Eh that's debatable, just like people were wiling to go in debt to buy a Nes, they would have been willing to go in debt for their childrens education because "computers are the future".
A computer you can just plug in your TV and use?
It could have happened.
At least it is more likely that Atari learing basic math.
How can you not know you cannot sell more game units of a single game that consoles sold to consumers that can play said game?
Yeah that is the Atari you somehow think was going to do a big comeback, when the previous Atari console was selling so cheap it was insane.
Eh that's debatable, just like people were wiling to go in debt to buy a Nes, they would have been willing to go in debt for their childrens education because "computers are the future".
A computer you can just plug in your TV and use?
It could have happened.
At least it is more likely that Atari learing basic math.
How can you not know you cannot sell more game units of a single game that consoles sold to consumers that can play said game?
Yeah that is the Atari you somehow think was going to do a big comeback, when the previous Atari console was selling so cheap it was insane.
Firstly, Jack Tramiel bought the company and name after the crash. It was literally not the same Atari that oversupplied games for 2600 consoles. Secondly, 2600 was outright cloned and the games ran other consoles they didn't even make so the original projections that drove them under were a bad gamble that they lost, but only in hindsight. They also worked on the first backwards compatible next-gen machine.
You are shitting on Atari for mistakes, oblivious to the point that they went under and somebody else took their name, the former exec who created Commodore. He inherited a complete game console ready to go with the 7800, but his own problems brought a lack of support to get the thing launched with a decent sound chip.
People didn't typically go into debt to buy toy products they couldn't afford in the 80s. Credit cards weren't exactly common. The toy mania around NES launch invited some scalping, but people back then weren't insanely over leveraged like they are today, and certainly didn't give a shit about video games enough to go into debt for them specifically. Computers could have been a different story, but they weren't. They cost a fortune by comparison, people didn't adopt them widely in the home until the 90s.
You sound like somebody who wasn't around back then, making assumptions based on bullshit stories from the internet.
Computers could have been a different story, but they weren't. They cost a fortune by comparison, people didn't adopt them widely in the home until the 90s.
You sound like somebody who wasn't around back then, making assumptions based on bullshit stories from the internet.
Computers were more popular in Europe for games, but even relatively cheaper computers (cheaper when compared to business pcs like IBM clones and Apple) like the Amstrad and Spectrum, were worth an month's average salary at least in the 80s.
kids were better off in arcades or game and watch type consoles.
Still the Amiga 500 in late 80s in Germany outsold by a small margin the Sega Mega Drive (around 1 million units for both) as Germany had its own Amiga assembly plant and an A500 and 2000 German variant, thus reducing costs.
It was basically the same Atari, different owner or not.
Yes I don't live in the USA and I am also not someone who was born in the seventies.
The Atari was that thing some kids my age had got from their older brothers. I was the kid with a Master System when everyone had a Nes clone.
Didn't even knew there was different Atari models until the 2010s.
Still the number.of Atari fuck ups no matter who owns it, is legendary.
What I find it hilarious is this, Atari lost badly by walking away from their deal with Nintendo, then some years later Nintendo doomed themselves to lose to Sony by walking away from their deal with them.
Sega fuck ups go from undertable, bad ports ruined the Sega Genesis reputation at launch in Japan, to WTF they were doing, launching the 32x when the Sega CD sales had not been that good to start with and the Saturn was literaly months away.
Now back to the Master System, coolest fake gun, WTF with the pause button being next to the reset button?
The Atari fuckups aren't as huge as you make them out to be, but if you believe in that bullshit then it would explain why you sound like you don't know what you're talking about.
The point I see here is you are shitting on them as being totally unable to take back the market they were still relevant in the mid-late 80s. More relevant than Sega, which was arguably getting it's ass kicked by the relaunched Atari 2600jr, in a hypothetical absence of the NES. You claim that computers would have taken off for gaming and parents would have went into debt for them against any rational convention, if knowing the way things were back then in general. It didn't happen, and it probably wouldn't have happened considering Atari's console was still around with games on shelves up until the 90s.
If they launched the 7800 as intended with the POKEY, they would have had arcade games in the home for 84/85 and the market would have rebounded from the crash by buying the next gen box with the better graphics/sound. The NES would have been in for a fight. If NES didn't show up and computers did take off and replace consoles, Atari was still the "gaming brand" 2nd option, competitive with the C64 in the computer market, before and after a totally different computer company took over their brand and products.
One way or the other, Atari would have been there. They mattered more than Sega in North America until the Genesis launched, even still up until late 90 when Sega found it's footing. Nintendo owned it all.
Atari is so far the only videogame company that I know of that almost went bankrupt and had to be bailed for not knowing you can't sell more copies of a game that console systems owned by consumers that can play that game in.
Also it was not just ET, Atari making way more games cardridges that what ended being sold had been going on for a while.
Even most Atari fans recognized that was a major fuck up.
Yes the landfill is real.
Atari sheer arrogance that they didn't need Nintendo, that they, the company with so many unsold games they needed to fill a landfill with them, was gonna win, is only explained by the people in charge being complete idiots.
The Atari fuckups aren't as huge as you make them out to be, but if you believe in that bullshit then it would explain why you sound like you don't know what you're talking about.
Sorry but video game was a pretty fresh thing and the US was one of the most influential country in the world back then so with domino effect it could've killed video games for good outside of very niche use.
Even if cinema existed before Hollywood it's thanks to the later than we are still getting to watch movies today.
Ataris would still be making consoles too (or at least as long as Sega did).
Atari is so far the only videogame company that I know of that almost went bankrupt and had to be bailed for not knowing you can't sell more copies of a game that console systems owned by consumers that can play that game in.
Also it was not just ET, Atari making way more games cardridges that what ended being sold had been going on for a while.
There were Atari 2600 clones on the market and in stores. There were peripherals to allow you to run 2600 games on other platforms. They overproduced carts for popular IP like Pac-man and ET, and lined up a backwards compatible machine, expecting growth.
Because the quality of the games fell, and so did demand for them. It was only a bad thing in hindsight. The market crashed because there were too many games, not enough quality, and it needed a next-gen machine.
Atari sheer arrogance that they didn't need Nintendo, that they, the company with so many unsold games they needed to fill a landfill with them, was gonna win, is only explained by the people in charge being complete idiots.
They were gaming. Atari was the only brand that mattered in video games. Nintendo were nobody, why would they need them? Sega was nobody. You would understand this, if you were alive back then, actually living in the regional market you're talking about with so much bullshit expertise here.
Sega also went the similar route years later. Bought out, a different company using their brand after an oversupply of product sat in warehouses, needing to be liquidated or destroyed for the catastrophic loss.
Sorry but video game was a pretty fresh thing and the US was one of the most influential country in the world back then so with domino effect it could've killed video games for good outside of very niche use.
Even if cinema existed before Hollywood it's thanks to the later than we are still getting to watch movies today.
Ataris would still be making consoles too (or at least as long as Sega did).
I don't even know what the hell you're talking about here. Atari consoles were on the market longer than Sega. Sony completely destroyed demand for them.
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I think Sega was the coolest company out of any of them, they had awesome hardware but ultimately couldn't compete. Almost everybody in North America went from Atari to NES, and if NES hypothetically didn't happen, the 7800 or the Mark I could moved on the market to launch that generation, advantage to Atari by a long shot.
You can use hindsight to criticize any one of them, but to think Atari of all companies wouldn't have been successful without an NES on the market is a joke. They dominated the arcades, they dominated console gaming, even with the crash they had a next gen machine ready to launch to do what Nintendo ultimately did.
See the problem.is, they already had a lot of unsold cardridges with pac-man and they made EVEN MORE for E.T.
So any way you want to explain it, Atari was still bad at simple math.
Pac-man for Atari was released in march 1982, E.T. for Atari was released around December 1982, and the E.T game was super rushed so yes they had to know they had overestimated how many Pac-man games they would sell, yet they did way more for E.T.
Atari belief that brand recognition would let them sell way more games that reasonable when the average joe thought Atari games could only be played in Atari consoles and they had fuck all quality control cannot be explained with "Bro videogames were new".
Somehow Atari thought that everyone who had something that could run Atari games would buy Pac-man, they were wrong. They doubled down on being idiots with E.T, didn't seem to know making a good game took time, and let's not forget that by then the talented people they had all quit.
Even if E.T was not rushed as hell, even if it actually had been a game that can be beaten (and I consider Alex Kidd In High Tech World a game that can be beaten), there was no way it was going to sell as much as Atari wanted.
Pac-man for Atari was released in march 1982, E.T. for Atari was released around December 1982, and the E.T game was super rushed so yes they had to know they had overestimated how many Pac-man games they would sell, yet they did way more for E.T.
Atari belief that brand recognition would let them sell way more games that reasonable when the average joe thought Atari games could only be played in Atari consoles and they had fuck all quality control cannot be explained with "Bro videogames were new".
Atari oversupplied the market with shit people didn't want. Their reasons weren't "bad at math" stupidity like you suggest. Your argument is the stupidity here. You repeat nonsense without being aware of, or acknowledging the context.
They doubled down on being idiots with E.T, didn't seem to know making a good game took time, and let's not forget that by then the talented people they had all quit.
Even if E.T was not rushed as hell, even if it actually had been a game that can be beaten (and I consider Alex Kidd In High Tech World a game that can be beaten), there was no way it was going to sell as much as Atari wanted.
Licensing and marketing hype around big movies was a limited window to sell the product. Blockbuster movies were a huge deal. Star Wars had licensed toys and games flying off of shelves.
You seemingly have no point here other than to shit on Atari with hindsight, rather than acknowledging they ruled the industry and behaved like any other big company would have done in their position. They lost too much, they were taken over, and yet they still stuck around to have their hardware and games on shelves everywhere.
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