So I got an Atari 7800 today...

[zetastrike]

The 7800 always seemed very boring to me. All it offered were ports of crusty old arcade games in an era of cutting edge titles for the NES and SMS.

[Kamahl]

It has a really boring library, there's a really nice lightgun game but not much else I can think of right now.

[Crackdown]

I have a 7800 with a complete commercial collection, several homebrews and a few prototypes.

I think its a pretty good machine all in all. I have to say there are a number of games for it that are utterly terrible and need to be avoided at all costs but there are also some really good ones and a few decent exclusives too.

If I were to recommend some games for it then I would say:

Desert Falcon - Great Zaxxon clone that really shows what the 7800 can do
Galaga - Really nice port of the classic coin-op
Ninja Golf - A brilliant and incredibly quirky game that many regards as the systems must have game
Pacman Collection - One of the best homebrew releases for any platform
Centipede - Not only a great conversion of the game but also now 2-player!!!
Dig Dug - Another very good vintage coin-op conversion
Scrapyard Dog - If you are a fan of Super Mario Bros then this is a must have
Commando - Best 8-bit version of Capcom's classic arcade with an added pokey chip for better sound
Xenophobe - Another very good arcade conversion, this time of the Aliens inspired Midway game
Ballblazer - Best version of the excellent Lucasfilm game that has added bonus of Pokey sound

Its also worth getting a light-gun if you can find one and if you have a CRT TV as all the gun games are really enjoyable. Especially Meltdown, Alien Brigade and Crossbow.

[108 Stars]

The 7800 failed because the Missing in Action game was never released.

Chuck Norris could have saved the system.

[Kamahl]

Alien Brigade, that's the one I was thinking of. Really good game. I'll second Ninja Golf, Galaga and Commando too.

[synbiosfan]

In an old avgn ep, didn't he say you can plug a Sega Genesis controller to Colecovision and it well work?

Yes.

[Waterfaller]

Cool! I grew up with an Atari 7800. Fond memories there, of playing Ms. Pac-Man and Pole Position.

[Lastcallhall]

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions and help on the Colecovision, as well. My son was sick yesterday so I got a chance to stay home and try it out for a few minutes while he slept. It's definitely not for everyone, and the games I have are pretty solid (with the exception of Karateka), but I'll definitely be on the look out for some more carts to use. I just got DK Jr. and Centipede from someone over at AA, and I'm looking for a few more games on the lists above as we speak. I'm also gonna mod this one up for s-video using the Longhorn Engineers kit.

Keep em coming!

Oh, and Guntz - I hate you.

[Splatterhouse5]

The 7800 always seemed very boring to me. All it offered were ports of crusty old arcade games in an era of cutting edge titles for the NES and SMS.

I had a 7800 when i was a kid, and i had a lot of fun with it, but i can agree that it is rather boring when compared to an NES or SMS. Although i don't think there's anything wrong with the classic arcade games - they're still great for short bursts of fun - the competition simply blew this system out of the water.

If I own one now, it has a lot more to do with nostalgia rather than a deep desire to spend a ton of time with it's library. However, the 7800 does look much nicer to me than an NES or SMS.

[kool kitty89]

I love that the 7800 is back compatible with the 2600/VCS. For some horrible reason Atari did not do that with the 5200. Granted, they lost most of their money due to a lack of a competant team of lawyers as they couldn't manage to copyright protect any of their stuff. You can play Atari 2600 carts on a myriad of old consoles from different manufacturers. Plus all sorts of flash in the pan companies released sub-par games for the 2600. Hell you can plug a Genesis controller into an old unit and play, the B button acts as the orange joystick button. It's funny too that Atari founder Nolan Bushnell had the same trouble with Pong. He invented the arcade, but by the time he turned it into a home console game a zillion other companies had already beaten him to it.

Yet in spite of all this, I think Atari still could have competed throughout the 80s had they not rushed the 5200 into production and made it back compatible with the 2600. By the time Atari released the 7800 , it was too late. Nintendo was already dominating the market. At least Atari finally made it back compatible though. Not with the 5200, but the 2600. It's not like it mattered by that point though. Still, it's a great system from a great company that I wish had had more business sense.

BTW, sorry about my Atari rant. It's late, I'm tired and I've had a few. I got a little carried away. Congrats on the new system.

Quiet, you. We don't need the "atari could have ruled the world if they had just...." rants There's enough of that over at atariage forums.

He's also got a lot of it wrong anyway . . . and overplaying certain problems more than others.
The biggest problem was the distribution network (improperly managed/moderated, leading to highly inflated sales/demand and oversaturation of the market -or a bubble so to speak), that one problem played back into many other areas of Atari and the market as a whole.
Of course, there's the general Warner/Atari management conflicts that led to those problems, the home computer price wars inducing the crash, and Atari's own screwed up position in the home computer market. (more or less compromising a possible silver lining to the game crash)

But this has been discussed before elsewhere on Sega-16 . . . not to mention Atariage. (though there's still some areas that are a bit vague, but Curt and Marty have a lot more to add to that)



On the 7800 in particular, one of the most interesting things is how well it managed to do in sales in spite of limited funding, limited advertising, and limited software. It sold some 3.77 million units in the US alone and that's almost double the quoted figure for the SMS -which had indisputably better software and funding close to competitive with Nintendo, or actually better funded than Nintendo initially -Sega apparently spent more on ads in 1986 than Nintendo. (albeit the figures for the SMS are less reliable)

[Nunzio]

The 7800 failed because the Missing in Action game was never released.

Better send Chuck in to pick that shit up then.