Atari 7800
Developer: Atari
Year Released: 1986
Generation: 3rd
The Atari 7800, successor to Atari’s 5200, had been designed in 1983 through 1984 with an intended mass market rollout in June 1984. However shortly after the video game crash, when Warner Communications sold Atari’s consumer division to Jack Tramiel, the release was cancelled. The original production run of the Atari 7800 languished on warehouse shelves until it was finally introduced in January 1986. That year, Atari 7800 was in direct competition with Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Master System.
During the Atari 7800’s life cycle, Atari struggled to get developers to create 7800 versions of the then popular arcade titles because of a controversial policy employed by Nintendo. Because of the market success of the NES, companies chose to develop for them first. They were therefore barred from developing the same games on competing systems for two years. The software libraries of the Atari 7800 and Sega Master System suffered tremendously as a result. The Atari 7800 was the third generation of Atari consoles and had the best graphics, but fewer games.
Despite trailing the NES in terms of number of units sold, the 7800 was a profitable enterprise for Atari Corp, benefiting largely from Atari’s name and the system’s 2600 compatibility.