The Atari 7800 had a messy history, and I went through how it got there and why it never really found its footing in the market. This was the first of a two-part look at the system, with the focus here staying on the console itself, where it came from, and what happened between its development and its eventual release.
I started with the Atari VCS from 1977, which later became the 2600 after the 5200 arrived in 1982. Atari had brought out the 5200 to compete with systems like the Intellivision and ColecoVision, which offered better graphics and sound than the 2600. The problem was that the 5200 wasn’t initially backward compatible with the huge 2600 library, and that hurt it. An adapter showed up in 1983, but by then the video game crash was already underway, and the 5200’s controller didn’t help matters either.
To avoid repeating those mistakes, Atari hired General Computer Corporation to design a new console that would keep compatibility with 2600 games while improving the hardware for newer titles. The machine started life as the 3600 before becoming the 7800 ProSystem. GCC already had experience working with Atari, and I also touched on Atari’s talks with Nintendo about distributing the Famicom in North America, which fell apart after the dispute around Donkey Kong appearing on the Coleco Adam at CES.
One of the big points here was the release date, because the 7800 is usually remembered as a 1986 console. I went over how it had actually been released earlier, in June 1984, after being announced at CES the month before. That first launch didn’t go anywhere, though, because Warner sold Atari’s consumer division to Jack Tramiel in July 1984, and everything was halted during the evaluation period. The 7800 was pulled from the market, and the production units sat in warehouses while payment disputes with GCC dragged things out.
The system finally came back in May 1986 at $79.95, but it returned with a reduced marketing budget and a launch lineup that had been planned years earlier. Atari announced 13 games at launch, including Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position II, Centipede, Joust, Dig Dug, Robotron: 2084, Galaga, Food Fight, Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractalus!, Track and Field, Xevious, and Desert Falcon. Some of those still hadn’t finished development, which says a lot about how delayed the whole platform had become.
I also covered what the hardware offered and where it fell short. The 7800 kept backward compatibility with 2600 cartridges and peripherals, which helped a lot because new 7800 software arrived slowly and the library never got very large. Fewer than 100 games were released specifically for it. The controller was simpler than the 5200’s and added a second button, although only a few games really used it, and Europe also got a gamepad that looked a lot more like an NES controller.
By the time the 7800 was properly on shelves, it was up against the NES and Sega Master System, and it didn’t compare especially well in graphics, sound, or momentum. I showed how Nintendo had already rolled out broadly in 1986, and by the end of that year the NES had sold ten times more systems than the 7800. Atari also faced pressure from home computers on several fronts, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, IBM compatibles, Atari’s own computer lines, and the rest of the console market.
Atari sold the 7800 from 1986 through 1991, with the 2600 still hanging on beside it, and then ended both systems in early 1992 along with the 8-bit computer line. Even so, the 7800 still turned a profit for Atari and remains a solid system to collect, with consoles and games still showing up at reasonable prices.
— Aaron
Links
- “Open” by Emil Rottmayer
- https://open.spotify.com/artist/2UuvaSzB0VNumArR71ReMT?si=Ftd_hLHCSxyMIR0B3lJ1Pg
- “Shell Theorem” and “Fakebit World” by Malmen
Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
00:42 – Early history and development
03:40 – The Jack Tramiel effect
05:08 – Market performance
05:45 – System Features
06:14 – Competition
08:11 – Demise
08:46 – Conclusion