Mitigate the North American video game crash of 1983

[Hnau]

Now, market forces are hard to battle, but what happens with less of a 1983 NA video game crash? One thing that could help is if that atrocious game E.T. The Extraterrestrial was actually pretty good, if they spent more than six weeks on it.

 

[Youdontwanttoknow]

I am guessing there was once a company called the North American video game company or something.......

I was born in 1983, which makes me older than most of the people here, but I cant say I know about this crash.

 

[Hnau]

I'm sorry. Okay, there's a link to wikipedia in the OP.

 

[Mr J]

Now, market forces are hard to battle, but what happens with less of a 1983 NA video game crash? One thing that could help is if that atrocious game E.T. The Extraterrestrial was actually pretty good, if they spent more than six weeks on it.

Nintendo may not gain a foot hold in North America. Though the North American video game industry needed the crash to allow for innovation and to distroy the monopoly that Atari had over the market.

 

[Electric Monk]

A key factor in the '83 crash was Commodore.

In January 1983, Jack Tramiel, the head of Commodore, slashes the price of the Vic to $139 and the C64 to $400. Texas Instruments reacts a month later with a rebate that lowers the street price of the 99/4A to $149. Tramiel turns around and cuts the price of the Vic to under $100, forcing TI to announce a further cut in the price of the 99/4A to $100 to take effect in June. On June 10, 1983, TI announced the largest loss in their corporate history and three months later withdrew from the home computer market. Tramiel, still looking for market share, slashed the price of the C64 to $200 and virtually walked away with the holiday buying season for the second year in a row.”

Besides TI, personal-computer casualties included the Coleco Adam, the Timex-Sinclair line, and a number of other smaller players. Atari nearly went bankrupt and in 1984 was sold off by its parent company Warner Communications (now part of Time Warner). The purchaser was, ironically, Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International. Commodore’s board of directors, keen on moving the company in a direction away from home computing, had forced him out. Thus, even the winner of the home computer war found it a Pyrrhic victory.

Avoiding that helps, but the other main problem was Atari itself—no quality control…*leading to things like ET and dumping cartridges in deserts.


I'm not sure there is a way to avoid it. Tramiel was always going to go for marketshare over profitability, Atari was run by idiots, and a collection of poor developers were going to try and get into the console market.


However Tramiel being overridden by Commodore's board in early '83 would keep Atari a viable company and not being put on the chopping block by Warner.

However without first party exclusive games and quality control Atari will still get eaten alive when Nintendo enters the market in '85.

 

[ljofa]

The other major effect of the crash was that it allowed British developers to become serious software contenders with software houses like Ocean, Thalamus, US Gold, Mastertronic and Gremlin Graphics to become major players in the home computer market. Japanese and US firms still dominated the consoles but the Brits dominated the C64, the Speccy and the Amstrad.

 

[DTF955Baseballfan]

Nintendo may not gain a foot hold in North America. Though the North American video game industry needed the crash to allow for innovation and to distroy the monopoly that Atari had over the market.

Atari had the games, but Intellivision had better graphics and some cool innovations, and if they don't throw too much behind the keyboard module, they might be able to build enough of a market in games to rival Atari and turn the crash into just a small swoon.

I still have a working one of the originals. But, my best friend - who got an Intellivision II when it came out, because of the quality of games being a bit better, in our views, went with Nintendo a few years later because the number of games was vastly superior.

 

[Chuck Mandus]

A key factor in the '83 crash was Commodore.



Avoiding that helps, but the other main problem was Atari itself—no quality control…*leading to things like ET and dumping cartridges in deserts.


I'm not sure there is a way to avoid it. Tramiel was always going to go for marketshare over profitability, Atari was run by idiots, and a collection of poor developers were going to try and get into the console market.


However Tramiel being overridden by Commodore's board in early '83 would keep Atari a viable company and not being put on the chopping block by Warner.

However without first party exclusive games and quality control Atari will still get eaten alive when Nintendo enters the market in '85.

I think Atari was a bit hush on letting the names of developers of the games being tied to those games, hence the first popular "easter egg" in "Adventure" where you can see the name of the man, "Warren Robinett," in the game when you get the "dot" in the "Black Castle." Boy, what a run-on sentence.

 

[Chuck Mandus]

Atari had the games, but Intellivision had better graphics and some cool innovations, and if they don't throw too much behind the keyboard module, they might be able to build enough of a market in games to rival Atari and turn the crash into just a small swoon.

I still have a working one of the originals. But, my best friend - who got an Intellivision II when it came out, because of the quality of games being a bit better, in our views, went with Nintendo a few years later because the number of games was vastly superior.

I remember the Atari/Intellivision battles and still have my share of scars over them. What was funny was during the argument, the couple people who had Odyssey 2's had to chime in. Then you had Colecovision who was late in coming to the party.

 

[Chuck Mandus]

Now, market forces are hard to battle, but what happens with less of a 1983 NA video game crash? One thing that could help is if that atrocious game E.T. The Extraterrestrial was actually pretty good, if they spent more than six weeks on it.

I don't think E.T was all that bad, yeah, those stupid wells were a pain in the butt, but I don't think it was a terrible game. I think the crash had to happen to see who will win the shakeout, not only Atari and Intellivision duked it out, you had your Odyssey 2's and Colecovision came aboard late. You had other minor players too, I just think it had to happen.