What if Atari marketed the Famicom?

[7800Lover]

I'm sure a lot of us here are familiar with how Atari was offered the chance to market the Famicom (the NES) outside Japan. For the uninitiated, here's the lowdown: Nintendo approached Atari with an offer to give them world-wide distribution rights to the Famicom (outside of Japan, of course). Atari lit up with joy and both companies agreed to meet at the (summer 1983 or 1984?) Consumer Electronics Show to sign all the papers. But at CES, Coleco showed off the new ADAM computer playing Donkey Kong. And then it really hit the fan. While Coleco had the US rights to the videogame version of the game, Atari owned the computer rights. Atari CEO Ray Kassar went nuts and threatened to sue Nintendo, and also cancel the Famicom deal. Nintendo turned around and threatened to sue Coleco. One thing led to another, Ray Kassar was forced to resign, and Atari began its downfall. Soon, they weren't able to afford to do the Famicom deal, so they told Nintendo it was off. So Nintendo decided to market the system in America on its own through Worlds of Wonder, makers of Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag (remember those old toys?). The rest is history.

 

It's exactly hard to say what may have been if Atari had marketed the Famicom in North America and possibly Europe.

 

At the time Atari was still working on their 7800 console so some might have speculated that they would have just sat on the Famicom to market the 7800. Others say that they would have done a bad job marketing the Famicom and yet some may argue that the crash of 1984 would have destroyed the Famicom in the marketplace. I don't think I've heard any positive theories involving Atari hitting big with the Famicom and dominating the video game market.

 

So what do you think? How might things have gone had Atari marketed the Famicom?

[NovaXpress]

We're talking about Tramiel's Atari. They would have fucked it up like everything else they touched and the SMS would have dominated the market.

[JB]

We're talking about Tramiel's Atari. They would have fucked it up like everything else they touched and the SMS would have dominated the market.

Hell, it doesn't matter WHO runs Atari. Starting from when Bushnell sold it, it's all bad business decisions, and a change of ownership just as the current owners start to show a grasp of the market.

 

 

But had Atari done the FamiCom... we wouldn't have a shitty ZIF connector mating the console to the ROM carts.

Edited April 9, 2006 by JB

[8th lutz]

We're talking about Tramiel's Atari. They would have fucked it up like everything else they touched and the SMS would have dominated the market.

Hell, it doesn't matter WHO runs Atari. Starting from when Bushnell sold it, it's all bad business decisions, and a change of ownership just as the current owners start to show a grasp of the market.

 

 

But had Atari done the FamiCom... we wouldn't have a shitty ZIF connector mating the console to the ROM carts.

Yea I agree about with the connector.

[8th lutz]

It wouldn't have do well because

 

1.) The 7800 would've been close to be released or would've been

2.) Atari still felt strong about the 2600 despite the amount sales going down

3.) There would've been too mansy sytems on the market by atariand the nes wouldn't have got the attention for advertising as a result.

[+remowilliams]

Please, I think we all know the answer to that one. For most of it's life Atari could barely market a life preserver to a drowning man.

[Vic George 2K3]

Atari wasn't in the best position to do anything with Nintendo's Famicom around the mid-1980s, except to put nails in its coffin even at its "birth" here in America. The 7800 would have ended up being a stillborn product, unless the Tramiels had the mind to market it alongside the Famicom under whatever name it would've been given under their tenure.

[jpfalcon2003]

We're talking about Tramiel's Atari. They would have fucked it up like everything else they touched and the SMS would have dominated the market.

The Tramiel's made some terrible decisions, I agree. I understand lack of advertising and cheap penny pinching on their parts to be the reason why the 7800 wasn't successful. The 7800's sat for 2 years before he released them.

[JB]

We're talking about Tramiel's Atari. They would have fucked it up like everything else they touched and the SMS would have dominated the market.

The Tramiel's made some terrible decisions, I agree. I understand lack of advertising and cheap penny pinching on their parts to be the reason why the 7800 wasn't successful. The 7800's sat for 2 years before he released them.

Well, the 7800 sat for 2 years because the video game industry died.

Tramiels refocused on the computer division because it was still marketable.

 

They kept the 7800 stock because they were penny-pinchers, though.

[Atariboy2600]

I'm sure a lot of us here are familiar with how Atari was offered the chance to market the Famicom (the NES) outside Japan. For the uninitiated, here's the lowdown: Nintendo approached Atari with an offer to give them world-wide distribution rights to the Famicom (outside of Japan, of course). Atari lit up with joy and both companies agreed to meet at the (summer 1983 or 1984?) Consumer Electronics Show to sign all the papers. But at CES, Coleco showed off the new ADAM computer playing Donkey Kong. And then it really hit the fan. While Coleco had the US rights to the videogame version of the game, Atari owned the computer rights. Atari CEO Ray Kassar went nuts and threatened to sue Nintendo, and also cancel the Famicom deal. Nintendo turned around and threatened to sue Coleco. One thing led to another, Ray Kassar was forced to resign, and Atari began its downfall. Soon, they weren't able to afford to do the Famicom deal, so they told Nintendo it was off. So Nintendo decided to market the system in America on its own through Worlds of Wonder, makers of Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag (remember those old toys?). The rest is history.

 

It's exactly hard to say what may have been if Atari had marketed the Famicom in North America and possibly Europe.

 

At the time Atari was still working on their 7800 console so some might have speculated that they would have just sat on the Famicom to market the 7800. Others say that they would have done a bad job marketing the Famicom and yet some may argue that the crash of 1984 would have destroyed the Famicom in the marketplace. I don't think I've heard any positive theories involving Atari hitting big with the Famicom and dominating the video game market.

 

So what do you think? How might things have gone had Atari marketed the Famicom?

 

We may never know.....

 

BTW I made this mockup back in 2001

[mos6507]

After Jay Miner and company left Atari, they struggled to try to find a successor to the 2600.

 

What they initially did was look around at the competition. They saw the Intellivision and came up with a 10-bit monstrosity known as Sylvia which was obviously inspired by the Intellivision. The developers mutinied and the project was cancelled, which forced them to go down the 5200 and eventually the 7800 route.

 

So by the time of the NES you'd think Atari would have realized that they should at least try to maintain some sense of architectural continuity going forward, not just for the sake of their developers, but for their consumers who had associated Atari hardware with a certain aesthetic.

 

 

Going the NES route would have been equivalent to slapping the Atari logo on something like the Colecovision. 6502 aside, it just wouldn't have felt like a true Atari product. It would have been the console equivalent of the Atari ST, something that would have caused some degree of backlash on the part of the remaining Atari faithful who had not already migrated to home computers by that point.

 

There was little successful precedence for this other than the titles that Atari coinop had licensed from Namco.

 

So I'm glad it didn't happen.

 

When the NES did come out, it didn't really sell to people who had previously had 2600s. It sold to a new generation of kids with no prior Atari loyalties. Because there was a void in the market, kids didn't mind shifting from joysticks to joypads or from action zoner style gaming to cutesy anime-inspired scrollers. They had no real frame of reference so they latched onto it by default. For Atari fans, it would have been a tougher sell.

 

Unfortunately in these threads all people seem to think about is sales figures of the NES instead of the value of maintaining a strong corporate identity. An Atari that would have been successful with the NES would have ceased to be Atari anymore just as much as Infogrames does not represent Atari's identity anymore.

 

The only good thing I guess is it may have allowed Atari coinop to stay interlocked with the rest of Atari. There would no longer have to be a Tengen in order to publush Atari Games titles on the NES. But the NES would still not have had the proper vibe.

Edited April 10, 2006 by mos6507

[darklord1977]

I'm sure a lot of us here are familiar with how Atari was offered the chance to market the Famicom (the NES) outside Japan. For the uninitiated, here's the lowdown: Nintendo approached Atari with an offer to give them world-wide distribution rights to the Famicom (outside of Japan, of course). Atari lit up with joy and both companies agreed to meet at the (summer 1983 or 1984?) Consumer Electronics Show to sign all the papers. But at CES, Coleco showed off the new ADAM computer playing Donkey Kong. And then it really hit the fan. While Coleco had the US rights to the videogame version of the game, Atari owned the computer rights. Atari CEO Ray Kassar went nuts and threatened to sue Nintendo, and also cancel the Famicom deal. Nintendo turned around and threatened to sue Coleco. One thing led to another, Ray Kassar was forced to resign, and Atari began its downfall. Soon, they weren't able to afford to do the Famicom deal, so they told Nintendo it was off. So Nintendo decided to market the system in America on its own through Worlds of Wonder, makers of Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag (remember those old toys?). The rest is history.

 

It's exactly hard to say what may have been if Atari had marketed the Famicom in North America and possibly Europe.

 

At the time Atari was still working on their 7800 console so some might have speculated that they would have just sat on the Famicom to market the 7800. Others say that they would have done a bad job marketing the Famicom and yet some may argue that the crash of 1984 would have destroyed the Famicom in the marketplace. I don't think I've heard any positive theories involving Atari hitting big with the Famicom and dominating the video game market.

 

So what do you think? How might things have gone had Atari marketed the Famicom?

 

We may never know.....

 

BTW I made this mockup back in 2001

very nice...if only it were true

[DracIsBack]

My gut is that the Famicom probably would have tanked as well. The games from Nintendo would have been good, but it wasn't like Jack was willing to invest in marketing or R&D or that Atari Corporation exactly had a good relationship with the channel to sell video games after the crash of 1984.

[Vic George 2K3]

No brushed aluminum strip on that mock-up?

[Pixelboy]

Another point to consider is the games themselves. Had the NES been handled by Atari, would Super Mario Bros had been the pack-in game? What about the other games made in Japan? Would Atari simply let such games as Mega Man or Castlevania be released in the US without saying anything? I think Atari would have vetoed a LOT of the games from Japan, depriving US gamers of many interesting titles simply because of the cultural differences between Japan and the US.

[7800Lover]

I'm sure a lot of us here are familiar with how Atari was offered the chance to market the Famicom (the NES) outside Japan. For the uninitiated, here's the lowdown: Nintendo approached Atari with an offer to give them world-wide distribution rights to the Famicom (outside of Japan, of course). Atari lit up with joy and both companies agreed to meet at the (summer 1983 or 1984?) Consumer Electronics Show to sign all the papers. But at CES, Coleco showed off the new ADAM computer playing Donkey Kong. And then it really hit the fan. While Coleco had the US rights to the videogame version of the game, Atari owned the computer rights. Atari CEO Ray Kassar went nuts and threatened to sue Nintendo, and also cancel the Famicom deal. Nintendo turned around and threatened to sue Coleco. One thing led to another, Ray Kassar was forced to resign, and Atari began its downfall. Soon, they weren't able to afford to do the Famicom deal, so they told Nintendo it was off. So Nintendo decided to market the system in America on its own through Worlds of Wonder, makers of Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag (remember those old toys?). The rest is history.

 

It's exactly hard to say what may have been if Atari had marketed the Famicom in North America and possibly Europe.

 

At the time Atari was still working on their 7800 console so some might have speculated that they would have just sat on the Famicom to market the 7800. Others say that they would have done a bad job marketing the Famicom and yet some may argue that the crash of 1984 would have destroyed the Famicom in the marketplace. I don't think I've heard any positive theories involving Atari hitting big with the Famicom and dominating the video game market.

 

So what do you think? How might things have gone had Atari marketed the Famicom?

 

We may never know.....

 

BTW I made this mockup back in 2001

 

 

Faboo!