Could the 5200 have succeeded?

[Lynxpro]

On 10/29/2021 at 6:56 AM, phuzaxeman said:

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. 

 

The Commodore 64 was selling in 1982 and Commodore's marketing campaign cost Atari sales whether they were in terms of 2600s and 5200s not being sold or potential sales of Atari's 8-bit computers. Even the VIC-20 cost them sales. To argue against this is to deny the reality of what happened back then. And many of us were there and witnessed this firsthand.

Edited December 5, 2021 by Lynxpro

[phuzaxeman]

7 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

The Commodore 64 was selling in 1982 and Commodore's marketing campaign cost Atari sales whether they were in terms of 2600s and 5200s not being sold or potential sales of Atari's 8-bit computers. Even the VIC-20 cost them sales. To argue against this is to deny the reality of what happened back then. And many of us were there and witnessed this firsthand.

Sure you can say that about any console or even any computer because the US market was saturated with many consoles and computers at the time. 

 

[David Alexander]

On 9/30/2021 at 11:25 AM, RangerG said:

I remember reading that the 5200 was catching up to the Colecovision right before the crash. It was not the failure that people now consider it. Colecovision and the 5200 were both top-of-the-line consoles, when there were  several popular consoles out there with noticeably lesser graphics. I believe the answer to this question is yes, if they hadn't panicked. The 5200 was amazingly impressive when it came out. Pac-man should have been the pack-in game and they should have introduced digital, centering, joysticks. The original sticks could have been promoted as a feature (analog sticks for 5200 exclusives). Don't acknowledge your mistakes, just double-down and tout your system. I grew up with the 5200 and I remember kids loving it. The games were bright and fast and they looked like the arcade. You were the cool kid that could play games just like the arcade, if you had a 5200. 

Agree, when I got the system in '83 it was amazing. Hours and hours spent playing Pac Man and Wizard of Wor.

And the Trak Ball alone is a reason to own the system.

[BIGHMW]

Almost 500 titles, hey @David Alexander, ever try Paul Lay's @playsoft brilliant A8-to-5200 conversion of Lennart Bown's @Thelen game from 2009, Yar's Strike??? if you ever wanted to play Yars' Revenge on an 8-bit system, then it's definitely for you. 

 

Here are both Paul's conversion for the 5200 (.bin) and also Lennart's reworked A8 PAL/NTSC-switchable (.xex) (it detects which system it's run on, works the same on both PAL and NTSC units) versions of Yar's Strike, both are great, and this game is tougher than the good-old 2600 original Yars' Revenge ever was (the Qotile moves up and down, and the swirl is very aggressive and quicker too). We hope you'll enjoy playing it. I do, that's why Paul and Lennart made them happen. I highly recommend it

Yar's Strike.bin Yar's Strike PAL-NTSC.xex

[Cebus Capucinis]

No.

 

Simple as.

[high voltage]

I (living in UK) got my cib 5200 from Russ Perry (US), and he wanted a cib Amstrad GX4000 console in return.

I laughed when he said 'the postage was killing me'....

 

I visited Atari UK (quite often), they had a 5200 PAL hanging around.

 

 

Mind you, the 5200 had the coolest advertisment in USA, hot girls playing Atari 5200 (They wiggle the controller quite well)

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by high voltage

[adamchevy]

No.
 
Simple as. [emoji3]

Obviously not. 180 something posts and counting.

[Cebus Capucinis]

[phuzaxeman]

On 1/29/2022 at 7:53 AM, David Alexander said:

Agree, when I got the system in '83 it was amazing. Hours and hours spent playing Pac Man and Wizard of Wor.

And the Trak Ball alone is a reason to own the system.

Got mine in 82.  The 5200 was such a blast and ahead of it's time. 

[adamchevy]

 

[CommodoreDecker]

On 9/28/2021 at 9:21 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. But I've often wondered if it could've succeeded if it had shipped with better controllers (i.e. a centering joystick), a better pack-in game (Pac Man - to compete with Coleco's Donkey Kong), and either an optional computer keyboard and BASIC cartridge, or full-on Atari 400 capability. A full 16K game console with such impressive graphics and the ability to be upgraded into a home computer definitely wasn't shabby, but could it have succeeded in a world where prices on the Atari 400/800 were careening down (along with all other computers, such as the VIC-20 and TI-99/4A), and the Commodore 64 and Atari 600/800XL were on the way?

 

IMHO, yes it could have.

 

Atari had already made the mistake of cutting corners for Pac-Man,  not that it didn't stop me from enjoying it at the time...  but they could have used the next largest-size ROM size, give it the rockstar treatment as it deserved, and history would have been changed...

 

Sorry for the tangent,  but the more I've learned and experienced with the 5200 -- they really cut corners on a genuinely forward-thinking  design.  Lack of composite might also be an issue, but the controllers' contacts were known to oxidize and become non-responsive.  It's odd because the 5200 Trakball used gold contacts from the start, yet it looks like none of their original joystick line used gold - only aluminium, with third parties plating the flexcirtcuits with gold to fix that problem.

 

The non-centering joystick is a minor irritant for Pac-Man, but is a sheer joy for Centipede, Missile Command, Super Breakout, and Temp--

 

Hmmm, that's one of the 5200's other issues: Newer arcade hits not getting ported. Tempest, like Sinistar and others,  had development started but ceased - likely due to the poor sales. Those needed to have gotten out sooner... especially as Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractalus, and other 800-era games were coming out.  A shame MULE was not ported... imagine a game on the 5200 that actually used all 4 joysticks, so you and your three besties at the party can all gripe about the pitiful joysticks simultaneously!!

 

But Ballblazer, Fractalus, et al, were a step in the right direction for gaming. If it weren't for the controllers, sales may have been high enough to spur more ports of games over. Especially with what they did in 16KB of RAM or less... 

 

The 5200 had serious, real, and forward-thinking potential. As with 2600 Pac-Man, they were doing too much on the cheap and rushed.

 

The power cable issue.  The basic notion of having one cable going from the console to a junction box is rather nifty.  The problem was with how fragile the system was and how bumping the box could case sparks and a short that blows the fuse.  Never mind there's no easy way to get at the fuse, once Fido or Fluffers trots by and nudges ever so slightly the box behind the TV.  Well, not sure about dogs but cats will go there...

 

Lastly, packaging Super Breakout as the bundled game?  ?‍♂️?‍♀️?‍♂️  Seriously, that game was too 1977 by the time 1982 arrived. 

 

 

 

[Zonie]

IMHO, When the C64 dropped to $179, that was it. Why buy a 5200 or even CV when for the same or less, get a full computer with a cartridge port and disk based games. I was in my early teens when all this happened and the computer made more sense to a high school kid who also had a shitty typewriter and needed something better for that as well.

One other thing, with disk based games, many could be had for free. Copying was rampant, and it was also fed by the rise in 80's style social networking, the BBS scene. I immediately made orders of magnitude more friends with this as we all had similar hobbies and personalities, many of whom were adults and many I still have today. Lots of game copying parties back then.

 

To summarize:

 

• More useful hardware
• Free games
• More and more mature friends to share it all with.

 

Besides, when the 5200 came out, it didn't take us long to figure out what was under the hood.

If they marketed the 400 with more Ram and stuck it in a black case and had Pac-Man as a pack-in, that would have been a better 5200.

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Zonie

[RangerG]

I remember reading through the Digital Press forums when the original Xbox came out. There was a significant group of people with the sentiment that the Xbox would fail, as an American console that was really a computer. The 5200 was referenced/linked to this view and it made me happy to see the Xbox succeed. 

[zzip]

1 hour ago, RangerG said:

I remember reading through the Digital Press forums when the original Xbox came out. There was a significant group of people with the sentiment that the Xbox would fail, as an American console that was really a computer. The 5200 was referenced/linked to this view and it made me happy to see the Xbox succeed. 

To me every console is essentially a computer since they are using CPUs and other chips also used in computer designs.  Modern consoles even use well-established computer operating systems such as BSD under the hood.     The only distinction is the interface(s).   A proper console should remove or hide the computery portions of the OS and be simple for anyone to operate with the game controllers.

 

I think the 5200 did all that well enough.   The main issues there were that there were XL models priced below the 5200 price, the games on both platforms were identical except for a handful of exceptions.   So it was basically Atari competing against itself and splitting its base.

[Keatah]

46 minutes ago, zzip said:

To me every console is essentially a computer since they are using CPUs and other chips also used in computer designs.

Indeed. Furthermore, a cart-based console is a fixed-function computer. You can only change its programming by changing parts. Saw that definition many times bitd.

 

49 minutes ago, zzip said:

A proper console should remove or hide the computery portions of the OS and be simple for anyone to operate with the game controllers.

The early micros like Apple II and Atari 8-bit did a great job of making their drives "Autostart", to use an Apple II+ term. Turn it on, put the disk in. No typing required. C64 not as much.

[zzip]

13 minutes ago, Keatah said:

The early micros like Apple II and Atari 8-bit did a great job of making their drives "Autostart", to use an Apple II+ term. Turn it on, put the disk in. No typing required. C64 not as much.

True,  but for whatever reason, floppies always seemed inappropriate for a console medium.   Too slow or not rugged enough I guess.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Atari really missed a marketing coup by not playing to the 5200's strengths.

 

Sure, its size was often compared to an aircraft carrier - so why not actually use it as one?

 

 

That's Atari for you.  Not knowing the real value of what they're sitting on.

[Lord Mushroom]

On 9/29/2021 at 7:47 PM, TwoShedsWilson said:

I understand nobody wanted to kill the golden goose, but they were creating their own competition by trying to keep too many platforms alive at the same time

The goose was golden because the 5200 was so flawed. If they had cancelled the golden goose, the 5200 would have done better, but overall Atari would have suffered financially. 

[Lord Mushroom]

On 9/30/2021 at 1:35 AM, BIGHMW said:

she still has THE BEST lineup of titles of any 8-bit gaming machine. Period.

I highly disagree with this. I would say that the NES clearly has the best game lineup of the 8-bit consoles.

 

I am curious, have you played newer consoles than the 5200 and ColecoVision (I know you have played the 7800)? If so, why don´t you like say NES, Genesis or SNES better?

 

Another question. Why not play the arcade version of games on an emulator instead of inferior ports? 

Edited February 28, 2022 by Lord Mushroom

[Lord Mushroom]

On 9/30/2021 at 2:40 PM, TwoShedsWilson said:

That's why I said '84, give it a good year-and-a-half two-year overlap and then the old platform needed to go. That still would have given the 2600 roughly 7 years of shelf-life and told consumers the 5200 is the platform moving forward. It's pretty much how console generations are handled now.

Previous generation consoles are dropped when they are no longer selling. The 2600 was still in demand in 1984.

[Chris+++]

 

Think of Nintendo's wise decision, a couple of years after the 5200 was no more, to include console-selling games with the consoles themselves. Players automatically owned the "must have," killer games for the NES (Super Mario Bros.) and the Game Boy (Tetris) as soon as they bought those systems. That made all the difference. I knew plenty of people who bought the units just to play those specific games. In fact, my younger brother asked for an NES for Christmas just to have SMB.

 

This was like Atari including Star Raiders with the 800 in 1979, or Space Invaders with the VCS in 1980. I call the killer pack-in decision "wise" because while it might have been counter-intuitive from a profits standpoint, it established those consoles in a huge number of households and simultaneously showed off their capabilities. Those players then purchased later cartridges by the millions.

 

Hindsight is easy, but my take is that the 5200 could have succeeded if the pack-in game actually exhibited the major differences between the VCS and the 5200, and could only be played on the 5200. I dig Super Breakout in general, but in 1982, it was an old game that certainly wasn't exclusive to this console. It also didn't show it off, graphically or otherwise.

 

If an original, desirable game had been included with the 5200, and undeniable titles (the excellent conversion of Taito America's Space Dungeon, for instance) were available early on, and hyped as being 5200 exclusives, I think it would have done very well. Its coin-op translations were impressive, but nothing new. Most of the games were already a couple years old in the arcades. It also didn't take any special insight for a player to think, "Why don't I just buy an 800? These are the same games!"

 

Also, of course, there was the obvious matter of the joysticks. The fact that they were analogue wouldn't have been a big deal, I think -- and not even the non-auto-centering would have been a system killer. But they're fragile and very difficult to use with games that require fancy moves, such as turning at right angles.

 

So a better controller would have helped the 5200's word-of-mouth instead of hurting it immensely. Not an original observation, granted, but a realistic one.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2022 by Chris+++

[phuzaxeman]

7 hours ago, Chris+++ said:

 

Think of Nintendo's wise decision, a couple of years after the 5200 was no more, to include console-selling games with the consoles themselves. Players automatically owned the "must have," killer games for the NES (Super Mario Bros.) and the Game Boy (Tetris) as soon as they bought those systems. That made all the difference. I knew plenty of people who bought the units just to play those specific games. In fact, my younger brother asked for an NES for Christmas just to have SMB.

 

This was like Atari including Star Raiders with the 800 in 1979, or Space Invaders with the VCS in 1980. I call the killer pack-in decision "wise" because while it might have been counter-intuitive from a profits standpoint, it established those consoles in a huge number of households and simultaneously showed off their capabilities. Those players then purchased later cartridges by the millions.

 

Hindsight is easy, but my take is that the 5200 could have succeeded if the pack-in game actually exhibited the major differences between the VCS and the 5200, and could only be played on the 5200. I dig Super Breakout in general, but in 1982, it was an old game that certainly wasn't exclusive to this console. It also didn't show it off, graphically or otherwise.

 

If an original, desirable game had been included with the 5200, and undeniable titles (the excellent conversion of Taito America's Space Dungeon, for instance) were available early on, and hyped as being 5200 exclusives, I think it would have done very well. Its coin-op translations were impressive, but nothing new. Most of the games were already a couple years old in the arcades. It also didn't take any special insight for a player to think, "Why don't I just buy an 800? These are the same games!"

 

Also, of course, there was the obvious matter of the joysticks. The fact that they were analogue wouldn't have been a big deal, I think -- and not even the non-auto-centering would have been a system killer. But they're fragile and very difficult to use with games that require fancy moves, such as turning at right angles.

 

So a better controller would have helped the 5200's word-of-mouth instead of hurting it immensely. Not an original observation, granted, but a realistic one.

 

 

"It also didn't take any special insight for a player to think, "Why don't I just buy an 800? These are the same games!"

 

I never heard about an Atari computer until 83 when I saw them in magazines. Atari 800 computers were not for sale at Kmart, Sears, and other major stores in 1982.

 

Qix, Centipede, Pacman, and Countermeasure were not exactly the same games.

There was no Real sports Baseball on the 800 either the following year.  I do get your point with many other games.

[zzip]

9 hours ago, phuzaxeman said:

I never heard about an Atari computer until 83 when I saw them in magazines. Atari 800 computers were not for sale at Kmart, Sears, and other major stores in 1982.

The 400/800 were not that uncommon.   Maybe Kmart didn't sell them before 83, but other major retailers did.   I remember even seeing the short-lived 1200XLs on display at major department stores

[Leonard Smith]

5 hours ago, zzip said:

The 400/800 were not that uncommon.   Maybe Kmart didn't sell them before 83, but other major retailers did.   I remember even seeing the short-lived 1200XLs on display at major department stores

Depends on where you lived.  

I honestly have no recollection of ever having seen an Atari computer during my childhood days.

None of the larger stores had them where I lived, and I don't even think that Sears in my vicinity carried them.  They were mysterious items ... I saw them mentioned in Atari literature and catalogs, but never got to chance to see one in the real world. 

[BIGHMW]

I think I'll chime in with the 200th post on this thread with my 2 cents on this  .

 

I myself didn't full-flegedly know of Atari's home computer lineup until the early 1980s (with the exception of a few ads for a computer/electronics store (anhybody in SoCal remember the Computique chain perhaps?)) and was at first turned on to getting an 800 computer after seeing an Atari ad for their language and Missile Command programs, you know, the ad posted below. After that, I wanted so badly to try out Missile Command (on an 800 at G.A.M.E.S. in Van Nuys) and at that time the Wico trak-ball was first introduced and then along came Big Sexy the month afterwards and when I found out that most of the games on her were improved versions of the 400/800 titles it made my decision to want to get a 5200 instead that much easier due to its lower price tag compared to the 400/800 computers. Between that, the (then) exclusive pause mode on the 5200 and the Trak-Ball it made my choice rather easy, especially after seeing the disaster that 2600 Pac-Man was.

 

Atari at that time had the best titles, all the hits, while ColecoVision had mostly games that were flops in the arcade, and at that time, that, drew buyers. Not even the fact that Big Sexy was packed with Super Breakout as opposed to the C-V having Donkey Kong could deter me.

 

Low and behold, my late mother shocked me by actually splurging the $$$ on my 17th Birthday in 1983 but not only getting me a 5200 of my own but also the Trak-Ball and Missile Command, and that night, I swear I almost stayed up until 1:00 am that night playing her on my then Bohsei 13" TV (and on a school night at that of all things!!!), later that month, I got Pac-Man, Centipede, and also Defender, and the collection began!!! It started a trend for me to instead of popping quarters in an arcade game saving the $$$ for adding onto my lineup of carts every month it seemed like.

 

Here's that ad for the 400/800 computers featuring that language program as well as Missile Command.