I feel like Jeremy's reached the depths of deep dives where he could be entirely making up these old niche consoles that nobody's heard of, and it would genuinely be impossible to tell.
@@JeremyParish I both had some prior knowledge and literally just watched your video and I *still* can't understand what Atari was thinking with the XEGS.
My dad had this console, I was four years old and he never let me play it because he was afraid I would break it. He rarely played it and had it put away in a box, I loved opening it and looking and the buttons and pressing them down. That's the Main reason I bought the pastel colors for joycons which reminded me this Atari console
So happy to see that Computer Chronicles clip. It's such a fun show in the most nerdy way possible. They cover so many things in the 80s that give you a peak at what's going to happen by the late 90s to early 2000s.
@@JeremyParish Good news! Most of it is either on the Internet Archive or youtube! There's also it's gaiden series, Net Cafe, a terrifying look into the world of eCommerce, which was terribly prescient.
The funny thing is consumers didn't stop wanting to buy video games. America had a recession and video games were extremely expensive so there was a market crash. It really only lasted about 8 months to a year. Consumers quickly went looking for video games but everybody want to sell them a computer. At one point people just started calling up Atari directly and ordering directly from them. That's why the 2600 junior exists. Atari kept getting orders direct from consumers and they eventually ran out of their backstock.
I love those saucer candy buttons, it's like they were designed by someone who'd seen half an episode of Miami Vice and was trying to describe the aesthetic while hung over.
Many of Atari’s problems would be duplicated by Sega a decade later. But the XEGS does have one thing going for it. Whoever designed the physical “box” with those pastel buttons did a wonderful job.
This is FALSE... NONE of "Atari's problems" were ever duplicated by Sega a decade later... the XEGS does not even compare as a product to any product Sega had ten years later. You are confusing things because it sounds romantic from some fanboys who make videos and tend to have a very casual and vocal memory of the 90s. What did actually happen was that 90s Sega of America management staff like Tom Kalinske and Joe Miller were requesting that Sega headquarters in Japan make a Genesis upgrade that would be compatible with Genesis since as far back as in 1993 after the OFFICIAL Project Saturn announcement in JAPAN on business newspapers. THAT led to the eventual creation of the 32X which was authored by Tom Kalinske and Joe Miller and which had it actually sold real numbers to consumers and NOT to retailers as 90s Sega of America's management had been reporting numbers as aka misrepresenting sales numbers because retailers buy stock but will return unsold stock back to Sega of America which in turn has to PAY to avoid the retailer from losing money otherwise the retailer will not do more business with Sega of America... Their agenda was to focus on their created 32X and complain that the Sega Saturn was never gonna work... probably because Tom Kalinske who was barely hired on November 1990 decided that he wanted to make a deal with Sony... seems like someone wanted to jump over the people who hired him at the Japanese headquarters as Sega of America was a subsidiary branch... NOT a manufacturing or engineering or creation company... that was SEGA Enterprises LTD Japan.... that was the actual name of "SEGA", NOT Sega of America. The rest writes itself out... Tom Kalinske refused to prepare the Sega Saturn launch, he told the press in 1994 that the 32X was gonna be this big seller... BECAUSE THAT WAS HIS BABY...and big payout if it succeeded... the Japanese parent company was too soft and decided to believe he could sell 32X... when the launch happened Tom Kalinske spent $40 million in 32X marketing alone... it FAILED to sell... those wiki sale numbers were "Sold to retailers, NOT to consumers" as 1995 to 1996 Next Generation magazine revealed back then which the Sega fanboy history book never mentioned nor sourced aka they lie and tell a fan narrative... what else? Dreamcast? after Sega of America management killed the Sega Saturn they finally got their 32X part 2 made, the Dreamcast... costing multiple millions of dollars and having a modem shoehorned into the system while the Japanese retail price bosses said $249.99 for the U.S. and Euro launch, Bernie Stolar WENT OVER the Japanese bosses and cut the price to $199.99 to generate noise cause that guy was a quack who should never have been hired in the first place... that is why but they trusted, TRUSTED an American manager because that was the belief until the guy was revealed to be making giveaways which are LOSSES.. you lose $50 USD per Dreamcast sold and you are NEVER making a profit...
@@apollosungod2819Actually, the 32X began with Sega of Japan according to Joe Miller. Sega of Japan wanted a whole, independent console to serve as a stopgap when the Atari Jaguar released. Sega of America convinced them to make it an add-on for the Genesis instead. But the impetus for its development was from Hayao Nakayama, not Tom Kalinske.
I have to admit, at thirty years of age, over half of them spent taking in information on video games partly through TH-cam videos, I had never once so much as heard of this console before. Atari...
Pretty much the same for me. I'm even older and I've owned a neo geo and turbo duo for decades as well as everything by Sony, Microsoft, Sega, and Nintendo but I've never heard about this either.
I'm 50 and was aware of the Xegs but only just aware. I also knew of the Atari 800 family of computers but mostly knew of them as failures nobody owned compared to the C64. Oddly I've now owned two of those machines longer than I ever owned my C64 as a teenager. They were incredibly powerful for their time and good fun still. Sadly far less RPGs than the 64 and Apple 2 but for old arcade ports it's a great machine in some cases playing better than the arcade originals but obviously not looking as good. Though the homebrew scene tends to fix the games up a bit when they aren't creating masterpieces like Yoomp.
You have to wonder if anyone with any influence at Atari ever went to an actual department store and saw the same game in 3/4 different packages for their own systems alone and thought to themselves, "Is there a chance this will confuse anyone?"
I still have my childhood one, got in Xmas '88, in my garage. Legitimately did not know another single soul who had one. I always wondered why my Dad went this way instead of an NES, home computers were pretty popular in UK, so that is anpartial explanation, but then why not an Amiga or Spectrum? I can imagine some saleman at the store in disbelief he was actually going unload one of these
These retrospectives are valuable to me. As a fellow old, I remember seeing tv and magazine ads for the XE and sundry other oddball consoles, and I'd think, what if I hadn't asked for an NES, what did I miss out on. Thanks to you, I finally know, it wasn't much.
6:00 I actually owned an Atari 5200 (my first console), acquired it new around '84 towards the end of Atari's glory days. My father ended up getting me a total of 18 games for the system, and I absolutely loved it (Defender was a personal favorite, and Berserk actually featured the digital voice output just like the arcade), but those controllers were the death kneel of the system. I had older female cousins who were "very aggressive" Pac Man players, and they proceeded to rip apart four of those expensive blocks of plastic either jerking the joystick around or pressing the life out of those side trigger buttons. Once those controllers went, so did my passion for the system. We ended up getting a NES around three years later and I only really ended up looking back on my time with the 5200 when either watching retrospectives like this, recalling how half the console size was dedicated to internal controller storage, or discussing how ungodly huge the trackball peripheral was for it.
Be fair. This was designed to clear out old warehouse stock, and succeeded in that goal in a way the Atari of 1983 and the Sega of 1996 would have killed for. As for creating market confusion, the real confusion was "What the hell is that weird thing behind the glass in Kay-Bee toys?" Game magazines ignored it, and I didn't see a single ad until I hit the internet. I knew more about the ST, despite never seeing one for sale anywhere.
"Be fair. This was designed to clear out old warehouse stock, and succeeded in that goal in a way the Atari of 1983 and the Sega of 1996 would have killed for." What are YOU talking about bub? to clear out old warehouse stock? lmao during 1983 Atari was halfway developing the 7800 system and getting SPLIT into two companies that were UNRELATED to each other. Atari Games was an arcade game maker, unrelated to whatever it was "Atari Corp" was making or doing... Atari Games as a result were very successful at holding their own making arcade games. Atari Corp was purchased by the Tramiel guy, who managed it how he did... that makes the Atari XEGS a really bizarre move... it's telling the general retailers and in turn the general consumers who go to retail shops that there are THREE Atari videogame systems and the latter also claims to be ALSO a COMPUTER (however all three are "computers", the XEGS was configured from the beginning because it WAS an old Atari computer being rebranded)... so if you have THREE options from ONE BRAND... what is the consumer supposed to do? It WAS CONFUSION because Nintendo and SEGA each had only ONE solution even a whole year AFTER the Atari XEGS launched. "....and the Sega of 1996 would have killed for." Again dude what is going on with your knowledge here? seriously? what did "SEGA of 1996" wanted that they would have killed for? do YOU even know what the hell Sega of 1996 was actually doing in 1996? Let me refresh your memory after YOUR reply. "As for creating market confusion, the real confusion was "What the hell is that weird thing behind the glass in Kay-Bee toys?" Game magazines ignored it, and I didn't see a single ad until I hit the internet. I knew more about the ST, despite never seeing one for sale anywhere." What are YOU talking about? Where are you getting this from? "Game Magazines"? lmao what "Game Magazines" existed the year the Atari XEGS launched? please reply cause this should be interesting and you will end up discovering you made a mistake remembering things. As for what is behind the glass in Kay-Bee toys? you do realize the Atari XEGS was launched 1987... just ONE year after Atari Corp took the 7800 and 2600 out of their warehouses are were ALLOWED by retailers who did not want anything to do with consoles back on retail shelves ONLY because Nintendo proved videogames could be WORTH buying again..
@apollosungod2819 Pademonium's channel has a deep dive on Sega of America's woes, based on their own internal documentation. The XE helped clear out old 8-bit computer software. You do realize it was compatible? None of this was exactly a secret. Next time, do a little more research before trying to correct me.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 What the hell does pademoniums channel doing Sega of America's woes which were CREATED by 90s Sega of America managament have to do with the Atari XEGS? NOTHING... it has NOTHING to do, you are making some confused false equivalency here buddy.. Sega of America's management did not just make mistakes in 1996... they were deliberately making "mistakes" every year since Tom Kalinske got hired and more when Bernie Stolar got hired... none of their mistakes have ANY equivalence to Atari Corp Tramiel management of Atari consoles from 1986 to 1989... I can break it down for you more cause I know and don't have to read some fake gamer writing some fake narrative. Clearing out old 8bit computers software? so now Sega had software to clear out in 1996? I spoke from the perspective of a potential BUYER in 1987... YES it was NOT clear or known that the Atari XEGS was either compatible or NOT with the 7800... you ended up finding out at the retail store when you read the box materials Gamer magazines? in 1987? what? Some computer game magazine with their depressing page layouts... you had to shift through a bunch of pages just to find out and their editorials changed from year to year I still have some my old computer magazines from the 80s.... Are you a big Atari fan? where do you not see what a scam it was to sell the XEGS a year after launching the 7800? those are TWO DIFFERENT PLATFORMS... not even comparable to anything going on at Sega other than Sega of America's 32X I'll school you and scold you for lying to us and trying to revise history to suit your fan goggles son.
@@apollosungod2819 Seriously, I'll give you a few moments to connect the dot. 3 companies with unsold inventory... What do they have in common? The rest of your hot takes reveal why the XE still haunts you.
As the proud owner of an xegs (though ive lent all my cartridges to a friend, including frogger 2: 3deep) i am excited for these videos. A good chunk of the games i had for it were atari 800 carts. We even had the trackball for a while. Mine ended as a technology center in my mom's kindergarten class for 5 to 10 years, through some of the kids software like facemaker and memory manor that came on cartridges.
A kid that lived on the street behind or house had one of these in the early 90's. I was always fascinated with its looks, but he also had A Link to the Past on SNES so that's ultimately where my attention went. I recall him telling me that the XEGS wasn't fun to play, but then again when given the option of it or Nintendo, it's easy to see why I never saw it being used.
Even through all the Nintendo, Sega, Sony, etc. consoles, I still enjoy Atari games. My 800xl still gets used, and the homebrew scene of the 7800 has really breathed new life into the machine. I wish I still had my old XEGS, purely on the looks alone, but my 800xl stuff fills that 8bit void.
Hearing about Atari has become so much more interesting to me following Atari 50's release, because their history has become so splintered following the game crash that every little move they took was like one more thing they tripped over just setting up, and then not cleaning up their mess and just moving on
Yeah like the fact that the 5200 designers intended to include 2600 compatibility but were ordered not to by the marketing department who then, months before release, asked why it wasn't backwards compatible with the 2600. 🙄
I wanted one of these so bad as a kid. But, we couldn’t afford any game systems. I am kind of glad my parents didn’t put themselves in a bad situation, but that doesn’t change how my little kid self was completely disappointed.
@@JeremyParish Given that it plays any C64 cartridge game, provided the game doesn't need keyboard input, it should probably only get one episode for the hardware and that's it. Nobody bought it anyway.
In the UK one of the pack in games needed you to press any game to proceed... on the keyboard that wasn't there... seriously! It shipped less than 5000 units to retailers and then got dropped! Though one feels it was more taken out back and shot!
I lived through that time. Having an 800XL and 130XE, I knew of the XEGS based on what the magazines reported. (Side question: who here knows what a magazine is?) I don’t recall seeing the XEGS in stores. Not even at Electronics Boutique. (Another side question: who knows that EB is?) But I never even KNEW about the C64 game system until the internet told me (after TH-cam became a thing) … let alone saw or touched one. Wow!
Atari not only expected late 80s kids to be really into early 80s arcade titles, but also wanted them to buy several versions of the same games. How many conversions of Missile Command did people need at that time? The vast majority of the 5200 library consisted of improved versions of games that were already available on the 2600. The XEGS was even more redundant. Maybe people at Atari were just arrogant to think there was such a big market for their products?
No... despite being its release being a truly terrible strategic choice, the system itself is a pretty great way to access a massive library of really solid 8-bit micro software.
I have never, ever been able to understand the thinking that went into the XEGS. Atari had limited resources and were already trying to support THREE different games consoles, their 8-bit computer line and the ST (and I believe were working with Epyx on the Lynx around this time too). In hindsight it's all so obvious - they needed to slim down and focus on the 7800 to take on the NES in the console space and the ST to take on the Amiga and PC in the home computer space and just drop all their other platforms. Maybe - at a push - keep the 2600 on life support given it was now so cost reduced they could sell it as a $50 starter console for very young kids. They still would have been in trouble (the 7800 just didn't have the developer and publisher support the NES had, while the ST was technically well behind other 16-bit computers) but that strategy would have given them a fighting chance. Instead they tried to keep all their platforms going AND introduce a new one. The ads promoting the XEGS as the Atari competitor to the NES were so stupid; the 7800 was the only console they had that could possibly go toe-to-toe with NIntendo technically, and the argument that a flight sim that runs at around one frame per second is a better pack-in than Mario Bros. or Duck Hunt looks absurd. I also think consumers would have been confused by what the XEGS even was. The ads show what appears to be a games console, but running games designed for 8-bit computers. Plus you can plug in a keyboard at which point... you just have an 8-bit computer. There are already three Atari consoles available to buy, but it isn't compatible with any of them. All it does is introduce more confusion about what Atari products do what and work with which games, while if you bought a NES there was no possible confusion about what it did or what software it ran. The one thing they got right was the aesthetic. I love the pastel coloured candy-shaped buttons and the way the cartridge port is at a jaunty angle.
And making things more complicated, the Lynx was the most powerful system they had aside from the ST. I'm not even sure why it was a handheld, aside from being designed that way originally. They could have taken its guts and put them in a console shell, called it the Atari 1040 or something, and would have had the US's first 16-bit console.
@@jasonblalock4429 Absolutely. Imagine a world where Atari dropped the 2600, 5200, 400 and 800, cancelled the launch of the XEGS and just focused purely on the 7800 and ST. Then in around 1990 launched a home console based around the guts of the Lynx to compete with the Mega Drive and SNES as you suggest (sorry I'm in the UK so I reflexively call the Genesis the Mega Drive). I'm not saying an Atari that did that would have survived longer or retaken dominance of the US market. But I do think they'd have given themselves the best possible chance. No confusion for consumers, putting all the spotlight and marketing resources on their best hardware, being among the first to stake out a space in the 16-bit console market rather than just not bothering with it at all. Those all seem like smart business decisions.
The Lynx was nowhere near powerful enough to compete with Genesis and SNES. Yeah, you get infinite scalable characters of any size, but it sacrifices color, resolution, and frame rates. Look at Double Dragon, Raiden, and Pitfighter before getting ambitious. Atari would be a bigger joke than it already is.
I remember the tv ad as a teenager where the compared the system to the NES. To this day I don't understand why anyone thought that would attract sales. It featured a monochrome light gun game as if that was something anyone would want.
It was just a couple weeks ago that I'd commented on how I'd love to see you talk a bit about the computer offerings from the 8/16-bit eras (but recognize how ridiculous of an undertaking that would actually be), so color me happy to see you touch on Atari's computer lineup a bit today! As a kid of the 90's who only ever experienced the IBM PC-compatible world, it's been a real treat as an adult to dig into computer ecosystems from Atari and Commodore that I never really had a chance to encounter in the wild. And seeing how their game offerings compared and contrasted with console offerings of the time is always fun to dig into. Another great video as always, thanks again for your continued excellence in informational media.
I marked out a bit for the 5200 "Hello, Judy?" ad just because I was a weird child who thought the way he says it was the funniest thing in the world. And wow, I didn't realize how late 5200 Gremlins was
Ah! An Atari XE I have one of those, my dad bought it along with plenty of strategy games I had a couple of fun games like Crime Busters and Star Raiders II, I wonder if Atari sent most of its unsold stock to Mexico because I saw the system a lot around here.
My father somehow got ahold of this and gave it to me to avoid buying a NES (I'm going to assume he got this cheap at the fayuca/flea market). The "computer" part seemed interesting, so I spent a whole day writing in Basic a program titled "Pink monster moving side to side" that came in the manual. After struggling with the code, the typos and a power outage, I finally made the thing work: an Space Invader large pink sprite that slided a couple of times on the screen. And I powered off the damn thing after that.
The XEGS console looks so cool though! I really like the styling of it and the ST. 2:40 It's interesting what you said about Jack Tramiel really wanting to make computers not game systems because Clive Sinclair also seemed disdainful towards the fact that the Spectrum was far more popular as a gaming platform than as a computer (and was furious about missing out on the lucrative educational market in the UK). I think those old guys just saw gaming as beneath them, not realising what a goldmine it would become.
Yeah, the one thing I can't fault about the XEGS was its case design. It embodies the aspirational 1980s we think we remember, not the 1970s-hangover ’80s that we actually lived through.
I imagine Jeremy considered just going with "Atari Works", but then realized that name was a false statement (from a business perspective, at least) & knew better than to lie to his viewers.
I was 17-18 when he 5200 came out and worked at Antic Magazine, what we heard at the time is that the memory map was changed in the 5200 to try and prevent/slow down third parties from just taking their software, slapping it in a cartridge, and selling it without working with Atari. They knew it would be a matter of time, but they felt it would give them a year or two of extra profit. Compatibility wasn't a big issue in people's minds at the time, because so many people had a 2600, we just assumed they would have two consoles. However the poor quality of the joysticks, large size of the 5200, and weak launch lineup is what we felt did it in at the time.
Well, Atari should have released the XEGS in 1982 as the 5200. I know this is Armchair Quarterback revisionism with the hindsight of know history, but Atari still would have been nerfed by Nintendo during the console match up of the Third Generation. Hiroshi Yamauchi and Jack Tramiel were both excellent businessmen. However, Yamauchi knew how to market toys, and Tramiel knew calculators and home computers. Yamauchi had it in the bag.
Multiple releases of Mario bros being confusing wasn’t the issue. Atari wanted that confusion so your parents would buy you the wrong Mario. Source:the dozens of games my mom bought me on clearance for systems I never owned.
Brilliant coverage. This was a neat little machine that the Tramiels should not have released and had no idea what to do with when they did. Still, it breathed some life into our favorite 8bit computer while we were importing UK games for the ST to play on our 1040.
Ah, XEGS! I've heard of it, but...well that's about all it is. And a ditto to the Atari 8-bit computer family. The Apple ][ series may have been a bit more plodding, but heck if they didn't birth a font of games and one hell of a legacy. My understanding of Jack's ventures of the business of Atari was to scoop it from the inside out like a pumpkin and leave everyone with the hard inedible shell of a gourd.
Looking back on the Atari 400 it is bizarre that this was never positioned as the console offering to its brother the 800. It certainly looks a lot like the Odyssey.
I'm a UK computer user from the era, and an Atari 8 bit computer Fanboy. In 1987 when the XEGS shipped, of the 8 bit computers, the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and MSX platforms were effectively on par colours and sound wise, but the C64 had the edge as games would be developed for it (and the UK native ZX spectrum) and then ported to other systems. Everything else not as good on a technical level. MSX flopped here but did well in the highly fractured Japanese Market, South America and in some European countries. Both the Commodore and Amstrad would have even bigger flops of consoled versions. Otherwise you are spending 2 to 3 times the price for a base Motorola 68000 based system, (call it 3 to 4 times for a truly usable 1mb version). That the Atari computers, and the XEGS had the SIO port... Think USB but with 1970's tech, in fact key members of its development team were involved with developing USB, means its expandability regards peripherals was on par with the stock apple. But Apple was pretty much alone with its internal expandability. Until late in the 386 lifecycle and with VGA/SVGA and Soundblaster combo, the PC wasn't even worth looking at as a games machine. Here in the UK it was all Amiga, ST or Sega Master system with the earlier 8 bit computers soldiering on as entry level machines. Nintendo did not start selling in good numbers until the SNES came out.
Atari was still putting out the XE computers at the time as well. Guess they figured that they could get the hardware accessories and software into stores that didn't sell computers by making a XE with an optional keyboard and sell it as a game machine. Jack really wanted as many platforms as he could have at any given time. Even including the MS-Dos desktops they made along with the portable Portfolio... as seen in the hit motion picture Terminator 2: Judgement Day!
It really is difficult to imagine anyone releasing a console with such feminine color elements in the U.S. outside of some limited Nintendo system variant available for a single holiday season five years into the platform's life... I love it.
Honestly, The Atari I cared about most was Atari Games. The arcade devision put Atari Corp. to shame. Especially with their Namco partnership. I'm still waiting for an Atari/Midway arcade collection for Switch, but WB Games has to make that happen, and good luck with that.
I have long felt that the Atari 8-bit computers were mishandled by Atari. The games look amazing for their age. Trying to make it a console should've been done in 1982 not 1987.
I remember seeing the Atari XEGS on the shelves once or twice at KB Toys back then. I only really noticed it because it looked so different when compared to the 7800 which I was familiar with as my best friend & next door neighbor owned a 7800. I didn't know anything about the XEGS at the time other than it was more expensive than the 7800 and it had a light gun peripheral like the NES. The KB Toys location in my local mall only had the XEGS for sale for a relatively short amount of time. By sometime in late 88 or early 89 all they sold was primarily NES with a smaller selection for the Master System and the Atari stuff was on closeout. I think I may have also seen the XEGS for sale at the local Kmart, but again only for a relatively short amount of time.
Man my parents got me this instead of a NES one Christmas because “with this you can play games AND learn to program!” So at least one gullible parental unit did actually fall for this XE nonsense. I programmed one seagull animation from the back of the manual, which took me almost an hour to enter. That’s ok, I’ll just play some awesome games like…Flight Simulator 2? D’OH!
I have very fond memories of the XEGS. a friend of mine had one back then, and we used to play it on it a lot. Its strange how it seems to be more available than any other atari 8-bit computer in my region, must've done relatively well over here.
11:40 Wow, I feel so so sorry for computer/gaming store employees trying to explain that tangled mess to buyers. It's like Atari wanted the shops to hate them.
It is rather hilarious that either the 7800 or the XEGS would have made a good 2600 successor but instead we got the 5200. It's almost like the 5200 is a compromise of the two and after it flopped the logic was "we'll not just do one of the ideas we should have done, we'll do BOTH of them". This is like if Sega followed the Genesis with only the Saturn but when when it failed launched the 32X in 1998.
I remember the commercials for it...never saw this console in any store or knew anyone who bought it. I had no idea it was this bad, but I'm not surprised. This was back when KayBee Toy & Hobby would sell 2600 games for $1 or sometimes just give them away for free.
What happens in this version when your base gets hit? In the arcade version a hit base immediately loses all its missiles for the round, but it doesn't look like that happens here (that'd be pretty harsh with only one base!). So what happens instead? Does your base have 3 lives each stage, or something?
A base hit stuns you for a few seconds. There doesn't seem to be a limit to how many hits you can take, but you're unable to fire back for several seconds when struck, so your cities are temporarily defenseless and pretty likely to get plastered by incoming fire.
For some reason remembered that robot chicken sketch where rambo got tortured, and one method for breaking him was the Extra Terrestrial videogame! Was seriously this bad guys?
The XEGS was my childhood Atari *and* my first computer. Never had the disk drive, so I wasn't really able to troubleshoot all of those type-in BASIC games from the magazines that never seemed to work for me. Even if I did figure out a fix, I'd still have to re-enter the whole thing next time I powered on. Still miss it, though
I've only ever had a vague understanding of the XEGS' place in the market, and I'm happy to say that by re-watching the opening of this video 3 or so times, my understanding has grown about ~20% less vague. Good lord what a mess Atari was.
I wanted one so badly and couldn't afford it. I think one local Toys R Us carried it. Always wished it got a killer app. I knew the commercial was goody but I thought it would be an upgrade of my C64. No way!
I remember seeing the two versions of the XE (one with the keyboard, the other just the controller and gun) and I kind of wanted it due to the computer aspect of it. But magazines like VG&CE reviewed it and I was better off keeping my Nintendo and Apple 2C at the time. Yeah, Atari’s in-fighting allowed Nintendo and Sega to wipe them out.
There was a Christmas in 1987 where they sold 100,000 of these in the UK and it spurred on 100's of new budget games for the system as cassettes and some disks in the UK, Poland and Germany. It was still just a play to make money for Atari ST research but this was a cool little misguided device.
LOL wow that Gremlins game looks horrible. I remember when the XE was prominently displayed at Kiddie City and Toys R Us and I think we all wanted one just because, but NES quickly dominated and most of us were happy to wait until 86ish to finally convince our parents to buy us the NES
I remember seeing the XEGS in an ad as a kid and wanting one so bad, despite already having an 800XL. Something about the look just appealed to me. Oh, and the light gun was a factor as well, since I had Crossbow on the 7800 and wanted to play it in light gun mode.
JP, I wouldve been the skeptical hold out on the 5200. Its why i dont have a Switch AND a Wii U. Why should I buy Yoshis Wooly World twice? Although, perhaps learning from Atari, newer exclusive Switch games and the lack of online support or store for the Wii U has made it frustratingly desirable to own a Switch.
@@JeremyParish I do like the fact that just as MTV spun off VH1 as the lighter alternative to it's rock music channel, Atari apparently thought "what if we make a games console like that?"
A part of me feels thankful Atari was before my time, because I could see myself being a fanboy and having a really difficult time processing their downfall and witnessing it live.
Pro tip: Don't visit Atari Age then. If you thought people lamenting the loss of Atari was a tough pill, wait till you see people lamenting Intellevision.
Oboy, more games no one played on consoles nobody owned! Jeremy, you spoil us. Unlike the people at atari, who seemed dedicated to giving their audience nothing.
The built-in game seems like it'd be a bigger annoyance than a blank screen when a cart doesn't work, since you're now treated to a game you didn't mean to boot up. Especially if there's an inescapable start up screen. Anyone experienced that with the SMS (or XEGS, even)?
And this kids is why you don’t fracture your market among three machines offering virtually the same experience …..from 1979 I guarantee you the thinking behind this was “we have this unsold merchandise that we can sell for virtual all profit” Never mind what it does to the confused consumer. The insane thing being the 400/800/5200/xe whatever still offered some sound advantages over the 7800 (which only had the 2600 sound chip natively). You’re left with three different versions of games from 1982, and all of which look worse than NES black box games from 3-4 years earlier at this point. It should be no surprise why the NES dominated the 8 bit generation
Well played, with not putting 'Atari' anywhere in the title. I probably wouldn't have watched this if I knew this was about Atari, going in. This was interesting regardless, and I watched it through anyway, but wise move on your part, not putting the anti-clickbait A-word in the title. :P
"Atari wanted people to buy the same game again", why does that sound familiar in today's video game climate (especially with a certain company trying to kill Emulation, more importantly, Emulators and ROM sites)?
I keep running into these youtuber channels claiming that "Atari 7800 was unfairly treated" and that the "Atari Jaguar was unfairly treated" like as if those pieces of technology had no flaws when it came to marketing and quality of being a product or the "Nintendo unfairly controlled third parties" where all three beliefs are wild fantasy and just utterly false and you can have a rude awakening if you bother to look up actual sales numbers for back then. First thing I can say is back then the television commercials for the 7800 and 2600 Junior were everywhere... and for the Atari XEGS was also everywhere on television...back then... and you can look back at old comic books because EGM did not exist until 1989 and that was because Nintendo launched Nintendo Power Magazine in 1988 in preparation to the fact that NEC wanted to launch the PC engine in the U.S.A. and that Sega was developing the MegaDrive. The fact will always come down to Atari Corp. seeing videogame consoles as "second bananas" (that means the other fruit that is number 1 is the preferred one) so they had ZERO plans for that until Nintendo was able to win over retailers and consumers... so basically Nintendo does all the fixing and Atari under new management sees the money and wants to come back but by 1986 the NES with just one year managed to cement a good sales record which Nintendo of America kept protecting and securing to grow in to 1987 so if you purchased an Atari 7800 in 1986, you would be confused as to what's going on when you saw the Atari XEGS commercials with the keyboard and light phaser in 1987 and you might even have assumed that the system could play your 7800 games... BECAUSE YOU DID NOT KNOW THE SPECIFICATIONS until it was too late... Same is true if you missed the 7800 and got the XEGS only to discover it does not play the 7800 or 2600 so you were basically stuck having to buy the 7800 as well... so age groups can be fooled but most kids are not stupid.. they will find out the information unless they did not... and if they did not they would end up with the Atari and wondering if they should have gotten the 7800 or the XEGS but if you had a friend with the NES or a Sega... then there was just one system for those So it;s false to believe that people did not like the 7800 or the XEGS... many of us wanted both but it was confusing YES because you did wonder what was going on, which was better and not gonna leave you dry but there was also the games speaking for themselves... those tv commercials highlight that they have the Mario Brothers... but NOT the old hat Super Mario Bros which even as an old game by the late 80s still felt like a way better experience to have and play than some flashy looking game on the television ad.
I feel like Jeremy's reached the depths of deep dives where he could be entirely making up these old niche consoles that nobody's heard of, and it would genuinely be impossible to tell.
I lack the imagination to come up with anything as bewildering as Atari Corp.'s console strategy
@@JeremyParish When are we getting Casio Loopy Works? ;)
@@JeremyParish I both had some prior knowledge and literally just watched your video and I *still* can't understand what Atari was thinking with the XEGS.
@@JeremyParish Definitely a "truth is stranger than fiction" situation.
It's not "nobody's heard of" them, the Atari XEGS was big in the UK.
Jeremy continues the Sisyphean task of making an NES documentary series to have as little to do with the NES as possible.
NES Works contains multitudes.
My dad had this console, I was four years old and he never let me play it because he was afraid I would break it. He rarely played it and had it put away in a box, I loved opening it and looking and the buttons and pressing them down. That's the Main reason I bought the pastel colors for joycons which reminded me this Atari console
So happy to see that Computer Chronicles clip. It's such a fun show in the most nerdy way possible. They cover so many things in the 80s that give you a peak at what's going to happen by the late 90s to early 2000s.
It seems like a really fun show. I'd love to sit down someday and watch the series.
@@JeremyParish Good news! Most of it is either on the Internet Archive or youtube! There's also it's gaiden series, Net Cafe, a terrifying look into the world of eCommerce, which was terribly prescient.
The funny thing is consumers didn't stop wanting to buy video games. America had a recession and video games were extremely expensive so there was a market crash. It really only lasted about 8 months to a year.
Consumers quickly went looking for video games but everybody want to sell them a computer.
At one point people just started calling up Atari directly and ordering directly from them. That's why the 2600 junior exists. Atari kept getting orders direct from consumers and they eventually ran out of their backstock.
"messes can often be more interesting than dull competence" too true
appreciate the reminder that it's time to watch the princess bride again
I have the new 4k blu ray
I love those saucer candy buttons, it's like they were designed by someone who'd seen half an episode of Miami Vice and was trying to describe the aesthetic while hung over.
Mentos! The freshmaker!
@@jessragan6714 Sadly the XEGS was neither fresh nor full of life.
Many of Atari’s problems would be duplicated by Sega a decade later. But the XEGS does have one thing going for it. Whoever designed the physical “box” with those pastel buttons did a wonderful job.
Designed by the same guy (Ira Velinsky) who did the C64 and Sega Nomad, funnily enough
This is FALSE... NONE of "Atari's problems" were ever duplicated by Sega a decade later... the XEGS does not even compare as a product to any product Sega had ten years later.
You are confusing things because it sounds romantic from some fanboys who make videos and tend to have a very casual and vocal memory of the 90s.
What did actually happen was that 90s Sega of America management staff like Tom Kalinske and Joe Miller were requesting that Sega headquarters in Japan make a Genesis upgrade that would be compatible with Genesis since as far back as in 1993 after the OFFICIAL Project Saturn announcement in JAPAN on business newspapers.
THAT led to the eventual creation of the 32X which was authored by Tom Kalinske and Joe Miller and which had it actually sold real numbers to consumers and NOT to retailers as 90s Sega of America's management had been reporting numbers as aka misrepresenting sales numbers because retailers buy stock but will return unsold stock back to Sega of America which in turn has to PAY to avoid the retailer from losing money otherwise the retailer will not do more business with Sega of America...
Their agenda was to focus on their created 32X and complain that the Sega Saturn was never gonna work... probably because Tom Kalinske who was barely hired on November 1990 decided that he wanted to make a deal with Sony... seems like someone wanted to jump over the people who hired him at the Japanese headquarters as Sega of America was a subsidiary branch... NOT a manufacturing or engineering or creation company... that was SEGA Enterprises LTD Japan.... that was the actual name of "SEGA", NOT Sega of America.
The rest writes itself out... Tom Kalinske refused to prepare the Sega Saturn launch, he told the press in 1994 that the 32X was gonna be this big seller... BECAUSE THAT WAS HIS BABY...and big payout if it succeeded... the Japanese parent company was too soft and decided to believe he could sell 32X... when the launch happened Tom Kalinske spent $40 million in 32X marketing alone... it FAILED to sell... those wiki sale numbers were "Sold to retailers, NOT to consumers" as 1995 to 1996 Next Generation magazine revealed back then which the Sega fanboy history book never mentioned nor sourced aka they lie and tell a fan narrative... what else? Dreamcast? after Sega of America management killed the Sega Saturn they finally got their 32X part 2 made, the Dreamcast... costing multiple millions of dollars and having a modem shoehorned into the system while the Japanese retail price bosses said $249.99 for the U.S. and Euro launch, Bernie Stolar WENT OVER the Japanese bosses and cut the price to $199.99 to generate noise cause that guy was a quack who should never have been hired in the first place... that is why but they trusted, TRUSTED an American manager because that was the belief until the guy was revealed to be making giveaways which are LOSSES.. you lose $50 USD per Dreamcast sold and you are NEVER making a profit...
@@apollosungod2819Actually, the 32X began with Sega of Japan according to Joe Miller. Sega of Japan wanted a whole, independent console to serve as a stopgap when the Atari Jaguar released. Sega of America convinced them to make it an add-on for the Genesis instead. But the impetus for its development was from Hayao Nakayama, not Tom Kalinske.
I’m shocked I’m still learning about new hardware after all this time. Great video as always.
I have to admit, at thirty years of age, over half of them spent taking in information on video games partly through TH-cam videos, I had never once so much as heard of this console before. Atari...
Atari almost outdid Sega in releasing way too much hardware at once, even not counting pc's.
Pretty much the same for me. I'm even older and I've owned a neo geo and turbo duo for decades as well as everything by Sony, Microsoft, Sega, and Nintendo but I've never heard about this either.
I'm 50 and was aware of the Xegs but only just aware. I also knew of the Atari 800 family of computers but mostly knew of them as failures nobody owned compared to the C64. Oddly I've now owned two of those machines longer than I ever owned my C64 as a teenager. They were incredibly powerful for their time and good fun still. Sadly far less RPGs than the 64 and Apple 2 but for old arcade ports it's a great machine in some cases playing better than the arcade originals but obviously not looking as good. Though the homebrew scene tends to fix the games up a bit when they aren't creating masterpieces like Yoomp.
You have to wonder if anyone with any influence at Atari ever went to an actual department store and saw the same game in 3/4 different packages for their own systems alone and thought to themselves, "Is there a chance this will confuse anyone?"
Love the xegs and its 80s tastic pastel color buttons.
I still have my childhood one, got in Xmas '88, in my garage. Legitimately did not know another single soul who had one. I always wondered why my Dad went this way instead of an NES, home computers were pretty popular in UK, so that is anpartial explanation, but then why not an Amiga or Spectrum? I can imagine some saleman at the store in disbelief he was actually going unload one of these
Well the zx was kinda dead at that point and amiga was slow till the c64 like 500
These retrospectives are valuable to me. As a fellow old, I remember seeing tv and magazine ads for the XE and sundry other oddball consoles, and I'd think, what if I hadn't asked for an NES, what did I miss out on. Thanks to you, I finally know, it wasn't much.
6:00 I actually owned an Atari 5200 (my first console), acquired it new around '84 towards the end of Atari's glory days. My father ended up getting me a total of 18 games for the system, and I absolutely loved it (Defender was a personal favorite, and Berserk actually featured the digital voice output just like the arcade), but those controllers were the death kneel of the system. I had older female cousins who were "very aggressive" Pac Man players, and they proceeded to rip apart four of those expensive blocks of plastic either jerking the joystick around or pressing the life out of those side trigger buttons. Once those controllers went, so did my passion for the system. We ended up getting a NES around three years later and I only really ended up looking back on my time with the 5200 when either watching retrospectives like this, recalling how half the console size was dedicated to internal controller storage, or discussing how ungodly huge the trackball peripheral was for it.
Be fair. This was designed to clear out old warehouse stock, and succeeded in that goal in a way the Atari of 1983 and the Sega of 1996 would have killed for.
As for creating market confusion, the real confusion was "What the hell is that weird thing behind the glass in Kay-Bee toys?" Game magazines ignored it, and I didn't see a single ad until I hit the internet. I knew more about the ST, despite never seeing one for sale anywhere.
"Be fair. This was designed to clear out old warehouse stock, and succeeded in that goal in a way the Atari of 1983 and the Sega of 1996 would have killed for."
What are YOU talking about bub? to clear out old warehouse stock? lmao during 1983 Atari was halfway developing the 7800 system and getting SPLIT into two companies that were UNRELATED to each other.
Atari Games was an arcade game maker, unrelated to whatever it was "Atari Corp" was making or doing... Atari Games as a result were very successful at holding their own making arcade games.
Atari Corp was purchased by the Tramiel guy, who managed it how he did... that makes the Atari XEGS a really bizarre move... it's telling the general retailers and in turn the general consumers who go to retail shops that there are THREE Atari videogame systems and the latter also claims to be ALSO a COMPUTER (however all three are "computers", the XEGS was configured from the beginning because it WAS an old Atari computer being rebranded)... so if you have THREE options from ONE BRAND... what is the consumer supposed to do?
It WAS CONFUSION because Nintendo and SEGA each had only ONE solution even a whole year AFTER the Atari XEGS launched.
"....and the Sega of 1996 would have killed for."
Again dude what is going on with your knowledge here? seriously? what did "SEGA of 1996" wanted that they would have killed for? do YOU even know what the hell Sega of 1996 was actually doing in 1996?
Let me refresh your memory after YOUR reply.
"As for creating market confusion, the real confusion was "What the hell is that weird thing behind the glass in Kay-Bee toys?" Game magazines ignored it, and I didn't see a single ad until I hit the internet. I knew more about the ST, despite never seeing one for sale anywhere."
What are YOU talking about? Where are you getting this from? "Game Magazines"? lmao what "Game Magazines" existed the year the Atari XEGS launched? please reply cause this should be interesting and you will end up discovering you made a mistake remembering things.
As for what is behind the glass in Kay-Bee toys? you do realize the Atari XEGS was launched 1987... just ONE year after Atari Corp took the 7800 and 2600 out of their warehouses are were ALLOWED by retailers who did not want anything to do with consoles back on retail shelves ONLY because Nintendo proved videogames could be WORTH buying again..
@apollosungod2819 Pademonium's channel has a deep dive on Sega of America's woes, based on their own internal documentation. The XE helped clear out old 8-bit computer software. You do realize it was compatible? None of this was exactly a secret.
Next time, do a little more research before trying to correct me.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 What the hell does pademoniums channel doing Sega of America's woes which were CREATED by 90s Sega of America managament have to do with the Atari XEGS?
NOTHING... it has NOTHING to do, you are making some confused false equivalency here buddy.. Sega of America's management did not just make mistakes in 1996... they were deliberately making "mistakes" every year since Tom Kalinske got hired and more when Bernie Stolar got hired... none of their mistakes have ANY equivalence to Atari Corp Tramiel management of Atari consoles from 1986 to 1989... I can break it down for you more cause I know and don't have to read some fake gamer writing some fake narrative.
Clearing out old 8bit computers software? so now Sega had software to clear out in 1996?
I spoke from the perspective of a potential BUYER in 1987... YES it was NOT clear or known that the Atari XEGS was either compatible or NOT with the 7800... you ended up finding out at the retail store when you read the box materials
Gamer magazines? in 1987? what? Some computer game magazine with their depressing page layouts... you had to shift through a bunch of pages just to find out and their editorials changed from year to year I still have some my old computer magazines from the 80s....
Are you a big Atari fan? where do you not see what a scam it was to sell the XEGS a year after launching the 7800? those are TWO DIFFERENT PLATFORMS... not even comparable to anything going on at Sega other than Sega of America's 32X
I'll school you and scold you for lying to us and trying to revise history to suit your fan goggles son.
@apollosungod2819 You're very confused, and it's fun watching your batshit insane strawmen.
@@apollosungod2819 Seriously, I'll give you a few moments to connect the dot. 3 companies with unsold inventory...
What do they have in common?
The rest of your hot takes reveal why the XE still haunts you.
As the proud owner of an xegs (though ive lent all my cartridges to a friend, including frogger 2: 3deep) i am excited for these videos.
A good chunk of the games i had for it were atari 800 carts. We even had the trackball for a while.
Mine ended as a technology center in my mom's kindergarten class for 5 to 10 years, through some of the kids software like facemaker and memory manor that came on cartridges.
A kid that lived on the street behind or house had one of these in the early 90's. I was always fascinated with its looks, but he also had A Link to the Past on SNES so that's ultimately where my attention went. I recall him telling me that the XEGS wasn't fun to play, but then again when given the option of it or Nintendo, it's easy to see why I never saw it being used.
Even through all the Nintendo, Sega, Sony, etc. consoles, I still enjoy Atari games. My 800xl still gets used, and the homebrew scene of the 7800 has really breathed new life into the machine. I wish I still had my old XEGS, purely on the looks alone, but my 800xl stuff fills that 8bit void.
Hearing about Atari has become so much more interesting to me following Atari 50's release, because their history has become so splintered following the game crash that every little move they took was like one more thing they tripped over just setting up, and then not cleaning up their mess and just moving on
Yeah like the fact that the 5200 designers intended to include 2600 compatibility but were ordered not to by the marketing department who then, months before release, asked why it wasn't backwards compatible with the 2600. 🙄
I wanted one of these so bad as a kid. But, we couldn’t afford any game systems. I am kind of glad my parents didn’t put themselves in a bad situation, but that doesn’t change how my little kid self was completely disappointed.
Commodore did the same kind of idiocy with the C64 Game System in 1990. Which was a C64 (originally 1983) with its keyboard removed.
I might have to draw the line with that one
@@JeremyParish Given that it plays any C64 cartridge game, provided the game doesn't need keyboard input, it should probably only get one episode for the hardware and that's it. Nobody bought it anyway.
Not just once 3 times
In the UK one of the pack in games needed you to press any game to proceed... on the keyboard that wasn't there... seriously! It shipped less than 5000 units to retailers and then got dropped! Though one feels it was more taken out back and shot!
I lived through that time. Having an 800XL and 130XE, I knew of the XEGS based on what the magazines reported. (Side question: who here knows what a magazine is?)
I don’t recall seeing the XEGS in stores. Not even at Electronics Boutique. (Another side question: who knows that EB is?)
But I never even KNEW about the C64 game system until the internet told me (after TH-cam became a thing) … let alone saw or touched one. Wow!
Atari not only expected late 80s kids to be really into early 80s arcade titles, but also wanted them to buy several versions of the same games. How many conversions of Missile Command did people need at that time? The vast majority of the 5200 library consisted of improved versions of games that were already available on the 2600. The XEGS was even more redundant. Maybe people at Atari were just arrogant to think there was such a big market for their products?
Is it weird that I still want one of these?
No... despite being its release being a truly terrible strategic choice, the system itself is a pretty great way to access a massive library of really solid 8-bit micro software.
I have never, ever been able to understand the thinking that went into the XEGS. Atari had limited resources and were already trying to support THREE different games consoles, their 8-bit computer line and the ST (and I believe were working with Epyx on the Lynx around this time too).
In hindsight it's all so obvious - they needed to slim down and focus on the 7800 to take on the NES in the console space and the ST to take on the Amiga and PC in the home computer space and just drop all their other platforms. Maybe - at a push - keep the 2600 on life support given it was now so cost reduced they could sell it as a $50 starter console for very young kids. They still would have been in trouble (the 7800 just didn't have the developer and publisher support the NES had, while the ST was technically well behind other 16-bit computers) but that strategy would have given them a fighting chance. Instead they tried to keep all their platforms going AND introduce a new one. The ads promoting the XEGS as the Atari competitor to the NES were so stupid; the 7800 was the only console they had that could possibly go toe-to-toe with NIntendo technically, and the argument that a flight sim that runs at around one frame per second is a better pack-in than Mario Bros. or Duck Hunt looks absurd.
I also think consumers would have been confused by what the XEGS even was. The ads show what appears to be a games console, but running games designed for 8-bit computers. Plus you can plug in a keyboard at which point... you just have an 8-bit computer. There are already three Atari consoles available to buy, but it isn't compatible with any of them. All it does is introduce more confusion about what Atari products do what and work with which games, while if you bought a NES there was no possible confusion about what it did or what software it ran.
The one thing they got right was the aesthetic. I love the pastel coloured candy-shaped buttons and the way the cartridge port is at a jaunty angle.
And making things more complicated, the Lynx was the most powerful system they had aside from the ST. I'm not even sure why it was a handheld, aside from being designed that way originally. They could have taken its guts and put them in a console shell, called it the Atari 1040 or something, and would have had the US's first 16-bit console.
@@jasonblalock4429 Absolutely. Imagine a world where Atari dropped the 2600, 5200, 400 and 800, cancelled the launch of the XEGS and just focused purely on the 7800 and ST. Then in around 1990 launched a home console based around the guts of the Lynx to compete with the Mega Drive and SNES as you suggest (sorry I'm in the UK so I reflexively call the Genesis the Mega Drive).
I'm not saying an Atari that did that would have survived longer or retaken dominance of the US market. But I do think they'd have given themselves the best possible chance. No confusion for consumers, putting all the spotlight and marketing resources on their best hardware, being among the first to stake out a space in the 16-bit console market rather than just not bothering with it at all. Those all seem like smart business decisions.
The Lynx was nowhere near powerful enough to compete with Genesis and SNES. Yeah, you get infinite scalable characters of any size, but it sacrifices color, resolution, and frame rates.
Look at Double Dragon, Raiden, and Pitfighter before getting ambitious.
Atari would be a bigger joke than it already is.
Don't forget the Atari Portfolio, too!
I remember the tv ad as a teenager where the compared the system to the NES. To this day I don't understand why anyone thought that would attract sales. It featured a monochrome light gun game as if that was something anyone would want.
I blame the internet for making me giggle at the title card of Atari XEGS
Oh good I wasn't the only one
It was just a couple weeks ago that I'd commented on how I'd love to see you talk a bit about the computer offerings from the 8/16-bit eras (but recognize how ridiculous of an undertaking that would actually be), so color me happy to see you touch on Atari's computer lineup a bit today! As a kid of the 90's who only ever experienced the IBM PC-compatible world, it's been a real treat as an adult to dig into computer ecosystems from Atari and Commodore that I never really had a chance to encounter in the wild. And seeing how their game offerings compared and contrasted with console offerings of the time is always fun to dig into. Another great video as always, thanks again for your continued excellence in informational media.
I marked out a bit for the 5200 "Hello, Judy?" ad just because I was a weird child who thought the way he says it was the funniest thing in the world.
And wow, I didn't realize how late 5200 Gremlins was
Each time I learn something new about Atari I shake my head in second hand embarrassment, they're a good guide on how not to do things often.
Ooh, this will be a great book line.😅
Looking forward to the next Game Boy Works print!😎
Ah! An Atari XE I have one of those, my dad bought it along with plenty of strategy games I had a couple of fun games like Crime Busters and Star Raiders II, I wonder if Atari sent most of its unsold stock to Mexico because I saw the system a lot around here.
My father somehow got ahold of this and gave it to me to avoid buying a NES (I'm going to assume he got this cheap at the fayuca/flea market). The "computer" part seemed interesting, so I spent a whole day writing in Basic a program titled "Pink monster moving side to side" that came in the manual.
After struggling with the code, the typos and a power outage, I finally made the thing work: an Space Invader large pink sprite that slided a couple of times on the screen. And I powered off the damn thing after that.
I wanted to buy the XE based on aesthetics alone. It was a far simpler time. Titled cart port & tan color equaled mystifying.
The XEGS console looks so cool though! I really like the styling of it and the ST.
2:40 It's interesting what you said about Jack Tramiel really wanting to make computers not game systems because Clive Sinclair also seemed disdainful towards the fact that the Spectrum was far more popular as a gaming platform than as a computer (and was furious about missing out on the lucrative educational market in the UK). I think those old guys just saw gaming as beneath them, not realising what a goldmine it would become.
Yeah, the one thing I can't fault about the XEGS was its case design. It embodies the aspirational 1980s we think we remember, not the 1970s-hangover ’80s that we actually lived through.
Just what was it with those guys being intractably crotchety assholes? H*ck, let’s throw Alan Sugar in there for good measure.
6:08 Did this work? I never thought to try lugging a console to the beach and plugging it into the sand.
I don't even think stereotypical 80s cocaine parties could explain Atari's business strategy.
I imagine Jeremy considered just going with "Atari Works", but then realized that name was a false statement (from a business perspective, at least) & knew better than to lie to his viewers.
I was 17-18 when he 5200 came out and worked at Antic Magazine, what we heard at the time is that the memory map was changed in the 5200 to try and prevent/slow down third parties from just taking their software, slapping it in a cartridge, and selling it without working with Atari. They knew it would be a matter of time, but they felt it would give them a year or two of extra profit. Compatibility wasn't a big issue in people's minds at the time, because so many people had a 2600, we just assumed they would have two consoles. However the poor quality of the joysticks, large size of the 5200, and weak launch lineup is what we felt did it in at the time.
Thanks for the perspective!
Well, Atari should have released the XEGS in 1982 as the 5200. I know this is Armchair Quarterback revisionism with the hindsight of know history, but Atari still would have been nerfed by Nintendo during the console match up of the Third Generation. Hiroshi Yamauchi and Jack Tramiel were both excellent businessmen. However, Yamauchi knew how to market toys, and Tramiel knew calculators and home computers. Yamauchi had it in the bag.
Well, the XEGS appears, and we see all of the chaos of Atari. Missile Command is at least a good game if a dated one.
Multiple releases of Mario bros being confusing wasn’t the issue. Atari wanted that confusion so your parents would buy you the wrong Mario. Source:the dozens of games my mom bought me on clearance for systems I never owned.
Brilliant coverage. This was a neat little machine that the Tramiels should not have released and had no idea what to do with when they did. Still, it breathed some life into our favorite 8bit computer while we were importing UK games for the ST to play on our 1040.
Thanks!
Ah, XEGS! I've heard of it, but...well that's about all it is.
And a ditto to the Atari 8-bit computer family. The Apple ][ series may have been a bit more plodding, but heck if they didn't birth a font of games and one hell of a legacy.
My understanding of Jack's ventures of the business of Atari was to scoop it from the inside out like a pumpkin and leave everyone with the hard inedible shell of a gourd.
Looking back on the Atari 400 it is bizarre that this was never positioned as the console offering to its brother the 800. It certainly looks a lot like the Odyssey.
Was the XEGS a computer that wanted to be a dedicated cartridge system, or the other way around?
I'm a UK computer user from the era, and an Atari 8 bit computer Fanboy. In 1987 when the XEGS shipped, of the 8 bit computers, the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and MSX platforms were effectively on par colours and sound wise, but the C64 had the edge as games would be developed for it (and the UK native ZX spectrum) and then ported to other systems. Everything else not as good on a technical level. MSX flopped here but did well in the highly fractured Japanese Market, South America and in some European countries. Both the Commodore and Amstrad would have even bigger flops of consoled versions. Otherwise you are spending 2 to 3 times the price for a base Motorola 68000 based system, (call it 3 to 4 times for a truly usable 1mb version).
That the Atari computers, and the XEGS had the SIO port... Think USB but with 1970's tech, in fact key members of its development team were involved with developing USB, means its expandability regards peripherals was on par with the stock apple. But Apple was pretty much alone with its internal expandability.
Until late in the 386 lifecycle and with VGA/SVGA and Soundblaster combo, the PC wasn't even worth looking at as a games machine. Here in the UK it was all Amiga, ST or Sega Master system with the earlier 8 bit computers soldiering on as entry level machines. Nintendo did not start selling in good numbers until the SNES came out.
Atari was still putting out the XE computers at the time as well. Guess they figured that they could get the hardware accessories and software into stores that didn't sell computers by making a XE with an optional keyboard and sell it as a game machine.
Jack really wanted as many platforms as he could have at any given time. Even including the MS-Dos desktops they made along with the portable Portfolio... as seen in the hit motion picture Terminator 2: Judgement Day!
This console looks like some mascara compact. You know, with the paint brushes right next there!
It really is difficult to imagine anyone releasing a console with such feminine color elements in the U.S. outside of some limited Nintendo system variant available for a single holiday season five years into the platform's life... I love it.
@JeremyParish . Surprised, nobody else made this connection?
That “vapor-wave” console design is low key awesome.
Honestly, The Atari I cared about most was Atari Games. The arcade devision put Atari Corp. to shame. Especially with their Namco partnership. I'm still waiting for an Atari/Midway arcade collection for Switch, but WB Games has to make that happen, and good luck with that.
I have long felt that the Atari 8-bit computers were mishandled by Atari. The games look amazing for their age. Trying to make it a console should've been done in 1982 not 1987.
I remember seeing the Atari XEGS on the shelves once or twice at KB Toys back then. I only really noticed it because it looked so different when compared to the 7800 which I was familiar with as my best friend & next door neighbor owned a 7800. I didn't know anything about the XEGS at the time other than it was more expensive than the 7800 and it had a light gun peripheral like the NES. The KB Toys location in my local mall only had the XEGS for sale for a relatively short amount of time. By sometime in late 88 or early 89 all they sold was primarily NES with a smaller selection for the Master System and the Atari stuff was on closeout. I think I may have also seen the XEGS for sale at the local Kmart, but again only for a relatively short amount of time.
I have a brand new XEGS-unopened and never used-and I don’t quite know what to do with it!
Man my parents got me this instead of a NES one Christmas because “with this you can play games AND learn to program!”
So at least one gullible parental unit did actually fall for this XE nonsense.
I programmed one seagull animation from the back of the manual, which took me almost an hour to enter. That’s ok, I’ll just play some awesome games like…Flight Simulator 2?
D’OH!
Incredible overview of what was the process of ending up at the XE.
I purchased one of these from a yard sale in the early 2000's. It was missing the keyboard but came with a ton of games for the 400/800/XE
I have very fond memories of the XEGS. a friend of mine had one back then, and we used to play it on it a lot. Its strange how it seems to be more available than any other atari 8-bit computer in my region, must've done relatively well over here.
11:40 Wow, I feel so so sorry for computer/gaming store employees trying to explain that tangled mess to buyers. It's like Atari wanted the shops to hate them.
12:05 'coming up in nes works gaiden' so tempted to make a 'the post-1985 series is REAAAAAAL' joke but my heart tells me it'll never happen
It is rather hilarious that either the 7800 or the XEGS would have made a good 2600 successor but instead we got the 5200. It's almost like the 5200 is a compromise of the two and after it flopped the logic was "we'll not just do one of the ideas we should have done, we'll do BOTH of them". This is like if Sega followed the Genesis with only the Saturn but when when it failed launched the 32X in 1998.
Just going to suggest these US-only Atari oddities could be titled NES Works Gaijin…
The preferred nomenclature is "gaikokujin," Dude
Oh boy! A console nobody played! This is as exciting as the Casio PV-1000.
"Nobody" is a lie, it was sold in the UK.
I remember the commercials for it...never saw this console in any store or knew anyone who bought it. I had no idea it was this bad, but I'm not surprised. This was back when KayBee Toy & Hobby would sell 2600 games for $1 or sometimes just give them away for free.
What happens in this version when your base gets hit? In the arcade version a hit base immediately loses all its missiles for the round, but it doesn't look like that happens here (that'd be pretty harsh with only one base!). So what happens instead? Does your base have 3 lives each stage, or something?
A base hit stuns you for a few seconds. There doesn't seem to be a limit to how many hits you can take, but you're unable to fire back for several seconds when struck, so your cities are temporarily defenseless and pretty likely to get plastered by incoming fire.
For some reason remembered that robot chicken sketch where rambo got tortured, and one method for breaking him was the Extra Terrestrial videogame! Was seriously this bad guys?
E.T. was very hard to understand without a manual, but there were a lot of interesting ideas in the game. The 2600 had MUCH worse to offer than E.T.
. Wouldn't been the first time robot chicken got something wrong, and caused worse! Boba fett return was fairly accure though.
The XEGS was my childhood Atari *and* my first computer. Never had the disk drive, so I wasn't really able to troubleshoot all of those type-in BASIC games from the magazines that never seemed to work for me. Even if I did figure out a fix, I'd still have to re-enter the whole thing next time I powered on.
Still miss it, though
I've only ever had a vague understanding of the XEGS' place in the market, and I'm happy to say that by re-watching the opening of this video 3 or so times, my understanding has grown about ~20% less vague. Good lord what a mess Atari was.
I wanted one so badly and couldn't afford it. I think one local Toys R Us carried it. Always wished it got a killer app. I knew the commercial was goody but I thought it would be an upgrade of my C64. No way!
But what of the potential of Tower of Druaga on the Atari 5200? Think of the possibilities!
Sure, let's have Druaga's music ripped limb for limb by the TIA or POKEY.
I remember seeing the two versions of the XE (one with the keyboard, the other just the controller and gun) and I kind of wanted it due to the computer aspect of it. But magazines like VG&CE reviewed it and I was better off keeping my Nintendo and Apple 2C at the time.
Yeah, Atari’s in-fighting allowed Nintendo and Sega to wipe them out.
This is the second time ever I've heard of XE.
There was a Christmas in 1987 where they sold 100,000 of these in the UK and it spurred on 100's of new budget games for the system as cassettes and some disks in the UK, Poland and Germany. It was still just a play to make money for Atari ST research but this was a cool little misguided device.
LOL wow that Gremlins game looks horrible. I remember when the XE was prominently displayed at Kiddie City and Toys R Us and I think we all wanted one just because, but NES quickly dominated and most of us were happy to wait until 86ish to finally convince our parents to buy us the NES
I remember seeing the XEGS in an ad as a kid and wanting one so bad, despite already having an 800XL. Something about the look just appealed to me. Oh, and the light gun was a factor as well, since I had Crossbow on the 7800 and wanted to play it in light gun mode.
i alsways liked the little pastel buttons on the XE game system, i dont know how to describe it but it looks like french chalk candy
Like Jordan almonds, but round
JP, I wouldve been the skeptical hold out on the 5200. Its why i dont have a Switch AND a Wii U. Why should I buy Yoshis Wooly World twice? Although, perhaps learning from Atari, newer exclusive Switch games and the lack of online support or store for the Wii U has made it frustratingly desirable to own a Switch.
Excellent ☘️☘️
Xtraneous Electronic Game System
Wait, "Bug Hunter" from UFO 50 was referencing an actual 1987 Atari launch title??
What's a better bad console feature: pastel buttons or a gratuitous handle?
Pastel buttons bad? You need to recalibrate, my friend
@@JeremyParish I do like the fact that just as MTV spun off VH1 as the lighter alternative to it's rock music channel, Atari apparently thought "what if we make a games console like that?"
The only console where you can be sure to see a Phil Collins video once per hour? I'm in.
A part of me feels thankful Atari was before my time, because I could see myself being a fanboy and having a really difficult time processing their downfall and witnessing it live.
Pro tip: Don't visit Atari Age then. If you thought people lamenting the loss of Atari was a tough pill, wait till you see people lamenting Intellevision.
Jeremy, have you heard anything from Doctor Sparkle? He seems to have disappeared.
No, but it looks like he was active on social media a few days ago. I don't think the mothership has called him back to his planet or anything.
Oboy, more games no one played on consoles nobody owned! Jeremy, you spoil us.
Unlike the people at atari, who seemed dedicated to giving their audience nothing.
The built-in game seems like it'd be a bigger annoyance than a blank screen when a cart doesn't work, since you're now treated to a game you didn't mean to boot up. Especially if there's an inescapable start up screen. Anyone experienced that with the SMS (or XEGS, even)?
With the SMS, yes. Had to wait for the Sega logo to pass by before I knew if the cart actually connected.
And this kids is why you don’t fracture your market among three machines offering virtually the same experience …..from 1979
I guarantee you the thinking behind this was “we have this unsold merchandise that we can sell for virtual all profit”
Never mind what it does to the confused consumer. The insane thing being the 400/800/5200/xe whatever still offered some sound advantages over the 7800 (which only had the 2600 sound chip natively). You’re left with three different versions of games from 1982, and all of which look worse than NES black box games from 3-4 years earlier at this point.
It should be no surprise why the NES dominated the 8 bit generation
If the 5200 had better controlers. It would of been more popular.
12:10 is that attack animal gakuen, i spy? indeed!
Well played, with not putting 'Atari' anywhere in the title. I probably wouldn't have watched this if I knew this was about Atari, going in. This was interesting regardless, and I watched it through anyway, but wise move on your part, not putting the anti-clickbait A-word in the title. :P
Love the channel but as a non English native speaker, and not an expert on Atari naming and history, the video was quite hard to follow this time!
That’s Atari history for ya
Atari, an American company using Japanese terminology as a trade name and Fuji no Yama imagery for their logo ...maybe gaijin gaiden is a fitting name
Atari XEGS should have been a hit in the first place.
You mean, it should have been released in 1982 in the first place.
@JeremyParish that too.
Atari XE Vapor wave lol
I always loved the look of the XE. It's a shame it was such a dud.
"Atari wanted people to buy the same game again", why does that sound familiar in today's video game climate (especially with a certain company trying to kill Emulation, more importantly, Emulators and ROM sites)?
Atari really couldn’t help but to keep punching themselves in the face.
5:41 Well, the CPU, sure. But the NES had a much more powerful graphics processor.
I keep running into these youtuber channels claiming that "Atari 7800 was unfairly treated" and that the "Atari Jaguar was unfairly treated" like as if those pieces of technology had no flaws when it came to marketing and quality of being a product or the "Nintendo unfairly controlled third parties" where all three beliefs are wild fantasy and just utterly false and you can have a rude awakening if you bother to look up actual sales numbers for back then.
First thing I can say is back then the television commercials for the 7800 and 2600 Junior were everywhere... and for the Atari XEGS was also everywhere on television...back then... and you can look back at old comic books because EGM did not exist until 1989 and that was because Nintendo launched Nintendo Power Magazine in 1988 in preparation to the fact that NEC wanted to launch the PC engine in the U.S.A. and that Sega was developing the MegaDrive.
The fact will always come down to Atari Corp. seeing videogame consoles as "second bananas" (that means the other fruit that is number 1 is the preferred one) so they had ZERO plans for that until Nintendo was able to win over retailers and consumers... so basically Nintendo does all the fixing and Atari under new management sees the money and wants to come back but by 1986 the NES with just one year managed to cement a good sales record which Nintendo of America kept protecting and securing to grow in to 1987 so if you purchased an Atari 7800 in 1986, you would be confused as to what's going on when you saw the Atari XEGS commercials with the keyboard and light phaser in 1987 and you might even have assumed that the system could play your 7800 games... BECAUSE YOU DID NOT KNOW THE SPECIFICATIONS until it was too late...
Same is true if you missed the 7800 and got the XEGS only to discover it does not play the 7800 or 2600 so you were basically stuck having to buy the 7800 as well... so age groups can be fooled but most kids are not stupid.. they will find out the information unless they did not... and if they did not they would end up with the Atari and wondering if they should have gotten the 7800 or the XEGS but if you had a friend with the NES or a Sega... then there was just one system for those
So it;s false to believe that people did not like the 7800 or the XEGS... many of us wanted both but it was confusing YES because you did wonder what was going on, which was better and not gonna leave you dry but there was also the games speaking for themselves... those tv commercials highlight that they have the Mario Brothers... but NOT the old hat Super Mario Bros which even as an old game by the late 80s still felt like a way better experience to have and play than some flashy looking game on the television ad.
The Atari XEGS has no rizz.. but it coule have..