*Have a small correction on the video.* I accidentally used the NES NY trial run for the full launch date. I meant to use the full launch date for both the NES & 7800. The NES full launch only beat the 7800 to market by a few months, which if anything it makes the sales number comparison more jarring in favor of Nintendo. This video is a bit different that others I've done in the past. Instead of covering a console, accessory, game etc. this one is looking at an event that is rarely spoken about or reported on. I had to get creative with the editing (hence the use of original art and animation) to be able to cover everything that happened. Hopefully you guys don't mind the change for this video. Also, I think it's obvious but I should mention that the 4 Atari-NES titles shown are some mock ups I made and not actual titles.
It's a song called Corporate Atmosphere." It's a track I purchased a license to through Motionarray. Motionarray is a resource site for video editor so I don't think it's going to be available for download elsewhere.
+Ferintosh Farms Photography oh don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I have a long list of topics to cover. These are just taking longer to put out now that I'm taking more time to make the editing interesting.
I hate to be one of "those people" but you have a couple typos in the first sentence: " looking at an even that is rarely spoke about of reported on" I believe you meant to write "an event that" and "about or reported". Feel free to remove this comment.
Atari Nintendo Entertainment System. Wow. Would've been cool to own an ANES. Imagine putting cartridges in your ANES and also playing with your ANES or even someone else's ANES.
I'm just envisioning the alternate reality where "Atari" remains the main household name for video games and is the mainstream video game company and I'm getting chills. They were so close
Nintendo dun fucked up by double crossing Sony . Now Sony is the king of gaming with the two of the top three selling consoles being PlayStation and Sony holding 1 st in 3 of 4 console gens .
It was quite a time that. Seeing that long. 10-15 meter long wall at a Nordic Toys'R'Us and pick 3 games for the price of one or whatever it was. Was like a holiday as a kid.
Oh yah. My dad would take me and my sis to Toys R Us back in the 80's. Our family was so broke back then..yet my dad would still manage to find a way to get something at Toys R Us. Half the times we went there, it was just (looking). We had a Colecovision and were always excited to see if dad would get something new. I remember being so excited when he'd grab one of those tickets (that let you know the item was still in stock). Oh I remember drooling over the Commodore 128 behind the glass case and always asking if they could buy it. "That's too expensive! We can't afford that". Then the NES came out. I think it was October of '85, that after coming back from Trick Or Treating...my dad had set up a NES. One of my very first games for it was Wrecking Crew. I still love that game to this day. Back in the 80's.. before Toys R Us caught on to it, you USED TO be able to buy a game and still return it after it was already opened. After they stopped allowing opened game returns, my dad got slick. For games we didn't like... my dad got a cheap shrink wrap device and carefully rewrapped the game. Couldn't tell it had even been opened. lol. He only did it a few times, and at different stores.. otherwise they would get suspicious. Ahh.. good times 🤓😁
Seems that once I think I know almost everything about VG history, something like this pops up and surprises me. I never knew there was suppose to be a deal like this between Atari and Nintendo. Very interesting history.
My dad said the same thing in 86, 87, 88, finally in 89 he gave in and got me one. My uncle bought Nintendo when it first came out. So I did get to play when I visited his house. When I finally got one, I didn't even really want it. I wanted Jordan's then.
Awesome video. I'm glad the Nintendo/Atari deal didn't go through or the video game landscape would have been soo much different and boring! Again great video, you always put so much effort into your videos and it shows in the awesome quality of them, I hope you never stop !
+brooklynstylee Thanks for the kind words. I agree, things could've also been a mess with Atari in charge of the Famicom. It's fun to think abbot what might've been though. Thanks again for the compliments, I love making these videos and there's nothing more encouraging than seeing other people enjoying them too.
Just imagine if Nintendo and Sony went through with their PlayStation. The marked would look different. Maybe even Sega would still making consoles as the small, 3rd in the market.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Nope, Sony SNES would have probably sucked like the Mega CD. It was Ken Kutaragi going back to the drawing board and by then Virtua Fighter had been released which he credited for the Sony machine's 3D capabilities. Sony also got Sega devs on side through acquisition of former Sega staff going to Namco.
Goes without saying, an amazing video! Very interesting to see what all it could indeed have been with Atari and Nintendo. Worth the wait to see this video!
Thank Chris. This was a fun one to put together. It's strange that this even isn't brought up more often. It's like it was swept under the rug, right next to the Sega VR headset lol.
Hmmm conspiracy? All jokes aside yes this is a huge topic that could've changed the way gaming rose to today. There's quite a lot of research out there, but it's good to see some light on this.
I feel like the gaming industry dodged a bullet. The NES was a success not specifically due to its hardware being better - it was a success because it's software lineup was so consistently spectacular. Of course there are a lot of bad games on NES same as any system, it's best games stand so high above the competition that hardware stops being a factor. If Atari had licensed out the NES, I wonder if they would have thought to limit Japanese games and instead focusing on their own. If that had happened, I question if the NES would have ushered in the same glorious gaming days of the late 80s or if it would have crashed and burned like the 7800.
Frankly, I think Atari would likely have bungled it up had the deal gone through. I love Atari but they would quickly become experts at mismanaging everything. I imagine Nintendo would've ended up having to go at it alone at some point but who knows what would've happened? It's fun to think about what could've been but I agree, a bullet was probably dodged.
Honestly to me the NES was largely a success in America because the US video game crash taught them to enforce strict software regulation to ensure quality control and prevent the same over saturation that caused the crash in the first place.
Hardware never stops being a factor, but it's not everything. Even with better game programming, the 7800 probably never would have beat out the NES simply because the sound hardware was better in the NES. The 7800 had pretty good graphical capability, but the sound hardware was basically 2600 hardware. The inferior hardware made it pretty much impossible for any game developers to incorporate sound into 7800 games that could compete with the NES.
It's probably a timeline where Sega ruled the gaming industry just due to Atari's ineptness and Nintendo waiting a while to actually get into the ring. It's anyone's guess if Sony and Microsoft still joined in.
I’d have to say that the deal to put Nintendo games on Atari hardware was a 5 year deal as it started with Mario Bros on 2600 in 1983 and the 3 7800 games that came out in 1988. Also interesting that the week Atari showed off the 2800 in Japan they were at N-HQ to negotiate this! Great video. Wish I’d done it!!
+GTV Hey man. Thanks for checking it out. It's probably for the best this deal didn't go through. Atari, as much as I love them, would've probably mismanaged it eventually.
Worse than the Turbo-Grafx16 (which was pure incompetence, and they tried to salvage it with someone else), It could have ended up like the WonderSwan. Mattel bought the rights to it outside of Asia in 1999 and just... sat on them. It didn't help that the man on the top was none other than Bernie Stolar, which makes it 5 consoles he sabotaged (PS1, Saturn, DreamCast, WonderSwan, WonderSwan Color).
Momo Lagaf yea agree. Nintendo also could have just put out almost the same hardware or the Super Nintendo early to get around the contract had Atari just sat on it or mishandled it
Gajillionaire I suppose that also explains the several ports of Atari/Midway titles Hal produced for the Famicom/NES as well, at least as proof that the Famicom could replicate popular Atari titles of the time.
Christopher Sobieniak yea! There was an article about Joust after Iwata died that explained a lot of the background that’s also in this video. As a side note if seen on some Atari sites (can’t remember which haha) that had mock ups of what Nintendo made games would look like on the 7800.
The bit about Satoru Iwata's port of Joust is probably the most fascinating part of this for me. Even if the deal never went through, Nintendo did get something valuable out of it.
The odd thing about the video game crash is....my friends and i never saw it. We never stopped going to the arcade, we still played atari and intellivision and then i moved on to the sega master system. There was no crash for the kids in my neighborhood. We also played outside too. All we know is that suddenly nintendo and sega appeared.
Yeah, the Game Crash of '83 is just more of a fancy thing to say in conversation...no one actually means it outright. I mean it's like the phrase "sex sells". That phrase is basically "hey escorts!", but people use it to say "female sexuality can help bolster sales of a middling product". That doesn't roll off the tongue, though. Just like "the American Console game Crash of 1983 to 1986 only affected Atari consoles in stores; arcades and PC gaming were untouched and Coleco/Intellivison just naturally faded away on their own" - try saying that smoothly in a conversation
It wasn't really a thing that *consumers* of video games noticed. They didn't stop playing, after all. They had all the video games they wanted--more than they wanted--that was the problem, from the manufacturers' perspective.
It's always a gamble and you can't predict the future. You either do the right move or you do the wrong one. I'm sure there are deals that never happened that would truly have changed the way our society works today(for the better).
Or when Google's founders initially approached Yahoo and offered to sell them their search engine technology. Yahoo refused so they just went into business for themselves. Whoever decided to not go through with that purchase is probably a hardcore alcoholic now.
A few corrections: The Atari 7800 was briefly test-marketed in New York and southern California in 1984 before Jack Tramiel came in and shelved it. Also the NES wasn't released nationwide in the USA until September 1986 -- the same time as the Sega Master System -- whereas the Atari 7800 was released nationwide in May 1986. The much-ballyhooed North American release of the NES in October 1985 was actually just test-marketing of 100,000 units in New York.
+VWestlife yeah, I mixed up my launch and trial dates with the NES. Can't behoove I did that. I actually added a note with that correction to the video's description like maybe fifteen minutes ago but I sincerely appreciate you catching that.
And just to nit-pick: If the Famicom-based Atari had been released as intended, it probably would've looked very similar to the 7800. An Atari-badged NES case is nothing but comical fantasy, and Atari had already abandoned woodgrain with the release of the all-black "Darth Vader" 2600 in 1982.
There's nothing wrong with fantasy! But it should be made clear that that's all it is. Even after Atari dropped out and Nintendo went solo, their prototypes of what was then called the Advanced Video System (AVS) looked very little like the NES in its final form. After the AVS was met with responses like "someone forgot to tell Nintendo that video games are dead" they redesigned it to make the NES look like a VCR instead of a video game console.
VWestlife Knowing how Atari liked to do things back then, I wouldn't be surprised had such a Nintendo-licensed console simpy had a 7800 shell or such and with those type of joysticks as always.
Even in 1984 the 7800 wouldn't have been anything special, it might have done a bit better but probably not by a whole lot. It is hard to believe they really thought that thing could compete with the NES. The NES has games with amazing soundtracks. The C64 with it's sid chip released in 1982 has amazing music. Yet they released the 7800 in 1986 with the same sound chip the 2600 used back in 1977! That would be like if when Nintendo released the N64 they used the sound chip from the NES!
Really nice job coving a topic no one else has discussed. Honestly, Atari was so awful this was the best possible outcome. It would have been nothing but bad news if Atari was able to close this deal or the one they were negotiating for Sega's Genesis. They would have screwed up these consoles like they screwed up everything making the memory we hold more like that of Atari's 7800 rather than the iconic systems they became.
+Jenovi Yeah, I tend to think that even if the deal had gone through Atari's ability to mismanage things would've ended up with Nintendo having to go at it alone at some point. Fun to think about though.
I'd had a 7800 back in the day. The games looked nice, but the controllers were subpar and the sound was recycled from the 2600. They made a huge mistake pushing the real 7800 sound chip to the cartridge, and game publishers. Even worse was actual game distribution. I'd ended up having to purchase about a third of my collection from Atari directly in a bulk order. The last third was from bins at a discount store for $2 each. Apparently Atari had practically given them away to clear warehouse place for Jaguar, which was bungled even worse than the 7800.
It may have held success after Jack Tramiel though. Like the ST that single handedly saved Atari, but they had to develop for a business consumer base.
@@WrestlingWithGaming wasn't the 7800 designed (perhaps even manufactured) before the 5200, then shelved when Atari decided to convert their 400 computer into a game console? The 7800 should've never seen the light of day, especially with the regression of the audio to what the 2600 had, with an optional sound chip in game cartridges. There were what, only 3 or 4 7800 games with the sound chip? What Atari needed was an upgraded 5200 with better quality, self centering analog sticks, and optional digital sticks for 'twitch' games. Back in the day I looked at the 7800 sticks and thought they were a huge step backwards in capability from the 5200.
The editing on this video was extremely well done! Really enjoyed watching it, and learned a lot - i had no idea there ever was a deal of that type between Nintendo & Atari
It's kind of wild to think that if this deal had gone through we may not have gotten the super mario bros. series that we know and love today. Or any of the other Nintendo franchises that we know today. We just would have gotten japanese versions of old atari 2600 games. What a waste that would have been. History happened the way it needed to happen.
#1, Nintendo would have still distributed their own console in Japan and developed their own games. So Mario would have been the same. #2, just listen to yourself. "Things turned out the best way possible"? That's crazy. Nintendo put basically the same CPU in the NES as the Atari 2600 had. If Nintendo had done things better, we could have had much better games, which would have inspired much better hardware, and we could be taking day-trips to the Moon Gardens by now.
This whole video is very well done. The graphics, narration and editing are top notch. If I saw this on the Science or Discovery channel in between How It's Made and Mythbusters it wouldn't seem out of place.
So many of these potential partnerships between these companies that broke down before fruition, which could have helped certain ones immensely. Sega with a chance to work with Sony, then Nintendo with the Nintendo PlayStation, and even this, which couldve changed the gaming landscape one way , or the other.
We were pretty close to a Nintendo Playstation too. Apparently, the reason Nintendo backed out was because they learned Sony was going to screw them out of royalties. Basically, the publishers would have given money to Sony instead of Nintendo, or so I've often read. When Nintendo dropped out (better second place and richer than first place and poorer, I suppose), Sony went to Sega. This deal also fell apart because Sega of Japan was being Sega of Japan.
This is the video I've been waiting for! I remember reading about the possible collaboration between Atari and Nintendo and you did a good job filling in the specific details of the story. Thank you!
This is really refreshing man. I subbed months ago and watching your channel grow has been a pleasure. Tbh, I'd rather wait weeks for an upload than get filler like the bigger channels. Thank you.
+Alejandro Chavarria thanks so much. I think after the next video I'll be able to upload a little more frequently though. That's the plan for the coming year at least
In a sea of internet celebrities it's great to watch interesting videos about interesting topics without the creator being largely the focus of attention. Great stuff.
+David Davidson Thanks! I just try to make the kind of videos I'd like to watch. It's great to see other people having a simulated mindset. It seems like a lot of TH-camrs are more concerned with yelling and being "edgy."
Picked up Game Over: press start to continue years ago. I like to call it the good book for Nintendo fans 😅 The couple chapters on Tetris where great reads
Watched a lot of documentaries on the development history of early consoles, and man... I just keep thinking : "It takes some very serious minds to bring us this much fun."
Even after failed deal with Nintendo, Atari still had other chances and opportunities. The 7800 had potential, but the new owner took back the 1984 release, locked them all away on shelves in warehouses for two years and waited a whole year after U.S NES release to put it out. The games that were finally released with the 7800 were outdated remakes of multi years old games that had already been made over and over and over again and worn out. Plus the marketing strategy for 7800 was corny and pathetic. Most people didnt even know it existed even while in the stores right in your face. Had they made more commercials and actually created newer more current games for it, the 7800would of faired much better. However there were a few excellant games that were better on the 7800 than on other consoles. For example, The best port of Commando was on the 7800, which also was one of like only two games that they used the pokey sound chip in. The other was Ball Blazer, another excellant game. Wish they would of used it more because it definatley enhanced game experience A few other good games that could that demonstrated graphic capabilities was Alien Brigaide, AKARI Warriors, Tower Topler, Motor Psycho. etc etc etc.. The best games for the 7800 didnt release until about 1989 and 1990 around the death of the 7800 productuon which were too late. Had they made more games like that upon its release, it would of had more success. Again, I'll say the 7800 had potential, and Commando on the 7800 is awsome. Between 1984 to 1990, the 7800 only released a library of like 48 games total. That in itself was suicide and some what hillarious. However, even after that, Atari still had more chances. Atari blew on a deal with Sega in the late 1980s to produce and sell the genesis in the Atari name, but destroyed that opportunity with themselves AGAIN. And even after that, Atari still had another opportunity to redeem itself and survive. In my opinion, The Atari Lynx and Jaguar had the potential to be the greatest handheld and greatest console ever made. Bad marketing and bad decisions, small library's of games and not pushing there full potential also ruined those ventures However, still to this day, I still feel like the Atari Lynx handheld was and still is my favorite handheld console to the day, especially with the McWill screen mod. The capabilities of the Atari Lynx was over a decade ahead of time. Even though the NES gameboy massively outsold the Atari Lynx, the Lynx was technically and capably far superior than the Gameboy, and even more advanced than the gamegear.Unfortunately, Atari didnt market and advertise the Lynx very well....,A good example of how advanced the Lynx capabilities, speed, and graphics were is shown in S.t.u.n R.u.n.n.e.r. By far the best port of the games. The Lynx was actually Created in 1987, two years before it was publicly finally Released in 1989, it was discontinued in late 1994..... Just imagine if it had been released in 87 or 88 instead of 1989. Would of been a huge success because nothing would of been competing, and gameboy wasnt invented yet. And early release of Lynx by a couple years would of gave it a head start making the gameboy look sad in 1989, lol. It wasnt until 2002s gameboy advance, that any handheld surpassed the lynx tech and power on it's own hardware. .....
@@chibang492 Yeah, but it was still awesome though. My original Game Boy still works, but my bothers and I wore out that Sega Nomad before the Pentium III even came out. XD
@@Da_Benski Nomad was pretty dang cool. I never owned one but a friend of mine had it back in the day. Me personally, The Lynx is still my favorite handheld of all time, especiallu with the modded McWill screen that came out a few years ago. I had my Atari Lynxs modded and the new screen makes a huge difference.
This is the first time I've come across this channel. I found this in my recommendations. I've gotta say, this is terrific quality. I admit, I probably wouldn't have clicked it if it didn't have Guru Larry, but that's because there are just sooo many channels about video games and video game history, it's hard to tell at a glance which ones are good, so I just ignore them, mostly. Having said that, you earned my sub before the intro was finished. Thanks for taking the time and effort to make such great content. Cheers.
This was such an amazing video from start to finish. I legitimately think you create some of the best and most well thought out content on TH-cam. Thank you for letting me learn about something that I had no idea took place. I will be patiently waiting for your next video!
+Mike Evans hey Mike, thanks for watching. This one was a challenge to edit in some parts for sure. It's a cool little piece of history that doesn't get talked about as often as you'd think.
It wouldn't happen. Even if they had gotten the deal, they would've found some way to fuck it up. Atari is run by people who don't know how to run a business.
Thanks for the video! I'd heard about the legendary showdown at CES, but none of the story behind it. As a 7800 owner, I agree that Atari would have bungled the US Famicom release--even if they had any actual intention of going through with it. 1983 at Atari would have played out the same, with Tramiel killing it just as he'd done with the 7800. However, they wouldn't have had the 7800 to release later. Their response to the eventual NES release would probably look something like their later XE computer "console" conversion. Nonetheless, competition from Nintendo and Sega, and the later PC market crash, sealed their fate all the same.
What a great video and historically important to video games considering the time period and players involved. Finding your channel back in 2017 was one of great the best things I've stumbled on.
Super impressed with this topic and the detail in which you covered it in. Very good video. You've got a Sub and looking forward to watching more of your videos.
Wrestling With Gaming I PROMISE I will be at your next live stream. I always mean to be there, but I started back working and you stream so late, I'm usually in bed. But I will be at your next. Mr. CD-I. Lmiao. 💜
I remember Grandpa buying me Atari 2600 games at the drug store for if memory serves me $3 to maybe $7 each. It was a fun time and I really enjoyed those games. I was thrilled with the NES I got not long after it came out. But Atari 2600 started my interest in video games. I never got to try Atari 5200 or 7800. I played Coleco Vision occasionally at a friend's house. I'm going to try Atari 7800, Sega SG-1000, and some others first through emulation and perhaps later buy those systems to restore and use. Thanks for the excellent video on the subject. This was really very interesting. 😃 👍
If only you guys making these history videos had more support. There is movie potential there. There is so much interesting stuff going on backstage! I mean, who at the CES would've thought that at the time?
i think its like a breakup/freindzone kinda thing where right before they were about to secure the rights the video game crash happened but.. they still had worked with atari even after, they even put pong in smash bros as an assist trophy
I don't think modern Atari even owns the rights to Pong. Besides, the assist trophy featured in Smash is the "Color TV-Game" (Nintendo's version of Pong) rather than the actual Pong--Nintendo didn't have to pay for any licensing for that.
On the contrary, they had a terrible relationship after that. Atari making unlicensed games for the NES, multiple lawsuits between the two companies, and of course, they were competitors in both the portable and home console markets for several years, with Nintendo coming out on top in every instance, obviously.
@@AandNvg True, but my point still stands. Atari Corp remained a competitor to Nintendo in the hardware market until the death of the Jaguar. And Atari Games was making unlicensed games for NES. Neither company was friendly with Nintendo, at least until the mid-90s when both companies found new ownership.
The current Atari is just name alone after multiple hand changes. I don't think there is any regret from the new owner, Infogrames, because the company was not involved during the 1980s.
Nintendo has their reasons to kick themselves as well. They had the opportunity to partner with Sony on the Playstation and then pulled out of the agreement. And then Sony went on their own and mopped the floor with Nintendo. I guess Nintendo didn't learn from their own past.
Nathen Hutchison That's because Sony tried to backstab Nintendo and Nintendo found out about it. Why would Nintendo sign a deal in which Sony would get basically all of the publishing rights to Nintendo's IPs? Nintendo would lose out big time. If I came to you and the agreement was I would provide you with some techs but I would publish every game and get up to 95% royalty fees, you'd be dumb to sign an agreement like that. That's not Nintendo kicking themselves that's Nintendo not wanting to basically give Sony everything and then some.
I was reading on how Kinney Services became Warner Communications became Time-Warner became AOL Time Warner back to TimeWarner becoming WarnerMedia subsidiary of AT&T. Anyway, the video game crash of '83 had far reaching effects for Warner Communications, Atari's owner at the time. Basically, the company from that point forward was in financial straits it led to the selling of of their cable channels which would be bought up by Viacom (MTV and Nickelodeon), allow for Time, Inc. to merge with Warner to form the new company, its video game assets being eventually spun off and sold to a variety of companies Bally, Acclaim and Midway before arriving back at the company again albeit much, much smaller and more Midway than Atari (which was stripped of practically everything even its name). Still, think of that world. Warner Communications sells the Atari Famicom at the height of the cable boom of the late 80's/early 90's and releases ports of the SNES, Game Boy, 3DS, N64 and so on. Would there be a PlayStation? Who buys the Mariners? Would Sega jump into Microsoft's coffers earlier perhaps surviving the 2000's? The possibilities would've been endless. Think about it like this, one company would've owned the license to all Nintendo characters outside of Japan, Looney Tunes, DC Comics and eventually the Hanna-Barbara library, its music division and this would lead to the PlayStation never being built (at least in its current form). The entertainment landscape as we know it would've been fundamentally altered.
Well.. the PlayStation 2's casing was partly based on Atari casing designs for their unreleased Falcon040 MicroBox computer. It would have looked differently. Or perhaps Mr. Tramiel would not have been able to buy the Atari Home Computer division, Amiga Inc. would have honoured its contract with Atari and we would have witnessed the actual release of things like the planned Atari 1850 XLD (based on Amiga Lorraine specs) or things like the AMY soundchip or the Atari Sierra graphics workstation, and missed out on things which were the result of that sale. Who knows.
Great video man. I love this kind of crazy gaming history. Nintendo might seem like kids stuff, but their business practices are definitely hard core. They loved screwing deals at E3, lol.
@@WrestlingWithGaming Atari was doomed to fail right from the start. Nintendo wasn't following for Atari's stupid business decisions and Nintendo is still alive today. And now, they even partnered up with Microsoft.
Nintendo has a tradition of sound economic management. Yamauchi was simply genius in his decisions about the SNES price point. Although Nintendo had lost their monopoly to Sega, they understood price is everything and managed to remain relevant and arguably win the generation at least in terms of total sales figures. I am not sure how the attach rates and margins worked out for the SNES considering the average Genesis/MD gamer purchased 2 games per month. Sega was pretty much printing money in the early 90s while Nintendo was stuck with the pricey console.
Thanks! It's a really cool little story that somehow doesn't get talked about very often. You'd think something this significant would be talked about on the NES' anniversary every year or something.
A year late, I'm still amazed that this was all undone by such a tiny, insignificant twist of fate. Had Coleco used literally any other game to show off the Adam at CES, Nintendo and Atari would have signed that deal.
Right, because at the time, Donkey Kong was licensed to Coleco for home consoles only, while Atari had the same rights for computer systems. Yes, had Coleco demonstrated their forthcoming Adam computer using a different game instead, just maybe this thing would've worked out. As it was, Coleco eventually was able to get their Adam version of Donkey Kong released, after it learned about Atari being sold off by Warner Bros. to Jack Tramiel, which made the original 1982 licensing agreement moot. At the time of the fallout at the summer '83 CES show, Coleco's defense was that by demonstrating its popular Donkey Kong cartridge for the Adam it was merely to show off the fact the Adam also supported the ColecoVision console's cartridge library.
Damn good video, well done! I was only 7 when I got my NES in 1987, but man, Nintendo was EVERYTHING gaming at that point in time. Nintendo obviously made out good by having that potential partnership fall through.
Sadly I grew up never owning anything from Atari. I heard of them but never seen or bought any of their products. It's good to know about the pre-8-Bit days of gaming regarding Nintendo and companies that exist in gaming at the time.
It's amazing how many stories from the annals of videogame and computer history keep popping up, you think you would have heard them all by now, ..... but hey, I'm not complaining, it's always great to get another new old story. Thank you :)
I think Nintendo might have overestimated the demand for the Famicom in the SECAM regions. Pretty much the only one of those where consumers were likely to buy video game consoles in the 1980s was France and even then, Europe wasn't doing too hot economically, making home computers with lower-priced cassette games more popular.
I 100% agree. I thought it was so strange that I checked the number with three sources to be sure. When you take into consideration that the Famicom hadn't even been released when they made some of these requests it might make Nintendo seem like they were being arrogant, and while I'm sure that's part of it, Atari also seem like terrible negotiators. This wouldn't be the last one sided or unreasonable deal they'd agree to. And I say that as someone who likes Atari a great deal.
+noop9k: There were about 65 million in France at the time compared to a couple of hundred million in the rest of Western Europe. Considering the initially poor sales of the system in France even in reality, which picked up around 1990-ish, I see a fair number of those 300,000 units earmarked for the SECAM regions collecting dust on the shelves for a while.
+5Rounds Rapid: Famiclones were a big thing, but they weren't selling the games at Nintendo's prices, while the systems rapidly came down in price as well. And it took until slightly after the Soviet Union had collapsed before even the Famiclones entered the market (the Dendy was released in 1992).
This (that i just discovered), the gaming historian, Larry Bundy and Daniel Ibbertson's channel are channels that i am quite enjoying as my personal retro-fix.
+TheRaven078 Thanks for watching 😊. This one was fun and challenging to put together. I wasn't sure how people would react to pseudo animating some stuff but I'm glad to see people like the video. It's a cool and forgotten piece of gaming history. Thanks again.
In an alternate reality, Atari and Sega are like Sony and Microsoft. Meanwhile Apple is in the back dominating handhelds and derpy motion controls for old people.
Put a strong independent female character, an 80's soundtrack, some spicy edgy sex scenes, a wildcard character, a villain, and you'll have a four season HBO or AMC tv show about this deal.
fantastic video! i've watched a lot of youtube gaming info videos and this channel is so well done. plus, this is a topic that i actually hadn't heard of before, which is rare! keep it up!
+Michael Anderson in my opinion, if the deal had gone through Atari being Atari would likely have messed it up within a couple years and Nintendo would've ended up releasing their own version anyway. And that's coming from someone that likes Atari. Still, it would've been interesting to see if Atari could've made it work.
Thanks for posting this video, I never knew that. I do remember when the Atari 7800 was out in retail big box stores and "Joust" was the main game that seemed to be the main demo.
Sure they did. They knew very well that Atari had exclusive rights to release Donkey Kong on home computers (the Adam undeniably was one), yet made an Adam-exclusive Donkey Kong cassette release . Yamauchi was too smart for their "computer-like exterior with a video game console on the inside" song and dance, and rightly gave them hell.
+Melwing thanks for watching. I know that there are literally thousands of gaming channels out there so I appreciate it. This is a story that, despite being pretty damn important, isn't talked about very often. It's just kind of gone under the radar.
Just think, we would have ended up with the Atari Stagnation System (ASS) instead of the classic NES because after their early dominance Atari seemed capable of only shooting themselves in the foot.
They relied on the 2600 for far too long. The 7800 should'e been marketed as soon as it was ready. Rather than requiring a POKEY in each game for better than 2600 sound, it should've been a separate addon peripheral, with all 7800 games having sound code for both. How to do that? It should have been possible to combine or multiplex the 2600 sound data with the POKEY sound data. Plug the super sound module into the cartridge port then cartridges into that. 2600 carts would simply pass through. A later revision could've integrated the POKEY.
![ทุกครั้งที่หลับตา (Lucid Dream) - AYLA's [ Official MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4i1OBAQyv58/mqdefault.jpg)
*Have a small correction on the video.* I accidentally used the NES NY trial run for the full launch date. I meant to use the full launch date for both the NES & 7800. The NES full launch only beat the 7800 to market by a few months, which if anything it makes the sales number comparison more jarring in favor of Nintendo.
This video is a bit different that others I've done in the past. Instead of covering a console, accessory, game etc. this one is looking at an event that is rarely spoken about or reported on. I had to get creative with the editing (hence the use of original art and animation) to be able to cover everything that happened. Hopefully you guys don't mind the change for this video. Also, I think it's obvious but I should mention that the 4 Atari-NES titles shown are some mock ups I made and not actual titles.
It's a song called Corporate Atmosphere." It's a track I purchased a license to through Motionarray. Motionarray is a resource site for video editor so I don't think it's going to be available for download elsewhere.
Wrestling With Gaming oh good, I was just looking at your channel the other day wondering where the heck you were
+Ferintosh Farms Photography oh don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I have a long list of topics to cover. These are just taking longer to put out now that I'm taking more time to make the editing interesting.
+Doin Definitely got more to come! Thanks for watching!
I hate to be one of "those people" but you have a couple typos in the first sentence: " looking at an even that is rarely spoke about of reported on" I believe you meant to write "an event that" and "about or reported". Feel free to remove this comment.
Atari Nintendo Entertainment System. Wow. Would've been cool to own an ANES. Imagine putting cartridges in your ANES and also playing with your ANES or even someone else's ANES.
Lieutenant America don"t touch my ANES
*AES
If someone punted it across the room, they would be kicking your AES.
Can I have a joystick for my ANES?
Yes, but don't insert your joystick into your ANES. That is not how it is designed to work.
The Atari Video Computer Gaming System featuring Nintendo. AVCGSfN
I'm just envisioning the alternate reality where "Atari" remains the main household name for video games and is the mainstream video game company and I'm getting chills. They were so close
For real, makes me wonder where we would be with game development. If this deal had gone through, there may never have been a video game market crash.
velkoon This is what happened in Korea where both Nintendo and Sega had to licesne their early consoles to Korean companies like Hyundai and Samsung.
Nintendo dun fucked up by double crossing Sony . Now Sony is the king of gaming with the two of the top three selling consoles being PlayStation and Sony holding 1 st in 3 of 4 console gens .
You mean Bladerunner?
You know i love Atari. But the whole Atari story just reeks of bad business decision.
Holy crap, I think we all have heard about the nintendo playstation, but I had never heard of this. Great video!
+Sami Thanks! It was a fun topic to cover.
Artendo Famicom.
This was definitely the deal before the ps1 deal
Another tantalizing trip through early console gaming. Keep this amazing journey going, we're all here for the long haul.
+TownLine Tim thanks man. Plenty more stuff to cover and plenty more CD-I to stream lol
Thought you said traumatizing for a second lol.
2:55 miss those days of Toys R Us during the 90's...large selection of games and the consoles on display in their own plastic shell.
It was quite a time that. Seeing that long. 10-15 meter long wall at a Nordic Toys'R'Us and pick 3 games for the price of one or whatever it was. Was like a holiday as a kid.
those were the good old days. I think toy r us went out of business.
@@DrWho2008t101 They did :(
It took forever to figure out how they made the gameboy come up on a tv .
Oh yah. My dad would take me and my sis to Toys R Us back in the 80's. Our family was so broke back then..yet my dad would still manage to find a way to get something at Toys R Us. Half the times we went there, it was just (looking). We had a Colecovision and were always excited to see if dad would get something new. I remember being so excited when he'd grab one of those tickets (that let you know the item was still in stock).
Oh I remember drooling over the Commodore 128 behind the glass case and always asking if they could buy it. "That's too expensive! We can't afford that".
Then the NES came out. I think it was October of '85, that after coming back from Trick Or Treating...my dad had set up a NES. One of my very first games for it was Wrecking Crew. I still love that game to this day.
Back in the 80's.. before Toys R Us caught on to it, you USED TO be able to buy a game and still return it after it was already opened. After they stopped allowing opened game returns, my dad got slick. For games we didn't like... my dad got a cheap shrink wrap device and carefully rewrapped the game. Couldn't tell it had even been opened. lol. He only did it a few times, and at different stores.. otherwise they would get suspicious.
Ahh.. good times 🤓😁
Seems that once I think I know almost everything about VG history, something like this pops up and surprises me. I never knew there was suppose to be a deal like this between Atari and Nintendo. Very interesting history.
In 1985 my father told me, “You already have an Atari, you’re not getting an Intendo”.
breadfan262 was the spelling of Intendo intentional, because if yes bruh moment to your dad
@@dani.munoz.a23 His dad probably just never heard of Nintendo before and messed up the name by accident. No one heard of Nintendo in 1985.
@@momentary_ And, through most of 1986, only those in the big cities heard of it.
My dad said the same thing in 86, 87, 88, finally in 89 he gave in and got me one. My uncle bought Nintendo when it first came out. So I did get to play when I visited his house. When I finally got one, I didn't even really want it. I wanted Jordan's then.
My cousin called the nes a nintari
Awesome video. I'm glad the Nintendo/Atari deal didn't go through or the video game landscape would have been soo much different and boring! Again great video, you always put so much effort into your videos and it shows in the awesome quality of them, I hope you never stop !
+brooklynstylee Thanks for the kind words. I agree, things could've also been a mess with Atari in charge of the Famicom. It's fun to think abbot what might've been though. Thanks again for the compliments, I love making these videos and there's nothing more encouraging than seeing other people enjoying them too.
Agreed, Atari had gotten out of control with rushing bad games to market. They were more obsessed with making money, than making good games.
Just imagine if Nintendo and Sony went through with their PlayStation.
The marked would look different. Maybe even Sega would still making consoles as the small, 3rd in the market.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Nope, Sony SNES would have probably sucked like the Mega CD. It was Ken Kutaragi going back to the drawing board and by then Virtua Fighter had been released which he credited for the Sony machine's 3D capabilities. Sony also got Sega devs on side through acquisition of former Sega staff going to Namco.
I never realized how much Howard Lincoln sounds like me :D
+Larry Bundy Jr Who knew?! 😂
Thank you again for helping out with the video!
I damn near spat out my coffee when I read this. :D
Hello you, Howard Lincoln here.
Larry Bundy Jr I don’t j at the similarity, personally.
Your long lost brother?
Goes without saying, an amazing video! Very interesting to see what all it could indeed have been with Atari and Nintendo. Worth the wait to see this video!
Thank Chris. This was a fun one to put together. It's strange that this even isn't brought up more often. It's like it was swept under the rug, right next to the Sega VR headset lol.
Hmmm conspiracy? All jokes aside yes this is a huge topic that could've changed the way gaming rose to today. There's quite a lot of research out there, but it's good to see some light on this.
Dude I swear Guru Larry pops up everywhere I go.
He's a hard working man! Hell of a nice guy too.
I feel like the gaming industry dodged a bullet. The NES was a success not specifically due to its hardware being better - it was a success because it's software lineup was so consistently spectacular. Of course there are a lot of bad games on NES same as any system, it's best games stand so high above the competition that hardware stops being a factor.
If Atari had licensed out the NES, I wonder if they would have thought to limit Japanese games and instead focusing on their own. If that had happened, I question if the NES would have ushered in the same glorious gaming days of the late 80s or if it would have crashed and burned like the 7800.
Frankly, I think Atari would likely have bungled it up had the deal gone through. I love Atari but they would quickly become experts at mismanaging everything. I imagine Nintendo would've ended up having to go at it alone at some point but who knows what would've happened? It's fun to think about what could've been but I agree, a bullet was probably dodged.
Honestly to me the NES was largely a success in America because the US video game crash taught them to enforce strict software regulation to ensure quality control and prevent the same over saturation that caused the crash in the first place.
Hardware never stops being a factor, but it's not everything. Even with better game programming, the 7800 probably never would have beat out the NES simply because the sound hardware was better in the NES. The 7800 had pretty good graphical capability, but the sound hardware was basically 2600 hardware. The inferior hardware made it pretty much impossible for any game developers to incorporate sound into 7800 games that could compete with the NES.
It's probably a timeline where Sega ruled the gaming industry just due to Atari's ineptness and Nintendo waiting a while to actually get into the ring.
It's anyone's guess if Sony and Microsoft still joined in.
Never forget that if Nintendo would have to go on his own after, it'd be too late as the Sega Master System would be there already.
I’d have to say that the deal to put Nintendo games on Atari hardware was a 5 year deal as it started with Mario Bros on 2600 in 1983 and the 3 7800 games that came out in 1988. Also interesting that the week Atari showed off the 2800 in Japan they were at N-HQ to negotiate this! Great video. Wish I’d done it!!
+GTV Hey man. Thanks for checking it out. It's probably for the best this deal didn't go through. Atari, as much as I love them, would've probably mismanaged it eventually.
Worse than the Turbo-Grafx16 (which was pure incompetence, and they tried to salvage it with someone else), It could have ended up like the WonderSwan. Mattel bought the rights to it outside of Asia in 1999 and just... sat on them.
It didn't help that the man on the top was none other than Bernie Stolar, which makes it 5 consoles he sabotaged (PS1, Saturn, DreamCast, WonderSwan, WonderSwan Color).
Momo Lagaf yea agree. Nintendo also could have just put out almost the same hardware or the Super Nintendo early to get around the contract had Atari just sat on it or mishandled it
Gajillionaire I suppose that also explains the several ports of Atari/Midway titles Hal produced for the Famicom/NES as well, at least as proof that the Famicom could replicate popular Atari titles of the time.
Christopher Sobieniak yea! There was an article about Joust after Iwata died that explained a lot of the background that’s also in this video. As a side note if seen on some Atari sites (can’t remember which haha) that had mock ups of what Nintendo made games would look like on the 7800.
The bit about Satoru Iwata's port of Joust is probably the most fascinating part of this for me. Even if the deal never went through, Nintendo did get something valuable out of it.
Yeap, thanks to that game HAL Lab became a first party dev to Nintendo.
The odd thing about the video game crash is....my friends and i never saw it. We never stopped going to the arcade, we still played atari and intellivision and then i moved on to the sega master system. There was no crash for the kids in my neighborhood. We also played outside too. All we know is that suddenly nintendo and sega appeared.
Yeah, the Game Crash of '83 is just more of a fancy thing to say in conversation...no one actually means it outright. I mean it's like the phrase "sex sells". That phrase is basically "hey escorts!", but people use it to say "female sexuality can help bolster sales of a middling product". That doesn't roll off the tongue, though. Just like "the American Console game Crash of 1983 to 1986 only affected Atari consoles in stores; arcades and PC gaming were untouched and Coleco/Intellivison just naturally faded away on their own" - try saying that smoothly in a conversation
Yep I knew nothing of the video game crash until I read about it online. To the average Joe, the video game industry never died.
It wasn't really a thing that *consumers* of video games noticed. They didn't stop playing, after all. They had all the video games they wanted--more than they wanted--that was the problem, from the manufacturers' perspective.
People tend to confuse shakeouts with crashes all the time. 83 was a shakeout.
Reminds me of how Blockbuster handled Netflix. It's crazy how a whole industry can do this to themselves again and again.
It's always a gamble and you can't predict the future. You either do the right move or you do the wrong one. I'm sure there are deals that never happened that would truly have changed the way our society works today(for the better).
At the time Netflix was a small company. Blockbuster would have had no way of knowing how streaming would end up taking over.
nobody can predict the future.
Look at Elon Musk is doing with da X
Nintendo also did this by creating PlayStation, nearly destroying themselves in the process
Or when Google's founders initially approached Yahoo and offered to sell them their search engine technology. Yahoo refused so they just went into business for themselves. Whoever decided to not go through with that purchase is probably a hardcore alcoholic now.
A few corrections: The Atari 7800 was briefly test-marketed in New York and southern California in 1984 before Jack Tramiel came in and shelved it. Also the NES wasn't released nationwide in the USA until September 1986 -- the same time as the Sega Master System -- whereas the Atari 7800 was released nationwide in May 1986. The much-ballyhooed North American release of the NES in October 1985 was actually just test-marketing of 100,000 units in New York.
+VWestlife yeah, I mixed up my launch and trial dates with the NES. Can't behoove I did that. I actually added a note with that correction to the video's description like maybe fifteen minutes ago but I sincerely appreciate you catching that.
And just to nit-pick: If the Famicom-based Atari had been released as intended, it probably would've looked very similar to the 7800. An Atari-badged NES case is nothing but comical fantasy, and Atari had already abandoned woodgrain with the release of the all-black "Darth Vader" 2600 in 1982.
There's nothing wrong with fantasy! But it should be made clear that that's all it is. Even after Atari dropped out and Nintendo went solo, their prototypes of what was then called the Advanced Video System (AVS) looked very little like the NES in its final form. After the AVS was met with responses like "someone forgot to tell Nintendo that video games are dead" they redesigned it to make the NES look like a VCR instead of a video game console.
VWestlife Knowing how Atari liked to do things back then, I wouldn't be surprised had such a Nintendo-licensed console simpy had a 7800 shell or such and with those type of joysticks as always.
Even in 1984 the 7800 wouldn't have been anything special, it might have done a bit better but probably not by a whole lot. It is hard to believe they really thought that thing could compete with the NES. The NES has games with amazing soundtracks. The C64 with it's sid chip released in 1982 has amazing music. Yet they released the 7800 in 1986 with the same sound chip the 2600 used back in 1977! That would be like if when Nintendo released the N64 they used the sound chip from the NES!
I never would've guessed The Dong himself would be behind the loss of a historic deal. Great show!
Incredibly well produced and edited. Alexis' artwork was amazing.
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Great job! I loved the ending line too. '1983 is also the year Atari almost had it all'
Thanks so much!
Really nice job coving a topic no one else has discussed. Honestly, Atari was so awful this was the best possible outcome. It would have been nothing but bad news if Atari was able to close this deal or the one they were negotiating for Sega's Genesis. They would have screwed up these consoles like they screwed up everything making the memory we hold more like that of Atari's 7800 rather than the iconic systems they became.
+Jenovi Yeah, I tend to think that even if the deal had gone through Atari's ability to mismanage things would've ended up with Nintendo having to go at it alone at some point. Fun to think about though.
I'd had a 7800 back in the day. The games looked nice, but the controllers were subpar and the sound was recycled from the 2600. They made a huge mistake pushing the real 7800 sound chip to the cartridge, and game publishers. Even worse was actual game distribution. I'd ended up having to purchase about a third of my collection from Atari directly in a bulk order. The last third was from bins at a discount store for $2 each. Apparently Atari had practically given them away to clear warehouse place for Jaguar, which was bungled even worse than the 7800.
It may have held success after Jack Tramiel though. Like the ST that single handedly saved Atari, but they had to develop for a business consumer base.
Had the 7800 not been backwards compatible with the 2600 it may have been able to be a much better system.
@@WrestlingWithGaming wasn't the 7800 designed (perhaps even manufactured) before the 5200, then shelved when Atari decided to convert their 400 computer into a game console? The 7800 should've never seen the light of day, especially with the regression of the audio to what the 2600 had, with an optional sound chip in game cartridges. There were what, only 3 or 4 7800 games with the sound chip?
What Atari needed was an upgraded 5200 with better quality, self centering analog sticks, and optional digital sticks for 'twitch' games. Back in the day I looked at the 7800 sticks and thought they were a huge step backwards in capability from the 5200.
This is why it is good to contain one's emotions even under the shadiest of circumstances. Still, glad this deal never finalized.
The editing on this video was extremely well done! Really enjoyed watching it, and learned a lot - i had no idea there ever was a deal of that type between Nintendo & Atari
+Rob Noire Gaming Thank you! I always thought this was a cool piece of gaming history. Strangely it isn't talked about very often.
It's kind of wild to think that if this deal had gone through we may not have gotten the super mario bros. series that we know and love today. Or any of the other Nintendo franchises that we know today. We just would have gotten japanese versions of old atari 2600 games. What a waste that would have been. History happened the way it needed to happen.
WHEN IS THE NEXT ATARI DIRECT HAPPENING HOLY FUCK WE NEED A NEW PONG GAME
#1, Nintendo would have still distributed their own console in Japan and developed their own games. So Mario would have been the same.
#2, just listen to yourself. "Things turned out the best way possible"? That's crazy. Nintendo put basically the same CPU in the NES as the Atari 2600 had. If Nintendo had done things better, we could have had much better games, which would have inspired much better hardware, and we could be taking day-trips to the Moon Gardens by now.
This whole video is very well done. The graphics, narration and editing are top notch. If I saw this on the Science or Discovery channel in between How It's Made and Mythbusters it wouldn't seem out of place.
Thanks man! My girlfriend did the 2D art towards the end, which was a huge help.
So many of these potential partnerships between these companies that broke down before fruition, which could have helped certain ones immensely. Sega with a chance to work with Sony, then Nintendo with the Nintendo PlayStation, and even this, which couldve changed the gaming landscape one way , or the other.
+Godzilla 73 yeah, it's crazy the amount of "what could've been"stories in gaming.
We were pretty close to a Nintendo Playstation too. Apparently, the reason Nintendo backed out was because they learned Sony was going to screw them out of royalties. Basically, the publishers would have given money to Sony instead of Nintendo, or so I've often read. When Nintendo dropped out (better second place and richer than first place and poorer, I suppose), Sony went to Sega. This deal also fell apart because Sega of Japan was being Sega of Japan.
sega was offered cooperation on Playstation hardware AND prototype N64 hardware and declined both.
noop9k i know. Imagine if they would have agreed? Sega may still be in the hardware business, well....maybe
I really miss the old sega.
This is the video I've been waiting for! I remember reading about the possible collaboration between Atari and Nintendo and you did a good job filling in the specific details of the story. Thank you!
+phunq thanks for watching 😊
I think if the NES was released earlier, under the Atari name. It wouldn't have been as big a success.
This is really refreshing man. I subbed months ago and watching your channel grow has been a pleasure. Tbh, I'd rather wait weeks for an upload than get filler like the bigger channels. Thank you.
+Alejandro Chavarria thanks so much. I think after the next video I'll be able to upload a little more frequently though. That's the plan for the coming year at least
Every time I've spoke of another enticing episode , masterfully done. And you still deliver time again.well done applause all around.
+Steve Evans thanks man
In a sea of internet celebrities it's great to watch interesting videos about interesting topics without the creator being largely the focus of attention. Great stuff.
+David Davidson Thanks! I just try to make the kind of videos I'd like to watch. It's great to see other people having a simulated mindset. It seems like a lot of TH-camrs are more concerned with yelling and being "edgy."
Picked up Game Over: press start to continue years ago. I like to call it the good book for Nintendo fans 😅
The couple chapters on Tetris where great reads
+patrick borrelli yeah, it's a great book.
Watched a lot of documentaries on the development history of early consoles, and man... I just keep thinking : "It takes some very serious minds to bring us this much fun."
Even after failed deal with Nintendo, Atari still had other chances and opportunities.
The 7800 had potential, but the new owner took back the 1984 release, locked them all away on shelves in warehouses for two years and waited a whole year after U.S NES release to put it out.
The games that were finally released with the 7800 were outdated remakes of multi years old games that had already been made over and over and over again and worn out. Plus the marketing strategy for 7800 was corny and pathetic. Most people didnt even know it existed even while in the stores right in your face.
Had they made more commercials and actually created newer more current games for it, the 7800would of faired much better.
However there were a few excellant games that were better on the 7800 than on other consoles. For example, The best port of Commando was on the 7800, which also was one of like only two games that they used the pokey sound chip in. The other was Ball Blazer, another excellant game. Wish they would of used it more because it definatley enhanced game experience A few other good games that could that demonstrated graphic capabilities was Alien Brigaide, AKARI Warriors, Tower Topler, Motor Psycho. etc etc etc..
The best games for the 7800 didnt release until about 1989 and 1990 around the death of the 7800 productuon which were too late. Had they made more games like that upon its release, it would of had more success. Again, I'll say the 7800 had potential, and Commando on the 7800 is awsome.
Between 1984 to 1990, the 7800 only released a library of like 48 games total.
That in itself was suicide and some what hillarious.
However, even after that, Atari still had more chances. Atari blew on a deal with Sega in the late 1980s to produce and sell the genesis in the Atari name, but destroyed that opportunity with themselves AGAIN.
And even after that, Atari still had another opportunity to redeem itself and survive.
In my opinion, The Atari Lynx and Jaguar had the potential to be the greatest handheld and greatest console ever made.
Bad marketing and bad decisions, small library's of games and not pushing there full potential also ruined those ventures
However, still to this day, I still feel like the Atari Lynx handheld was and still is my favorite handheld console to the day, especially with the McWill screen mod.
The capabilities of the Atari Lynx was over a decade ahead of time.
Even though the NES gameboy massively outsold the Atari Lynx, the Lynx was technically and capably far superior than the Gameboy, and even more advanced than the gamegear.Unfortunately, Atari didnt market and advertise the Lynx very well....,A good example of how advanced the Lynx capabilities, speed, and graphics were is shown in S.t.u.n R.u.n.n.e.r.
By far the best port of the games.
The Lynx was actually Created in 1987, two years before it was publicly finally Released in 1989, it was discontinued in late 1994.....
Just imagine if it had been released in 87 or 88 instead of 1989. Would of been a huge success because nothing would of been competing, and gameboy wasnt invented yet. And early release of Lynx by a couple years would of gave it a head start making the gameboy look sad in 1989, lol.
It wasnt until 2002s gameboy advance, that any handheld surpassed the lynx tech and power on it's own hardware. .....
Didn’t the 7800 have that mushy analog joystick?
well, don't forget about the sega nomad.
It was a portable handheld that played actual GENESIS cartridges.
@@Da_Benski
Yeah but not its own dedicated hardware.
@@chibang492 Yeah, but it was still awesome though. My original Game Boy still works, but my bothers and I wore out that Sega Nomad before the Pentium III even came out. XD
@@Da_Benski
Nomad was pretty dang cool. I never owned one but a friend of mine had it back in the day.
Me personally, The Lynx is still my favorite handheld of all time, especiallu with the modded McWill screen that came out a few years ago. I had my Atari Lynxs modded and the new screen makes a huge difference.
I was hyped for this, and you delivered. Excellent video!
dude, you deserve more views, amazing video!
+Lord Alfajor Thanks, I appreciate it. Hopefully the views will come with time.
I'm sure, your stuff is top notch quality. Keep it up!
+Lord Alfajor gracias!
Wow, didn't know about this! It's cool to imagine what might have been. Great video as always!
+Matt Hopper thanks man. Yeah, it's a pretty crazy story.
awesome docu! Excellent content. Bravo from France!
Thanks for checking it out!
This is the first time I've come across this channel. I found this in my recommendations. I've gotta say, this is terrific quality. I admit, I probably wouldn't have clicked it if it didn't have Guru Larry, but that's because there are just sooo many channels about video games and video game history, it's hard to tell at a glance which ones are good, so I just ignore them, mostly. Having said that, you earned my sub before the intro was finished. Thanks for taking the time and effort to make such great content. Cheers.
Thanks for taking the time to watch. I appreciate it!
Fascinating story! Would make a great movie.
This was such an amazing video from start to finish. I legitimately think you create some of the best and most well thought out content on TH-cam. Thank you for letting me learn about something that I had no idea took place. I will be patiently waiting for your next video!
+Mike Evans hey Mike, thanks for watching. This one was a challenge to edit in some parts for sure. It's a cool little piece of history that doesn't get talked about as often as you'd think.
Yeah I would say so. I have watched a lot of gaming TH-cam channels and this is the first I've heard of it.
I want to see the alternate universe where the Atari Switch exists.
Naveek Darkroom
HD Frogger?
It's alright. You should see the clown president we have here though.
*N O*
It wouldn't happen. Even if they had gotten the deal, they would've found some way to fuck it up. Atari is run by people who don't know how to run a business.
SwiTch, even
Thanks for the video! I'd heard about the legendary showdown at CES, but none of the story behind it. As a 7800 owner, I agree that Atari would have bungled the US Famicom release--even if they had any actual intention of going through with it. 1983 at Atari would have played out the same, with Tramiel killing it just as he'd done with the 7800. However, they wouldn't have had the 7800 to release later. Their response to the eventual NES release would probably look something like their later XE computer "console" conversion. Nonetheless, competition from Nintendo and Sega, and the later PC market crash, sealed their fate all the same.
I never knew that Atari was close to licensing the Famicom. This was interesting! 🤓
What a great video and historically important to video games considering the time period and players involved. Finding your channel back in 2017 was one of great the best things I've stumbled on.
Thanks so much!
@@WrestlingWithGaming ❤❤❤
Super impressed with this topic and the detail in which you covered it in. Very good video. You've got a Sub and looking forward to watching more of your videos.
+MUMS-Universe Thanks so much for checking it out!
This is interesting! One could only imagine how different the gaming landscape would have been today had the deal gone thru
Was hoping to see something from you today. Yaaay. 💜
Hey, nice to hear from you again! :-)
Wrestling With Gaming I PROMISE I will be at your next live stream. I always mean to be there, but I started back working and you stream so late, I'm usually in bed. But I will be at your next. Mr. CD-I. Lmiao. 💜
this is why your channel matters. u cover stuff no one else has or even knows about! great great video man!
+demonsty thanks man!
Nice! Love obscure stuff like this!
I remember Grandpa buying me Atari 2600 games at the drug store for if memory serves me $3 to maybe $7 each. It was a fun time and I really enjoyed those games. I was thrilled with the NES I got not long after it came out. But Atari 2600 started my interest in video games. I never got to try Atari 5200 or 7800. I played Coleco Vision occasionally at a friend's house. I'm going to try Atari 7800, Sega SG-1000, and some others first through emulation and perhaps later buy those systems to restore and use.
Thanks for the excellent video on the subject. This was really very interesting. 😃 👍
If only you guys making these history videos had more support. There is movie potential there. There is so much interesting stuff going on backstage! I mean, who at the CES would've thought that at the time?
I like the touches of adding the sources cited as transitions. Great video as always! :D
+electricmastro thanks man!
i think its like a breakup/freindzone kinda thing where right before they were about to secure the rights the video game crash happened but.. they still had worked with atari even after, they even put pong in smash bros as an assist trophy
I don't think modern Atari even owns the rights to Pong. Besides, the assist trophy featured in Smash is the "Color TV-Game" (Nintendo's version of Pong) rather than the actual Pong--Nintendo didn't have to pay for any licensing for that.
On the contrary, they had a terrible relationship after that. Atari making unlicensed games for the NES, multiple lawsuits between the two companies, and of course, they were competitors in both the portable and home console markets for several years, with Nintendo coming out on top in every instance, obviously.
@@cj694x2 The Atari that made NES games is Atari Games.The Atari that made consoles after 1984 is Atari corp,two different companies.
@@AandNvg True, but my point still stands. Atari Corp remained a competitor to Nintendo in the hardware market until the death of the Jaguar. And Atari Games was making unlicensed games for NES. Neither company was friendly with Nintendo, at least until the mid-90s when both companies found new ownership.
The 7800 was test released in Los Angeles in 1984. I friend of mine had one and I played it
You're so good at this. Keep them coming.
Aw thanks. I'm definitely trying to make the best content I can. Thanks for watching !
Wow! I had no idea it played out like this. Awesome video man, Please keep making these documentaries!
+Sean Corcoran thanks man. And thanks for watching.
I bet Atari is kickin themselves for that!
Yeah. I love Atari but they have a lot of things to kick themselves for lol.
The current Atari is just name alone after multiple hand changes. I don't think there is any regret from the new owner, Infogrames, because the company was not involved during the 1980s.
Atari recently announced they're launching a full-fledged console
Nintendo has their reasons to kick themselves as well. They had the opportunity to partner with Sony on the Playstation and then pulled out of the agreement. And then Sony went on their own and mopped the floor with Nintendo. I guess Nintendo didn't learn from their own past.
Nathen Hutchison That's because Sony tried to backstab Nintendo and Nintendo found out about it. Why would Nintendo sign a deal in which Sony would get basically all of the publishing rights to Nintendo's IPs? Nintendo would lose out big time. If I came to you and the agreement was I would provide you with some techs but I would publish every game and get up to 95% royalty fees, you'd be dumb to sign an agreement like that. That's not Nintendo kicking themselves that's Nintendo not wanting to basically give Sony everything and then some.
Wow I can't believe how much better the production of your videos have gotten since the first one. Keep it up!
+DoomFinger511 thanks! I've definitely been trying to get better.
Well THANKFULLY Atari didn't sign that deal! Dodged a bullet there, Nintendo wouldn't have been what it is today if that would have happened.
I was reading on how Kinney Services became Warner Communications became Time-Warner became AOL Time Warner back to TimeWarner becoming WarnerMedia subsidiary of AT&T. Anyway, the video game crash of '83 had far reaching effects for Warner Communications, Atari's owner at the time. Basically, the company from that point forward was in financial straits it led to the selling of of their cable channels which would be bought up by Viacom (MTV and Nickelodeon), allow for Time, Inc. to merge with Warner to form the new company, its video game assets being eventually spun off and sold to a variety of companies Bally, Acclaim and Midway before arriving back at the company again albeit much, much smaller and more Midway than Atari (which was stripped of practically everything even its name).
Still, think of that world. Warner Communications sells the Atari Famicom at the height of the cable boom of the late 80's/early 90's and releases ports of the SNES, Game Boy, 3DS, N64 and so on. Would there be a PlayStation? Who buys the Mariners? Would Sega jump into Microsoft's coffers earlier perhaps surviving the 2000's? The possibilities would've been endless. Think about it like this, one company would've owned the license to all Nintendo characters outside of Japan, Looney Tunes, DC Comics and eventually the Hanna-Barbara library, its music division and this would lead to the PlayStation never being built (at least in its current form). The entertainment landscape as we know it would've been fundamentally altered.
Well.. the PlayStation 2's casing was partly based on Atari casing designs for their unreleased Falcon040 MicroBox computer. It would have looked differently. Or perhaps Mr. Tramiel would not have been able to buy the Atari Home Computer division, Amiga Inc. would have honoured its contract with Atari and we would have witnessed the actual release of things like the planned Atari 1850 XLD (based on Amiga Lorraine specs) or things like the AMY soundchip or the Atari Sierra graphics workstation, and missed out on things which were the result of that sale. Who knows.
FANTSTIC!! More please!
Been going through each of your videos, love the information, the history and the facts. Keep it up man, looking forward to tons more.
+Cory Harder Thanks, appreciate you checking the videos out!
Great video man. I love this kind of crazy gaming history. Nintendo might seem like kids stuff, but their business practices are definitely hard core. They loved screwing deals at E3, lol.
+streetmagik Thanks. And yeah, Nintendo is not the company to mess with. They are very serious when it comes to business.
@@WrestlingWithGaming Atari was doomed to fail right from the start. Nintendo wasn't following for Atari's stupid business decisions and Nintendo is still alive today. And now, they even partnered up with Microsoft.
Nintendo has a tradition of sound economic management. Yamauchi was simply genius in his decisions about the SNES price point. Although Nintendo had lost their monopoly to Sega, they understood price is everything and managed to remain relevant and arguably win the generation at least in terms of total sales figures. I am not sure how the attach rates and margins worked out for the SNES considering the average Genesis/MD gamer purchased 2 games per month. Sega was pretty much printing money in the early 90s while Nintendo was stuck with the pricey console.
The early years of the video game industry are so interesting, this story included.
Always wondered why Atari didn't end up having the rights to the Famicom.
I love learning video game history. This was great.
Great video as always! I didn't know any of this!
Thanks! It's a really cool little story that somehow doesn't get talked about very often. You'd think something this significant would be talked about on the NES' anniversary every year or something.
Wrestling With Gaming agreed. U and Ian both do an amazing job. Thank u!
+Gaber820 Thanks again!
A year late, I'm still amazed that this was all undone by such a tiny, insignificant twist of fate. Had Coleco used literally any other game to show off the Adam at CES, Nintendo and Atari would have signed that deal.
Right, because at the time, Donkey Kong was licensed to Coleco for home consoles only, while Atari had the same rights for computer systems. Yes, had Coleco demonstrated their forthcoming Adam computer using a different game instead, just maybe this thing would've worked out. As it was, Coleco eventually was able to get their Adam version of Donkey Kong released, after it learned about Atari being sold off by Warner Bros. to Jack Tramiel, which made the original 1982 licensing agreement moot. At the time of the fallout at the summer '83 CES show, Coleco's defense was that by demonstrating its popular Donkey Kong cartridge for the Adam it was merely to show off the fact the Adam also supported the ColecoVision console's cartridge library.
I noticed a new thumbnail. very cool! I like the xtra large box style you got
+Gaijillionaire thanks. Trying some experiments to see what kind of thumbnails get the most attention according to analytics. You know how it goes lol
yea i know. personally i hate them. i wish it could be more like album art, but some of the best album covers would make terrible thumbnails
Damn good video, well done! I was only 7 when I got my NES in 1987, but man, Nintendo was EVERYTHING gaming at that point in time. Nintendo obviously made out good by having that potential partnership fall through.
another great documentary! I just have one complaint. When is the next video coming? lol! Keep up the good work!
+George Watanabe haha, not sure but hopefully it won't take me another month for my next video. And thanks man, glad you liked it!
Sadly I grew up never owning anything from Atari. I heard of them but never seen or bought any of their products. It's good to know about the pre-8-Bit days of gaming regarding Nintendo and companies that exist in gaming at the time.
One of these days Atari and Sega will rise again.
It's amazing how many stories from the annals of videogame and computer history keep popping up, you think you would have heard them all by now, ..... but hey, I'm not complaining, it's always great to get another new old story.
Thank you :)
+Owen Fitzgerald thanks for watching 😊.
Wrestling With Gaming Thank you for another great video. Always a pleasure :)
I think Nintendo might have overestimated the demand for the Famicom in the SECAM regions. Pretty much the only one of those where consumers were likely to buy video game consoles in the 1980s was France and even then, Europe wasn't doing too hot economically, making home computers with lower-priced cassette games more popular.
I 100% agree. I thought it was so strange that I checked the number with three sources to be sure. When you take into consideration that the Famicom hadn't even been released when they made some of these requests it might make Nintendo seem like they were being arrogant, and while I'm sure that's part of it, Atari also seem like terrible negotiators. This wouldn't be the last one sided or unreasonable deal they'd agree to. And I say that as someone who likes Atari a great deal.
RAKtheUndead France is not exactly a small country and later they were importing PC Engine games in significant numbers, so the money were there.
Wasn’t the Soviet bloc SECAM also? Famiclones were huge there.
+noop9k: There were about 65 million in France at the time compared to a couple of hundred million in the rest of Western Europe. Considering the initially poor sales of the system in France even in reality, which picked up around 1990-ish, I see a fair number of those 300,000 units earmarked for the SECAM regions collecting dust on the shelves for a while.
+5Rounds Rapid: Famiclones were a big thing, but they weren't selling the games at Nintendo's prices, while the systems rapidly came down in price as well. And it took until slightly after the Soviet Union had collapsed before even the Famiclones entered the market (the Dendy was released in 1992).
Great research and short-documentary as always! Keep up the great work!!!
Thanks!
Awesome video Man! Very interesting and informative :-)
+mtshark7 thanks!
Genuinely love your content. It's going to be great watching your channel blow up in 2018.
+skeptah thanks, I appreciate it!
I love these videos! Thanks!
Thanks for continuing to watch. There are literally thousands of gaming youtube channels out there so i really appreciate it.
+Nolan Is Innocent thanks for watching!
This (that i just discovered), the gaming historian, Larry Bundy and Daniel Ibbertson's channel are channels that i am quite enjoying as my personal retro-fix.
Really great video! You always put in so much effort into your research and presentation. Thank you for what you do.
+TheRaven078 Thanks for watching 😊. This one was fun and challenging to put together. I wasn't sure how people would react to pseudo animating some stuff but I'm glad to see people like the video. It's a cool and forgotten piece of gaming history. Thanks again.
Awesome video as always man, and getting the legend Larry involved! 😁👌
+L P Thanks! I'm very grateful that Larry was kind enough to help me out.
Wrestling With Gaming Mate anyone would; I've said it before but your videos are some of the absolute best on TH-cam... Pretty much ever! 😊✊
+L P I don't know about that but I'll take it! Lol
Hey, guys, just dropping by alternate universes while playing my Atari Switch.
Bravo sir! Thank you for this piece of brilliance!
In an alternate reality, Atari and Sega are like Sony and Microsoft. Meanwhile Apple is in the back dominating handhelds and derpy motion controls for old people.
your shows are truly the most ORIGNAL , best edit, nostalgia at its best !!!!!!!!!!!!! so much appreciate you doing this ..please don't ever stop !
+tolust Thanks for the kind words! I have a lot more topics I want to cover so there's plenty more videos to come.
As Andy Rooney once said “I like a woman’s hair, and I like butter, but I don’t like them together.” No Nintari for me.
Another great job man!. Your gaming documentaries are the best, so well made and professional-looking.
+cloudtx thanks man!
Put a strong independent female character, an 80's soundtrack, some spicy edgy sex scenes, a wildcard character, a villain, and you'll have a four season HBO or AMC tv show about this deal.
I'd watch that.
This is by far the best video game channel on youtube this guy does not fuck around!
+Tire Deals haha. Thanks! This is the best comment I've gotten in a while.
Nintendo: You had your chance at the cotillion you!
fantastic video! i've watched a lot of youtube gaming info videos and this channel is so well done. plus, this is a topic that i actually hadn't heard of before, which is rare! keep it up!
I always thought the NES shelf life was too short if only this came out WHY!!!
+Michael Anderson in my opinion, if the deal had gone through Atari being Atari would likely have messed it up within a couple years and Nintendo would've ended up releasing their own version anyway. And that's coming from someone that likes Atari. Still, it would've been interesting to see if Atari could've made it work.
The shelf life was long up til 93 they had new titles released on the platform regularly
Yea my thought as well but a good thing is a good thing
Thanks for posting this video, I never knew that. I do remember when the Atari 7800 was out in retail big box stores and "Joust" was the main game that seemed to be the main demo.
I feel bad for calecovision. They did nothing wrong.
Sure they did. They knew very well that Atari had exclusive rights to release Donkey Kong on home computers (the Adam undeniably was one), yet made an Adam-exclusive Donkey Kong cassette release . Yamauchi was too smart for their "computer-like exterior with a video game console on the inside" song and dance, and rightly gave them hell.
I'm really shocked that I had no idea about this. This is the first work of yours I have seen; great stuff. I definitely subscribed.
+Melwing thanks for watching. I know that there are literally thousands of gaming channels out there so I appreciate it. This is a story that, despite being pretty damn important, isn't talked about very often. It's just kind of gone under the radar.
Just think, we would have ended up with the Atari Stagnation System (ASS) instead of the classic NES because after their early dominance Atari seemed capable of only shooting themselves in the foot.
+James Robert Atari became really became their own worst enemy.
Just think...ET might of made it to the NES :(
Yes, terrible loss.
They relied on the 2600 for far too long. The 7800 should'e been marketed as soon as it was ready. Rather than requiring a POKEY in each game for better than 2600 sound, it should've been a separate addon peripheral, with all 7800 games having sound code for both. How to do that? It should have been possible to combine or multiplex the 2600 sound data with the POKEY sound data. Plug the super sound module into the cartridge port then cartridges into that. 2600 carts would simply pass through. A later revision could've integrated the POKEY.
Your best work yet. Great story and the production value is awesome!
+GTA V Modding Thanks! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I was afraid the pseudo animated parts would turn people off but I'm glad I was wrong.