The History of Atari Video Game Consoles (1975-1996)

Have you played Atari today??? Follow Atari from it's humble beginnings to becoming a corporate giant. Let's take an in-depth view of Atari's console history from 1975 until their final days in 1996. We will dive into the businessmen, engineers, programmers, and companies involved in the rise and fall of this once great video games giant..

#atarihistory #videogamehistory #historyofvideogames #retrogaming #retrogamergenx

This video is made up of the history sections of my A Look at Video series. Check out the A Look at Series here:

📖📖📖 Chapters 📖📖📖

0:00 Intro
0:26 Pong
9:06 Atari 2600 (VCS)
13:55 Atari 5200
17:36 Atari 7800
20:55 Atari XEGS
25:57 Atari Jaguar
31:03 Outro

🎶🎶🎶 Music Credits 🎶🎶🎶

Song: The Stencil Game
From: The Green Light EP
Used with permission from HAAL Electronica

Song: Moonlight Chronicles
From: The Green Light EP
Used with permission from HAAL Electronica

Song: BOC-2
From: The Green Light EP
Used with permission from HAAL Electronica

Song: Dreamscapes
From: The Green Light EP
Used with permission from HAAL Electronica

Song: Norm Departure
From: The Green Light EP
Used with permission from HAAL Electronica

Song: G-Funk Rave
Produced by: RetrogamerGenX
Used with permission of my own. LoL :p

Song: Lab Mixture
Produced by: RetrogamerGenX
Used with permission of my own. LoL :p

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
License code: C7SXDCPJKPNBKRUM

[MotownBatman]

Went Missin on Me Again
Found one I Somehow Haven't Seen before, Or I forgot to Like, ...
I always thought the Guy from the Atari 7800 Interview Commercial was John Laraquette
What Up Brotha!

[joesshows]

I’ve absolutely seen the Jaguar shell repurposed in a doctor/dentist office and couldn’t believe what I was looking at

[wallacelang]

I have a few different Atari video game consoles and home computers in my personal collection:
• Atari 2600 VCS
• Atari 5200 Super System
• Atari 7800 Pro System
• Atari 400 Home Computer
• Atari 800 Home Computer
• Atari 800XL Home Computer
I have even bought an original Atari Pong home video game console at a garage sale in the mid-1990s that still works to this very day. I am a fan of Atari products and I am a bit of an amateur historian when it comes to Atari.

[tarstarkusz]

I don't think it was the bad first party games that caused the crash. What really caused the crash was a bunch of different consoles being released. It was by no means just the 2600, colecovision and intellivision. Add the vectrex, Bally Astrocade, Channel F, Oddysee 2, Spectravision and a bunch of others. In addition, there was a bunch of 3rd party shovelware being produced and sold cheaply for the consoles along with the home computers competing with the high number of consoles.
The crash totally killed the console market. Not a one survived. That cleared the way for Nintendo to walk in and take over the market. Eventually, the savior of video games, the home computer market also entirely collapsed without a single example surviving.

[pl]

From 2600 to ST, Atari has been a leader. Forever in our hearts !

[terran]

The XEGS was as much a console as the 5200. They did fix a lot of mistakes they made in the 5200 for the xegs however it was too little too late after the 7800 was held back. It just put their consoles on a no win road from there. Had Atari released the 5200 being backwards compatible with the 2600 and all 400 computer cartridges, I think it could have been a win for them. Then had they released the 7800 in 1984 and with a good sound chip, I think the 7800 would have seen success as well. Finally had they released the panther as a strong 16 bit console and then had a later release with better hardware for the Jaguar, we may have seen Atari do a strong finish before backing out of the console wars. Atari was never able to duplicate the success or even have a success after the VCS(2600). A combination of many factors did that, letting bushnell go, timing, short sited decisions, budget, rushed decisions, lack of third party publishers, and not knowing a market or keeping control over it for quality control. It’s always easy in hindsight but there were a lot of decisions that I’m sure people saw as bad ideas and couldn’t convince the people in charge of changing their minds.

[mattblom]

Loving the commercial integration as always! Anyone see the Atari logo in Blade Runner 2049 and go "Hey! Sweet!!" ?

[GregsGameRoom]

Nice job on the video. It’s always been my contention that the XEGS is what the 5200 should have been. But in all honesty nothing could have made that hardware a successful game console considering what was happening in the market at the time.

[tarstarkusz]

20:30 i disagree that the 7800 was inferior to the NES or that this is why the 7800 failed to compete. . The NES is just as old as the 7800 and an unexpanded NES is a pretty weak system. What saved the NES was cartridge hardware. The 7800 would benefit from cartridge hardware as well, but the 7800 never got any money put into developing better cartridge hardware whereas Nintendo dumped a ton of money into the NES cartridge hardware. Plus the NES was widely developed for and getting the most out of the hardware came from that experience as well as the mapper schemes.

As far as failing to compete goes, this was largely the fault of the Tramiels along with Nintendo breaking the law. Nintendo enforced illegal competition stifling contracts with almost all 3rd parties preventing them from porting games to multiple systems. Also, there was a massive bubble in Japan with money everywhere and falling on the streets. At one point, I think there was a single building or maybe block in Tokyo which had an appraised value higher than all of the RE in California. There was no shortage of money in Japan to dump into the NES. The Tramiels on the other hand acted like money was a sacred artifact never to spent under any circumstances, that, and they didn't really have the money Nintendo had.

[tarstarkusz]

The XEGS is nowhere near as powerful as the NES, 7800 and especially not the SMS. The XEGS doesn't even have multicolor sprites. The chips were designed in the 70s. It was inferior in every way to the NES, 7800 and SMS.

[christophertuckwell]

Great info peace of history I own
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I grew up with the NES / SNES are you getting the atari 2600+ I m 40 now fund atari interesting company