Atari 7800 VS Nintendo Entertainment System - Atari 7800 Part 2 - Video Game Retrospective
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- Опубликовано: 16 июн 2021
- It's the Atari 7800! A system born from the fires of corporate shakeups and a quickly evolving video game industry. After the failure of the Atari 5200 Atari hoped the brand new Atari 7800 pro system would become the next big thing.... but it didn't actually release until 1986 and by then the writing was on the wall for Atari's spot as the biggest video game console company.
Today we test the Atari 7800 VS NES! The Nintendo Entertainment System sold 35 times Atari's sales. How did that happen? To determine it we compare the NES and Atari 7800 in various categories like games, graphical capabilities, marketing strategy and controller design to see which 8 bit system was the better buy. (Just ignore the Sega Master System, if it were allowed to compete it would win every category)
Watch part 1 if you missed it!: • The Story of the Atari...
This retro console is just one of many we've added to our retro video game collection! Subscribe so you don't miss our next review!
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The Atari 7800 was my first ever console and being in Australia I had the better controller for it and I didnt mind the screw in stick to the D-Pad, the main game I use to play was Dark Chambers and eventually upgraded to a Sega Mega Drive in 1992 with Sonic the Hedgehog.
Both great things.
Just the sound chip on the Atari..
Though the D-pad is now a given. I remember a time when joystick was definitely the preferred method and the NES having a pad was a negative. Atari were aware of this, the screw in stick was a nice feature of the PAL pad.
I agree it was a good option
I enjoy watching your classic system videos! Thank you Jacob!
I played both but i must say Nes is much much better than attari.
I feel like the 7800 had so much untapped potential. When you look at the last 2600 games like secret quest they really squeezed so much out of the 2600. Would love to see that kind of advanced level of manipulating the 7800. Also I LOVED the 7800 controller especially over the 2600 one. I hate that retro consoles use the 2600 design instead of the 7800. As much as I love the 7800 though, it’s obvious why the NES won.
The homebrew scene is really showing what the 7800 could do!
ATARI, was never going to put added chips in games that Nintendo was willing to do, saying that Gen 1 games without chip were on par with 7800 minus the sound
you LOVED the controller ? you mean the controller with the orange buttons on the side that he calls "this thing" at about 2:00 ???
... well ... you do you... but I once got a 2600 junior with two "this thing" controllers .. my opinion: they sucked.
Holding them feld awkward and the buttons really felt mushy and the stick was stiff like he mentioned in the video.
I could not hold it like a gamepad and use my thumbs to play (I was already used to nintendo and sega controllers) but I also could not put if down on the table and use it like a classic joystick ... it was just weird.
Luckily, I found out that my Quickshot I worked on the 2600 so that is how I played it.
Why is this even a comparison?? NES saved the gaming industry from collapse that crappy Atari created!!!!! End of story
@@NewsmakersGames absolutely! I own the Atari 7800 homebrew games Wasp!, and K.C.Munchkin!. They're both excellent, and just a small sampling of the awesome Atari 7800 homebrew, probrew, and prototype games available.
I really like the 7800 on its own merits without comparing it to anything else.
4:09 Sears catalog's Atari 7800 ad features a "SAY NO! TO DRUGS!" warning on the bottom right corner begs the question: Was that a PSA or were they saying one would have to be on drugs to purchase a 7800? 🤣
The 7800 was more of the same. The NES felt new and magical when it came out. The Xmas I got the Premium bundle of the NES with the gun and R.O.B. is still one of my most cherished childhood memories.
I love this videos! Thanks for mking them!
Thank you for enjoying them!
You need more subs. Super high quality video's!
The most popular NES games had special chips, but the investment paid off.
Yes, the Atari 7800 had a few games, Ballblazer and Commando I think are 2 (might be all?), that had a special POKEY chip in the cart to enhance the sound. Made a HUGE difference. The same chip was used on many actual Atari arcade games.
Super video! Subbed.
I absolutely HATE control pads. To this day, I can't play anything but the simplest of games with them. Anything more complex than Tetris and I'm hopeless with it. Mostly because I'm right-handed and having the movement controls on the left is very unnatural to me. Well, that and being forced to play with just my thumbs.
Made me remember this video ruclips.net/video/LwyKx8TvRcE/видео.html
@@FhargaZ Yup. And if you were to take a modern, right-handed gamer, who grew up with the controls on the left and put them in front of an arcade game that only had a joystick, but no buttons, there's a high probability that they would play it with their right hand.
Hand them an ambidextrous, flightstick style joystick and there's about a 99% chance that they will instinctively grasp the stick with their right hand.
I always tell (right-handed) people; If you think it makes sense to have the movement controls on the left, try using your mouse left-handed for a month.
@@lurkerrekrul ruclips.net/video/NQhvDgTRd6U/видео.html maybe one day I will try that with my Hori Pro N Hayabusa 🙂
@@FhargaZ At some point, I'm going to order one of those joystick kits that come with a stick assembly, buttons and a USB controller board and build a joystick the way I want it. :)
Good video, and I am super late to the party, but your picture of an XE Game System is actually an Atari 130XE computer - the XEGS was a console version of that same computer without a keyboard, etc. It came with a joystick and light gun, though there was a keyboard you could attach to it.
The 7800 was such an interesting system - my buddy had one, but I didn't really understand what it was because he mostly had 2600 games, so it was like, okay, it's a 2600. It fi had come out in '84 it might have had a shot, though that sound chip is a real killer.
Nice vid. I think three things kept the 7800 from being more successful.
1: Those controllers. Just not comfortable for decent to longer sessions.
2: Sounds. As you mentioned, the built in sound wasn't great. Same sound chip as the 2600. If they would have included a Pokey chip (Ballblazer and Commando had that chip on their carts for better sound), it would have been MUCH better.
3: Not releasing in 84. Had they released before the NES, that would have been huge. Waiting until after allowed Nintendo to lock up licensing deals with 3rd party devs, basically killing Atari's and Sega's chance of competing... Atari was too afraid they thought the market was dead; not realizing it was just waiting for the next good system.
When you look at the homebrews out there, you can see the quality of games the 7800 could produce. It was good enough.
Or you could take all 3 of my reasons and just have them represented as one reason. Atari. Nuff said. ;-)
Still love my 7800.
Wasn’t the same sound chip as the 2600…. Fully backwards compatible w the 2600, but certainly quite limited on its own and Not Nearly as serviceable as the NES chip
1) Controller was awful, the European Controller was a better option, honestly though I hated the nes joy pad back in the day because I grew up on joystick.
2) sound yeah it sucked but if Controller and games were their sound mattered the least of theses things, plus 7800 with pokey chip could of solved this
3) games. Having old arcade games, that were already released on 2600 with better grafix and generic copies of popular games didn't help.
Atari already soiled its name with all the terrible games it released. The 5200 did terrible, which is why atari was reluctant to release a new console. Consumers wanted something new.
Which video game system should we cover next time?
It's important to share a fact. I don't know if you already knew this, but in Brazil, Gradient was about to bring the 7800 to the market. They had already bought a ton 7800's molds when the CEO changed Idea and decided to bring the NES instead. They reverse engineered the NES platform and released a clone named "Phantom System" inside the 7800's molds. True history, you can check the images in Google. :)
I want one of my favorites. The Neo Geo X. No, really. Yes it's a glorified emulator in a cheap Neo Geo AES knockoff shell. Yet, it's SO interesting. It did the Switch's whole gimmick first, the falling out between Tommo and Playmore, and it's just general oddities would make for a great episode.
Sega Master System:)
Great video I think there both great consoles for their time.
the design of the 7800 is pretty sick.. even today, if you release a system looking like that, you wouldnt know any better
One odd connection I found: The same artist who drew the visage of Al Lewis as Granpa Munster on Midnight Mutants for the 7800 also drew Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester on Fester's Quest for the NES. Both based on the 'rival' 1960's weirdo family sitcoms and both known for getting really tough and unforgiving in large portions of the playthrough. Rival comedy/horror shows, rival next-gen systems, rival debates over which was better, 'rival' actors (I doubt they had any enmity) who played the family elder (well, that version of Fester was anyway). Creepy and kooky, man.
If they had more third party support, and expanded chipsets on the cartridges, the 7800 could have competed for a long time. It definitely needed the NES style controller though. I was one of those kids that chose the 7800 over the NES for all of the arcade games, and that controller was FAR from comfortable. I will say, I loved Kung Fu Master and Ikari Warriors. They were on par with the NES for sure.
If the 7800 had come out when it was supposed to, it would have ruled the market. Imagine a world where Coleco never launched the Adam, and the 7800 came out on time. What a console war!!
Imagine the if Atari had used MMC style chips like the NES did. There’d be no question which system looked better. If only the 7800 had a built-in POKEY…
In 1986, Atari was no longer competitive. 1987 saw the entry of the Commodore amiga 500, which was many years ahead of its time in terms of technology.
I had an Atari 2600 then a NES but my grandmother had a 7800. We would play it went I spent the weekend with her. Good memories.
What are the best games on the 7800?
My fav is Centipede on 2 player co op.
Hello guys. I am having a good time watching your videos. Thank you very much. I would like to see something about Amiga CD 32 and its story including the downfall of Commodore.
The Atari 7800 actually has a proprietory power cable. If your planning on buying an Atari 7800 make sure it comes with a decent power cable. As they are incredibly difficult to replace. And you can’t just get any old ac adaptor like you can with the 2600 console
Video game software, hardware and programming continues to remind me of: writing long stories of at least 10 chapters, thought process evolution during the first 30 years of life and mental health / mental health repair.
I think a lot of people forget that when the 7800 came out the NES was barely in the USA and most kids didn't have access to one for another year or two. Also games and graphics of said games the 7800 was competing with the NES based on the black box games...and Super Mario Bros. A fair number, most, of the 7800 games looked a lot better than the offerings on the NES. Of course that didn't last long as Japan already had mapper chip games ready to ship soon to the USA. They should have looked at what was coming and just sold off the 7800 stock and walked away from it since they would never be able to compete software wise.
You don’t have to apologize to ur hardcore 7800 fans. We’re all crazy anyway. Plus most of us grew up with a 7800 and loved it from the start. And the homebrew omg the homebrew is incredible. If we had a Bentley bears crystal quest or rikki and vikki I think we all would’ve literally shit. Ok Maybe just me.
I'm proud of myself that I knew enough about this that when you said David versus Goliath.... I knew you were going to say I don't know who's who.
but that's about all I knew.
🤣.
I'm trusting that you're doing a good job because I'm hanging on your words.
Our first console was a PAL 7800. Probably the feature that we got the most out of was its backwards compatibility with the 2600 and we ended up with more 2600 games than games for any console that we've ever actually owned. This was helped by the fact that we had a few Activision compilation carts that came with four or five 2600 games on them, and then there was a somewhat weird 32 in 1 cart (I don't think it was available in the US, but it seemed to be Atari's way of giving new Atari owners a ready-made library of games for their system by repackaging a bunch of older lesser selling 2600 titles... though some of them seemed a little dodgy). I think in some places shops sold the 32 in 1 cart as a pack-in for the 2600/7800?
Probably the thing I liked the most about our 7800 was that it came with Asteroids built-in. We just needed to switch the console on without a cartridge in the slot and we could play, which was great given that it was my favourite game on the system.
Ahh, but the screw in joy-stick made playing Food Fight possible. With a d-pad it just doesn't work...Just my opinion, The video is awesome!
It is a pretty silly gimmick, that doesn't mean it doesn't have it's uses!
Really enjoying this... ride.
Very interesting
i feel like the 7800 was an apology for the 5200, BUT it was also just regurgitating the old library, instead of putting out NEW games. Sure, they had some new games, but they were pushing it as a way to play Pac-Man, a game that was OLD when they were pushing it.
As someone who was a kid who lived through this I will say that only one person I knew had a 7800. The rest of my friends had the wood grain 2600 system and my parents didn't give in until Toys r Us sold the 2600 refresh at 50 bucks. Years later we did get a nes for xmas and one of the less mentioned things between atari and nes was the tv adapter. The atari had a switch that you had to slide from tv to game. if you didnt slide it back to tv you got grounded when dad got home and couldn't get the tv to work. The Nintendo adapter auto switched so parents just needed to change the channel.
8:20 sound and music was so important to me this was my personal deal killer when I was a lad
The Atari 7800 never reached it’s true potential during it’s retail lifetime. But the “classic” Atari games receiving a 7800 makeover were truly best-in-class. I bought one for Asteroids and Ms.Pac Man alone! It is wrong IMHO to discount the Atari 2600 library as being an asset to the 7800 library. The 2600 had a lot of great games once the pre-crash “shovel-ware” is factored out. NES arcade ports, at least in some cases, were less playable than those on the 7800. And I’d rather use a 2600-compatible joystick ANY DAY over a Nintendo D-Pad. And let’s not forget that the NES was a finicky eater when it came to loading games. The 7800 games didn’t have to be blown-in first to get them to play!!!
The 7800 knocked the classic arcade ports out of the park.
I wrote a term paper in college eng 101 on why I chose to buy the atari 7800 vs the nes. One reason was that I could use it to play all my old Atari 2600 games and 7800 games were cheaper vs the $40 nes game prices. Can't remember the other reasons I chose the Atari
American-owned was a big reason at the time
the NES Advantage was the 2nd controller that changed my mind to accepting the NES. Those rectangles were too weird and painful to me. There was a NES Boomerang shaped controller that i liked alot, and it was the 1st controller that drew me to the NES after playing my friend's NES and hating the original controller.
As and 11/ 12 year old at the time, my impression from their ads was that it was simply a beefed up 2600. One of my friends had a 7800, we used to play joust.
While it may have been sound as far as its specs, just Super Mario Bros, meant more to have then, then dozens of those old simple arcade style games.
It’s hard to think as a consumer during 1984 as I was a kid. So I really didn’t think there was a crash. After the 2600 I was more into computers and I told my parents how I learned some basic programming and wanted a computer for home. They bought me an Atari 800 and I just continue playing games on that. If the 7800 did come out in 84 I would like to think it would do well mainly because of the backwards compatibility to 2600, as that was one of the big complaints on the 5200. But again I wasn’t a parent during this time so maybe I would have just been done with video games all together.
background music is SO nice. sounds like Forza Motorsport 3 menus
Doesn't the hole for the screw-in joystick in the Atari 7800 D-Pad create constant friction and chafing for your thumb? I recall getting a callus even from the much milder, shallower dip in the center of the NES controller D-Pad.
You forgot to mention the 7800 Pro Line controller had Ambidexterity. You can play either left stick left or right stick. To do that on Nintendo, you need a Beeshu Superstick, which at first was an unauthorized stick.
An excellent point!
Did you know Beeshu WANTED to be licensed, but Nintendo wouldn't license it, though it met quality standards. There are 2 theories: either Nintendo wanted the Advantage to have 100 percent share of joysticks, or Nintendo failed it for right stick. If it's the first, they got TG16 and Genesis licenses before Nintendo re reviewed the quality test, and passes the Superstick....
I’d like to see a retrospective on the Master System.🎉
Yeah and have a three way battle between the Atari, NES, and Master system this time
Which console do you like better?
Newsmakers Games love my Atari 7800! Consider this. On a lot of arcade ports like Double Dragon the Nintendo NES port has a turned based two player mode. Whereas like the arcade cabinet original the Atari 7800 port had a cooperative two player mode, and was thus more arcade accurate in that respect.
Man, you are really into Atari these days.
Respect the classics, Mmmmmmmaaaaaannnnn
@@NewsmakersGames great video
@@NewsmakersGames Atari was once King in the home video game console market. Respect is due.
Aaah 1986, the year I started gaming. That Christmas my mother asked me what I wanted and I of course said an Nes. What I didn't know was my parents were working together on this as they often did (they were divorced) to give me a better life. So my mom got me an Nes and my dad the Sega Master System. The Atari 7800 wasn't even on my radar.
So...there is some issues here with your pricing and the Nes. I know because I got one in 1986. Here were the available Nes sets in 1986...
1. Nintendo Deluxe Set MSRP $199.95-
It came with 1 Rob the robot, 1 gray lightgun, 2 standard controllers, and 1 combo cart including Gyromite/Duck Hunt
2. Nintendo Action Set MSRP $179.95-
It came with 2 controllers, 1 gray lighgun, and 1 combo cart including Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt
Fun Fact: The Control Deck was not introduced until 1987. I have seen these packaged with Super Mario Brothers by itself, Super Mario Brothers 3, and without a game at all.
Addendum- If you're interested I can post the information on the Sega Master System in 1986 as well. I think you might find it fascinating to know that Sega had more console variations than Nintendo in 1986. Some didn't come with a pack-in game at all but had their games built in. Every variant of the Master System came with 2 games even its Power Base (Control Deck).
I love the Atari 7800 and I have a nearly complete collection of the original release 7800 cartridges and a growing collection of the homebrew 7800 cartridges as well. I prefer Atari's choice of game controllers over the Nintendo Demon pad controllers. However if I did play a Nintendo NES then I would use the Beeshu Jazz Stick joystick controller for I consider it the best for that system.
I got the NES in 1987 for $100 came with 2.controllers, gun and SMB/Duck Hunt
My first system was a 7800, and I liked it. A year or two later, I played an NES, and my mind was totally blown. Night-and-day difference -- better!
I remember kneeling in front of my friend's TV to play his NES, for the first time, and he handed me the controller, and the D-Pad seemed like an obvious downgrade to the joystick to me, initially. I thought it seemed weak and wouldn't lemd itself to quick direction changes like a joystick. That assumption kept me in the dark ages for at least a couple extra years...
Had a Master System at the time. But do have a PAL 7800 with a full set of games now. I like it, but it could have been better. Better sound, scart support and the ability to save the high scores would have been so nice. Oh and I prefer the look of the US console, but prefer the PAL controllers.
I got the 7800 in 1986 before I got the nes in 1987. I didn’t even know if played better games so I just bought a bunch of 2600 games for it. Wished I would have known about robotron in 1986 with dual pro lines even if they didn’t have a coupler. Guess I could have ghetto rigged something but that game is so amazing and it came out so early.
Nice video! Though the Nintendo NES was technically the victor I still love my Atari 7800, and it actually had a lot of untapped potential, and some advantages the Nintendo NES didn't.
I played games on an Amiga 500 back then. There was no console that could measure up to it for many years.
Have you covered the turbografix16?!? Loved that system!
My 3 favorite games for the tg16 are military madness, splatter house, and r type.
i was actively buying nes games at the time at kay bee toys and k mart and some other stores and dont remember ever seeing any atari systems or games for sale at the time. let alone on sale if so i would have bought one. but that was my experience.
I wanna see the Jaguar/CD video, a Lynx, and VCS videos.
I had both growing up it was a fun time
I've asked programmers directly if the inability of both the CPU, and GPU being able to access RAM simultaneously, and they all said, not really. Some even saying that they would not trade the 7800's impressive sprite capabilities for a dual channel memory bus. It takes some skill, and deep knowledge of the 7800's hardware, but if fully realized, it could go toe to toe with the Master System in graphics.
You actually said the 7800 could potentially produce better graphics than the NES? I point you to TMNT III and Kirby's Adventure...or even Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1990. The 7800 couldn't even continuously scroll game screens properly.
For my birthday in 1992 I had a choice of turbo graphics 16 or Sega, I picked the turbo graphics 16 I regretted it.
The whole "David vs Goliath" argument can be settled into Nintendo as David and Goliath as Atari Corp.
Nintendo NES was at a severe disadvantage in both 1985 and 1986, they were new but their subsidiary branch in Nintendo of America was going through it's own organization to do their job of public relations, etc.
Super Mario Bros was a game released in 1985 in both Japan and North America and as such it slowly became a phenomenon in years where the "gamer magazines" didn't really exist in the format we knew later so it really was down to people seeing the demo kiosks in 85 and 86.
Atari Corp, even though they had gone under management changes still, STILL had an overwhelming advantage over Nintendo and Sega so much that we can clearly see Atari 7800 1986 launch completely becoming this big wall for a new and poorly managed subsidiary branch named Sega of America who clearly had superior hardware and game software but extremely bad decisions made with marketing and distribution especially considering that Atari had pre-existing distribution relationships and Nintendo was further expanding their distribution efforts into 1986 alone.
As such we should question the validity of the bias argument that loves to "blame Nintendo" which was started by David Cheff's Game Over book in the early 1990s. (Note I may have misspelled his name) but also because a book like that had a lot of accusation remarks made by staff from Atari Corp and Sega of America.
Now on one hand Nintendo did eventually set up their 3rd party developer relations and rules but let's really be realistic here... in Japan alone where Nintendo's FamiCom had launched since 1983 and went through many difficulties of their own was not immediately this super successful Japan market leader and if they seemed that way, it was barely stable given the amount of fierce competition in Japan.
Thus it really takes up until 1985 with the Japanese release of Super Mario Bros which also caused a phenomenon in Japan to the point that even adult shows would show this influence in the Japanese culture were we can argue was organic since the Japanese culture didn't really have the videogame stigma that was somehow becoming a thing in the 1980s U.S.A. culture where videogames started being stereotyped as something for kids or children as well as nerdy geeks back when the latter terms would get you ostracized in school settings and more and somehow further backed as a social thing or stigma here in the U.S. by other media.
The original U.S. television commercial for The Legend of Zelda (which includes hype for the Nintendo FanClub Newsletter) uses the image of a nerdy teen and a Fonz jacket wearing teen even if extremely briefly but it clearly hints at that type of mentality that was going on back then even though Nintendo of America's marketing, as well as to an extent the 1986 Sega of America marketing materials claimed to target the entire family.
Also a strong point that seems to be missing in your video representation is that you claim the Atari 7800 could do more sophisticated game software than the NES... the problem with that argument is that despite the fact that the FamiCom NES was 1983 technology and hardware is that a game developer would have been much more experienced in working with the NES hardware than both the Atari 7800 and Sega Master System... it really does come down to that especially because the Sega system has hardware power that goes beyond both Nintendo and Atari yet advanced game software took years to show up.
Finally thanks to a killer NEW side scrolling game like Super Mario Bros becoming a sales and word of mouth and cultural phenomenon in Japan and North America, we can definitely make the legitimate argument that SMB was a major factor in securing the safety of the FamiCom in Japan and the NES in North America... Nintendo's own game had to be protected in Japan too where SMB was actually ported to one of the NEC PC-88 computers by Hudson Soft and the importance of hardware game software exclusives became even more important due to the fact that in Japan alone the Nintendo FamiCom had officially reached ten million FamiCom systems sold by 1986.
I don't know what the official sales figures for the NES were by 1986 but they must have been significant enough because Atari Corp who previously dismissed and ignored Nintendo and Sega, immediately got back into the videogame systems market.
Hence from a third party perspective it isn't credible for your company to just make a port on NES, Atari 7800 and Sega Master System in 1986, 87, 88. 89. Etc because it is NOT sustainable.
The NES, through hard work and earned effort had set up base and sold multiple millions of NES systems even by the time your 1987 Sears advertising was made which is another issue because typically Sears always had a higher retail price for merchandise and even if SMB had finally become a pack in title even after you revealed that in 1985 the NES sold for $199.99 with no pack in games, that eventually stuff like the NES Deluxe Set with ROB the Robot gimmick and the eventually appearing Action Set with the zapper light gun (another tech that Sega was quick to match in hardware but with crap marketing and bad management decisions by the subsidiary branch management) only shows that by 1987 a third party company was much safer making game software for the Nintendo NES as a primary videogame system and then would have to decide between the way the Atari 7800 would represent your game software to consumers or if your game could sell at a profit with the lopsided bad marketing going on at Sega of America's staff which by 1987 had fallen under Tonka Toys Corp lol so it is a FAIR assessment that the reality of the whole "Nintendo monopolistic practices" is a figment of the imagination of sore losers.
We can just document a month to month and year to year hardware marketing and game marketing and sales effort to show the results to reveal that it wasn't easy for Nintendo NES to just "win" during the rest of the 80s... iirc the Mattel Power Glove, doesn't even show up in retail until either late 1988 or actually 1989 and very briefly where other gimmick controllers like the U-Force, etc existed so despite the Mattel Power Glove being approved to be sold as a Nintendo compatible product the real reason why there was no Mattel Power Glove for the Atari 7800 and Sega Master System is simply down to the fact that neither of those game systems held legitimate credibility in the minds of consumers and that bad management staff at Sega of America caused the Sega Master System to become a mess which is further exposed with how the SMS was launched in Europe and U.K. and Brazil to become a powerful and credible force for videogames in the late 80s and early 90s even though the SMS was released in those regions at least two years after North America which gets worse when Sega Enterprises Japan made the Sega MegaDrive 16bit Super powerhouse system but didn't have a PAL region version until 1990 which is two years after the Japanese launch and the fact that most of Sega's income was actually coming from PAL regions and Brazil before the Sega Genesis eventually "appeared" to sell huge numbers from 1991 onwards as hardware originally released in 1988 Japan and 1989 North America.
I think it's fair to call the Atari 7800 a "bad product" because the reality is that in hindsight it never should have been released and instead Atari Corp should have released their Atari XE console/computer. Even though it's a hindsight judgment the only thing the Atari 7800 did was fool parents with lower prices and leave consumers stuck with a dead fish or a dead dog that had crap support from the headquarters company which just cannot be blamed on Nintendo or even Sega and eventually the Atari XE might have done better.
In 1986, Atari was no longer competitive. 1987 saw the entry of the Commodore amiga 500, which was many years ahead of its time in terms of technology.
7800 needed a decent built in sound chip (obviously) and i understand that it was a bit hard to write games for
Jack Tremmell was a Reagonist for one, Nintendo had Fusajiro Yamauchi who was a visionary from a day where he went from seeing his own country blown a part to becoming an powerhouse once more.....Jack was wack and should of been put into the old CEO home after Commadore. Atari may have survived with someone who a clue at the wheel in 84....but only with someone who knew how to not cut cost but make the R&D fly!
where is part 1? oO
If the 7800 was released in 1984, it would,ve failed simply because there were already sooo many other competitors.
You know what's great about the Atari Controller Ports ..?
All of their Ports are the same. And, they have the exact
same Ports as the Sega Genesis . I gave it a try, and my
Sega Genesis Controllers work on the Atari 2600.
not exactly. for 2 button games, you need the Edladdin Seagull 78 if you already have a Genesis controller.
but for one button games... knock yourself out with a Genesis pad or a 2600 controller.
I didn't even realize the 7800 even existed and I had a 2600 and 5200 as a tween and teen.
You forgot one thing if you lose the AC adapter for the Atari 7800 you're screwed
That's true. So if anyone has a 7800 with no AC adapter, just send it to me, since it is useless and there is no way to get it working... ;-)
I bought an Atari 7800 at the flea market a few years back, but, of course they had lost the power adapter. Took the risk and bought it anyways for about $20. I popped the case open, desoldered the OEM power connector and installed a more standard barrel-type connector so I could use a standard 9V wall wart with the proper amperage output & polarity of course. FYI, if you do this, some of those wall warts might introduce some unwanted interference onscreen, so try a good quality wall wart if possible.
I got a 7800 for Christmas that year and my buddies got the NES. The 7800 finally had arcade looking games but the NES had Zelda and Mario and games that weren't linear. Ugh ...
It wasnt david vs goliath, it was more like an aging champion against a the number one hungry contender
I can’t find part 1
"It's relatively comfortable in the hand"... is something someone who hasn't used the Atari Painline er. Proline controllers very much says... For any even semi decent length of gameplay, those original 7800 controllers are terrible... Just really really terrible... I have them for my 7800, but the Europads are MUCH nicer...
I commented the same thing. I think these are collectors who just pick up games for a few minutes to see what they're like. The 7800 was my ONLY console for years and I played it a lot. Those controllers were BRUTAL. Thank God I could borrow a Master System controller to use with it.
i didn't mind the atari 7800 only having little bit of games i'm actually patient about waiting for a long time and the sounds was good to me it wasn't bad and disappointing to me at all i love everything about atari 7800 so i would choose atari 7800 over nes because i'm not a nintendo fan i'm an atari fan i preference is atari so i do prefer and love atari better than nintendo don't get me wrong i love nintendo too and i just got the new atari vcs pc hardware system i know this is not the same atari i'm ok with that guess what i also love everything about the new atari vcs as well i think it's a great system i also don't mind the price and little big of games on that too it's still great to me i'm cool with atari and other companies taking there time with software games that's not a bad thing to me i think atari 7800 and new atari vcs is a great idea to me and very one of the best underrated systems sleeper hit of all time that's just my difference unpopular honest opinion i will always love atari no matter what happens that's just me.
i forgot to say that i feel bad for the poor atari 7800 and new atari vcs that just came out in store to us retailers i rather stay positive about it to be honest.
Man, Atari just can't catch a break. Right after you give them the win on the graphics, you go to sound to show how the NES had better sound, but the comparison between Double Dragon on the two systems has the NES version not only sounding better but crushing the Atari version in graphics, too.
3:00 I loved the NES Max. Best for shmups
Not including a real sound chip was a big nail in it's coffin.
As someone living in the PAL region: The NTSC version is much nicer, the clean silver look is recked with toy shop colour text on the PAL one.
Rikki and Vikki showed what A7800 can do
Can you do the Vectrex? 😁
The 7800 is technically better than the Nintendo. But the sound chip is the same as the 2600. Why they did that is beyond me. I still love my 7800. Alot of good games
Full backwards compatibility they couldn't add pokey chip in it in 1984 so they just added it some games but it relaunched in 1986 so by then it was dated so more 1987 games had pokey chip
@@rustymixer2886 only 2 titles ever had the Pokey chip…..Ballblazer and Commando
It's 1986 and you show someone counting modern $100 bills lol @ 00:59
The reason is pretty simple why the 7800 didn't sell well. The system featured old arcade games that kids really didn't have an interest in playing. If kids wanted to play arcade games, they bought the Sega Master System that featured conversions of new arcade titles. Just imagine you were a kid at that time. You had two choices for playing arcade games at home. One you have Ms. Pac Man, Centipede, and Asteroids. The other you had Afterburner, Space Harrier, and Hang-on.
You also have to look at what the NES offered compared to the 7800. On the NES you had massive sprawling adventure games like Metroid and Zelda. The 7800 didn't have any comparable games.
The Atari 7800 would have been a very good system had it been released in 1984 as scheduled.
In 1984 I bought an issue of Electronic Games magazine that had a multi page feature on the up coming Atari 7800. At the time I had a Commodore 64, Apple ][ & TI 99/4a computers, plus my old Atari 2600, Colecovision & Intelevision. Even with all this, I still would have seriously considered buying a 7800.
The 7800 looked good not only because of it's advanced graphics, but also the kinds of titles they were making for it were very appealing to me as a huge fan of coin-op arcade games, especially those from Atari.
At the time of this article, there were no home versions on any console or computer of the hit games Galaga, Xevious & Pole Position II which I think would have been highly desirable (especially the huge hit Galaga) to a lot of people. In addition, there were unique games that sounds pretty good from Lucas Films. I was a huge Asteroids fan, so a 3D Asteroids sounded like a great idea to me.
The NES was never appealing to me. I always hated those D-pad controllers (and still do), and far too many titles targeting "little kids" especially made by Nintendo themselves. I liked Donkey Kong and their earlier titles, but by the time the NES came out, I did not like their stuff in the arcade or the console too much. Excite Bike was one of the few titles I liked. In the arcades mid 80s, their coin-ops I found insulting the graphics and sounds were so bad compared to modern arcade games at the time. Like I was going to through my quarters in those machines.
In 1985 when the NES first came to America I was lucky to get the new state of the art Amiga 1000 computer, which had the best graphics & sound of any personal computer or console by a pretty huge leap.
I bought an Atari 7800 when they did eventually come out, but the excitement was about 1/0th of that it would have been if it had come out when it was supposed to in 1984. It still had titles unavailable on my Amiga, even if the Amiga blew it away, I still wanted to play some of those. In the late 80s/early 90s I wound up with a free used NES, and I still held my opinion. Also played the NES at some friend's houses in the mid 80s. The Atari 2600 compatibility would have been a good feature if the 7800 came out in 1982 or 83. By 1984 most people in America had a home computer or were considering buying one and ditching their Atari 2600's. In 1984 it may have been a nice convenience for some, but by the time the 7800 actually came out just about no one in America was still using their 2600. If it had been out in 1982 instead of the 5200, it would have stopped a lot of people from considering alternatives to Atari.
For dekaced i was always a huge nintendo fan and i always liked my nes,but once i discovered the atari 7800 and that a few nintendo games did also came out on the atari 7800, i really really became a HUGE atari fan as well ever since and let’s to be honest,the atari 7800 looks 1000 times more cooler then the nes or famicom,also it’s controllers just looks sooo much cooler then the nes controller,yes that controller is sticky and less confortible to use but it adds to the challange and it certainly will please hardcore gamers.
At 9:37 you talk about the XE Game System console but you displayed the 130XE computer. Poor editing, friend -- you could have easily found a stock photo of the XEGS rather than confusing the COMPUTER division into this product segment. While both used similar architecture it's a different target market segment (computer enthusiasts versus game console players).
The control stick was more than likely added due to Nintendo’s D-Pad patent.
Living in UK at the time, Virgin Records sold the NES for 40 -50 UK pounds, and the NES Games for 65 -90 UK pounds. Who's buying???
I disagree on the screw-in joystick. I thought it was a wonderful gimmick and it worked quite well with the controller on top of a hardcover book on your lap.
I'm still really not sure how to feel about the 7800. I 100% see what Atari was TRYING to do with it but it's flaws are apparent.
Isn't it first backwards compatible console?
I bought one in 1992 straight from the Atari Corp in California
Nes had a vast library of games including fanicom games with a adaptor
If only Atari had paid attention to the change in controller layouts that Sega and Nintendo were up to among many many other things. I play my 7800 with a Sega controller and if this controller (style) had been the included controller straight out of the box from day one, it would have helped this system big time. The controller shows you how behind Atari was, and makes it obvious that this was old technology. I mean you can tell this system was suppose to come out 3 years prior. Its like no one in the room raised their hand and said... "guys shouldnt we update this idea a little bit?". And if it wasnt enough that they didnt learn their lesson with the 7800 controller, they went and did the same type of thing with the Jaguar. Keeping the old numbers buttons that brought back the Coleco controller and 5200 controller of yesteryear along with a shape that just seemed so out of touch for a system that was 64-bit !!!! Atari needed to release a system with hardware that could be easy to write games for and could take advantage of the new hardware possibilities out there. Instead you got a pretty much unchanged system planned for 1984 in 1987. I mean think about it, 7800 came with Pole Position 2 (at least it came with a game). But from the sound to the overall lack of innovation in this game shows how far behind Atari's thought process was. The 7800 was not in a position to keep up with the NES, how long did the NES have new titles coming out for it ? 1991 was the last year a game was released for the 7800. The last NES game was around 1995 and unlicensed games were released until around 1997. Look at the specs of the Nintendo compared to the Atari. Atari had a better resolution of 320×240, while the Nintendo had a 256×240. But ! and this is a big but, the increased processing time required by the higher resolution meant many games used 160×240 mode instead. This reminds me also of the Jaguar, people designing games not utilizing the processing power of the Tom and Jerry chips. Atari was so full of themselves they thought the name would just sell the system and their video game and computer divisions not working together didnt help matters. By 1989 look at the quality and depth of games being released for the NES. Now look at the quality and lack of depth in 7800 games from the same period. The 7800 feels like a 1984 system from its looks, to the controller to be basic-ness of its game library, while the Nintendo looked like the future all the way around. After getting beaten this bad by Nintendo, you would have though Atari would have really rethought their game plan moving forward when they had the idea to release the Jaguar. But this time they over thought it and instead of sticking to a 32bit system, we got a 64bit Jaguar system that no one seemed to take the time to design games for the proper way, why ? Because the dev kits were no where to be found or they were terribly put together and didnt help the folks designing the games for the system in the slightest. Atari thought the sales pitch of 64bit was enough to get people to buy it and the games were an after thought. Also Nintendo was able to corner the developer market and get games that no one else could release with having companies signing contracts for exclusive titles. The game was changing and Atari was out of touch with the video game audience. Sad. It really did start with the 5200 and it was all down hill from there.
By the way the PAL model was much nicer looking and of course had the better controller. So the Pal model gets my vote.
It may seem like a minor point, but I think Nintendo actually benefited from being a new brand on the market. As a kid who was just the right age to be getting into video games when the NES launched, part of its appeal was that Nintendo was the hot new thing that was so much better than that old Atari you sometimes played at your uncle's house (which was probably a 2600). The brand was new, the audience was young (I didn't know too many people whose parents were big Nintendo players) and there were a lot of brand-new games that created entire franchises and genres instead of just offering yet another way to play Pac-Man and Pole Position.
I really don’t think the NES launched at $199 without a pack in game. I remember buying mine at KB Toys near launch. I got the Power Set which came with super Mario and duck hunt, 2 controllers and the Zapper gun for $120. Consoles didn’t cost $200 until the 16 bit generation. Please double check your numbers.
That sounds incorrect
@@patsfan4life it is not… I lived it!
>Charles Hepburn: I forget the set we had, but ours came with Duck Hunt, Gyromite, ROB the Robot, 2 controllers, and the Zapper for $140 circa 1986.
Atari 2600+Atari 5200=Atari 7800; i didn't catch it back then that 26+52=78
Atari is one of those companies that makes you shake your head in frustration. The 2600 found huge success in spite of itself and the 8-bit computer line had a ton of innovative features that were way ahead of their time, but it seemed like Atari never knew what to do with their successes. They were always squandering opportunity, waiting too long to bring innovative products to market, dealing with infighting and unhappy developers, and otherwise throwing away their shot. It was like everyone inside their offices was pulling in a different direction.
I think their future would've been allot different with just a little bit more pointed direction after the launch of the 2600. Release the 800 as-is, but as a loss leader for peripherals and software (they were never going to make money on that overbuilt case design so just embrace it and make the money back somewhere else.) Scrap the whole 400 idea and instead build out what the 5200 should've been all along: a much needed graphical upgrade to the 2600 with normal controllers and more memory. Release it in 1980 as intended, and hey, modify the cartridge slot and toss a handful of 2600 chips into it so it could be backwards compatible if you want extra credit points.
If Atari did just this much right, they would've entered the 80s with a much better hand. So frustrating.
Imagine if Atari had worked with Nintendo, a NES with Atari features would've been amazing