It’s a miracle the nes sold like hot cakes

[Jaden (JRH)]

Really not a fan of the NES slander in this thread. I get that it's on an Atari themed forum, but I don't think it's fair to say that the system and its games were dogshit or anything like that. I personally love both the NES and the Atari 7800. I don't think there needs to be any sort of competition between them. They're both great for their own reasons.

 

While it's fair to say that Nintendo didn't invent most of the things people claim they did, what they had going for them was that they made these ideas for accessible. For example, it's true that adventure games and RPGs existed before Zelda. However, Zelda was instantly more accessible than any of those because of its simpler design. You get movement, a sword button, and a button for secondary weapons. That's it. No need for a full keyboard. And the way you got upgrades made a lot more sense than something like Tower of Druaga, while required you to complete objectives that the game never told you about. And if you didn't, the game would be literally unwinnable in some situations. Zelda was more friendly, as there were no situations where you could get stuck. There was always a way to keep going, and there were usually people to talk to for hints. It was quite forward thinking for its time, and certainly a step up from Adventure (though I love that game too).

 

I don't think it's fair to say that a console sucked just because you only happened to play crap games for it. You could do the same for any console. As an example, I think the Atari 7800 is crap because I only played Karateka, Tower Toppler, Touchdown Football, and none of the games that people actually remember it for. Now that's not exactly fair, is it? Every console has its fair share of crap games, but every console had its gems.

 

There are also some claims in this thread that just seem insane to me. Like Duck Hunt ripped off some random Atari game called Qwak? As if duck hunting wasn't already something people did for sport and there weren't already arcade attractions that involved shooting ducks. And Excitebike ripping off Stunt Cycle? Other than the fact that they're both bike games, they have nothing in common with each other. Is Kikstart on the C64 a rip off of Stunt Cycle? Is California Games ripping off Stunt Cycle just because it has a bike minigame? Or would you rather claim that Nintendo is ripping it off because you want to epically own the soyboy Nintendo fans?

 

I hope for as long as I stay on this forum, I don't see anymore threads comparing the NES and 7800. It's interesting to look at the "what if's" and discuss how the 7800 could have been more successful. But that's all they are, just hypotheticals. In the end, the NES became the big hit in the USA and that's that. But really, both the 7800 and NES kick ass, no matter how successful either one was. And I'm gonna leave it at that.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Besides, once every 5200 game on earth has been ported to the A8 and vice-versa, the NES will offer a whole new world of 6502-based games to bother people about.  So it's got that going for it, which is nice.

[Joey Kay]

2 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

When that editorial staff was sacked due to the editorial in Atari Explorer, both publications were cancelled.

This isn't true.

 

Atarian wasn't cancelled due to the Spring 1990 editorial and subsequent staff shake-up.  Atarian was cancelled in fall 1989.  The unpaid printing bill led to the critical Spring 1990 Explorer editorial.  The editorial (appears to have) led to Explorer's pause and shake up. It resumed publication in  January 1991 and continued until 1993.

 

I'm not trying to flame, I'm just curious about what transpired.  I was an Explorer subscriber and would pick up Atarian from the newsstand.  So far the only evidence we have is the unpublished Spring 1990 Atari Explorer editorial I linked to earlier. 

 

So again, I'll put out the open ask.  Anyone have any links?  

[roots.genoa]

4 hours ago, Jaden (JRH) said:

Like Duck Hunt ripped off some random Atari game called Qwak? As if duck hunting wasn't already something people did for sport and there weren't already arcade attractions that involved shooting ducks.

I probably missed the Duck Hunt discussion (most of this topic is nonsense anyway) but it was based on an arcade light gun game by Nintendo in 1973. But sure, I admit Nintendo didn't invent light guns or even guns to begin with. Or ducks. ?‍♂️

[Jasonhrb]

17 hours ago, Jaden (JRH) said:

Really not a fan of the NES slander in this thread. I get that it's on an Atari themed forum, but I don't think it's fair to say that the system and its games were dogshit or anything like that. I personally love both the NES and the Atari 7800. I don't think there needs to be any sort of competition between them. They're both great for their own reasons.

 

While it's fair to say that Nintendo didn't invent most of the things people claim they did, what they had going for them was that they made these ideas for accessible. For example, it's true that adventure games and RPGs existed before Zelda. However, Zelda was instantly more accessible than any of those because of its simpler design. You get movement, a sword button, and a button for secondary weapons. That's it. No need for a full keyboard. And the way you got upgrades made a lot more sense than something like Tower of Druaga, while required you to complete objectives that the game never told you about. And if you didn't, the game would be literally unwinnable in some situations. Zelda was more friendly, as there were no situations where you could get stuck. There was always a way to keep going, and there were usually people to talk to for hints. It was quite forward thinking for its time, and certainly a step up from Adventure (though I love that game too).

 

I don't think it's fair to say that a console sucked just because you only happened to play crap games for it. You could do the same for any console. As an example, I think the Atari 7800 is crap because I only played Karateka, Tower Toppler, Touchdown Football, and none of the games that people actually remember it for. Now that's not exactly fair, is it? Every console has its fair share of crap games, but every console had its gems.

 

There are also some claims in this thread that just seem insane to me. Like Duck Hunt ripped off some random Atari game called Qwak? As if duck hunting wasn't already something people did for sport and there weren't already arcade attractions that involved shooting ducks. And Excitebike ripping off Stunt Cycle? Other than the fact that they're both bike games, they have nothing in common with each other. Is Kikstart on the C64 a rip off of Stunt Cycle? Is California Games ripping off Stunt Cycle just because it has a bike minigame? Or would you rather claim that Nintendo is ripping it off because you want to epically own the soyboy Nintendo fans?

 

I hope for as long as I stay on this forum, I don't see anymore threads comparing the NES and 7800. It's interesting to look at the "what if's" and discuss how the 7800 could have been more successful. But that's all they are, just hypotheticals. In the end, the NES became the big hit in the USA and that's that. But really, both the 7800 and NES kick ass, no matter how successful either one was. And I'm gonna leave it at that.

I think this is a very fair post. As mentioned earlier. I'm based in the UK and have never quite "got" how big a deal the NES was on that side of the pond (it found a marke over here, but was never anything like as successful as in the States). As such, I might  be barking up the wrong tree here, but it seems to me that the reason for the success of the NES in the States was essentially the same as the reason for the success of the 2600 a few years earlier. It evolved gaming in a direction the excited the market, and offered a new style of gaming experience that people wanted at a price they were willing to pay. Neither the 5200 (that never came to the UK at all) or the 7800 (that did come to the UK, but nobody really noticed!) did that in  the same way. Your post explains far better than I ever could how they did it.

 

Peope posting here inevitably have an affection for Atari, and I think there's an element of people "blaming" Nintendo for why Atari so spectacularly fell from it's perch. Being in the UK, it's not an experience or sentiment I share. There was never the "big crash followed by a Nintendo dominated revival" that seems to have happened in the U.S. Over here, the 2600 was gradually replaced as a front line machine by the 8 bit micros (principally the ZX spectrum and C64) over a couple of years. The arrival of the NES and SMS didn't really break that model, alhough they sold OK. 

 

So I don't really have a view on Nintendo or the NES one way or the other (beyond having perhaps seen it as a bit "childish" at the time). For some on here however, that affection does seem to cause them to struggle with the idea that the NES became dominant in the States because it gave that market what it wanted. Ultimately, in terms of why the NES "sold like hot cakes", I think that is the bulk of it. 

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Jasonhrb

[Cebus Capucinis]

The NES is a giant pile of trash and belongs in the first dumpster I see on my street!!!!! 

 

I take plastic and silicon children's toys VERY SERIOUSLY!!!!!!

[orange808]

All this thread needs to become authentic classic internet is some dial up noises. You're welcome. ?

 

 

[Jaden (JRH)]

1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

The NES is a giant pile of trash and belongs in the first dumpster I see on my street!!!!! 

 

I take plastic and silicon children's toys VERY SERIOUSLY!!!!!!

Yeah, that's actually what I meant to say. Sorry for the wall of text earlier.

 

Now then, time to discuss why video games are horrible because everyone's playing those now instead of with rocks and sticks. It's a miracle that video games are selling like hot cakes when they have such stiff competition from the rock and stick industry.

[Cebus Capucinis]

2 minutes ago, Jaden (JRH) said:

It's a miracle that video games are selling like hot cakes when they have such stiff competition from the rock and stick industry.

That's more like it! This website will be renamed to Rock&StickAge if I have anything to say about it!

 

We'll allow Hoop & Stick, though. The Stick is really the core element here.

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

That's more like it! This website will be renamed to Rock&StickAge if I have anything to say about it!

 

We'll allow Hoop & Stick, though. The Stick is really the core element here.

Stick & StoneAge feels more appropriate.

[RevEng]

It's a miracle that hotcakes sold like the NES. You can only play a few games with hotcakes, hotcakes have zero replay value, and hotcakes start to smell bad after the first few days of purchase.

[MrMaddog]

5 minutes ago, RevEng said:

It's a miracle that hotcakes sold like the NES. You can only play a few games with hotcakes, hotcakes have zero replay value, and hotcakes start to smell bad after the first few days of purchase.

I think the Nintendo Generation would like Eggo waffles better, especially with how they use the toaster like an NES... ?

[Trebor]

1 hour ago, MrMaddog said:

I think the Nintendo Generation would like Eggo waffles better, especially with how they use the toaster like an NES... ?

Leggo my Eggo* NES...

 

*obligatory reference.

[+frankodragon]

 Invest in a Tetris waffle iron.  You just then have to make the sound effects while stuffing your face full of waffles and syrup.  (Dah dah da da da mmph mmph da da, mmmph  mmmph mmph....)

 

[+GoldLeader]

14 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

The NES is a giant pile of trash and belongs in the first dumpster I see on my street!!!!! 

 

I take plastic and silicon children's toys VERY SERIOUSLY!!!!!!

Oooooo!  OK...I just figured this out and thought I better share.  I'm always happy when I crack part of my subconscious's code!

 

I read your post same as ever...But in my head,  I Heard it in John Candy's voice!!!

 

 

Look!   L@@k!!

 

"The NES is a giant pile of trash and belongs in the first dumpster I see on my street!!!!! 

 

I take plastic and silicon children's toys VERY SERIOUSLY!!!!!!"

 

 

 

 

 

Fascinating,  no?

 

 

 

Now,  why I put the quote in Comic Sans...I don't know...

[Trebor]

48 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

I read your post same as ever...But in my head,  I Heard it in John Candy's voice!!!

Naturally...

 

[zzip]

On 8/6/2022 at 7:49 PM, Lynxpro said:

The 7800 was designed back in 1983 after GCC approached Warner with an idea to create an advanced console that was also backwards-compatible with the 2600, arguably more powerful [in some ways] than the 5200, and cost substantially less to manufacture than the 5200. Warner then forced Atari Inc to plan to discontinue the 5200 and work along with GCC. The console was meant to be sold throughout the world. Warner breaking up Atari Inc into pieces caused the delay of the system's original release of Christmas 1984 to early 1986.

 

The 2600jr was never designed for the "3rd World". It was a redesigned/cost-reduced 2600 meant to serve budget consumers once the 7800 had been released. Even before Atari Corp was a thing, Atari Inc was trying to reduce manufacturing costs of the 2600 itself and ultimately plan for a single-chip solution.

I know the history of these things,  I'm talking from the perspective of Atari Corp though.   They came in interested in selling STs,  looking at the warehouses full of old stuff as things they can sell cheap to help fund the ST line which they saw as the central focus of the company going forward.

 

From their perspective,  consoles were dead.   They wanted to dump them on the market cheap for cash.    They couldn't sell the 7800 because of payment disputes with GCC.   In the meantime, sales of the 2600 were surprisingly strong in 1985 even though they didn't do any marketing for it.  Obviously the 2600jr was a Warner design, you can tell from the styling.   However when Atari Corp introduced it in 1986, it left everyone scratching their head.   The conventional wisdom was the 2600 was long dead and buried.   The story I heard from Atari execs at the Atari Fairs they held in the late 80s was that 2600 sales were strong in the 3rd world and that's why they decided to release the 2600jr.  People in North America were looking for something newer.,

 

 

[Keatah]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

From their perspective,  consoles were dead.   

Many parents also thought consoles were dead. Mine and my friend's parents continually referred to them as baby games. Nintendo's cutesy characters didn't help either.

[Laner]

On 4/24/2022 at 1:13 PM, Turbo-Torch said:

 

Lol.  I have a nephew who's only 4 years younger than me.  I remember being at his birthday party when he was turning 13.  He was expecting an NES, but my sister and brother-in-law cheaped out* and bought got him a 7800 instead.

The look on his face was priceless when he unwrapped it.  He was always a super nice kid and it was one of those deals where he was trying his best to look excited and appreciative while not crying at the same time. 

My little brother wanted an NES in the worst way for Christmas 86 or 87.  My dad asked me if Atari or Nintendo was the way to go.  As someone who was more invested in the Commodore 64 at the time and really didn't care for the Nintendo aesthetic (still don't, TBH...), I told him to go with the 7800. 

 

My brother's reaction was similar to your nephew's... he just barely contained his utter disappointment at not getting the NES.  And we have the moment captured on video, so we can relive the disappointment for years to come!

[BydoEmpire]

On 8/6/2022 at 10:14 PM, Jaden (JRH) said:

Really not a fan of the NES slander in this thread. I get that it's on an Atari themed forum, but I don't think it's fair to say that the system and its games were dogshit or anything like that. I personally love both the NES and the Atari 7800. I don't think there needs to be any sort of competition between them. They're both great for their own reasons.

...

I hope for as long as I stay on this forum, I don't see anymore threads comparing the NES and 7800. It's interesting to look at the "what if's" and discuss how the 7800 could have been more successful. But that's all they are, just hypotheticals. In the end, the NES became the big hit in the USA and that's that. But really, both the 7800 and NES kick ass, no matter how successful either one was. And I'm gonna leave it at that.

Amen to both of those.

[Jasonhrb]

On 8/8/2022 at 5:32 PM, zzip said:

I know the history of these things,  I'm talking from the perspective of Atari Corp though.   They came in interested in selling STs,  looking at the warehouses full of old stuff as things they can sell cheap to help fund the ST line which they saw as the central focus of the company going forward.

 

From their perspective,  consoles were dead.   They wanted to dump them on the market cheap for cash.    They couldn't sell the 7800 because of payment disputes with GCC.   In the meantime, sales of the 2600 were surprisingly strong in 1985 even though they didn't do any marketing for it.  Obviously the 2600jr was a Warner design, you can tell from the styling.   However when Atari Corp introduced it in 1986, it left everyone scratching their head.   The conventional wisdom was the 2600 was long dead and buried.   The story I heard from Atari execs at the Atari Fairs they held in the late 80s was that 2600 sales were strong in the 3rd world and that's why they decided to release the 2600jr.  People in North America were looking for something newer.,

 

 

You're right on all the big picture stuff here. Certainly Tramiel Atari saw the ST as the fouce of everything, with the "legacy tech"being little more than a cash cow. You're also dead right that Atari at this point saw consoles as a type of platform that had no future. Of course, their strategic judgement here was way off. It was in fact the "proprietry platform" computer model that had no long term future as the PC took over that market, while you only have to look at the strength of the console market even now to realise that in one sense the console market was only just warming up. Indeed, there's imho a good argument that the strategic misjudgement around this time was ultimately what killed Atari in terms of being a meaningful player in the market.

 

For all that though, I think that the call to relaunch the 2600jr as a budget system was probably a good one, even if it was made more by luck than judgement. Indeed, the idea of maintaining previous generation tech as a budget offering alongside the new product has been used repeatedly by companies over the years with some success (here in the UK, the NES and SMS perhaps had their most successful period being sold in this capacity following the launch of the SNES and Megadrive). Running the 2600 as a "2nd tier system" made sense in the mid / late 80s. Atari's issue in the console market imho the lack of a clear plan around what their "1st tier" offer was, and how it woud be promoted. Your thoughts on how Atari saw the console market at that time probably explain why that was the case.

 

 

[zzip]

5 hours ago, Jasonhrb said:

You're right on all the big picture stuff here. Certainly Tramiel Atari saw the ST as the fouce of everything, with the "legacy tech"being little more than a cash cow. You're also dead right that Atari at this point saw consoles as a type of platform that had no future. Of course, their strategic judgement here was way off. It was in fact the "proprietry platform" computer model that had no long term future as the PC took over that market, while you only have to look at the strength of the console market even now to realise that in one sense the console market was only just warming up. Indeed, there's imho a good argument that the strategic misjudgement around this time was ultimately what killed Atari in terms of being a meaningful player in the market.

Right,  and I don't think anyone pushed the idea harder that consoles were dead and computers are the future than the Tramiels did while at Commodore.  Obviously they were trying to sell C64s, but seems like they really believed that and weren't prepared to make a real strategic investment in consoles.  But then again their only strategy seemed to be dominate the market by having the lowest prices.

 

To be fair, I don't think anyone was predicting PC dominance in 84/85.  Prices were still too high for average people.   There was a short-lived idea that MSX might bring a cross-vendor computing standard, but it didn't take off in the west.

 

So I do wonder how things would have played out if the sale didn't happen (or if Atari was bought by someone else).   The videogame marketing organization Atari had under Warner had their finger on the pulse of the market much better and I'm sure they would have noticed signs of revival and been in a better position to pounce.  Everything videogaming post-85 could have played out differently and who knows?  Atari might still be a big player in that market today

 

6 hours ago, Jasonhrb said:

For all that though, I think that the call to relaunch the 2600jr as a budget system was probably a good one, even if it was made more by luck than judgement. Indeed, the idea of maintaining previous generation tech as a budget offering alongside the new product has been used repeatedly by companies over the years with some success (here in the UK, the NES and SMS perhaps had their most successful period being sold in this capacity following the launch of the SNES and Megadrive). Running the 2600 as a "2nd tier system" made sense in the mid / late 80s. Atari's issue in the console market imho the lack of a clear plan around what their "1st tier" offer was, and how it woud be promoted. Your thoughts on how Atari saw the console market at that time probably explain why that was the case.

Yeah previous generation consoles stay viable for several years.   But having two "current" consoles was bad news.   I don't think Atari grasped the concept of generations even going back to Warner.    They released the 5200, had the 7800 in development, were talking to Nintendo about releasing the NES as an Atari console and had drafted plans for releasing a future console based on the Amiga chipset.   Seems like they thought they could get away with releasing a new console every year or every other year.   But I think killing the 5200 after less than two years in favor of the new 7800 started souring people on the Atari brand.

[Jasonhrb]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

Right,  and I don't think anyone pushed the idea harder that consoles were dead and computers are the future than the Tramiels did while at Commodore.  Obviously they were trying to sell C64s, but seems like they really believed that and weren't prepared to make a real strategic investment in consoles.  But then again their only strategy seemed to be dominate the market by having the lowest prices.

 

To be fair, I don't think anyone was predicting PC dominance in 84/85.  Prices were still too high for average people.   There was a short-lived idea that MSX might bring a cross-vendor computing standard, but it didn't take off in the west.

 

So I do wonder how things would have played out if the sale didn't happen (or if Atari was bought by someone else).   The videogame marketing organization Atari had under Warner had their finger on the pulse of the market much better and I'm sure they would have noticed signs of revival and been in a better position to pounce.  Everything videogaming post-85 could have played out differently and who knows?  Atari might still be a big player in that market today

 

Absolutely. A 7800 properly released and marketed (including exclusive rights to ongoing Atari arcade games) in 1984 would have been a very different proposition in the marketplace to the slapdash launch and limited support that it eventually got. I think the fact that games were going in a different direction to the "arcade game" style  (be that via computers in the UK or NES in the States) would have been an issue for the 7800 in any event, but from a technical standpoint, the 7800 (at least in POKEY equipped form) was probably capable of delivering the kind of games that the market wanted at that point if the will was there. I don't think the 7800 would have everf "beaten" the NES in  the States, but with better ownership support and development it might have run a close enough race to make the medium term position for the company as a whole very different. 

4 hours ago, zzip said:

Yeah previous generation consoles stay viable for several years.   But having two "current" consoles was bad news.   I don't think Atari grasped the concept of generations even going back to Warner.    They released the 5200, had the 7800 in development, were talking to Nintendo about releasing the NES as an Atari console and had drafted plans for releasing a future console based on the Amiga chipset.   Seems like they thought they could get away with releasing a new console every year or every other year.   But I think killing the 5200 after less than two years in favor of the new 7800 started souring people on the Atari brand.

I think most of this is true. Whether intentially or not, Atari left themselves with two systems chasing a similar market space. They needed to firmly back one of the 7800 and XEGS, and not launch the other at all. But as you very eloquently put, Atari just didn't seem to get the idea of console generations at that point and that might explain the muddled thinking.

 

The only bit I'm not sure I agree with you on, is the issue of discontinuing the 5200 early. I think that was clearly not the right product for the time, and that created a long term problem either way. I'm not sure whether the better plan would have been to make the best of a bad situation  by trying to update the 5200 (perhaps more conventional joysticks and the 2600 adaptor built in would have been a way forward), or asmitting defeat and moving forward (although it turns out Atari made a hash of that anyway). But once the error of launching the 5200 was made, Atari was going to take a big hit either way imho.

[zzip]

16 minutes ago, Jasonhrb said:

Absolutely. A 7800 properly released and marketed (including exclusive rights to ongoing Atari arcade games) in 1984 would have been a very different proposition in the marketplace to the slapdash launch and limited support that it eventually got. I think the fact that games were going in a different direction to the "arcade game" style  (be that via computers in the UK or NES in the States) would have been an issue for the 7800 in any event, but from a technical standpoint, the 7800 (at least in POKEY equipped form) was probably capable of delivering the kind of games that the market wanted at that point if the will was there. I don't think the 7800 would have everf "beaten" the NES in  the States, but with better ownership support and development it might have run a close enough race to make the medium term position for the company as a whole very different. 

Reportedly Nintendo didn't want to compete against Atari Inc (Warner) in North America, which is why they approached them with the NES deal.  Nintendo didn't show any sign of being afraid of Atari Corp (Tramiel), because Atari Corp was focused so little on the console market before 86, so that gave Nintendo an opening.  Atari Corp didn't take the arcade division where so many IPs originated, and I'd guess with all the layoffs they did after the sale, there probably weren't many game developers left at Atari Corp, if any.    So they were in no position to come up with anything to rival SMB and other games showing up on NES until it was too late.

 

Now if the sale and Atari breakup didn't happen, there's a chance that would have stopped or delayed Nintendo's entry into the market.   Everyone complains about Nintendo's heavy-handed tactics,  but Atari was the big fish of the gaming market before the sale and could have used similar heavy-handed tactics to keep Nintendo at bay.  Also with Atari Games still under the same roof, they'd have the creative and technical teams to create more competitive games.   It would have been a very different gaming landscape and hard to know how it would have played out.   Maybe Nintendo still wins,  but I don't think it would have been the blowout that it was.

 

30 minutes ago, Jasonhrb said:

The only bit I'm not sure I agree with you on, is the issue of discontinuing the 5200 early. I think that was clearly not the right product for the time, and that created a long term problem either way. I'm not sure whether the better plan would have been to make the best of a bad situation  by trying to update the 5200 (perhaps more conventional joysticks and the 2600 adaptor built in would have been a way forward), or asmitting defeat and moving forward (although it turns out Atari made a hash of that anyway). But once the error of launching the 5200 was made, Atari was going to take a big hit either way imho.

The problem I see is that they convinced Atari's most loyal fans to pay a premium for the 5200.  ($269 was it?   That's over $800 in today's money)  only to discontinue it 18 mos later in favor of a new console.   If that happened today, it would be a huge internet scandal.  Back then we didn't have the internet, but there were angry letters to be found in magazines.   I think it may have hurt the brand more than we know.

 

I think the best thing would have been to stick with the 5200 and rectify the controller issue.   I don't think the 2600 compatibility was critical-  the bigger problem was that the 5200 library was mostly the same games already available on the 2600 just with nicer graphics.   It didn't have the killer app game you couldn't get anywhere else that the system needed.   They did have Ballblazer/Rescue on Fractalus in development for 5200 but they were victims of the Atari sale, and didn't get released until much later.

 

So a 5200 with fixed controller and compelling exclusive titles could have helped it get through the lean crash years.  In the meantime they should have worked on a  true next gen system to be released no sooner than 86/87 (as opposed to an 84 system like 7800 delayed for 2 years).   Maybe this system still has Maria or better iteration of it,  but it needed a much better sound chip and other improvements over the 7800.   Such a system could have been a clear NES (1983 tech) hardware killer.   But again, this assumes no sale because I doubt such a project would have survived the Atari Corp transistion.

[+Defender_2600]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Maybe this system still has Maria or better iteration of it,  but it needed a much better sound chip