huh, I'd forgotten that I started this thread in the first place. Interesting discussion.
An interesting point that I wish to direct to the folks who think that a 16 bit system coming out as early as 84 is an automatic recipe for success.
Just because they are years ahead of OTL does not mean that it will work out better for the console makers. Keep in mind that historically, the most advanced consoles have actually usually done worse than their more dumbed down competitors. Lest we forget about the fact that Coleco Vision while an excellent console for its time did not gain the market share that the Atari did. Sega put out the Master System/Genesis two years ahead of the SNES, and yet Sega was the console manufacturer that lost the console wars of the 90's. Then there was the Jaguar and 3DO which were years ahead of their time and have been relegated to the dustbin of history. And finally today we have the PS3 which is the most advanced console out there right now, and yet holds the least marketshare compared to the less capable 360 and Wii.
I think the real question of the success of more advanced consoles earlier on comes down to two major issues. First, will this console be affordable? If it costs two or three times as much as the competitors, then forget about it. Parents will all too often say "video games are video games, I could save $200* and still get Timmy his video games this Christnmas." The second issue comes down to publishers, if a console is so far ahead of its time, will there be enough publishers out there who are willing and able to put out flashy new games for these flashy new systems? This awesome system with revolutionary graphics and capabilities won't sell too much if there are only like a dozen titles compared to the scores of titles for the other consoles.
*this is 80's dollars we're talking about here too
I never said it would be, I just think it would have saved Atari.
There's also no guarantee that if they did launch one, it'd succeed, even if it was well designed as Tramiel was horrible at implementation.
Here's the key in 1984:
You're looking at 1984 as though the video game industry were in the same condition as it were in 1987, that is to say, Atari would actually have competition.
They wouldn't.
By 1984, Coleco had stopped producing the Colecovision and the Adam had nearly bankrupted them. Magnavox wasn't making Odyssey 2s any more and Mattel was going nowhere with Intellivision.
Now, Nintendo had Famicom and Sega had (or was close to releasing the Sega 3000/Master System) in 1984...but they were only selling them in Japan.
The hypothetical Atari 16 bit system would have an automatic edge of entering a vacuum. Now, combine that with an Amiga/ST machine for game development ( two machines that were very easy to write for) and you have quality software to drive sales.
Granted, this goes against what we know about Tramiel's ability to properly implement or support anything after he bought Atari, but if he can get that much right, yeah, it'll start at $200 but, as market factors dictate, the price will go down as soon as the number of people willing to pay $200 for a game console have either bought in or passed.
So the price drops accordingly to a more affordable $150. Now, still assuming Atari games continues to produce solid in-house titles and the third party publishers are producing quality titles, considerably more systems will be selling as early as summer of 1985 and, depending on how many systems sell at $150 (and if some competition pops up by then) you might even see it selling for the magic price ($100) by Christmas 1985.
Without competition, chances are, the system, presuming everything goes smoothly (strong Atari support, strong third party support) a system launched in fall of 1984, would probably have a short period (3 to 4 months tops) selling at $200, meaning that (figuring an October 1984 release) by February of 1985, it's selling for $150 and then hitting the magic price around November 1985 juuuuust in time for the Christmas shopping season.
There's a common thread that you've overlooked in your assessment of Jaguar and 3DO that killed them: Both machines were a nightmare to write for. (The $600 opening price tag for the 3DO didn't help it any either...)
Machines that are tough to write for don't see a lot of software support. No support, no titles. No titles, no customers. Simple calculus of electronics.
Sega Genesis actually dominated the 16 bit market, holding a steady 55% of the market from 1991 to 1994. (SNES's market share by 1994: 34%. Nintendo was actually losing that war.)
Then Sega launched Saturn...and it had a similar problem as Jaguar and 3DO in that it was difficult to write for. (Not the nightmare Jaguar or 3DO were, but difficult none the less.)
Difficult to write for, as we all know, equals lack of titles, which leads to...
Sony didn't make things any easy by essentially price dumping the original PlayStation on the market. Sony, with it's consumer electronic empire to undercut initial losses taken for selling PS for cheaper than Saturn could basically wait it out until Sega (with a flawed machine and no products outside the video game industry to prop them up during the hard times) pulled the machine.
N64 wasn't competition for the PlayStation, really, thus giving PlayStation a vacuum to fill for a looooong time while Sega crumbled and Nintendo fumbled towards a new solution.
You also mention PS3 and that system's even easier to ID the demise of than anything that came before it:
Sony PlayStation3: We've got Blu-ray! We've got HD! We've got a hard drvie! We've got on-line play!
(but this new $600 plus system won't play any of the massive glut of PS2 games, making our customers software libraries utterly useless.)
Sony left the door open and Microsoft (with the BIG edges of having exclusivity to the Halo franchise and limited exclusivity deals with Lucas Arts) to run roughshod over them with XBox. (Regardless of the "Red Ring of Death".)
Also came at the inopportune moment that Nintendo developed Wii, which is a phenomenon I simply can't explain, but more power to them!
So, while you are correct that high tech doesn't always mean world beater, you have to consider that it ain't the price tag that kills systems.
It's the implementation.
My assessment stands:
If Tramiel had stayed with the Amiga, used it as the basis for a 16 bit console while selling computers only to dedicated software producers and thrown all in on the console and a strong Atari Games division, in 1984, he could have put a lock on the market for quite some time.
I assure you, even without competition, that price tag drops on it's own due to the reality of all consumer electronic markets: You sell it for what you can get for it at release (And with consoles, the lower the initial price, the better). When it stops selling at that price, you lower it and sell it as long as you can at the next price, then you settle into your bottom line price for the rest of the production run.
NES and Genesis followed a similar trajectory:
NES at lauch: $200 (in spring of 1986).
Sega Genesis at launch: $189, which actually came in under projection. (in fall of 1989)
NES by the end of spring 1987: $150.
Genesis by fall 1990: $150.
NES by spring 1988: $100.
Genesis by fall 1991: $100.
Same rough time line for our hypothetical 16 bits, economic factors actually being far more favorable in 1984-1987 than 1988 into the early 90's, the odds of the hypothetical Atari doing monster business even at $200-$150-$100 would actually be better than NES and Genesis actually did OTL, which was impressive enough.
Still, the big POD is Tramiel being capable of making a good business decision after buying Atari...and that's a long shot, sadly, as OTL has ample evidence to show.
