"In 93/94, Atari sued Sega for violating 70 different Atari-held patents. One of which, I remember people mentioning at the time, was for using that off-the-shelf controller port in the Master System and the Genesis. They settled out of court, with Sega giving Atari $50 million in cash and agreeing to buy another $40 million worth of Atari stock (so basically, Sega lost $90 million).
That’s why everybody stopped using that port."
I wonder what the other 69 were.
Some of the members of Atari-age might not agree, but the book Game Over: Press Start to Continue covers the subject fairly well. It's a good read.Quote:
Originally Posted by djvectorman
Okay I'll look for it, thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
Found it.
Link Removed.
I'll turn pdf into jpegs using this so I can read on phone tomorrow.
http://pdf2jpg.net/
I remember reading that Sega was supposed to start making Jaguar games as part of the settlement terms. But then Jaguar died. I wonder if Sega ever actually started anything, or if they just didn't bother, knowing Atari was tanking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by j_factor
I'm curious too.Quote:
Originally Posted by djvectorman
As far as I know, nobody, save Nintendo or Amazon, knows.Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Shocker
I don't think there's any factual information on the subject, but this started a few months after the original 3DS' release, so it's a popular belief that defective 3DS units (there were a few times Amazon pulled them for "review"), or the initial poor sales lead to bad blood between Amazon and Nintendo.
This is probably the least speculative information I can find.
I did a search and found a post that I thought I remembered having some grounds in fact, but looking back, it is also speculation, so my memory failed me on that one. Therefore, I realize saying it was "due to the original 3DS" wasn't necessarily true, though it was during that time period at the least.
I dunno.. But I know how it was settled...Quote:
Originally Posted by Vector
http://cuddlebuggery.com/wp-content/...9/69-Dudes.jpg
Sorry... Couldn't help it! I'm such a kid!
The Atari 5200 Super System was confusing to consumers because the entire library wasn't any different from the 2600. To most casuals much like Wii, they were too invested in 2600. 2600 was the novelty machine to them they had grown used to in 5 years. They saw it as a record player they owned for half a decade and felt like the 5200 was just a mere expensive upgrade($300 in 1982 is $600 today) to the one they already had. Only gamers knew the difference, but they felt that there were better more viable consoles on the market like Odyssey 2,Intellivision and ColecoVision.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
ColecoVision just seemed better executed, better looking and more powerful. Considering that it had been out on the market since September 9 meaning 5200 came out November 11, 2 months after ColecoVision.
As for 3200, wasn't that supposed to match Intellivision in power?
Ha ha mrbigreddog.
It wasn't so much the same games as the 2600 as the same games as the 8-bit computers being ported over (albeit sometimes enhanced). And that was also up to the 5200's market model being a high-end counterpart to the 2600 and not a successor. (TBH, the Colecovision was in a similar position in any case)Quote:
Originally Posted by MrSega
And that market positioning in general is part of the confusion . . . the overall market model for the 5200 made no sense given what Atari already had. (it's sort of like the 32x, in a vacuum it makes some sense, but considering what was already available, it really didn't make sense)
That's highly debatable if you actually compare the new games being released (and not the many old games coming onto the 5200 from the 8-bit -less optimization and smaller ROMs).Quote:
ColecoVision just seemed better executed, better looking and more powerful. Considering that it had been out on the market since September 9 meaning 5200 came out November 11, 2 months after ColecoVision.
And from a hardware standpoint, there's a pretty consistent win for the A8/5200 over Colecovision. (hardware scrolling, better color palette, more flexible video modes, better sound hardware, though sprites were weaker in most respects -the scrolling issue alone would have made it better suited for a platform lasting into the mid/late 80s though)
In any case, it just made so much more sense to market the computer line to compete with the newer consoles. The bottom end computers would have been price competitive with the high-end console competition and had the added selling point of more advanced computer capabilities. (the 400 was dropped below the 5200's launch price, and the 600 probably could have made $200 at the time -had the 600 not been cancelled, especially if they dropped down to a cheap membrane keyboard like the 400 used)
The 3200 had the actual advantages of lower cost and backwards compatibility (and maybe some added features over the A8)
That was the target for both the 5200 and 3200 . . . or the market segment it was intended to compete with. Atari didn't know about the Colecovision until very near to the 5200's release.Quote:
As for 3200, wasn't that supposed to match Intellivision in power?
I haven't seen the actual hardware details on what it would have allowed, aside from the early schematics implying 2 kB of SRAM would have been used along with a 1.19 MHz system clock (unlike the 1.79 MHz A8 clock), and that STIA would be coupled with FRANTIC. It might have had graphics/sound similar to the A8 or perhaps actually better in some respects (the use of SRAM and the lower CPU clock -as well as the newer design- could have facilitated some interesting changes over GTIA).
But that's up to speculation. I don't think Curt's book (Business is Fun) goes into detailed tech specs, but I'll have to check. (when he posted the docs a couple years back, he mentioned he'd digging around for added details, but didn't end up posting about it AFIK) Even without advancements in the actual sprite/bg generation, they could have extended the color register set and apply that to slightly modified GTIA modes. (the 5 color BG mode could be 8 colors -instead of 1 bit toggling the 4th and 5th color it could toggle between 2 4 color palettes)
The deal was for cross licensing a limited number of games. Sega had no part in development, but would offer a limited number of games to be licensed to Atari Corp. (actually developing those games was up to Atari -and I'm not sure how far any of that got on the Jaguar or Atari PC stuff)Quote:
Originally Posted by j_factor
I find it hard to believe they actually had patents over that port . . . given it predated Atari's usage and was a generic standard piece of hardware. (DE-9 used as a standard for PC serial ports among other things) Dozens of consoles and computers used it from the 70s to the mid 90s, some with similar pinouts to what Atari has used, others with partially compatible ones, and still others that were totally different.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vector
There's plenty of other patents that Atari would have held for consoles/computer/arcade (including sprite generation and video scrolling techniques) that a large number of companies were paying Atari royalties for. (including Nintendo iirc)
I agree, but perhaps they owned that patent from 1977 to 1987 or so, so another vg game console using it (and not paying Atari) besides Atari could have lead to it ?Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
"(including sprite generation and video scrolling techniques) that a large number of companies were paying Atari royalties for. (including Nintendo iirc)"
Sega and Nintendo had to pay for games using those techniques ?
That makes more sense, except why didn't Hasbro cash in on that agreement?Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
Or Tonka (sms deal).Quote:
Originally Posted by j_factor
https://www.google.com/search?q=tonk...ient=firefox-a
I always find this article interesting.
http://www.consoledatabase.com/conso.../#.UVz6WzeQkuc
Actually the only vg only systems using those pins besides Atari (2600/7800) was Sega. Nes, Neo Geo, SNES, others all had different pins correct ?
I played C-64 games with an Atari 2600 joystick. I wonder if they ever had to pay Atari for that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vector
Yeah me too, great question. Or Commodore owned the patent right before or after Atari ?Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet