Atari Announces the Atari 7800 – May 21st, 1984 - Today in Video Game History

We can sit here all day and play the “what if” game, especially when it comes to Atari. We all know about their antics throughout gaming history. For one, their Atari 7800 console was announced today, in 1984 but wasn’t released till sometime in 1986. Take the 7800 for instance, what if Atari had launched it in 1984 as planned? This versus shelving it for two years before launching in a very different gaming world. Well, Nintendo launched a little thing called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in late 1985. By 1986 the NES had quite the hold on the gaming public. Essentially Atari was late to the party with too little to show off when the 7800 hit. Almost with a wet thud.

Atari 7800 was not truly Atari

Interestingly, the Atari 7800 was not even designed by Atari. That accolade goes to General Computer Corporation who did the work between 1983 and 1984. Atari apparently saw the success Nintendo had with the NES in Japan and attempted to duplicate it in the USA. The Nintendo Famicom (NES in Japan had a keyboard and modem available. Atari intended for the 7800 to be much more than just a gaming console. There were purportedly a keyboard that featured an expansion port to allow attaching disk drives to the 7800. There was even a rumored laser disc attachment through the port on the side. Whew! Atari was going for broke on this one, too bad they shelved it. There seemed to be a lot of promise coming in the pipelines.

Marketing matters

Marketing probably was the biggest downfall of the Atari 7800. During the Christmas 1985 season Atari was still selling the Atari 2600. This was due to an apparent resurgence from gamers or unknowing parents. That would be like Nintendo selling the Gamecube during the Christmas 2014 season. Why would you do that?

Stress of acquiring arcade ports

Atari worked to get some of the bigger name arcade titles for their “new” 7800 ProSystem. The battle was all uphill though as it was too little too late for many gamers. There was more competition in the marketplace than expected (a lot of which was coming from Atari themselves). What are some of your favorite games on the 7800? Tell us in the comments below!

Everyone has an opinion

There are plenty of fan explanations about why the 7800 failed on the net. With that said, I won’t bother adding too much more to that zeitgeist. Suffice to say, had Atari launched the 7800 when it was first developed maybe things would have worked out better.

If you want to read about the demise of the Atari 7800 then read about it here on Retro Gaming Magazine.

Looking for that perfect 7800 piece for your collection? Hit eBay for it!

This article was originally published on Retro Gaming Magazine.