“Atari Was Very, Very Hard” – Nolan Bushnell on Atari, 50 Years Later

Re:“Atari Was Very, Very Hard” – Nolan Bushnell on Atari, 50... by antiterra on Monday June 27, 2022 @10:15PM (#31903381)

In the UK, at least, the original NES was marketed/distributed by Mattel as a Mattel product, and they did an incredibly poor job. The Sega Master System was distributed expertly by Virgin Mastertronic who got much better retailer agreements in the UK. As a result, it was far more popular than it ever was in the US.

I think the ubiquity of the NES in the US impacted sales (and therefore software availability) of the Amiga and Atari ST as well.

Sega only began to gain mindshare with the Genesis (the US counterpart to the Mega Drive.) So, Atari has a very old retro cachet, and Nintendo has a solid hold on nostalgia from the late 80s on.

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Re:“Atari Was Very, Very Hard” – Nolan Bushnell on Atari, 50... by MBCook on Monday June 27, 2022 @11:04PM (#31903636)

Right. In the US market Atari never mattered again after the VCS/2600. The successor 5200 didn’t do well. Neither did the 7800 which they inexplicably held onto for a few years before release until it was up against the NES.

I can’t speak authoritatively to the micro computers, but I’m under the impression that the Atari line of 8-bits was never very popular in the US. I’ve always gotten the feeling computers played second fiddle to consoles once the NES arrived until the IBM clones started to get good at games much later.

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Re:“Atari Was Very, Very Hard” – Nolan Bushnell on Atari, 50... by antiterra on Monday June 27, 2022 @11:11PM (#31903667)

Yeah I had only ever seen one Atari 80bit PC, maybe an 800 and one Coleco Adam. I also saw Atari STs at Toys R Us but only knew two people in the US with one that I met through BBSes.

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Re:“Atari Was Very, Very Hard” – Nolan Bushnell on Atari, 50... by MBCook on Monday June 27, 2022 @11:16PM (#31903700)

It was before my time.

I know the Commodore 64 was somewhat popular. There were other computers with games but I don’t think any of them had the capabilities the C-64 did (Apple-II, TRS-80). The ZX was released under the Timex brand but like the Atari I’m not sure it ever went anywhere.

From the history I’ve read I think part of it may be that Atari was just kind of a disaster here. The fact that Atari actually had popularity in Europe plus they could probably make their own decisions without interference from Atari US may have been what allowed them to succeed in Europe. But that’s a guess.

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