When you think of key words in the history of video games Hardware, a few notable officers are remembered. Nintendo is obviously one of them; the Japanese striker has been a huge part of the industry since the '80s, and has maintained a position of importance and influence despite numerous challenges from his rivals. Speaking of which, Sega is another name that comes up; while the company no longer works well for video game consoles other than the unusual arcade machine, it has been, for a long time, a major hit for Nintendo.
Then there's Atari – a company that has made a significant impact on the home video game space that allows companies like Nintendo and Sega to thrive. Atari created the first indeed the main market game system in the VCS system (later renaming it 2600 – the title of Bitmap Books following compendium, (incident), and I also worked with the idea of licensing software for other companies when paying Taito distribution rights. Space Invaders at its console. It even came up with the idea of publishing a third party when managing its four key employees – David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead – became so poor that they decided to leave Activision, the first video game company of its kind.
However, despite the success of the '80s, Atari made excellent blunders, before and after the 1983 private video game crash, where the market collapsed after the flood of high-end VCS gaming releases – the console being, by -1982, was the first to show its seriousness. Ironically, its biggest mistakes are likely to be outsourced to the company at two distinct points in its history.
Back in 1982, the industry was in a strange place. Atari VCS was the undisputed champion of home stadiums and & # 39; Atari & # 39; was alternating with the word & # 39; video game & # 39 ;. The company was selling millions of copies of its most popular games and the demand seemed unlikely, but the balloon was about to explode. While Atari posted a lower earnings estimate than expected, the seeds of the & # 39; 83 cracks were muted.
Over in Japan, Nintendo has been working on the Famicom home console after its successful run. Donkey Kong
In early 1983, Yamauchi instructed Nintendo's US president Howard Lincoln to call Atari and discuss the possibility of the two companies collaborating to launch Famicom stateside. Given that this connection occurred months after Atari boss Ray Kassar announced that the company's sales goals were lost – and that Atari's efforts to find a successful VCS successor were frustrating (the Super 52y SuperSystem was unpopular, while the 7800 ProSystem would not hit the market until is 1986, though it was ready to be released years ago) – this was a dream written on paper. Nintendo basically gave Atari the chance to sell Famicom under its brand in order to pay Nintendo a royalty on all its consoles.
It was an agreement made. We covered everything
Atari successfully had nothing to lose; it was not known at that time whether the in-development 7800 upgrade was more powerful than Nintendo & # 39; s, but with the acquisition of Famicom it had a robust backup plan that would not cost R&D. A meeting was quickly organized, and Lincoln – along with Nintendo of US President Minu Arakawa – was moved to the California HQ of Atari to issue the agreement. The negotiations took days to settle, and when Lincoln warned that Yamauchi – not the man he was known for keeping calm – was growing uncontrollable, Atari's boss Kassar granted permission to keep the agreement. Atari would distribute Famicom under its brand in North America, and would allow Nintendo to make its product into millions of homes across the country. "It was something that was done," Nintendo's former US President Howard Lincoln told video game journalist and historian Steven L. Kent some years later. "We put everything together."
As we all know, that is not the end. At CES 1993, Coleco – the company behind the ColecoVision home console, VCS's main rival – showed Adam's home computer. Based on the same ColecoVision technology, it could run ColecoVision cartridges – and that includes Nintendo's crown jewel, Donkey Kong. Nintendo had obtained a release game license on the ColecoVision console and used the article to promote Adam's computer – the fact that it was able to play games was deemed a best-seller.
However, Atari had already purchased the home computer rights for the game, and when Atari's lawyers saw Kong working on a rival computer, it was thought that Nintendo had breached its contract. "You have to understand that Donkey Kong is the main reason for anyone to be interested in working with Nintendo," Howard Philips will tell Kent. "Mario Bros. and some of our games have been great B-titles, Super Mario Brothers
You should understand that Donkey Kong was a basic reason anyone would be interested in partnering with Nintendo
Nintendo, too, did not know that Coleco was using Donkey Kong to show Adam, and Coleco, in his defense, was not promoting the type of home computer game – which Atari had rights to – but instead showed that Adam could run cartridges for -ColecoVision. An urgent meeting was arranged immediately between Atari, Nintendo and Coleco, and Coleco agreed to stop showing Donkey Kong and Adam, or forcibly installing it. However, when the treaty was saved, it ended up being a joke; After revelations that he had uploaded 5,000 shares of Warner Communications stock before the announcement that Atari's profits would drop further than expected, Ray Kassar was forced to resign as Atari's CEO and Nintendo's revised agreement remained unregistered. As the key supporter of the Atari Treaty now in the picture, things are stopping.
With Atari's seemingly dead-end agreement in the water and Famicom selling in impressive form in Japan, Nintendo decided to move it on its own and release a console in the provinces as the Nintendo Entertainment System, a device that will not just change the face of the gaming company in Japan as a global leader in interactive entertainment. On the other hand, the struggling Atari was to be sold by parent company Warner Communications to former Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel in 1984, creating Atari Corporation.
Despite the change in ownership, you'd think Atari would think too much about making the same mistake down the line. However, history repeated itself beautifully in the late & # 39; 80s; Sega, even failing to make a Nintendo prototype with its 8-bit Master System, decided to break relations with North American distributor Tonka and other collaborators in court. While it felt like it would better manage Japan's launch of its next project – the 16-bit Mega Drive, itself, Sega remembered the fact that spl itting North America was a different proposition. It needed a US company with experience in the field and a distribution and marketing network already in place, and it turned into – you guessed it – Atari.
"(Sega chairman) Dave Rosen came to Atari and asked if we would like to take over the construction, marketing and distribution of Genesis," Michael Katz told Steven Kent. Katz was then president of the video segment of Atari Corporation, and was instrumental in helping Atari her best year since 1982 in terms of revenue; The Atari 7800 console has had enough in the market share to persuade the company to reach $ 452 million in 1988. "We are very close to contracting for unlimited licenses to allow Atari to enter the 16-bit fray before Nintendo," adds Katz. "Negotiations went well for the river, and as I recall, they broke up when Jack Tramiel and Dave Rosen failed to agree to the terms. After that Sega decided to do it themselves. "
We are close to making a big licensing agreement so Atari will jump to the 16-bit fray before Nintendo. The conversations went very well in the broadcast
Sounds familiar? Once again, Atari was able to hold the victory in the jaws of victory. Sega would follow Nintendo's lead and release Mega Drive (or Genesis, as it is known in North America), stealing market share from the aging NES and establishing a rivalry with Nintendo that would last all of this 16-bit era. It's amazing that Katz will be one of the people who helped build this legacy – he joined Sega in 1989 following a job offer from Rosen, and oversees the advertising campaign "Genesis did what Nintend & # 39; t" advertising that enabled Sega to release much of the North American market. Katz was also a key figure in Sega's drive to sign sports stars like Joe Montana, Arnold Palmer and James "Buster" Douglas to appear in the Genesis games – another key to the console's early success.
Atari, as we all know, stumbled from one disaster to another. The Atari XE computer was twisted, its Lynx handheld was powerful but overpowered and the Jaguar home console available failed to reach the audience. The company's relationship with Sega took another twist in 1994 there sign a contract further use of Atari patents on Sega titles – an agreement that should have allowed Atari to use Sega IP on Jaguar – but after two years, the company successfully ceased to exist. Tramiel's family had been looking for a video game business, and in July 1996, Atari merged with the hard disk drive manufacturer JTS Inc., and the Atari logo icon all disappeared from view. Toy company Hasbro bought Atari's IP rights in 1998 for $ 5 million, and since then the brand has been circulated around various owners. Today & # 39; Atari & # 39; s looking to reinvent VCS as a multimedia set-top box and even engages with the hotel business.
Hindsight is a good thing, but when you look back, it's amazing to think that Atari wasn't one but two the possibility of completely revitalizing its sick benefit, but allowed both to pass it on. What would the video game market look like if Atari released the NES with its name on the box? Did you do a good job as Nintendo did? It is impossible. You can ask the same question about Genesis; it is probably the Atari of the 80's & # 39; s indeed released a better hardware launch than Sega? It's very controversial – but then we'll never know.
If you're interested in learning more about the history of the Atari 2600 and 7800, then check out the latest Bitmap Book product, Atari 2600/7800: visual appendix.
