What do you consider Atari?

[sin2beta]

This is a question I was thinking of recently. Atari filed bankruptcy months ago. Well, more precisely, the company that now owned a portion of the Atari name filed bankruptcy. The name has been bought and sold several times. I was wondering, when do you guys think that Atari was no longer Atari.

Warner had Atari during the 2600 days. They developed up to the 7800, but sold the company in 1984 to Jack Tramiel. He then released the already developed 7800 and then developed the Lynx and Jaguar. Then the name was sold to other companies.

Basically, do you consider the Lynx and the Jaguar as being real Atari systems. Or do you think Atari stopped with the 7800 or possibly before.

Before, I always considered the Lynx and Jaguar to be Atari, even though they did seem out of place. But as I learn more about Atari. The more I don't consider them part of Atari proper. And the more comfortable I am with those systems place in history.

[htimreimer]

atari died with the crash and everyone else are imposters, the atari the we know of today has been around since 1983 and was originally called infogrames and to call atari a mess would be an understatement, think of this one, mitsubishi has partial ownership of some classic atari games ,atari is a company that no government wants to deal with and that why they have not died, the death of atari would take years and years and years to deal with because there that much of a legal,financial & copyright mess, i pray for the death of atari but its not happening anytime soon because the french and us government does not want to deal with it

[psydswipe]

While you could argue it's all the same Atari, I'd say I stopped viewing them as the original Atari when Hasbro Interactive got the brand. I know Infogrames got Atari when they got Hasbro, and eventually changed their name to Atari but I still consider them Infogrames.

[pceslayer]

Atari died with the 7800..

[soera]

Atari died in October of 1985 when the NES was released stateside. Anything after was a small grasp to try to regain the top of the video game market they had with the 2600 and pretty much bombed every time.

[theflea]

To me, When ever I hear people talk about Atari it's always about the Atari 2600.
But I Think of Atari as the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800 and 400/800/XE.
But I do think of Jaguar and Lynx is still an Atari just a different generation.

After the Jaguar days when they just became a game publisher, they pretty much are Atari in name only by then.

[scott]

To me, When ever I hear people talk about Atari it's always about the Atari 2600.
But I Think of Atari as the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800 and 400/800/XE.
But I do think of Jaguar and Lynx is still an Atari just a different generation.

After the Jaguar days when they just became a game publisher, they pretty much are Atari in name only by then.

That's what I was thinking too.

[oldgamerz]

BUMPED 1-11-2020 I found this thread interesting

I consider Atari the founder of mostly all home video games, if the Atari 2600 never existed, the at home arcade video games probably would never had seen the light of day. back in the year (1977) I mean I read there was the other video game devices before the Atari2600 and Intellivision, the Atari 2600 I believe was more arcade perfect than the Intellivision competitor.

Of course some say Nintendo basically re-founded the video game industry , but from what I heard from an older local. the Atari 2600 never really died in the early 1980's  (at least in Chicago IL in the Midwestern United States), she said that she doesn't remember people even having a NES in their homes until the vary early 1990's. She said
when she grew up in the 1980's and almost everyone was hooked on Atari consoles most notable the original Atari 2600 console.

I think that someone should re-make an Atari compilation for newer consoles, they do have emulators but I would like something legal to obtain, and not pirated copies. However I own "Atari Anthology" and "Activision Anthology" for the PlayStation 2, but I would like to have something bigger with more Atari games included in it.

But as much as I like Atari 2600 games. instead I prefer to use a controller and not just a Joystick, I do believe that the Atari 2600/VCS was one of the most uncomfortable video game consoles ever made, because You needed to reset the game console every minute of play time on most games and keep the console next to you to do so.

[pzeke]

This?

[sworddude]

atari at its finest

also considering the quality of atari products after the 7800 I'd stay far away from dentists at the time when these where in use.

[bikingjahuty]

I've considered Atari to be before my time and the only Atari console I ever considered owning was the Jaguar, but this ws mostly out of collectorism. Pretty much all their "good" consoles don't appeal to me at all. In a lot of ways Atari reminded me of Sega in the late 90s how they tried to recapture their glory days before almost completely dying out.

[sworddude]

I've considered Atari to be before my time and the only Atari console I ever considered owning was the Jaguar, but this ws mostly out of collectorism. Pretty much all their "good" consoles don't appeal to me at all. In a lot of ways Atari reminded me of Sega in the late 90s how they tried to recapture their glory days before almost completely dying out.

hoscome though what good stuff did atari release on the jaguar. its pretty mediocre stuff even stuff like alien vs predator.

than you had sega late 90's heck even the earl 2000's

ports of the best arcade fighting games on dreamcast, 3rd strike all 3 version of the arcade, fatal fury mark of the wolves the last blade. arcade games like canon spike powerstone. or stuff like shenmue

also in terms of shootemups like ikaruga or radiant silvergun. heck great rpg's like panzer dragoon saga or skies of arcadia

Sega had a killer library till the very end on their last consoles. you could arguably say that it might be better than on the sega genesis if your into certain genre's. one of the first console games with online multiplayer phantasy star.

Only action platformers lose in those later consoles really. Atari had a very shitty library on their last consoles. nothing memorable about it yet some of sega's best games where on those late released saturn and dreamcast games.

everyone wanted 3d games while sega sticked with 2d and 2.5 d games and weaksauce 3d games. that's their downfall. not to mention that the ps2 was allot cheaper than the dreamcast and more powerfull for the final nail in the coffin.

And the atari jaguar wasnt ancient and could make some nice 2d spirtes in say rayman to name one example wich was some way better than snes 2d. atari jaguar was trash from the very beginning it has no potential at all aside from the console specs. the developers for those consoles where just very mediocre so even if the console is good it would have changed very little.

atari games where simple. maybe to simple. probably the reason why they never succeeded with their later consoles while all the competition evolved and got rapid results wich even in the beginning where miles ahead compared to the atari 2600. they werent experienced in creating games that where beyond atari 2600 it was to complicated.

[pzeke]

This?

Jokes aside, they are a dinosaur; a fossil in the annals of video gaming history.

As I've stated numerous times before, I appreciate their legacy, but their stuff was and has never been appealing to me. Maybe it's the simplicity of it all, as sworddude stated. But then again, I experienced the Intellivision and liked it more, and it's quite simple as well.

[Warmsignal]

I consider anything with the Atari label on it, to be Atari.

Only action platformers lose in those later consoles really. Atari had a very shitty library on their last consoles. nothing memorable about it yet some of sega's best games where on those late released saturn and dreamcast games.

everyone wanted 3d games while sega sticked with 2d and 2.5 d games and weaksauce 3d games. that's their downfall. not to mention that the ps2 was allot cheaper than the dreamcast and more powerfull for the final nail in the coffin.

And the atari jaguar wasnt ancient and could make some nice 2d spirtes in say rayman to name one example wich was some way better than snes 2d. atari jaguar was trash from the very beginning it has no potential at all aside from the console specs. the developers for those consoles where just very mediocre so even if the console is good it would have changed very little.

The fifth gen of consoles is probably the most fascinating of all, and is seldom understood without digging into the backstory of the former insiders. There is a common misconception that SEGA or Atari "wanted" to stick with 2D based games. During the development period of the fifth gen consoles, almost nobody in the industry believed that 3D polygon based gaming was feasible for the upcoming hardware, except Sony. After parting ways with Nintendo, Ken Kutaragi of Sony was the sole person in the industry pushing for the development of a fully 3D ready machine. Everyone else was caught off guard by this until it was almost too late.

Companies like Commodor, Atari and 3DO released early on with hardware designed to expand upon the sprite based game design of the previous gen, and with the capability of crude 3D rendering as a novelty to mimic the early polygon arcade experiences of the time. Saturn and N64 were also not conceived to be 3D machines, either. SEGA notoriously made last second hardware revisions, adding in a second CPU to theoretically bring the Saturn up to snuff with the upcoming PlayStation, and the N64 development was facing longer development time tables as well. This was all in response to what Sony was about to blindside everyone with. The entire industry was thrust into learning the development of all new 3D game experiences basically overnight where they had thought this was still several years out. Nintendo sought council with Rare dev teams in Europe to learn 3D game development, while SEGA floundered to develop in-house and port their existing arcade games for Saturn, coupled with a panicked western launch they weren't expecting. All Sony had to do was sit back and collect licensing fees on their machine, because they didn't make games.

This is why Sony trounced everybody, and in retrospect it can look like everyone else was somehow stuck in the past, it wasn't the case. The PlayStation was simply ahead of it's time in many ways and was probably the most influential thing to hit the console market since the NES. If it weren't for Sony, we'd be looking back at the fifth gen of consoles as a mostly 2D sprite based library of games. Which, there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of people believe 3D games of the fifth gen were too crude and buggy and now haven't aged well because of that. We never really saw the full potential of what 2D games could have become back in the day, because 3D was the new law of the land by 1996.

Atari Jaguar wasn't trash from the start, it just missed the mark in a time of rapid change in the industry. Sony made it look a generation behind, when in fact it was better hardware than anything on the market in 1993 and was priced way better than the 3DO. I think the Jaguar had potential, but it was misdirected and would never be realized. Sure, it ended up becoming very insignificant in the end, but I don't necessarily blame Atari for it's failure. Sony made everyone look kinda bad that gen.

[sworddude]

I consider anything with the Atari label on it, to be Atari.

Only action platformers lose in those later consoles really. Atari had a very shitty library on their last consoles. nothing memorable about it yet some of sega's best games where on those late released saturn and dreamcast games.

everyone wanted 3d games while sega sticked with 2d and 2.5 d games and weaksauce 3d games. that's their downfall. not to mention that the ps2 was allot cheaper than the dreamcast and more powerfull for the final nail in the coffin.

And the atari jaguar wasnt ancient and could make some nice 2d spirtes in say rayman to name one example wich was some way better than snes 2d. atari jaguar was trash from the very beginning it has no potential at all aside from the console specs. the developers for those consoles where just very mediocre so even if the console is good it would have changed very little.

The fifth gen of consoles is probably the most fascinating of all, and is seldom understood without digging into the backstory of the former insiders. There is a common misconception that SEGA or Atari "wanted" to stick with 2D based games. During the development period of the fifth gen consoles, almost nobody in the industry believed that 3D polygon based gaming was feasible for the upcoming hardware, except Sony. After parting ways with Nintendo, Ken Kutaragi of Sony was the sole person in the industry pushing for the development of a fully 3D ready machine. Everyone else was caught off guard by this until it was almost too late.

Companies like Commodor, Atari and 3DO released early on with hardware designed to expand upon the sprite based game design of the previous gen, and with the capability of crude 3D rendering as a novelty to mimic the early polygon arcade experiences of the time. Saturn and N64 were also not conceived to be 3D machines, either. SEGA notoriously made last second hardware revisions, adding in a second CPU to theoretically bring the Saturn up to snuff with the upcoming PlayStation, and the N64 development was facing longer development time tables as well. This was all in response to what Sony was about to blindside everyone with. The entire industry was thrust into learning the development of all new 3D game experiences basically overnight where they had thought this was still several years out. Nintendo sought council with Rare dev teams in Europe to learn 3D game development, while SEGA floundered to develop in-house and port their existing arcade games for Saturn, coupled with a panicked western launch they weren't expecting. All Sony had to do was sit back and collect licensing fees on their machine, because they didn't make games.

This is why Sony trounced everybody, and in retrospect it can look like everyone else was somehow stuck in the past, it wasn't the case. The PlayStation was simply ahead of it's time in many ways and was probably the most influential thing to hit the console market since the NES. If it weren't for Sony, we'd be looking back at the fifth gen of consoles as a mostly 2D sprite based library of games. Which, there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of people believe 3D games of the fifth gen were too crude and buggy and now haven't aged well because of that. We never really saw the full potential of what 2D games could have become back in the day, because 3D was the new law of the land by 1996.

Atari Jaguar wasn't trash from the start, it just missed the mark in a time of rapid change in the industry. Sony made it look a generation behind, when in fact it was better hardware than anything on the market in 1993 and was priced way better than the 3DO. I think the Jaguar had potential, but it was misdirected and would never be realized. Sure, it ended up becoming very insignificant in the end, but I don't necessarily blame Atari for it's failure. Sony made everyone look kinda bad that gen.

dreamcast tried to do 3d but it was to pricy. powerstone shenmue sonic decent 3d games. only saturn had mediocre 3d games ps2 however was like 100$ cheaper on a powerfull console that was what killed sega it released shortly after the dreamcast it was to soon.

i dont think that we had 2d sprites only if it wasnt for sony

ocarina of time and super mario 64 exist afer all 3d games where the future. in terms of fluent gameplay it was the n64. ps1 was in general for way slower less fluent games

n64 had pretty much no 2d games at all all aboard the 3d train with carts while sony had a ton of them. heck ps1 had tons of 2d fighting games that western saturn owners did not get and where excluded to japan only.

even in 2d ps1 has a ton of great games. action platformers run & gun shoot em ups.

there are exceptions but those where mostly 2d not 3d like mario 64 or ocarina of time majoras mask you name it.

ps1 could not handle action packed 3d games aka the reason why games like FF VII resident evil had camera angles at fixed positions.

fast pace action games like mario 64 ocarina of time or smash bros would not work on ps1

also it seems to me that atari jaguar lacked great developers. withouth developers your games are mediocre doesnt matter if the console had decent or excellent specs.