Atari 7800
The Atari 7800 Pro System was originally designed around 1983 and 1984, but was never released during that time frame because of the "Great Videogame Crash of 1984".
Around 1985 Nintendo had revitalized the videogame industry with it's release of
the NES. This prompted then Atari CEO Jack Tramiel to try at the console market once again in 1986.
The Atari 7800 was brought out of storage to compete against Nintendo's NES. By the time the system was ready for sale, Sega had released the Sega Master System and had made the marketplace even more hostile for Atari. So what happened?
If it were released back in 1984 the system may have done amazingly well, but now it's specs were clearly dated compared to it's competitors. The Atari 7800 played classic 2600 games and revamped versions of older arcade classics, but gamers wanted new original games. Atari had almost no 3rd party support mostly because on disinterest or Nintendo's restrictions, so they had to try and support the 7800
alone (Activision, Absolute, and Froggo were a few 3rd Party supporters) . By the time original games came out it was too little too late, and it was time to put the system out of it's misery in 1989.
FACT: The Atari 7800
was originally developed in 1984 as the Atari 3600. It was actually designed by
a company called Gencomp as part of a lawsuit settlement Gencomp had been sued for releasing an
unlicensed speedup chipset for Atari's arcade version of Missile Command.
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