being the driving force for selling systems around the mid-80s.   After that people started buying consoles for hot original games, not because it had the best arcade ports.

[Lynxpro]

On 10/3/2021 at 4:08 PM, Jetboot Jack said:

P.S. You didn't own a Speccy for Arcade ports, it was the original and often quirky games that made that system I always feel (not that I had one back in 1982)...

 

You owned a Sinclair door stop if you couldn't afford a Commodore 64, an Atari 8-bit computer, a BBC Micro, an Acorn computer, and/or if you couldn't convince your parents to buy you a dedicated gaming console.

 

On 10/3/2021 at 4:44 PM, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

True, the 5200 games were generally on other systems, but as you said, they were far more impressive on the 5200 than the 2600 in terms of graphics and sound, and the Atari computers were a "higher-end" option (even if the Atari 400 was in reality no more expensive than the 5200 in most cases), with the 5200 being a lower-end consumer option just for playing video games - it didn't quite pan out that way but it was the intention. I'm not sure where the 5200 was positioned in relation to the 600XL, with all the price drops happening in that era, but my point still stands.

 

Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody in their right mind expected Jack Tramiel's insane price war which brought Commodore's flag ship computer price down to the levels of dedicated video game consoles. Thus Atari Inc didn't expect the 600XL to basically be competing with the 5200 amongst some consumers.

 

The price war basically ruined the viability of more expensive - and more capable - 8-bit computers down the line. Only Apple was able to still command high prices for such gear - regardless of their actual capabilities at shipping time - while Commodore and the successor Atari Corp had to move on quickly to 16-bit systems.

 

On 10/4/2021 at 9:58 AM, zzip said:

yes that's true,  but none of those innovative computer games made their way back to the 5200.   The 5200 library was almost all arcade and sports games--  like the 2600 library with better graphics.   By 84 that was stale. 

 

That's your perception. Not market reality. Many years later, in the 16-bit console era, Tengen's most popular title for the Sega Genesis was Ms. Pac-Man.

 

On 10/4/2021 at 11:09 AM, DamonicFury said:

Yep.  That was my point.  Arcade games from 1978-1981 already were losing their appeal, and that was all that was offered by both Atari (and Coleco, 

 

Ninja please. Lots of gamers and 5200 owners in general were eagerly awaiting the release of Tempest back then. Do check out the arcade cabinet's original release date.

 

On 10/4/2021 at 1:52 PM, BIGHMW said:

I don't know if this would hold water, but do you guys think that maybe the 5200 would've bounced back both if they (at least) had released Tempest for Big Sexy back in 1984 as promoted by Atari themselves in their "Atari Presents" ads along with other games (like the unfinished Battlezone and Xevious) and had Jack Tramiel kept most of the R & D staff (like the great Keithen Hayenga) onboard to develop new titles and finish the ones that wound up not being finished???

 

You might figure that if Jack Tramiel had overruled Warner and brought back the 5200 after taking over the company and stayed the course with her if maybe she would've been a success under his ownership as opposed to what Warner did. Talk about comebacks!!!

 

I'd have to check the time line but I'm pretty sure the great Keithen Hayenga was laid off by Atari Inc even before Tramiel acquired its assets and rolled it into Atari Corp. And Steve Woita had packed up before then. I need to remember to ask Keithen if he ever tried convincing his managers to let him code Crazy Climber for the 5200. Anyone familiar with his - and Steve Woita's - earlier history at Apple would understand that importance. 

 

As for bringing back the 5200 by Jack Tramiel other than continue to sell off the current inventory - which they did - would've required putting the CX52j into full production and hiring back a bunch of already laid off programmers. Landon Dyer, Dave Staugas (sic), and Rob Zdybel were all working on the ST project going into 1985 but they could've realistically been shifted back once the 520ST shipped [if interested]. In engineering, they would've needed to entice Dan Kramer* to stay beyond finishing up the SECAM version of the 800XL - and he did not like the atmosphere of Atari Corp compared to Atari Inc's glory days - and lured Jerry Jessop back into the fold as well.

 

*Like getting him back on the 5200 Driving Controller and 5200 Yoke Controller projects and getting some more of his former coworkers back in the office. Hell, making an ST Trak-Ball might've been a good trick for him.

 

On 10/4/2021 at 2:58 PM, BIGHMW said:

But I would argue that maybe he should never have come out with the XEGS in 1987 knowing it was nothing more than a repackaged 65XE

 

That was the very reason why the XE Game System was created. The mass market retailers like Toys R Us didn't want to carry the 65XE unless it was also a game system. Even the Commodore 64's sales there - and at other similar mass merchants - were declining [but doing decently at computer specific dealers]. 

 

For the record, Atari Corp was a "sponsor" of the 1984 Summer Olympics because Atari Inc had already paid for those sponsorships. That wasn't the Tramiels' doing but they benefited from it.

 

On 10/4/2021 at 6:17 PM, Keatah said:

So.. When I saw the ads for the 5200 SuperSystem I was excited. I was dreaming. I was anticipating. I wanted one. And I eventually got one. The marketing department had done its job. I said to myself that the 2600+2600=5200. And the 2600 was good. So this has gotta be even better! The system's sleek futuristic design meshed with the sci-fi books I was into. It really fired off a kid's imagination. It was from the future. Bought to me by Atari.

 

This was like my 5th system. I already had an Apple II, VCS, Intellivision, Atari 400/800, and maybe others like Astrocade and Vectrex. (Don't recall the precise timeline of acquisition.) I quickly discovered the software was basically a re-hash of 400/800 material. But I somehow convinced myself that the games really were better. Maybe faster, more and better sound and graphics, enhanced levels, and so on. Eventually I had to face it. None of that was true. I was left holding the bag! Digging for crumbs of differences at the bottom and finding few. I had already eaten the 400/800 sandwich.

 

Even my friends were nonplussed. After a few weeks we got bored of it and went outside to shoot off model rockets or do more BMX or look for trouble by antagonizing the bigger kids.

 

It was my first experience with rehashment. Same titles, same graphics, same style, same franchise. I was on the verge of losing faith in videogame makers. I was still too young to comprehend it all. But I was beginning to question each purchase more and more carefully. I absolutely positively didn't want to buy Pac-Man or Centipede for a 3rd time! And the decisions turned out in favor of the "home computer". Each one was guaranteed to have big enough differences. So I continued with the Apple II and Atari 800 as my mainstays. Eventually getting into a C64, Timex/Sinclair 1000, TI-994A, and CoCo 1. But my other computer adventures are for another discussion.

 

Next up was ColecoVision. All my buddies were hard up to get this. And I got it first! And it lived up to its expectation. Donkey Kong was a hit. And Zaxxon, SpaceFury, Cosmic Avenger, Turbo, TimePilot, Pepper II, and more. All of it was thrilling. All of it was different from the recycled Atari stuff. It was an adventure worth embarking on. Just like the original VCS, Intellivision, and Atari 400/800. Excitement was back. Sophistication in the air again. The arcade was really bought home.

 

Most importantly Coleco's controllers stayed working unlike the constant failure of the 5200's. It got to be a real tedious task testing and trying to fix those rubber pads. Soon it wasn't worth the time anymore. It could take 10 to 15 minutes to prep for a 2-player game.

 

Pretty sure ColecoVision was my last hurrah with Pre-NES cartridge systems.

 

You had an Atari 8-bit computer and yet you wanted to play Donkey Kong on the ColecoVision when Landon Dyer's version for the Atari 8-bits was superior?

 

And how did you have all of these systems back then? Were you Richie Rich or were you constantly selling them off and moving onto the next system?

 

On 10/5/2021 at 5:57 AM, zzip said:

Console upgrades never do so well, because developers prefer to target the lowest spec to get the max possible audience, so if 5200 had a memory upgrade,  I doubt more than a few games would use it.   (Weirdly the 7800 has even less RAM than the 5200)

 

That's because the 7800 is a cost-reduced console and if a game needed more than 4K SRAM, it supports cart-based RAM because the 7800's cartridge slot has the lines available for external RAM, CPUs, and sound chips [probably even graphics chips]. The Famicom/NES also only comes with 4K RAM but supports external RAM, higher capacity ROMs, graphics and sound chips via the cartridge slot. Otherwise, it's a weak a$$ mofo.

 

On 10/5/2021 at 7:18 AM, zzip said:

I agree that 2600 Defender is sub-par,  but many argue that the 2600 Asteroids is better,  anyway, out of those game only Countermeasure isn't on the 2600, and I still don't think most people upgrading would want to re-buy their entire library, while they might buy a couple of games that are significantly improved, they want enough content they can't play on their current console to justify the expense.

 

Space Dungeon. Robotron:2084. Ballblazer. Rescue on Fractalus. Xevious. Choplifter. The Dreadnaught Factor. K-Razy Shootout. Meteorites. [?] Qix. Technically, Tempest as well.

 

On 10/5/2021 at 2:39 PM, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

I completely agree. While I share some of the others' distaste for Asteroids on the 5200/400/800, I find Defender and Missile Command to be at their best (other than the arcade) on the 5200/400/800, and as you said, Star Raiders is a big plus. If the 5200 had survived to the latter half of the 1980s, it might have lived to see Star Raiders II on a bank-switched cart.

Also, I'd hardly say that the 5200 library was lacking, since it received plenty of classics from Atari (and their licensees such as Nintendo, Namco, etc.), Activision, and others. It definitely could have used some more software, but I don't think the library was what killed the system, so much as business ineptitude.

 

But which version of Star Raiders II? There's 2 versions. The commercially released Atari 8-bit game that was really The Last Starfighter renamed - by Atari Corp - or the version the Atari Coin/Games guys were working on in stealth?

 

On 10/5/2021 at 10:38 PM, 5200Fanatic said:

With the 5200, the games looked like they should have looked on the 2600. The graphical upgrade was enormous. The arcade games on the 5200 looked like the arcade games where on the 2600, the games sorta kinda looked like the arcade. The death knell was the controller - it broke rather quickly and replacements became very hard to find. Eventually, I had to buy a whole new system just to get working controllers. Its a shame because it could have been great.

 

Toys R Us and Kay Bee stocked replacement 5200 joysticks. Just about every Atari computer dealer also stocked them because that was one of the most popular items they received phone calls for...  "do you sell replacement Atari 5200 joysticks?" That was well-documented. Even Atari Corp Customer Service claimed that was the #1 phone call they received even going into 1987.

[Keatah]

14 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

You had an Atari 8-bit computer and yet you wanted to play Donkey Kong on the ColecoVision when Landon Dyer's version for the Atari 8-bits was superior?

I think that once I got dismayed, the sour taste stuck. Eventually nothing could be good on the 5200. For better or worse it was 400/800 all the way.

 

Quote

And how did you have all of these systems back then? Were you Richie Rich or were you constantly selling them off and moving onto the next system?

I asked for them and they showed up. With the exception of the Apple II, which I earned mostly on my own and still have to this day. Toward the later days I ended up selling some of them to move into more advanced consoles like the SMS and Amiga. And of course more Apple parts.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Keatah

[zzip]

49 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

That's your perception. Not market reality. Many years later, in the 16-bit console era, Tengen's most popular title for the Sega Genesis was Ms. Pac-Man.

That was Tengen's most popular title.   As you point out, Tengen was the home arm of the Atari games arcade division.  So not surprising that they produce home arcade games.   But the fact that such an old title was their most popular and not one of the more recent titles illustrates the decline in importance of arcade licenses in the latter half of the 80s.

 

Now the more important question is how many people bought a Genesis just to play Ms Pac-man?   Probably not very many.   They were buying Genesis for games like Sonic.

[Lynxpro]

On 10/8/2021 at 9:03 AM, zzip said:

It's a feature everybody says they want, but in practice doesn't get used that much once the new games are out, and also lack of BC doesn't seem to hurt a console's sales.   Keeping old hardware is easy enough, although I think some people sell their old hardware to help pay for the new stuff.

 

I think the 5200 itself didn't need it.  But it was the fact that Colecovision released a module to play 2600 games created a PR disaster and panic within Atari.   Still I think releasing the 2600 adapter for those who wanted it was enough.   Cancelling the console outright and releasing a new one with bc was an overreaction.

 

Backwards-compatibility is a comforting blanket for the customer upgrading. Even Joe Decuir has said in the Facebook groups that in hindsight, he wished they would've added the hardware necessary to have made the 400/800 backwards compatible with the 2600.

 

The 5200 was large enough to accommodate a secondary 2600 cartridge slot. At the original MSRP, they could've thrown in a switch [to enable whichever cartridge slot in use at the time], a TIA, a RIOT, and 2 DB9s. And if that didn't sell, they could've dropped that feature set on a cheaper model kinda like how Sony dropped PS2 compatibility in later PS3 revisions.

 

On 10/8/2021 at 8:45 AM, mr_me said:

Even in the US the computer market in the mid 1980s was Apple in the schools, PC in the office, and Commodore in the homes.

 

Atari engineers designed the 800 computer as a videogame machine with the 400 being the console version.  Someone at Atari decided computers are the way to go and put a keyboard on the 400.

 

Never understood the importance of backward compatibility.  If you have a library of old games I assume you have the hardware to play them.  If you don't have any games you might buy some older ones to play on your next generation console; maybe not.

 

Ray Kassar decided Atari should be in the computer business so they could supposedly earn Apple's margins. And an Apple II made a lot of profit off of the initial sale versus a 2600 despite sharing common 650x family chips. And that's how the 2600 replacement console project morphed into the Atari 8-Bit computer line. Plus, Jay Miner wanted to make a computer too. And Joe Decuir.

 

On 10/8/2021 at 11:42 AM, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

I pretty much agree with your appraisal of what the 5200 would have needed in order to succeed, save for a 1980 launch - there's no way the system could've been launched in 1980 at a competitive price. By 1981, maybe, and they certainly did it by 1982, with prices falling in 1983 and beyond.

 

How do you figure? RAM was the only expense. And a "5200" released in 1979/1980 would've had 2K or 4K RAM bundled in it, not 16K RAM or greater. Those chips weren't that expensive to produce when not including profit margins and R&D costs which were already sunk costs. The Atari AMY sound chip was revolutionary but even Atari Inc was projecting it would cost $4 to build per unit in 1984. In volume purchases, the Motorola 68000 itself only cost between $4 - $8 in circa 1985. So 6502 and its support chips weren't *that* expensive even in 1980. You're basing these assumptions on the MSRP prices of the consoles and computers, not what they actually cost to build. How could the Vectrex sport a Motorola 6809 in 1982/83? Everyone and their dog Spot built 6502s - and Z80s - back then. Look at the ColecoVision. It's all off-the-shelf parts. What R&D did they exactly do? Even Mattel's Intellivision had a 16-bit CPU in 1979 and General Instruments basically made just about everything inside that console with APh tackling the R&D of that system's weirdo controllers. Mattel didn't exactly do much there. Atari Inc could've been massively profitable in the home computer market - and cut prices - had they not had 20 layers of useless middle management wasting all of the money on cocaine and office furniture.

 

On 10/8/2021 at 11:48 AM, x=usr(1536) said:

After how Atari's marketing bungled the 5200 from the start, it was the only realistic option.  The 7800 was essentially free, seeing as how GCC was obliged to design it as part of a legal settlement, and it moved the state-of-the-art ahead of the 5200's capabilities in many ways.  Keeping the 5200 going just didn't make sense.

 

Bringing out a Super 5200 with the CX52j joysticks and adding GCC's MARIA graphics chip - plus a RIOT and TIA - to it would've made better sense than releasing the "7800". It wouldn't have immediately invalidated the purchases of the 5200 by 1.x million owners but been a stepping stone to build upon and harmonize the Atari game console owners.

 

On 10/8/2021 at 3:58 PM, mr_me said:

Maybe it was a straight royalty deal between GCC and Atari Inc., I don't know.  But we do know that in 1984 Atari Inc closed their consumer products divisions, sold off their inventory and wanted nothing to do with it.  The guy that bought that inventory couldn't sell it until he came to some agreement with GCC.

 

What are you smoking? Atari didn't close its own doors. Warner CEO Steve Ross decided to sell Atari Inc's assets right out from under Atari's own feet. They sold AtariTel to Mitsubishi, they kept 25% of Atari Coin/Games arcade division and sold the majority stake to Namco, and sold the assets of Atari Consumer to Jack Tramiel while retaining a 25% stake in the new company.

 

Steve Ross had already dealt with Jack Tramiel previously - back when Jack was still at Commodore - when Ross stepped in to personally disarm Jack Tramiel's nuclear lawsuit against his former employees at PVI who were designing the 2600 Keyboard for Atari. Ross asked Tramiel to acquire Atari Consumer because Tramiel was known to be shopping for a company and Ross didn't like Philips' offer that required selling 100% of Atari to them.

 

On 10/8/2021 at 12:42 PM, zzip said:

Yes that's what Bushnell thought since the 2600 was basically designed to play Pong.  He didn't foresee how far coders could push the hardware or that it would take almost 3 years for the 2600 to have its first massive hit in Space Invaders.   And as a result maybe the replacement was ready too early?  Imagine how much better the 5200 and 8-bit line could be if they had another year to design the chipset.

 

At the time, Pack-in games were typically not super impressive..     But when their competition was pulling a coup by giving away "Donkey Kong", they definitely need to do better than Super Breakout!

 

It wasn't about what Atari's fantastic programmers could accomplish. Bushnell wanted to always out-compete his own existing product line instead of allowing the competition to do so. He wanted to scrap the 2600 in favor of its replacement in 1979 so the competition couldn't keep up. Manny Gerard didn't like that idea because of the investment Warner had made in Atari to complete the 2600 in the first place and Ray Kassar argued he could make the 2600 a success by cost reducing it and licensing Space Invaders. Both were right. But as the late Curt Vendel and others have come to agree upon in hindsight, the best of both worlds would've been to massively cost reduce the 2600 for low-end sales but then bring out a "5200" - or, others would like to say a "keyboard-less 400" - in 1979 with Space Invaders exclusive to that console. That would've destroyed the Mattel Intellivision during its test market and sent them, Coleco, and any other possible competitor straight back to the drawing board. And I contend further that Atari should've convinced Namco to sell the 2600 or that "5200" in Japan for them instead of unofficially selling it for years until Atari had enough clout to debut the "2800" in Japan which was a failure since the Nintendo Famicom launched right before it in 1983. Not discontinuing the 2600 combined with Bushnell's partying, his outside business interests, Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, and wearing T-shirts that proclaimed "I Love To F**K" to the office were some of the reasons why he was supposedly shown the door. Or so the Germans and Frank Stallone would have us believe.

 

Ray Kassar should be commended for trying to bring all of Atari's offices together on a $500 million campus in the early 80s instead of being spread across 80 buildings throughout Silicon Valley but Warner nixed that plan.

 

 

On 10/9/2021 at 5:30 AM, zzip said:

According to this talk it was a royalty deal.   The sticking point was Jack wanted to sell the 7800 for $50 instead of $150 but GCC wanted to get paid

 

Go to the 58 minute mark for the Jack T stuff

 

 

It was for $59.99. And GCC would've made more off of it than whatever they made off of 4 million console sales for having caused the system's release to be delayed by 1 1/2 years. Nintendo should thank them.

 

On 10/10/2021 at 5:52 AM, schuwalker said:

Never realized Atari's Quantum was on the queue for the 5200.

If I'm not mistaken, GCC developed that. And the lawsuit settlement between Warner/Atari and GCC were over arcade titles. The fact that they were willing to code console games too was the icing on the cake for Warner. That's why Warner referred to GCC as "the toaster". Or "their toaster". GCC would try to undercut Atari Consumer's own programmers - and engineers - which is why a lot of Atari staff disliked them. 

 

Charley Chuck's Food Fight was also an arcade title GCC designed for Atari. It was also Atari's first Motorola 68000 based arcade game.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Lynxpro

[Lynxpro]

On 10/10/2021 at 8:54 AM, Cafeman said:

Atari decisions and the impending crash doomed 5200, but as NES showed in 1985 forwards, people did still want video games.  If Atari had ssecretly krpt 7800 until 86, with a good sound chip, yet stuck by 5200 in a better way until at least 86,  perhaps the company itself would have more loyal fans and wouldn't have bottomed out.  

 

Also, I'm sure many gamers weren't terribly excited by the Activision ports from 2600, but dang-it if those ports aren't fun to play to this day!   Imagine if Atari had made a good replacement to CX52, with  5200 ports of Adventure, Yars Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so on, to fill out the library more.  Its a cryin shame that Tempest and Xevious werent released. 

You can't do a Galaga on the 2600 without an ARM chip.

 

It's a myth that people lost interest in video games and that Nintendo revived it all. That's the story the media framed and Nintendo gladly embraced. Most of us kids were happy buying up a bunch of 2600 games for $1 to $5 a pop every chance we could. The media didn't ask us for our opinions. Like always, they gave air time to clueless pundits.

 

Furthermore, the retailers were gung-ho for the 7800 at that time. They were expecting it to turn around the industry at Christmas 1984. It was hoped that it would generate enough interest so that the 2600 cartridges they were stuck with would ultimately sell. That's why they in general were outright hostile to Nintendo and any others trying to launch new consoles that weren't backwards-compatible with the 2600 from the start. Nintendo was on the receiving end of that group hostility all the way into 1986.

 

On 10/10/2021 at 1:19 PM, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

I generally agree to the idea of Atari making arcade ports of all of their games, but not necessarily with developing them for every system. I think Atari, around 1983, should've started phasing out development of new 2600 games to focus on the 5200 and 8-bit computers, and completely stop by around 1984.

Keep in mind that a game like Galaga, while it was ported to the 2600 a few years ago, would've likely been derided as impossible for the 2600, or given a subpar port. On the other hand, skilled developers could've reasonably made it happen on the 5200/400/800 in 1984.

 

You can't make a Galaga on the 2600 without an ARM CPU in the cartridge. And the sprite limits are the reason why it's so much of a challenge to do on the A8/5200 when compared to the 7800 with the MARIA. And you can't really slap a CPU into a 5200 cartridge like you can a 7800 cartridge because of the address lines in the cartridge slot.

 

On 10/10/2021 at 6:20 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

I think you'll find that the computers were based off of the design that eventually became the 5200, not the other way around.

I think if you do your research, you'll discover that the Atari 8-bit computer project started off as a replacement console for the 2600 but Ray Kassar then decided to transform into a computer project. So the 5200 is the return to the original mission of that project.

 

On 10/10/2021 at 6:39 PM, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

While it's kind of a meaningless issue, as I recall, Atari intended to develop a 2600 successor, that morphed into the 400/800 computers after Atari witnessed the success of the Apple II. However, after the Intelivision launched, Atari turned their focus back to the games market and retooled the game console turned computer back into a game console. I've often said that in the process of trying to turn a kickass game console into a home computer, Atari created the best game console possible.

 

Atari had multiple 2600-replacement projects even after the 400/800 was released. They had one with the STIA chip along with extra RAM and a Votrax speech synthesizer chip. The Atari Museum website used to have photos of it. Had Warner not made rash decisions on their own without listening to Atari's engineers, then perhaps they could've instructed GCC to incorporate the STIA instead of the TIA in the 7800 and figured out a way to get that chip - or even the TIA - to assist the MARIA besides with sound duties.

 

It was also rather dumb that Atari Inc didn't start using the Dual or Quad POKEYs outside of the arcade games.

 

On 10/17/2021 at 10:40 AM, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

Yeah the point about four players is valid, but if that was their reasoning, it's still shaky, since the 5200's intended appeal was based more on arcade-quality graphics than having four controller ports. I'm certainly with you that Pac-Man, Missile Command, or Centipede (or maybe even Space Invaders) would've been ideal. Also, I think it would've been best if the 5200 joysticks took a page from many early PC joysticks, with the ability to adjust how powerful the centering springs are, so you can make the controller non-centering for games where you control a cursor like Star Wars or Missile Comman, or very centering for a game with precise relative directional control like Pac-Man.

 

People are forgetting that the Atari 400 and 800 also had 4 joystick ports. Granted, the later XL computers stupidly ditched them just as the 2-port 5200 ditched the 2 extra ports. Plus, you needed 4 ports because you didn't hook up 2 controllers to the same port like 2600 Paddles, and Atari was planning on eventually releasing Warlords for the 5200. Even the Atari 2800/Sears Video Arcade II featured 4 joystick ports for that reason since its combined controllers didn't plug in as pairs.  I can't remember if Super Breakout on the 400/800 supports 8-players. I think the lost version of Avalanche [Kaboom before it was Kaboom] did.

 

On 10/17/2021 at 11:22 AM, ymike673 said:

Sure. It was a bad reason for that to be the pack in game but it's seems like Atari made the wrong decision every time as far as the 5200 was concerned. 

 

Pack-in games weren't considered a console seller prior to Coleco's success with Donkey Kong. Atari passed up on Donkey Kong because 1. they weren't willing to pay $4 in royalties to Nintendo per cartridge [although Manny Gerard now claims he was willing to do so] and 2. some of Atari Coin's employees hated the game and even passed on selling the arcade machine outside of Japan. Probably also 3. Nintendo have always been colossal a$$holios.

 

On 10/22/2021 at 7:44 AM, bikeguychicago said:

I think it could have been a serious contender if a few things had been done differently:

1. The controllers should have used brass or gold contacts on the buttons to severely reduce or eliminate the button press issues
2. The joystick should have been auto-centering. Q*Bert and Frogger are two examples of why this should have been the case. 
3. It should have released a year after the Intellivision to both gain market share and give it a head-start on CV.
4. Pac-Man should have been the pack-in cart, even if it were a loss-leader.

 

It would have also been nice if a digital arcade controller had been released as an accessory for games that worked best with such a control.

 

How can you plan on getting a head start on a console that was "developed" in secret? You can only do that with industrial espionage or if you commit to Nolan Bushnell's strategy of always striving to create the next best thing before your hypothetical competition does it for you.

 

Pac-Man was later packed-in with the 5200.  You can see plenty of boxes with "Pac-Man now included" stickers on them.

 

And Atari's own engineers held a walk-out protest over the CX52s not self-centering from the start. Warner ignored them. Jerry Jessop disliked the Warner picked product manager - who was French - in charge over the 5200 so much that he had an inflatable frog on a string fly around... can't remember if he did that at CES outside or not. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Lynxpro

[Lynxpro]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Consumers don't want to buy a new console every year, they expect them to last for several years.   That's one mistake Atari was clearly making in this era by having too many consoles on the drawing board to be released in a short span of years (5200, NES, 7800, Lorraine-based console)

 

I have read little bits about this plan, but it's hard to find detailed information.   The truth is Atari seemed to have rights to the Amiga chipset for only about 1 month before Commodore swooped in and bought the company and paid off the Atari loan.   This was also at a time when Atari was in great disarray and about to be bought by Jack,  so I doubt any plans they drew up in that month for the chipset were anything more than preliminary.   I also have doubts about the future of such a console under Jack even if they retained the rights.   They couldn't even get an ST-based console released.  Jack was miserly with R&D money for anything that wasn't the ST Computer line.

 

A laserdisc player cost hundreds more than a console did back then.   It was not a realistic peripheral for the time period.

 

Arcade ports are still done on modern consoles.  But my point is they stopped being the driving force for selling systems around the mid-80s.   After that people started buying consoles for hot original games, not because it had the best arcade ports.

 

Point is, Atari Inc planned to release the Amiga as a 16-bit console for Christmas 1985 at the higher end of the market. Within a year under the Amiga agreement, they could release a keyboard accessory for it or a full-blown computer. Atari Inc was going to acquire Amiga since Amiga couldn't pay back the loan so that requirement would've been scrapped and Atari could've moved onto also releasing the "1800XL" which would've been an Amiga Lorraine based computer at the high-end. Of course, it wouldn't have used TRIP-OS which became AmigaOS. It probably still would've ended up being CP/M-68K which Atari Inc had already licensed - curiously, Atari Corp ended up licensing DRI's stuff separately later - and Crystal/GEM as the GUI unless they were able to use the Snowcap GUI that Atari Inc's Advanced Research Division had developed running atop BSD on their Dual 68000 based GAZA workstation.

 

And regardless of what you claim about the LaserDisc player, that was the plan. That's what the 7800's Expansion Port was exclusively designed for.

 

Arcade ports never stopped being the "driving force" for selling consoles. It was crucial to Atari Inc's strategy, Coleco's strategy, and Sega's strategy. You are buying into Ninjaendo's self-serving revisionism. Even Super Mario Bros was an arcade title. Arguably ripping off the mechanics of Pac-Land in the process [and Pac-Land would've been ported to the 7800 had Atari Inc survived; it was part of the plans]. Imagine Pac-Land replacing Pole Position II as the 7800's pack-in for Christmas 1985 right in time for Nintendo's test market sales in New York City that Christmas while also having probably 20 titles to go along with it at that point. Game over man, game over...

 

The ST based console wasn't a failure of R&D. It was the inability to attract strong developer interest in recoding their games for cartridges. Or licensing them to Atari Corp in the first place [especially considering Nintendo's monopolistic practices were making that impossible to do at the time; it would've ended up being just as toothless as the NEC Turbografx-16 outside of Japan whereas that console - called the PC Engine in Japan - was a huge success since those exclusivities weren't locked down inside Japan]. Had the 7800 launched at Christmas 1984 - thanks GCC! - it would've been a success and Nintendo wouldn't have been able to lock up developers into exclusive contracts for North America and Europe so none of that would've impacted the ST Console or the previously planned MICKEY console.

 

2 hours ago, Keatah said:

I think that once I got dismayed, the sour taste stuck. Eventually nothing could be good on the 5200. For better or worse it was 400/800 all the way.

 

I asked for them and they showed up. With the exception of the Apple II, which I earned mostly on my own and still have to this day. Toward the later days I ended up selling some of them to move into more advanced consoles like the SMS and Amiga. And of course more Apple parts.

 

Your bedroom must've resembled Matthew Broderick's character's bedroom in War Games. I commend you, good Sir.  There's a section in the Atari 8-bit Threads for pictures from the 1980s of everyone's computer set-ups back then. I hope you contribute to it if you have any old pics of all of that stuff!

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

That was Tengen's most popular title.   As you point out, Tengen was the home arm of the Atari games arcade division.  So not surprising that they produce home arcade games.   But the fact that such an old title was their most popular and not one of the more recent titles illustrates the decline in importance of arcade licenses in the latter half of the 80s.

 

Now the more important question is how many people bought a Genesis just to play Ms Pac-man?   Probably not very many.   They were buying Genesis for games like Sonic.

 

It was a Namco title that Atari Games/Tengen had rights to as a division of Namco at that time. Point is, it was still massively popular, especially amongst women. The Sega Genesis' popularity - prior to Sonic - was based upon the strength of Sega's arcade library combined with Atari Games' arcade strength through Tengen's line-up and also the sports games. Your theory is plain wrong.

 

FFS, one of the big strengths of the original Sony Playstation was Namco throwing their support behind the console. And Namco was an ARCADE company. And even before that, there was the grudge match between everyone over Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat which were both ARCADE titles.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Lynxpro

[Lynxpro]

On 10/3/2021 at 10:18 AM, bohoki said:

probably not looking back there was very little success with converting an existing computer to a game system

 

the commodore 64game system flopped so did the amigacd32 those may be unfair because commodore management was inept

 

In all fairness, the Commodore 64 game system console was released in, what, 1991? Had it been released in say 1987 against the Atari XE Game System, well, it probably would've done better. Not that the alleged XEGS sales of 100,000 were that great.

 

As for the Amiga CD32, well, it didn't fair well because packaging up 6+ year old games coded for the original Amiga onto CD-ROM and going up against the 3DO and the Playstation was never going to work out well.

[5200Fanatic]

6 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

Toys R Us and Kay Bee stocked replacement 5200 joysticks. Just about every Atari computer dealer also stocked them because that was one of the most popular items they received phone calls for...  "do you sell replacement Atari 5200 joysticks?" That was well-documented. Even Atari Corp Customer Service claimed that was the #1 phone call they received even going into 1987.

 

Yes, they did stock them, but not for long. 

[Lynxpro]

41 minutes ago, 5200Fanatic said:

 

Yes, they did stock them, but not for long. 

 

Toys R Us had them until about 1987 so that's a good run for a console that was discontinued in 1984.

[NoBloodyXLOrE]

I did not expect this thread to blow up again, but here we are, and I'm not complaining.

 

@Lynxpro Fair enough. I've heard that the 7800 was once in the running against the Famicom when Atari considered licensing it, with both systems having similar price/performance. I also agree that the CGIA, backwards compatibility adapter, and self-centering joysticks would've helped, but a "Super 5200" would've fragmented the market (VIC-20 RAM Expander, anybody?), and most of the best Atari 8-bit games are 16K ROM cartridges that only need 16K of RAM anyway.
There's no way that Atari could've released an Amiga console in 1985; regardless of what their plans were, it would've been unfeasible at a console pricepoint.

To a later comment of yours, I never disputed that an LD attachment was in the works, I simply said that it would've failed due to poor games and high price.

To an even later comment, the XEGS didn't seem to be a failure for Atari, it was profitable and sold well initially; it was just designed to clear inventory.

To your question about which Star Raiders II, I know that The Last Starfighter version was a disk game, so that obviously could've been put on a bank-switched cart (I think it was, during the XE era), but that's not the real Star Raiders II as you mentioned, which was a 32K cartridge if I remember correctly - more within reason and closer to the original.

While you probably have a point, the software ecosystem on the 400/800 still wasn't there until around 1982, but even putting that aside, 2-4K of RAM would be insufficient for a console based on those games. The 5200 with 16K had a perfect amount since that was the baseline RAM config for the 8-bit computers, so software could be more easily ported. It probably could've made do with 8K, but that would've been tight, but 2-4K would've required severely pared-down rewrites.
16K of RAM was still expensive in 1980 from what I've heard. 1981 is, in my opinion, the earliest that such a system would be reasonable to launch - you're after the Intelivsion, but ahead of the Coleco. The 2600 has been out for a few years and the 8-bit computers have started to pick up steam and software at their first point.

Good point on Galaga on the 2600 containing the ARM chip; I'd completely forgotten, and it definitely would've been a huge challenge on the A8/5200, though the work being done recently is very impressive. I'm not 100% convinced that the 7800 test market ever actually happened, though...

Also, I'm well aware of the Atari 3200 Super Stella project that I think you're referring to, though information is shaky ("10-bit CPU?"). And I don't think anyone's forgotten that the 400/800 had two joystick ports (EA certainly didn't when they made MULE), but it's something of a moot point, since so few games used them - I don't think it was stupid to ditch them as it seemingly reduced cost, and on the 8-bit computers, freed up the I/O ports for memory banking if I remember correctly.

I do generally agree that pack-in games weren't a big deal for a while, but it's somewhat perplexing that Atari offered Pack-Man as a pac-in game on the 2600 before the 5200, despite the 5200 having the clearly superior version.

Of course, the NES didn't do too hot at the test market, due to a subpar library of games and only the expensive "Deluxe" unit being sold - there was no Super Mario, not even any of Nintendo's arcade games, so if Atari had launched on time, things could've been very different. Though I think arcade ports did fade away in terms of their relevance towards selling consoles sometime in the 1990s, around the early 32-bit era (certainly, they didn't fade away completely, Sega's arcade repertoire on the Saturn, plus Namco's games on PSX prove that, but that influence has only faded over time), but people saying that Nintendo killed the relevance of arcade ports are idiotic; arcade games stayed relevant into the 16-bit generation.

I don't, however, think that the C64GS would've sold well even if it had launched in 1987, and in the US. The Atari was simply more pliable to a role as a game console, with most games requiring no more keyboard use than the start/reset/option/help buttons, most coming on cartridge, etc. Besides, the Atari was sold with expandability in mind, where you could add a disk drive, keyboard, etc. The C64GS was always going to be a cut down C64, in the shadow of its bigbrother, but the XEGS was literally just a 65XE, just repackaged, having an external keyboard instead. Besides, the Atari 8-bit line had a much better game library anyway.

 

@zzip Actually, arcade-quality graphics were a big part of the push for the Genesis, particularly in its first few years in North America (remember the commercials - "16-bit arcade graphics" - "Genesis does what Nintendon't), and the pack-in title was even the arcade game Altered Beast. Sega, being a big coin-op company too, continued to push arcade games on their systems, including the Genesis launch title Space Harrier II, a sequel to the arcade original.

Also, it's not simply that Ms. Pac Man was Tengen's best-selling Genesis game - it's one of the best-selling Genesis games, period, being up there at over a million copies sold. Also among the list are Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat III, Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition, and NBA Jam, all arcade games. The SNES certainly didn't turn its back on these games either, with Gradius III being a worldwide launch title from day one.

[zzip]

15 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

It's a myth that people lost interest in video games and that Nintendo revived it all. That's the story the media framed and Nintendo gladly embraced. Most of us kids were happy buying up a bunch of 2600 games for $1 to $5 a pop every chance we could. The media didn't ask us for our opinions. Like always, they gave air time to clueless pundits.

I didn't read it in the media, I experienced it first hand!   Lots of of the people I knew who were big into videogame 81-83 started to lose interest.   The kids/teens moved onto MTV as the next big thing.  The adults moved onto home video.   This was the era when video stores popped up on every corner and games were disappearing from retailers because that reflected what was selling.   Many arcades closed down.  Arcade machines at supermarkets and convenience stores disappeared.  Those of us still into gaming were considered 'nerds' by our peers and so we kept our interest quiet.

 

And so a few years later when everyone started getting NESes,  it was a surprise that games were 'cool' again.   So there was a loss of interest in games that was palpable.  It wasn't a media invention.

 

15 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

Point is, Atari Inc planned to release the Amiga as a 16-bit console for Christmas 1985 at the higher end of the market. Within a year under the Amiga agreement, they could release a keyboard accessory for it or a full-blown computer. Atari Inc was going to acquire Amiga since Amiga couldn't pay back the loan so that requirement would've been scrapped and Atari could've moved onto also releasing the "1800XL" which would've been an Amiga Lorraine based computer at the high-end. Of course, it wouldn't have used TRIP-OS which became AmigaOS. It probably still would've ended up being CP/M-68K which Atari Inc had already licensed - curiously, Atari Corp ended up licensing DRI's stuff separately later - and Crystal/GEM as the GUI unless they were able to use the Snowcap GUI that Atari Inc's Advanced Research Division had developed running atop BSD on their Dual 68000 based GAZA workstation.

 

And regardless of what you claim about the LaserDisc player, that was the plan. That's what the 7800's Expansion Port was exclusively designed for.

Obviously you need to plan for the future, but not every plan will pan out.    I don't see an Amiga console being practical for 85 even if the Amiga deal went in Atari's favor and Jack didn't buy the company.   Same with laserdisc-- Sure it's forward looking, but the price would never have made it practical.   It took until the 1990s for CD-ROM to be practical to consoles

 

15 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

Arcade ports never stopped being the "driving force" for selling consoles. It was crucial to Atari Inc's strategy, Coleco's strategy, and Sega's strategy. You are buying into Ninjaendo's self-serving revisionism. Even Super Mario Bros was an arcade title.

Super Mario Bros was on NES first, and later ported to the arcade.   Yes hot arcade licenses were crucial to Atari and Coleco's strategy,  but it didn't really work out for them, did it?

 

15 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

The ST based console wasn't a failure of R&D. It was the inability to attract strong developer interest in recoding their games for cartridges. Or licensing them to Atari Corp in the first place [especially considering Nintendo's monopolistic practices were making that impossible to do at the time;

The ST had a strong games library on floppy.  Much stronger than what the 7800 or XEGS had for late-80s gaming tastes.   So if Atari really couldn't convince the developers to port their existing ST games to cart, then how were they going to convince developers to develop for an Amiga-based console if they had produced one?

 

7 hours ago, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

Actually, arcade-quality graphics were a big part of the push for the Genesis, particularly in its first few years in North America (remember the commercials - "16-bit arcade graphics" - "Genesis does what Nintendon't), and the pack-in title was even the arcade game Altered Beast. Sega, being a big coin-op company too, continued to push arcade games on their systems, including the Genesis launch title Space Harrier II, a sequel to the arcade original.

Also, it's not simply that Ms. Pac Man was Tengen's best-selling Genesis game - it's one of the best-selling Genesis games, period, being up there at over a million copies sold. Also among the list are Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat III, Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition, and NBA Jam, all arcade games. The SNES certainly didn't turn its back on these games either, with Gradius III being a worldwide launch title from day one

All I'm saying is that there was a shift in the mid-80s.   Before that you could sell your console on having the hottest arcade hits and original titles weren't all that important.   But after that point, strong original content became more important than just simply having a strong arcade portfolio

 

Arcades shifted to 16-bits in 84/85 and it became difficult for 8-bit home systems to properly port such titles, but the Genesis would obviously not have that problem.

 

Also arcades were huge in the early 80s.  Many shut down during the crash.   There was a resurgence in the late 80s, but arcade never hit the crazed levels of the early 80s--  so that's a factor in how important home arcade ports were as the decade moved on

[+x=usr(1536)]

18 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

I think if you do your research, you'll discover that the Atari 8-bit computer project started off as a replacement console for the 2600 but Ray Kassar then decided to transform into a computer project. So the 5200 is the return to the original mission of that project.

I think you'll find that I really don't care.

 

By all means carry on with swamping the thread, however.  This is important stuff, after all.  Very important stuff.  It needs long-winded replies to, well, everything.

[5200Fanatic]

On 10/27/2021 at 11:10 PM, Lynxpro said:

 

Toys R Us had them until about 1987 so that's a good run for a console that was discontinued in 1984.

Did you try to get one in 1987? I can tell you that I couldn't find any and had to buy a new console at Toys R Us just to get the controllers. 

[phuzaxeman]

On 10/27/2021 at 11:58 AM, Lynxpro said:

 

The 5200 was a reaction to the Intellivision, not the ColecoVision. Coleco caught Atari by complete surprise with the debut of the ColecoVision. It was the double-whammy of 1982 along with the Commodore 64 and a total failure of any industrial intelligence Atari conducted.

 

With that having been said, Nolan Bushnell and Co had been planning for a 2600 replacement right after the 2600 was released. He was advising Warner to allow him to scrap the 2600 in 1978 following the abysmal Christmas sales caused by the popularity of Mattel Electronics' handheld electronic games that Christmas. The Atari 8-bit computers started out as that project but Ray Kassar wanted it changed to become a computer so that Atari could earn the profit margin Apple was making off per sale of the Apple II which was significantly more than the profit margin on a sub $300 video game console. So the 5200 wasn't a "repackage" of the Atari 8-bit computers; it was the return to the original goals of that project.

The commodore didn't really take off until late 83 and 84.  Atari held on to their 2600 and didn't properly focus on the 5200. 

[NoBloodyXLOrE]

@Lynxpro Yes, the 5200 was a reaction to the Intelivision; Atari saw the threat posed by a high-end game console so they built their own. When their custom STIA chipset failed to deliver, they repackaged the Atari 400. While the 8-bit machines were originally planned to be game machines, what ended up coming out was a set of computers, repackaged as game systems to become the 5200 and XEGS, though in different ways for each. However, it ended up competing with the ColecoVision because it and the 5200 had similar almost-arcade capabilities.

 

@phuzaxeman I'm not so sure about that; the price war had been going on since 1981/82, giving the VIC-20 price time to crater and for that to explode in sales, and while the C64 started out at $600 in 1982, it was down to $300 before the end of the year, and didn't stop getting cheaper. I think it had already gained a pretty decent place in the market before Christmas 1983, though of course that was when sales exploded for it, due to the low price, high capabilities, and low supply of Atari 800XL. You are definitely right that Atari not focusing on the 5200 and continuing to milk the 2600 did doom the high-end machine, though.

 

@zzip I will concede to you (and even said this to a degree) that the importance of arcade ports declined over time through the mid-80s into the 1990s, However, around 1982-84, you could still very much sell your game machine on arcade titles, as the ColecoVision and 5200 did to a certain extent, as did the Atari 8-bit home computers, while even pared-down arcade ports sold well on the 2600 because Atari had failed to push their new system as well as they should/could've. Original content on home machines was generally pretty dicey before the NES, and it arguably wasn't until Mario when that even became a major consideration.

Edited October 30, 2021 by NoBloodyXLOrE