Guys I made a mistake calling the owners of Atari Inc Time Warner. In actuality the Time Warner merger doesnt occur until the nineties and the company that owned Atari Inc was Warner Communications. Im not sure why I thought the merger happened much earlier but I apologize. Thanks to those who pointed this out!
As a huge fan of Jack Tramiel and Atari Corp, I thank you for making this wonderful video. I have criticisms of some of Jack's decisions but he definitely saved Atari and I will forever be greatful for his creation of the Atari ST line of computers. The thing I am disappointed by the most out of all his decisions was the cancelling of Cloak & Dagger for the 5200. The movie was basically one big ad for Atari that had already been invested in. I think he should have let the 5200 port finish, started a 7800 port as well, and released a mini 5200 bundled with Cloak & Dagger. He could even have called it the "Atari 4200" which was mentioned in the movie.
Thank you for the kind words. Yeah that's some of the projects and ideas that I don't fully understand why he killed off but I'm assuming his thinking was to stop spending asap and ship whatever is ready to sell to get pure profit in and very little going out. It might've been the only way to stem the bleeding in his eyes. But I too am a fan of Jacks era at Atari because the 7800 to Jaguar were the Atari stuff around when I grew up.
Well it’s somewhat understandible why he killed the cloak & dagger game project,simply because he already knew how really bad ET ended up,so i can imagine that he wouldn’t dare to take such huge expensive risk again,but yeah who ever knows that it might could,ve be a success,maybe just maybe.
@@johneygd I seriously doubt that. There was no reason to believe C&D for the 5200 would be like E.T., the prototype looks a lot like the arcade game. I'm sure it's just because he decided to discontinue the 5200 and didn't think it made sense to spend money on finishing titles that weren't ready to go. He did the same thing to 5200 Tempest and that was much further along.
@@serqetryaha interesting,well i guess he didn’t had the courage to spend any more penny’s in the atari 5200 games to finish them,fearing that it wouldn’t make much sense, since the 5200 didn’t sold well,altrough he did released the already finished gremlins game for the 5200 in 1986 ironically enough, Trough i actually wish that atari did released donkeykong and dk jr for the 5200 aside from the 7800,but that may could,ve resulted in less sales of the 7800 ,so who ever knows, Now if atari did also owned the rights for portible donkeykong,dk jr and mariobros after the demise of coleco,they may could,ve ported those games to the lynx,i wish so they did🤣
Cloak & Dagger was a great twinstick game that is very hard to find today. Someone should make a homebrew game of this for the Atari 7800 or Atari 5200. There are simply not enough twinstick games in this world. Pacmanplus or anybody?
Dear 7800 Pro Gamer, Thanks for shedding light on this important and misunderstood era. Even though I am somewhat of an Atari history buff, I definitely assumed the negative reputation of Jack was accurate. I now feel he played the hand he was dealt with the best intentions and business decisions. Sincerely, a member of the court of public opinion. PS. I loved the visual background!
Well since you've stepped forward as a representative of the court of public opinion I accept your statement and forgive you for your past feelings lol
This is an interesting discussion about what might have happened if Jack Tramiel hadn't purchased Atari. Taking a step back and analyzing the situation makes us really consider the "what if" question. Well done!
Jack did a fine job with what he had. I think Namco or Midway or both could have released a different console based on their libraries and coin-op tech, but then I would not have had an Atari ST in 1986 and would have had to wait 3 more years for the Amiga to com down in price. The 7800 could have used more software support and the STE based console or an enhanced 8bit computer would have been awesome, you are right that he gave A LOT of kids access to game and computers who could not have otherwise.
With the full breadth of Atari's tools behind Namco they could've produced a fantastic machine I'm sure. And they have a large enough catalog to support it in the beginning. They would've been an interesting company to buy all of Atari, but my love for the 7800 makes me ultimately glad they didn't. Even though I wish a lot of things had been different back then with Atari, at this point in my life I wouldn't change any of it. Maybe because I'm too old and change would be too scary lol
If Namco would’ve been interested in selling consoles, they would’ve marketed the 2600 in Japan for Atari going all the way back to 1977. After all, Namco was “Atari Japan” as of circa 1976 when they first bought Atari’s struggling Japanese subsidiary [which started both companies long relationship]. They weren’t interested.
There was a lot going on in the 80s that affected Atari. Jack had to deal with losing the Amiga: Warner had loaned Amiga Corp funds to continue developing their new hardware and Atari was supposed to get a one year exclusive for use in a 16 bit console. The other stipulation was Amiga would forfeit the technology if they could not repay the loan within a certain time period. Jack inherited this contract when he bought Atari. Commodore got into talks with Amiga and bought them outright repaying their loan to Atari too. This of course left Atari without this technology, they sued Commodore to try and bar them from releasing a computer. It did cause a delay. Commodore had also sued Atari because a bunch of their engineers/designers left for Atari. The Amiga 1000 was eventually released in 1985. Could you imagine if the Amiga technology had been used in an Atari home console in 1985? A 16 bit console in 1985 taking on Nintendo's 8 bit NES.
Amiga Corp defrauded Warner’s Atari Inc, not Tramiel’s Atari Corp. Amiga sold themselves to Commodore and Commodore provided them $500K to repay the loan to Atari Inc while falsely claiming they were returning the money because the Amiga Lorraine chipset supposedly didn’t work. David Morse did that. Allegedly. Itt’s also why the Tramiels allegedly screwed over Epyx in the Handy/Lynx deal years later since Morse was Epyx’s president and Mical & Needle had worked on the Amiga previously. At the time, Commodore started the litigation against Shiraz Shivji, Jack Tramiel, and other ex-Commodore employees who were working at Jack’s TTL company [later renamed as “Atari Corp”] while claiming they had allegedly stolen IP when they left Commodore. As for the Atari Inc/Amiga Corp deal, Atari would’ve had the rights to use the Amiga Lorraine chipset in the 16-Bit “Mickey” console for Christmas 1985 and would then have the right to market a keyboard/computer upgrade - as well as the rights to release computers based on the Amiga Lorraine chipset - one year later. But if Amiga defaulted on the loan, Atari would not only own the chipset but the entire company and then they could release anything they wanted to immediately. But we should remember that Atari Games already had a more powerful graphics chip than Amiga’s wares and it was already in use in Marble Madness in Summer 1984. And had the OMNI chipset been completed, “Atari” would’ve had graphics chips as powerful as the NeoGeo and the Sharp X68000… but in 1985.
Too many YTers, especially the AVGN wannbes, only look at the video gaming aspect but ignore the vintage home computer side of Atari Corp. At the time of the Crash, home computers were set to replace dedicated game consoles and that's exactly what Jack wanted to sell. He didn't "hate" video games but sold the remaining warehoused stocks through liquidators to raise cash to turn Atari around and create the ST computer. And from 1985 to 1986 the ST was a successful home computer at the right price for a 16-bit machine. But Nintendo turned things around and made video games popular again and all the sudden, in the US, there was no reason to buy home computers. You either get a NES for games (for the kids of course) or a more "serious" PC clone or Mac used by businesses (this is yuppie logic). The 2600/7800 had sold successfully as low end market products but Nintendo was selling a premium priced product. Protip: Kids wanted the greatest & most expensive thing while parents wanted/needed to buy the cheapest so they can pay the bills. If any there's anyone to blame for Atari's downfall from 1987-1996 it's Jack's son Sam who took over as CEO. He made so many disastrous mistakes especially purchasing the Federated chain of consumer electronics that ended up being a massive money pit. He tried doing the same "Business is War" tactics his old man did but ended up losing business with developers, dealers and even with loyal Atari customers. I'm glad someone is defending and even covering the Tramiel era as in spite of the constant mistakes, I still loved my XE and STe computers over the bland pre-486 clones and never regretted my time spent with them.
Great comment. A lot of people don't care about vintage computers at least not the way they care about consoles and their knowledge begins and ends there. Usually with a singular company. At the time Jack took over, the future was computers and it made sense to put your focus there. Consoles were dying out at least in the United States. Right now the channel only focuses on a few things but the plan is to cover the 8 Bits and ST along with everything Atari. Great comment and some great points, thank you!
Yeah and what i really really liked is how atari even did advertised nintendo games on their box art of game consoles,posters and magazines,let me tell ya something wich i consider to be very cool,i was always a huge nintendo fan and so for dekades,i absolutely never knew that nintendo games did appear on atari systems,but oh boy once i did found about that i bought many atari systems with all those nintendo games for it as well as a few atari and sega games,and so since then i am also a huge atari fan and thus do understand why atari was soooo successful,not only from their own games but from sega and nintendo games as well, Most people today wouldn’t know about that,but i do a let me tell ya,this is pretty wild man seeing nintendo games on atari systems,it cannot be anymore cooler then this,so fifa to atari for doing that as well, Believe me if no nintendo or sega game ever appeared on a atari system, i never would,ve bought any atari home game system.
I personally think Tramiel tried his best to revive a dying company but the odds were stacked against him from the get-go. The real criminals are Ray Kassar, Steve Ross and Warner Communications in general.
Your right as a lot of Atari's initial success came from bringing popular arcade games homes especially theirs. But it was probably some combination of the arcade division still showing signs of being profitable so Time Warner didn't mind holding onto it, Jack Tramiel probably not being that interested, and maybe finances and timing. Regardless I wish they two would've remained together.
Yes, the arcade division (Atari Games) was still profitable, as the so-called "video game crash" is very misunderstood these days (arcades and computer games were doing fine, it was just the US console manufacturers that had a hiccup) so Warner didn't feel the need to sell it off. I just wish Atari Corp and Atari Games had come up with a licensing agreement so all the arcade games would have official ports to the 7800 and ST, rather than letting companies like U.S. Gold do it. Most of the ST ports were high quality enough to be published by Atari Corp, and Atari Games should have just made their own 7800 games instead of doing the Tengen NES thing.
@@serqetry all that would've made sense and I wish it ended up like that. And with Warner being so desperate to drop the home division they could've possibly worked something out like that. Especially because I think Warner thought the video game fad was over so why would they care about home ports to consoles. Computers might've been harder to negotiate but I'm sure Atari Corp could've negotiated for their line of computers none the less.
There was a popular rumor BITD that Warner had offered the arcade division to Jack for an additional $10M but he allegedly wasn’t interested. I think it’s BS.
@@serqetryor… Warner pays GCC for the 7800 and passes the project onto Atari Games - who actually was Atari Inc, the legal remnants that is - who then markets it as the “Tengen 7800”. You do know why Tengen’s unlicensed NES cartridges were colored black, right? They were deliberately invoking the color scheme of Atari 2600 cartridges. For those who do not know, “Tengen” was Atari Games’s consumer brand since they couldn’t use the “Atari” brand in the consumer market since those rights belonged to Tramiel’s Atari Corp. Or as Dan Kramer referred to them, “Atari Corpse”.
. In 1985 I got a brand new 130 XE for my 13th birthday. It was a fantastic machine which I still use to this day. The problem, at the time was that there was practically no new software nor new applications to go with the new machine. This was the problem with Atari at that time. Great machines, but poor output to support those machines.
Great video, Jon. I appreciate your perspective and the passion and data behind your arguments. Tip of the hat to you, sir. As a teen during the Atari Corp era, my biggest gripe with JT stemmed from two things. First, he was Mr. Commodore, the hated rival of my beloved Atari 800. It was hard to swallow that the Enemy became the new owner of my beloved brand. Second, at Commodore, JT mass produced what I felt were cheap low quality hardware. I understand that the C64 enjoyed massive popularity and that my feelings are not shared by most. I even bought a C64 to see what the fuss was and returned in a week later because I found the hardware quality and performance to be inferior to my beloved Atari 800. When I saw Atari Corp produce the 130XE and the ST line, I saw hardware quality drop when compared to the Atari 800. For these two reasons, while I remained loyal to the Atari brand and purchased the 130XE and 520ST (or what was that the 1040?), I could never embrace JT nor Atari Corp. Yes, he kept Atari going for many years and produced many new products, and I agree that he deserves credit for those achievements. However, those achievements are not enough to change the way I feel about JT and his products. My feelings about JT and Atari Corp are largely based on that - feelings, and those feelings were developed during a very impressionable part of my life. Frankly, I’m not sure that anything could change the way I feel 😂 It’s not a rational decision but a passion. When the time came during the early 90s, I made the decision to cut ties with Atari (the ST had been my daily driver computer) and I went back and forth between the Mac and PC (I ended up choosing the PC). Had I known then that the engineers behind the 800 were the creators of the Amiga, I would have jumped to the Amiga. Out of curiosity for the machine that trounced the ST in popularity and respect for the minds that created my beloved 800, I did buy an Amiga a month ago.
Quality was not a huge concern of Jack and that I can't argue. Having low costs and a cheap price point was most important to him. The less a computer cost, the cheaper he can sell it, and the more he'll sell, thus making more money. This seems to be his thought process. He also did a poor job supporting his hardware once it was out the door. Evident by my beloved 7800 among other things. I didn't expect to sway anybody honestly but if I was able to get a few people who knew nothing about the era to look deeper into his time at Atari and form their own opinions then mission successful.
@@TheAtariNetwork Jack certainly knew what he was doing and who his target audience was and very successfully executed his vision at Commodore and brought it to Atari for another go. Lately, as I see more people chiming in on the history of Atari Corp, I have come to a better appreciation of the Atari Corp years. As you mentioned in the video, without JT, Atari likely would have either gone under much sooner or been relegated to keeping afloat by licensing their IP and not much more than that. It was certainly easier back then to peg on him the demise of my beloved Atari. So to that end, you and your video have succeeded, Jon :) Market conditions had changed, and I don't think there was anyone who was going to be able to lead Atari back to the glory of the Atari, Inc. days. The main point of my original response was to say that since my fondness and loyalty to Atari Inc were based mostly deep seated emotions from childhood, there's nothing that's going to change that. For me, "Atari" is Atari, Inc. and the products that entered my childhood and shaped the direction of my life -- primarily the Atari 800 and to a much lesser degree the 2600 and 5200. I still have emotional issues with the current Atari company because in my mind and heart, "Atari" died many years ago. However, being surrounded by several people in the Atari I/O forums who are very positive on what the current Atari has been doing has helped me to better embrace the new Atari and their efforts. I really appreciate that the company is very aware of the Atari legacy and produces products and games that highlight that heritage. Not everything speaks to me (e.g., 2600+) but I appreciate the effort. Great video and great topic, Jon.
My Atari ST got me through 3 1/4 years of college. I definitely couldn't afford an Apple Macintosh. I actually wanted an Amiga but Commodore had bought it and I couldn't afford it either. Then Jack came out with the Atari ST with an excellent monitor for $1000. That what I ended up buying and as I said, it almost got me through 4 years of college. The reason I ended up buying a PC clone was because a class that I needed, compiler design, would only accept homework done on a PC or a clone. I ended up giving my ST to my wife's uncle who also used it for college. So it certainly was a very good system.
Awesome example and anecdote about the Atari ST and its edge in the market during its life. I know little about Atari computers so I'm always happy to hear about what they were like and to learn about them!
Tramiel was the reason the 2600 had such a long lifespan (being discontinued in 1992 instead of 1984), and in those late years amazing and very advanced games like Solaris were released. Some say the fact of reviving the 2600 and focusing too much on it was what prevented the success of the 7800. I don't know, maybe
Honestly I'm not sure how much the 2600 Jr affected the 7800 sales but it was a great budget console for the time. It's hard for younger people to put their mind in the headspace of mid 80s to 90s because they wouldn't be interested in buying an Xbox 360 now that two other boxes came out but back then people didn't look at it the same.
Its nice to know the flip side of the coin. Cool stuff happened during his reign. He does get to much flack of negativity. The lynx is the only console that I actually bought brand new from Atari..save the new vcs. So yes im very biased toward the lynx lol.
I 100% do agree with you about jack tramiel,he did fantastic things to atari by still releasing those products wich were already ready to be shipped out the door and he even brought use the fantastic atari xe wich combines the best worlds from both the atari 5200 and atari 800 into 1 unit hardwarewise, Now i only wish he continued that atari fitness home trainer project along with those special designed 5200 games for it for fitness schools, in order to promote sport events and the 5200 system,had he done continue doing that,he would,ve beaten nintendo by 10 years, Sadly only two prototypes of the atari 5200 home trainers were made,1 for the consumer market and 1 for fitness schools, Well i hope atari will resurrect that project trough a 5200 emulator along with a interface adaptor for those computers for fitness schools,am sure there could be still money made out of it,atari should move on and leave those 2600 renditions of consoles and games for what they are,they have already sold enough flashbacks of it,so it’s time to move on.
You never know, Atari is listening and watching various forums, etc so comments like these in the right places may get their eyes back on old projects, if there's enough demand. The fact they've been revitalizing old IPs and even resurrecting old projects is a positive direction for that sort of thing. I think Jack had a bit of a narrow mind and a lack of vision (or maybe a lack of understanding) for certain projects. But then again he did what he felt was right for the company. Thanks for watching!
You make aome good points, good job... i still have my atari 7800 and i cherish it even to this day I can remember back in 1986, seeing atari 5200 version of gremlins in toys r us when I was going their to purchases Solaris for my atari 2600.
The only thing I dislike about the Tramiel era, was his investment in the computer market, when you consider what become of that market shortly after the release of the ST. I think he should have ignored the computer market, and focused 100% on the console market, as that market was 1000 times more profitable.
Well the ST sold a lot of units and launched a very big ecosystem of software and hardware. I find fascinating the concept that something has to take the market by storm in order to be a success when it comes to computers , but we are fine calling a car succesful even if it sells a fraction of the number of beetles.
@@CFalcon030 Machines have to sell millions and millions, or else get left in the dust by the competition. I'm not a fan of computer gaming anymore. The simplicity that consoles had for decades is what drew me to them in the past, and what drew me back to them recently. For how much Europeans bask in the glory days of the Amiga, and ST, and whatnot, they did not sell THAT many units. According to wiki, the ST only sold a little over 2 million, and the Amiga 1000/500 only sold 4.85 Million. A lot, but nowhere near the 60 million the NES sold. And you wonder why Commodore, and Atari went bankrupt, and Nintendo is still around stronger than ever.
well, I wouldn't put too much stock in this number since Atari never published unit sales, just sales figures and this is a calculation that has some flaws in its methodology. Still I don't think it matters. Atari in 1984 was dead. Wiith the ST it lasted for 10 more years and at the end of the day, Atari died with a console. One that makes every top ten worst console list on the Internet. However the main reason the ST line died was that Atari couldn't keep up with the technology explosion of the 90s. They didn't have the resources to compete with what would come with Windows 95, and the Motorola processors became a dead end, something that was unforseen. Ironically, I think the biggest problem with Atari was the collective perception of it being a gaming company and not a technology company like Apple. Macintoshes were on a similar dead end path, with system 7 and Motorola processors, but the perception that they were serious machines (and the cash injection by Microsoft) is what saved them and allowed Apple to be what it is today.
@@CFalcon030 Yeah, that explosive progression of computer hardware on the 90s was both a good, and bad thing IMO. If you were a PC gamer, it was so expensive to keep up with.
Jack’s biggest legacy from Atari was the ST, which is also the most important Atari product. The 2600 sold more units but was merely the best selling early console - and let to the Great Crash. The ST defined what a modern PC would become. Multimedia, graphics, sound, GUI, expandability and productivity. It was the template for the computers we use today. The Mac was expensive, slow and had a tiny B&W screen. The PCs of the era were DOS-based and lacked decent color and sound. The Amiga was a toy for gaming and not a real computer. The ST brought it all together. And did it for way less than the competition. It was the first modern PC.
Jack was a d*ck but he was a force in the industry. i always cut him some slack because he was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps and that has to have an effect on how you deal with people. But still, he would do sh*t like order massive supplies from other vendors and then not pay them. When those companies went broke as a result he would buy those companies for pennies on the dollar. That aspect of his life and business dealings was reprehensible.
Yeah I don't like everything he did and I think he was crude in business. I always feel that people arguing ethics in business is laughable but there should be respect and common sense like paying your vendors, etc. But I thought it important to help people think critically about this man and his time with the company because nothing is ever as black and white as people make his time at Atari out to be. Thanks for the comment and watching!
@@TheAtariNetwork I think Jack's biggest success and the one he created from scratch was the ST line of computers. Almost as good as the Amiga but a lot less expensive, Jack really hit the market with a line of machines that the public wanted and could afford. His decision to have built in Midi ports was a brilliant business move that extended the life of the machines for many years. The Jaguar really sunk the company. If they never built that game console and concentrated on the Falcon line of computers I think Atari would have lasted for decades. Atari was almost always cash strapped after Time / Warner mismanaged it and couldn't survive many failures in the Tramiel years.
That’s how Jack acquired MOS Technologies. Allegedly. MOS actually pleaded with Al Alcorn - at Atari… this being in 1976 - to ask Manny Gerard of Warner to have Atari acquire them instead. Gerard didn’t think it to be a wise move since the VCS still hadn’t been released yet. But Atari did end up with a 6502 license out of it.
As a 51 year old gamer collector i agree. Jack did save Atari. But Jacks obsession with the home computer market sucked valuable money and time from the gaming consoles. But home computers were on the rise, so...I kinda see his point of view. Remember Nintendo and Sega were already Jaugernauts in the arcade and at home by the time the 7800 was released. It was a steep climb. But with a cheaper price and an established library Atari did ok considering what they were up against. Jack gets alot of crap but, Atari lasted another 12 year with him. 12 years that Atari wouldn't have had otherwise
Thanks for the comment. Who knows what would've happened had somebody else bought Atari but I'm thankful Jack kept the company around and kept pushing games out that my family could afford.
You didn’t cover one major interested party who did want to purchase Atari… Philips. As in the parent company of Magnavox. The problem was Philips wanted to buy 100% of Atari. Warner - or more importantly Warner CEO Steve Ross - didn’t want that. They wanted someone else to quickly take the company off their hands so the bad press would stop hurting Warner’s share price yet they still wanted to retain a minority stake so they could hopefully re-acquire the biz cheaply once profitability returned. That’s why Warner retained a 25% stake in Jack Tramiel’s Atari Corp throughout the majority of that company’s life. It’s also why they retained a minority stake in Atari Games/Tengen after having sold the majority stake to Namco. The only part of Atari Inc they fully sold off was AtariTel to Mitsubishi. Warner even approached Jack in circa 1991 to sell his stake in Atari Corp to them after Warner had re-acquired Atari Games and Warner Publishing was distributing Electronic Gaming Monthly. Even to this day, Warner owns the IP of the former Atari Games/Tengen via their WB Games division which acquired that IP in 2009 when they bought Midway’s assets for a song and a dance in the bankruptcy proceedings. Despite the criticisms hurled at Jack, the 7800 still outsold the Sega Master System 2-to-1 in North America. Another possible scenario left out of the video is if Warner had given Atari Inc CEO James Morgan more time to turn Atari around and reorganize it under his “NATCO” [New Atari Technology Company] plan. He probably would’ve been successful with getting the 7800 released by Christmas 1984, releasing the 1400XL and 1450XLD computers shortly thereafter, retaining the arcade division and their extensive library, keeping the Atari Advanced Research Division funded along with completing the AMY sound chip and the OMNI chipset, and either proceeding with the acquisition of Amiga Corp or destroying them and Commodore in court over their attempts at defrauding Atari. Had Warner retained Atari, Jack would’ve either bought MindSet Computers - a company made up of ex-Atari staff - or some other failing computer company and marketed MSX computers until it generated enough profits to create a 16-Bit computer line. Another aspect of Atari remaining in-tact under Warner would be Atari Consumer’s marketing division remaining. In our timeline, they quit and went to work for their former boss who had founded Worlds of Wonder. The same Worlds of Wonder (WoW) who went onto successfully marketing the Nintendo Entertainment System and later became Nintendo’s marketing division after Nintendo helped drive WoW out of business…
All this might warrant a video of its own after the holidays. Something about the more likely scenarios of what could've happened to Atari. I'll look into it
If Jack Tramiel hadn't bought the Atari home consumer division, the company would have gone bankrupt by 1985. His turnaround of Atari Corp. in its first year was legendary (the ST computer went from conception to release in ten months) and his continued successes with the 2600 Jr (6.5 million units sold) and 7800 (4 million units sold) gave them a solid 2nd place in the home console race behind Nintendo (yes, the 2600 & 7800 outsold the Sega Master System in the US). A controversial figure? Absolutely. In the end, the Tramiel Family's ruthless relations with software developers and retailers burned their bridges and doomed Atari Corp. I would also submit that both the Lynx and Jaguar were Sam Tramiel's children. As much as I love those two machines, there's no way Jack would have released a $150-$180 color handheld onto a market that was quickly dominated by the $90 GameBoy, and Jaguar suffered greatly from chronic indecision that absolutely overwhelmed Atari in those later years. Burning all those bridges certainly didn't help. Of course, by the end of 1994, the writing was on the wall, and Sony was about to demolish the entire US videogame industry, so there wasn't really anything Atari could have done to survive by that point. Their best-case scenario would have been to make the Jaguar a minor success from 1993-96, then transition into a software-only publisher like Sega would later do. Unfortunately, the company outsourced nearly all software development by that point, and the available talent pool was extremely thin. We all love Jeff Minter, of course, but he couldn't carry Atari completely on his back. Ah, well, water under the bridge. We were lucky that there was an Atari that survived the Great Videogame Crash, and were blessed with the XE, ST, TT and Falcon computers, the 2600, 7800, Lynx and Jaguar consoles, and, c'mon, you always dreamed of using an Atari Portfolio to hack an ATM. Be honest. And they gave us Tempest 2000, which alone atones for so many sins. The Tramiels can act like the Sopranos all they want if they get results like that. Hah.
Atari may have brought on the Crash, but it was the only survivor. Tramiel is the reason Atari survived. (the rest is speculation) at the time , the Console division already had projects - oblivious to the Crash. Tramiel streamlined the entire product line - eventually exiting the 8-bit era; developing the ST computer (to compete against Commodore c128 & AMIGA).
I disagree that Jack Tramiel pushed out the Atari 2600 immediately. Jack Tramiel bought Atari Inc. minus the arcade division in 1984. The 2600 Jr. was released in 1986 the same year as the Atari 7800. This was probably the right time to release it as most all game console games and hardware were on a steep clearance discount in the years prior, starting about 1983. Great video btw. Thanks Jack. Also, Jack Tramiel should have never fought Time Warner over paying GCC. He burned their relationship with GCC. GCC was the brains at Atari at the time Jack purchased Atari. By 1984 GCC created some of the best Atari 2600 games and all of the Atari 7800 software. With a continued relationship with GCC, there probably would be a GUMBY sound chip in every 7800 cartridge, leveling the biggest criticism I hear about the Atari 7800. With GCC we could all have an Atari 7800 High Score cartridge that worked, not to mention a cheaper Atari 7800 with an integrated ‘Tia Maria’ chip (nice ring to it) that would have been in line with Jack’s low cost plans. Though it is too hypothetical to predict, Atari could have had a console development team in place to bring out a 16-bit console with hardware scaling, in time to take on SEGA and Nintendo. Instead Atari pulled the Panther in 1991, which was much too late to release after the much delayed Super Nintendo. By fighting to pay GCC, Jack gained nothing and had to pay GCC, anyway.
GCC is the reason why the 7800 doesn’t have an onboard POKEY sound chip. They told Warner they couldn’t redesign the 7800’s motherboard to be able to fit the POKEY on it given Warner’s requirement to fit everything in the case dimensions of the Atari 2800/Sears Video Arcade II console case. That seems highly suspect.especially since they then spun the idea of the GUMBY being included in every single future 7800 cartridge - instead of revising the console & offering a hardware upgrade to the existing customer base - which GCC would’ve massively profited from.
You're absolutely right I'm not sure why I thought the Time Warner merger had happened already by then but it definitely didn't. Thanks for pointing that out I will fix it in the future.
That’s a nitpick. Warner Communications, Time Warner, AOL Time Warner, Time Warner Part Deux Electric Bugaloo, Warner Bros Discovery, bla bla. It’s all Warner when you get down to it. And they still own all of the Atari Games Corp/Tengen/Tradewest/Time Warner Interactive/Williams/Midway IP to this day.
Not convinced. I can hardly address a 15 min. vid in a TH-cam comment. But JT did hate video games. His first moves were to fire almost all of Atari and it was widely reported-as soon as he bought the company-that the 7800 would not be released. He simply wanted a known name to put on his new line of computers. I give him no credit for “releasing” Gremlins and the other stuff; he was just emptying warehouses. Obviously, the videogame market was not dead when JT shelved the 7800. A more interesting question to explore would be: what if JT had released the 7800 in fall ‘84 as planned, and supported it? I believe it would have been a success, and history would be quite different. Finally, JT did get behind videogames once Nintendo showed the vast amount of $ still to be made off of them. He put his kid Sam in charge of Atari’s videogames division. I read a piece in which an interviewer taunted Sam for the crap quality of many 7800 games. Sam responded, “We made a lot of money off those crap games.” That’s the short-sighted approach that sunk the company earlier: “Who cares if 2600 Pac-Man sucks? People will buy it. It’s Pac-Man.” Whatever belated success Atari had with videogames under JT only underscores how well the company could have done had JT not been so pig headed and had he released on schedule the 7800s that were sitting in warehouses.
I disagree. Jack was a cheap asshole that bought Atari to go at war with Commodore. He should havee paid whatever fine he had to do to get the 7800 out the door. Why the million models of the same Atari 8bit computer? They are all virtually the same! Except some memory differences. Clean up a mess? Seems like there were plenty of messes under his management. Could someone had done better? I don't t know. But I know a lot of stupid decisions were made under his management.
It's not always black and white, there are good and bad with any company and it's management or owners. The hope was to get people to think critically of his time at Atari and look into the company a bit more during said time as I mostly see people parrot back the same information. But he isn't a saint and definitely made a lot of poor decisions. I personally love the products that came out under his time there, as that's the Atari I grew up with. But it should've been so much better had things been managed differently.
Tramiel only released three variants of the 8-bits: the XE (130 and 65) that brought the costs down, and the XEGS as an experiment to help sell stock of old Atari era peripherals and games. The Apple II got more variants than the Atari 8 bits.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
Guys I made a mistake calling the owners of Atari Inc Time Warner. In actuality the Time Warner merger doesnt occur until the nineties and the company that owned Atari Inc was Warner Communications. Im not sure why I thought the merger happened much earlier but I apologize. Thanks to those who pointed this out!
Great video. Tramiel gets a bad rap but deserves credit for what they did during that time.
As a huge fan of Jack Tramiel and Atari Corp, I thank you for making this wonderful video. I have criticisms of some of Jack's decisions but he definitely saved Atari and I will forever be greatful for his creation of the Atari ST line of computers. The thing I am disappointed by the most out of all his decisions was the cancelling of Cloak & Dagger for the 5200. The movie was basically one big ad for Atari that had already been invested in. I think he should have let the 5200 port finish, started a 7800 port as well, and released a mini 5200 bundled with Cloak & Dagger. He could even have called it the "Atari 4200" which was mentioned in the movie.
Thank you for the kind words. Yeah that's some of the projects and ideas that I don't fully understand why he killed off but I'm assuming his thinking was to stop spending asap and ship whatever is ready to sell to get pure profit in and very little going out. It might've been the only way to stem the bleeding in his eyes. But I too am a fan of Jacks era at Atari because the 7800 to Jaguar were the Atari stuff around when I grew up.
Well it’s somewhat understandible why he killed the cloak & dagger game project,simply because he already knew how really bad ET ended up,so i can imagine that he wouldn’t dare to take such huge expensive risk again,but yeah who ever knows that it might could,ve be a success,maybe just maybe.
@@johneygd I seriously doubt that. There was no reason to believe C&D for the 5200 would be like E.T., the prototype looks a lot like the arcade game. I'm sure it's just because he decided to discontinue the 5200 and didn't think it made sense to spend money on finishing titles that weren't ready to go. He did the same thing to 5200 Tempest and that was much further along.
@@serqetryaha interesting,well i guess he didn’t had the courage to spend any more penny’s in the atari 5200 games to finish them,fearing that it wouldn’t make much sense, since the 5200 didn’t sold well,altrough he did released the already finished gremlins game for the 5200 in 1986 ironically enough,
Trough i actually wish that atari did released donkeykong and dk jr for the 5200 aside from the 7800,but that may could,ve resulted in less sales of the 7800 ,so who ever knows,
Now if atari did also owned the rights for portible donkeykong,dk jr and mariobros after the demise of coleco,they may could,ve ported those games to the lynx,i wish so they did🤣
Cloak & Dagger was a great twinstick game that is very hard to find today. Someone should make a homebrew game of this for the Atari 7800 or Atari 5200. There are simply not enough twinstick games in this world. Pacmanplus or anybody?
Dear 7800 Pro Gamer, Thanks for shedding light on this important and misunderstood era. Even though I am somewhat of an Atari history buff, I definitely assumed the negative reputation of Jack was accurate. I now feel he played the hand he was dealt with the best intentions and business decisions.
Sincerely, a member of the court of public opinion.
PS. I loved the visual background!
Well since you've stepped forward as a representative of the court of public opinion I accept your statement and forgive you for your past feelings lol
This is an interesting discussion about what might have happened if Jack Tramiel hadn't purchased Atari. Taking a step back and analyzing the situation makes us really consider the "what if" question. Well done!
Jack did a fine job with what he had. I think Namco or Midway or both could have released a different console based on their libraries and coin-op tech, but then I would not have had an Atari ST in 1986 and would have had to wait 3 more years for the Amiga to com down in price. The 7800 could have used more software support and the STE based console or an enhanced 8bit computer would have been awesome, you are right that he gave A LOT of kids access to game and computers who could not have otherwise.
With the full breadth of Atari's tools behind Namco they could've produced a fantastic machine I'm sure. And they have a large enough catalog to support it in the beginning. They would've been an interesting company to buy all of Atari, but my love for the 7800 makes me ultimately glad they didn't.
Even though I wish a lot of things had been different back then with Atari, at this point in my life I wouldn't change any of it. Maybe because I'm too old and change would be too scary lol
If Namco would’ve been interested in selling consoles, they would’ve marketed the 2600 in Japan for Atari going all the way back to 1977. After all, Namco was “Atari Japan” as of circa 1976 when they first bought Atari’s struggling Japanese subsidiary [which started both companies long relationship]. They weren’t interested.
There was a lot going on in the 80s that affected Atari.
Jack had to deal with losing the Amiga:
Warner had loaned Amiga Corp funds to continue developing their new hardware and Atari was supposed to get a one year exclusive for use in a 16 bit console. The other stipulation was Amiga would forfeit the technology if they could not repay the loan within a certain time period. Jack inherited this contract when he bought Atari.
Commodore got into talks with Amiga and bought them outright repaying their loan to Atari too.
This of course left Atari without this technology, they sued Commodore to try and bar them from releasing a computer. It did cause a delay.
Commodore had also sued Atari because a bunch of their engineers/designers left for Atari.
The Amiga 1000 was eventually released in 1985.
Could you imagine if the Amiga technology had been used in an Atari home console in 1985?
A 16 bit console in 1985 taking on Nintendo's 8 bit NES.
Brilliant information here! You have a great grasp on the 80s computer scene and the behind the scenes business of it.
Amiga Corp defrauded Warner’s Atari Inc, not Tramiel’s Atari Corp. Amiga sold themselves to Commodore and Commodore provided them $500K to repay the loan to Atari Inc while falsely claiming they were returning the money because the Amiga Lorraine chipset supposedly didn’t work. David Morse did that. Allegedly. Itt’s also why the Tramiels allegedly screwed over Epyx in the Handy/Lynx deal years later since Morse was Epyx’s president and Mical & Needle had worked on the Amiga previously. At the time, Commodore started the litigation against Shiraz Shivji, Jack Tramiel, and other ex-Commodore employees who were working at Jack’s TTL company [later renamed as “Atari Corp”] while claiming they had allegedly stolen IP when they left Commodore. As for the Atari Inc/Amiga Corp deal, Atari would’ve had the rights to use the Amiga Lorraine chipset in the 16-Bit “Mickey” console for Christmas 1985 and would then have the right to market a keyboard/computer upgrade - as well as the rights to release computers based on the Amiga Lorraine chipset - one year later. But if Amiga defaulted on the loan, Atari would not only own the chipset but the entire company and then they could release anything they wanted to immediately. But we should remember that Atari Games already had a more powerful graphics chip than Amiga’s wares and it was already in use in Marble Madness in Summer 1984. And had the OMNI chipset been completed, “Atari” would’ve had graphics chips as powerful as the NeoGeo and the Sharp X68000… but in 1985.
Too many YTers, especially the AVGN wannbes, only look at the video gaming aspect but ignore the vintage home computer side of Atari Corp. At the time of the Crash, home computers were set to replace dedicated game consoles and that's exactly what Jack wanted to sell. He didn't "hate" video games but sold the remaining warehoused stocks through liquidators to raise cash to turn Atari around and create the ST computer. And from 1985 to 1986 the ST was a successful home computer at the right price for a 16-bit machine.
But Nintendo turned things around and made video games popular again and all the sudden, in the US, there was no reason to buy home computers. You either get a NES for games (for the kids of course) or a more "serious" PC clone or Mac used by businesses (this is yuppie logic). The 2600/7800 had sold successfully as low end market products but Nintendo was selling a premium priced product. Protip: Kids wanted the greatest & most expensive thing while parents wanted/needed to buy the cheapest so they can pay the bills.
If any there's anyone to blame for Atari's downfall from 1987-1996 it's Jack's son Sam who took over as CEO. He made so many disastrous mistakes especially purchasing the Federated chain of consumer electronics that ended up being a massive money pit. He tried doing the same "Business is War" tactics his old man did but ended up losing business with developers, dealers and even with loyal Atari customers.
I'm glad someone is defending and even covering the Tramiel era as in spite of the constant mistakes, I still loved my XE and STe computers over the bland pre-486 clones and never regretted my time spent with them.
Great comment. A lot of people don't care about vintage computers at least not the way they care about consoles and their knowledge begins and ends there. Usually with a singular company.
At the time Jack took over, the future was computers and it made sense to put your focus there. Consoles were dying out at least in the United States.
Right now the channel only focuses on a few things but the plan is to cover the 8 Bits and ST along with everything Atari.
Great comment and some great points, thank you!
@TheAtariNetwork So basically no one saw the NES coming, and that meant families didn't need to share a home computer?
Great video! He kept Atari alive and did what he could with the $$ he had. They lost focus, but did what they could.
Yeah and what i really really liked is how atari even did advertised nintendo games on their box art of game consoles,posters and magazines,let me tell ya something wich i consider to be very cool,i was always a huge nintendo fan and so for dekades,i absolutely never knew that nintendo games did appear on atari systems,but oh boy once i did found about that i bought many atari systems with all those nintendo games for it as well as a few atari and sega games,and so since then i am also a huge atari fan and thus do understand why atari was soooo successful,not only from their own games but from sega and nintendo games as well,
Most people today wouldn’t know about that,but i do a let me tell ya,this is pretty wild man seeing nintendo games on atari systems,it cannot be anymore cooler then this,so fifa to atari for doing that as well,
Believe me if no nintendo or sega game ever appeared on a atari system, i never would,ve bought any atari home game system.
I personally think Tramiel tried his best to revive a dying company but the odds were stacked against him from the get-go. The real criminals are Ray Kassar, Steve Ross and Warner Communications in general.
Never quite understood the splitting of the arcade and home divisions since it seemed each would benefit the other.
Your right as a lot of Atari's initial success came from bringing popular arcade games homes especially theirs. But it was probably some combination of the arcade division still showing signs of being profitable so Time Warner didn't mind holding onto it, Jack Tramiel probably not being that interested, and maybe finances and timing. Regardless I wish they two would've remained together.
Yes, the arcade division (Atari Games) was still profitable, as the so-called "video game crash" is very misunderstood these days (arcades and computer games were doing fine, it was just the US console manufacturers that had a hiccup) so Warner didn't feel the need to sell it off. I just wish Atari Corp and Atari Games had come up with a licensing agreement so all the arcade games would have official ports to the 7800 and ST, rather than letting companies like U.S. Gold do it. Most of the ST ports were high quality enough to be published by Atari Corp, and Atari Games should have just made their own 7800 games instead of doing the Tengen NES thing.
@@serqetry all that would've made sense and I wish it ended up like that. And with Warner being so desperate to drop the home division they could've possibly worked something out like that. Especially because I think Warner thought the video game fad was over so why would they care about home ports to consoles. Computers might've been harder to negotiate but I'm sure Atari Corp could've negotiated for their line of computers none the less.
There was a popular rumor BITD that Warner had offered the arcade division to Jack for an additional $10M but he allegedly wasn’t interested. I think it’s BS.
@@serqetryor… Warner pays GCC for the 7800 and passes the project onto Atari Games - who actually was Atari Inc, the legal remnants that is - who then markets it as the “Tengen 7800”. You do know why Tengen’s unlicensed NES cartridges were colored black, right? They were deliberately invoking the color scheme of Atari 2600 cartridges. For those who do not know, “Tengen” was Atari Games’s consumer brand since they couldn’t use the “Atari” brand in the consumer market since those rights belonged to Tramiel’s Atari Corp. Or as Dan Kramer referred to them, “Atari Corpse”.
. In 1985 I got a brand new 130 XE for my 13th birthday. It was a fantastic machine which I still use to this day. The problem, at the time was that there was practically no new software nor new applications to go with the new machine. This was the problem with Atari at that time. Great machines, but poor output to support those machines.
Very well said. That's absolutely right!
Definitely interesting
Great video, Jon. I appreciate your perspective and the passion and data behind your arguments. Tip of the hat to you, sir.
As a teen during the Atari Corp era, my biggest gripe with JT stemmed from two things. First, he was Mr. Commodore, the hated rival of my beloved Atari 800. It was hard to swallow that the Enemy became the new owner of my beloved brand. Second, at Commodore, JT mass produced what I felt were cheap low quality hardware. I understand that the C64 enjoyed massive popularity and that my feelings are not shared by most. I even bought a C64 to see what the fuss was and returned in a week later because I found the hardware quality and performance to be inferior to my beloved Atari 800. When I saw Atari Corp produce the 130XE and the ST line, I saw hardware quality drop when compared to the Atari 800. For these two reasons, while I remained loyal to the Atari brand and purchased the 130XE and 520ST (or what was that the 1040?), I could never embrace JT nor Atari Corp.
Yes, he kept Atari going for many years and produced many new products, and I agree that he deserves credit for those achievements. However, those achievements are not enough to change the way I feel about JT and his products. My feelings about JT and Atari Corp are largely based on that - feelings, and those feelings were developed during a very impressionable part of my life. Frankly, I’m not sure that anything could change the way I feel 😂 It’s not a rational decision but a passion.
When the time came during the early 90s, I made the decision to cut ties with Atari (the ST had been my daily driver computer) and I went back and forth between the Mac and PC (I ended up choosing the PC). Had I known then that the engineers behind the 800 were the creators of the Amiga, I would have jumped to the Amiga. Out of curiosity for the machine that trounced the ST in popularity and respect for the minds that created my beloved 800, I did buy an Amiga a month ago.
Quality was not a huge concern of Jack and that I can't argue. Having low costs and a cheap price point was most important to him. The less a computer cost, the cheaper he can sell it, and the more he'll sell, thus making more money. This seems to be his thought process.
He also did a poor job supporting his hardware once it was out the door. Evident by my beloved 7800 among other things. I didn't expect to sway anybody honestly but if I was able to get a few people who knew nothing about the era to look deeper into his time at Atari and form their own opinions then mission successful.
@@TheAtariNetwork Jack certainly knew what he was doing and who his target audience was and very successfully executed his vision at Commodore and brought it to Atari for another go. Lately, as I see more people chiming in on the history of Atari Corp, I have come to a better appreciation of the Atari Corp years. As you mentioned in the video, without JT, Atari likely would have either gone under much sooner or been relegated to keeping afloat by licensing their IP and not much more than that. It was certainly easier back then to peg on him the demise of my beloved Atari. So to that end, you and your video have succeeded, Jon :) Market conditions had changed, and I don't think there was anyone who was going to be able to lead Atari back to the glory of the Atari, Inc. days.
The main point of my original response was to say that since my fondness and loyalty to Atari Inc were based mostly deep seated emotions from childhood, there's nothing that's going to change that. For me, "Atari" is Atari, Inc. and the products that entered my childhood and shaped the direction of my life -- primarily the Atari 800 and to a much lesser degree the 2600 and 5200.
I still have emotional issues with the current Atari company because in my mind and heart, "Atari" died many years ago. However, being surrounded by several people in the Atari I/O forums who are very positive on what the current Atari has been doing has helped me to better embrace the new Atari and their efforts. I really appreciate that the company is very aware of the Atari legacy and produces products and games that highlight that heritage. Not everything speaks to me (e.g., 2600+) but I appreciate the effort.
Great video and great topic, Jon.
My Atari ST got me through 3 1/4 years of college. I definitely couldn't afford an Apple Macintosh. I actually wanted an Amiga but Commodore had bought it and I couldn't afford it either. Then Jack came out with the Atari ST with an excellent monitor for $1000. That what I ended up buying and as I said, it almost got me through 4 years of college. The reason I ended up buying a PC clone was because a class that I needed, compiler design, would only accept homework done on a PC or a clone. I ended up giving my ST to my wife's uncle who also used it for college. So it certainly was a very good system.
Awesome example and anecdote about the Atari ST and its edge in the market during its life. I know little about Atari computers so I'm always happy to hear about what they were like and to learn about them!
After his passing, thankfully he getting the respect he deserves.
Tramiel was the reason the 2600 had such a long lifespan (being discontinued in 1992 instead of 1984), and in those late years amazing and very advanced games like Solaris were released. Some say the fact of reviving the 2600 and focusing too much on it was what prevented the success of the 7800. I don't know, maybe
Honestly I'm not sure how much the 2600 Jr affected the 7800 sales but it was a great budget console for the time. It's hard for younger people to put their mind in the headspace of mid 80s to 90s because they wouldn't be interested in buying an Xbox 360 now that two other boxes came out but back then people didn't look at it the same.
Its nice to know the flip side of the coin. Cool stuff happened during his reign. He does get to much flack of negativity. The lynx is the only console that I actually bought brand new from Atari..save the new vcs. So yes im very biased toward the lynx lol.
I 100% do agree with you about jack tramiel,he did fantastic things to atari by still releasing those products wich were already ready to be shipped out the door and he even brought use the fantastic atari xe wich combines the best worlds from both the atari 5200 and atari 800 into 1 unit hardwarewise,
Now i only wish he continued that atari fitness home trainer project along with those special designed 5200 games for it for fitness schools, in order to promote sport events and the 5200 system,had he done continue doing that,he would,ve beaten nintendo by 10 years,
Sadly only two prototypes of the atari 5200 home trainers were made,1 for the consumer market and 1 for fitness schools,
Well i hope atari will resurrect that project trough a 5200 emulator along with a interface adaptor for those computers for fitness schools,am sure there could be still money made out of it,atari should move on and leave those 2600 renditions of consoles and games for what they are,they have already sold enough flashbacks of it,so it’s time to move on.
You never know, Atari is listening and watching various forums, etc so comments like these in the right places may get their eyes back on old projects, if there's enough demand. The fact they've been revitalizing old IPs and even resurrecting old projects is a positive direction for that sort of thing.
I think Jack had a bit of a narrow mind and a lack of vision (or maybe a lack of understanding) for certain projects. But then again he did what he felt was right for the company.
Thanks for watching!
You make aome good points, good job... i still have my atari 7800 and i cherish it even to this day
I can remember back in 1986, seeing atari 5200 version of gremlins in toys r us when I was going their to purchases Solaris for my atari 2600.
The only thing I dislike about the Tramiel era, was his investment in the computer market, when you consider what become of that market shortly after the release of the ST. I think he should have ignored the computer market, and focused 100% on the console market, as that market was 1000 times more profitable.
Yeah but Jack being Jack that was never going to happen. The computer market was what he wanted to corner no matter how wrong or right it was...
Well the ST sold a lot of units and launched a very big ecosystem of software and hardware.
I find fascinating the concept that something has to take the market by storm in order to be a success when it comes to computers , but we are fine calling a car succesful even if it sells a fraction of the number of beetles.
@@CFalcon030 Machines have to sell millions and millions, or else get left in the dust by the competition. I'm not a fan of computer gaming anymore. The simplicity that consoles had for decades is what drew me to them in the past, and what drew me back to them recently.
For how much Europeans bask in the glory days of the Amiga, and ST, and whatnot, they did not sell THAT many units. According to wiki, the ST only sold a little over 2 million, and the Amiga 1000/500 only sold 4.85 Million. A lot, but nowhere near the 60 million the NES sold. And you wonder why Commodore, and Atari went bankrupt, and Nintendo is still around stronger than ever.
well, I wouldn't put too much stock in this number since Atari never published unit sales, just sales figures and this is a calculation that has some flaws in its methodology. Still I don't think it matters.
Atari in 1984 was dead. Wiith the ST it lasted for 10 more years and at the end of the day, Atari died with a console. One that makes every top ten worst console list on the Internet.
However the main reason the ST line died was that Atari couldn't keep up with the technology explosion of the 90s. They didn't have the resources to compete with what would come with Windows 95, and the Motorola processors became a dead end, something that was unforseen. Ironically, I think the biggest problem with Atari was the collective perception of it being a gaming company and not a technology company like Apple. Macintoshes were on a similar dead end path, with system 7 and Motorola processors, but the perception that they were serious machines (and the cash injection by Microsoft) is what saved them and allowed Apple to be what it is today.
@@CFalcon030 Yeah, that explosive progression of computer hardware on the 90s was both a good, and bad thing IMO. If you were a PC gamer, it was so expensive to keep up with.
Jack’s biggest legacy from Atari was the ST, which is also the most important Atari product. The 2600 sold more units but was merely the best selling early console - and let to the Great Crash.
The ST defined what a modern PC would become. Multimedia, graphics, sound, GUI, expandability and productivity. It was the template for the computers we use today.
The Mac was expensive, slow and had a tiny B&W screen. The PCs of the era were DOS-based and lacked decent color and sound. The Amiga was a toy for gaming and not a real computer.
The ST brought it all together. And did it for way less than the competition. It was the first modern PC.
Jack was a d*ck but he was a force in the industry. i always cut him some slack because he was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps and that has to have an effect on how you deal with people.
But still, he would do sh*t like order massive supplies from other vendors and then not pay them. When those companies went broke as a result he would buy those companies for pennies on the dollar. That aspect of his life and business dealings was reprehensible.
Yeah I don't like everything he did and I think he was crude in business. I always feel that people arguing ethics in business is laughable but there should be respect and common sense like paying your vendors, etc.
But I thought it important to help people think critically about this man and his time with the company because nothing is ever as black and white as people make his time at Atari out to be.
Thanks for the comment and watching!
@@TheAtariNetwork I think Jack's biggest success and the one he created from scratch was the ST line of computers. Almost as good as the Amiga but a lot less expensive, Jack really hit the market with a line of machines that the public wanted and could afford. His decision to have built in Midi ports was a brilliant business move that extended the life of the machines for many years. The Jaguar really sunk the company. If they never built that game console and concentrated on the Falcon line of computers I think Atari would have lasted for decades. Atari was almost always cash strapped after Time / Warner mismanaged it and couldn't survive many failures in the Tramiel years.
That’s how Jack acquired MOS Technologies. Allegedly. MOS actually pleaded with Al Alcorn - at Atari… this being in 1976 - to ask Manny Gerard of Warner to have Atari acquire them instead. Gerard didn’t think it to be a wise move since the VCS still hadn’t been released yet. But Atari did end up with a 6502 license out of it.
As a 51 year old gamer collector i agree. Jack did save Atari. But Jacks obsession with the home computer market sucked valuable money and time from the gaming consoles. But home computers were on the rise, so...I kinda see his point of view. Remember Nintendo and Sega were already Jaugernauts in the arcade and at home by the time the 7800 was released. It was a steep climb. But with a cheaper price and an established library Atari did ok considering what they were up against. Jack gets alot of crap but, Atari lasted another 12 year with him. 12 years that Atari wouldn't have had otherwise
Thanks for the comment. Who knows what would've happened had somebody else bought Atari but I'm thankful Jack kept the company around and kept pushing games out that my family could afford.
Very good video and great points
Thank you!
@@TheAtariNetwork Well deserved. If you want to come on Kickin'it Old Skool and talk some some Atari hit me up.
@@GlensRetroShow sounds like fun I'll get in touch when I have some time
You didn’t cover one major interested party who did want to purchase Atari… Philips. As in the parent company of Magnavox. The problem was Philips wanted to buy 100% of Atari. Warner - or more importantly Warner CEO Steve Ross - didn’t want that. They wanted someone else to quickly take the company off their hands so the bad press would stop hurting Warner’s share price yet they still wanted to retain a minority stake so they could hopefully re-acquire the biz cheaply once profitability returned. That’s why Warner retained a 25% stake in Jack Tramiel’s Atari Corp throughout the majority of that company’s life. It’s also why they retained a minority stake in Atari Games/Tengen after having sold the majority stake to Namco. The only part of Atari Inc they fully sold off was AtariTel to Mitsubishi. Warner even approached Jack in circa 1991 to sell his stake in Atari Corp to them after Warner had re-acquired Atari Games and Warner Publishing was distributing Electronic Gaming Monthly. Even to this day, Warner owns the IP of the former Atari Games/Tengen via their WB Games division which acquired that IP in 2009 when they bought Midway’s assets for a song and a dance in the bankruptcy proceedings. Despite the criticisms hurled at Jack, the 7800 still outsold the Sega Master System 2-to-1 in North America. Another possible scenario left out of the video is if Warner had given Atari Inc CEO James Morgan more time to turn Atari around and reorganize it under his “NATCO” [New Atari Technology Company] plan. He probably would’ve been successful with getting the 7800 released by Christmas 1984, releasing the 1400XL and 1450XLD computers shortly thereafter, retaining the arcade division and their extensive library, keeping the Atari Advanced Research Division funded along with completing the AMY sound chip and the OMNI chipset, and either proceeding with the acquisition of Amiga Corp or destroying them and Commodore in court over their attempts at defrauding Atari. Had Warner retained Atari, Jack would’ve either bought MindSet Computers - a company made up of ex-Atari staff - or some other failing computer company and marketed MSX computers until it generated enough profits to create a 16-Bit computer line. Another aspect of Atari remaining in-tact under Warner would be Atari Consumer’s marketing division remaining. In our timeline, they quit and went to work for their former boss who had founded Worlds of Wonder. The same Worlds of Wonder (WoW) who went onto successfully marketing the Nintendo Entertainment System and later became Nintendo’s marketing division after Nintendo helped drive WoW out of business…
All this might warrant a video of its own after the holidays. Something about the more likely scenarios of what could've happened to Atari. I'll look into it
Thanks
If Jack Tramiel hadn't bought the Atari home consumer division, the company would have gone bankrupt by 1985. His turnaround of Atari Corp. in its first year was legendary (the ST computer went from conception to release in ten months) and his continued successes with the 2600 Jr (6.5 million units sold) and 7800 (4 million units sold) gave them a solid 2nd place in the home console race behind Nintendo (yes, the 2600 & 7800 outsold the Sega Master System in the US).
A controversial figure? Absolutely. In the end, the Tramiel Family's ruthless relations with software developers and retailers burned their bridges and doomed Atari Corp. I would also submit that both the Lynx and Jaguar were Sam Tramiel's children. As much as I love those two machines, there's no way Jack would have released a $150-$180 color handheld onto a market that was quickly dominated by the $90 GameBoy, and Jaguar suffered greatly from chronic indecision that absolutely overwhelmed Atari in those later years. Burning all those bridges certainly didn't help. Of course, by the end of 1994, the writing was on the wall, and Sony was about to demolish the entire US videogame industry, so there wasn't really anything Atari could have done to survive by that point. Their best-case scenario would have been to make the Jaguar a minor success from 1993-96, then transition into a software-only publisher like Sega would later do. Unfortunately, the company outsourced nearly all software development by that point, and the available talent pool was extremely thin. We all love Jeff Minter, of course, but he couldn't carry Atari completely on his back.
Ah, well, water under the bridge. We were lucky that there was an Atari that survived the Great Videogame Crash, and were blessed with the XE, ST, TT and Falcon computers, the 2600, 7800, Lynx and Jaguar consoles, and, c'mon, you always dreamed of using an Atari Portfolio to hack an ATM. Be honest. And they gave us Tempest 2000, which alone atones for so many sins. The Tramiels can act like the Sopranos all they want if they get results like that. Hah.
Atari may have brought on the Crash, but it was the only survivor.
Tramiel is the reason Atari survived. (the rest is speculation)
at the time , the Console division already had projects - oblivious to the Crash.
Tramiel streamlined the entire product line - eventually exiting the 8-bit era;
developing the ST computer (to compete against Commodore c128 & AMIGA).
I disagree that Jack Tramiel pushed out the Atari 2600 immediately. Jack Tramiel bought Atari Inc. minus the arcade division in 1984. The 2600 Jr. was released in 1986 the same year as the Atari 7800. This was probably the right time to release it as most all game console games and hardware were on a steep clearance discount in the years prior, starting about 1983. Great video btw. Thanks Jack.
Also, Jack Tramiel should have never fought Time Warner over paying GCC. He burned their relationship with GCC. GCC was the brains at Atari at the time Jack purchased Atari. By 1984 GCC created some of the best Atari 2600 games and all of the Atari 7800 software. With a continued relationship with GCC, there probably would be a GUMBY sound chip in every 7800 cartridge, leveling the biggest criticism I hear about the Atari 7800. With GCC we could all have an Atari 7800 High Score cartridge that worked, not to mention a cheaper Atari 7800 with an integrated ‘Tia Maria’ chip (nice ring to it) that would have been in line with Jack’s low cost plans. Though it is too hypothetical to predict, Atari could have had a console development team in place to bring out a 16-bit console with hardware scaling, in time to take on SEGA and Nintendo. Instead Atari pulled the Panther in 1991, which was much too late to release after the much delayed Super Nintendo. By fighting to pay GCC, Jack gained nothing and had to pay GCC, anyway.
GCC is the reason why the 7800 doesn’t have an onboard POKEY sound chip. They told Warner they couldn’t redesign the 7800’s motherboard to be able to fit the POKEY on it given Warner’s requirement to fit everything in the case dimensions of the Atari 2800/Sears Video Arcade II console case. That seems highly suspect.especially since they then spun the idea of the GUMBY being included in every single future 7800 cartridge - instead of revising the console & offering a hardware upgrade to the existing customer base - which GCC would’ve massively profited from.
Jack Tramiel saved Atari. He was too focused on fighting Commadore and everybody underestimate Nintendo.
Warner Communications was the owner of Atari Inc. - Not Time-Warner.
You're absolutely right I'm not sure why I thought the Time Warner merger had happened already by then but it definitely didn't. Thanks for pointing that out I will fix it in the future.
That’s a nitpick. Warner Communications, Time Warner, AOL Time Warner, Time Warner Part Deux Electric Bugaloo, Warner Bros Discovery, bla bla. It’s all Warner when you get down to it. And they still own all of the Atari Games Corp/Tengen/Tradewest/Time Warner Interactive/Williams/Midway IP to this day.
he ruined my life
Not convinced. I can hardly address a 15 min. vid in a TH-cam comment. But JT did hate video games. His first moves were to fire almost all of Atari and it was widely reported-as soon as he bought the company-that the 7800 would not be released. He simply wanted a known name to put on his new line of computers. I give him no credit for “releasing” Gremlins and the other stuff; he was just emptying warehouses. Obviously, the videogame market was not dead when JT shelved the 7800. A more interesting question to explore would be: what if JT had released the 7800 in fall ‘84 as planned, and supported it? I believe it would have been a success, and history would be quite different. Finally, JT did get behind videogames once Nintendo showed the vast amount of $ still to be made off of them. He put his kid Sam in charge of Atari’s videogames division. I read a piece in which an interviewer taunted Sam for the crap quality of many 7800 games. Sam responded, “We made a lot of money off those crap games.” That’s the short-sighted approach that sunk the company earlier: “Who cares if 2600 Pac-Man sucks? People will buy it. It’s Pac-Man.” Whatever belated success Atari had with videogames under JT only underscores how well the company could have done had JT not been so pig headed and had he released on schedule the 7800s that were sitting in warehouses.
Can't win them all I suppose but thanks for watching.
I disagree. Jack was a cheap asshole that bought Atari to go at war with Commodore.
He should havee paid whatever fine he had to do to get the 7800 out the door.
Why the million models of the same Atari 8bit computer? They are all virtually the same! Except some memory differences.
Clean up a mess? Seems like there were plenty of messes under his management.
Could someone had done better? I don't t know. But I know a lot of stupid decisions were made under his management.
It's not always black and white, there are good and bad with any company and it's management or owners. The hope was to get people to think critically of his time at Atari and look into the company a bit more during said time as I mostly see people parrot back the same information.
But he isn't a saint and definitely made a lot of poor decisions. I personally love the products that came out under his time there, as that's the Atari I grew up with. But it should've been so much better had things been managed differently.
Tramiel only released three variants of the 8-bits: the XE (130 and 65) that brought the costs down, and the XEGS as an experiment to help sell stock of old Atari era peripherals and games.
The Apple II got more variants than the Atari 8 bits.