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The Atari 7800 was released by Atari in June 1986. The 7800 was
designed to replace the unsuccessful Atari 5200, and re-establish
Atari's market supremacy against Nintendo and
sega. With this system,
Atari addressed all the shortcomings of the Atari 5200: it had simple
digital joysticks; it was almost fully backward-compatible with the
Atari 2600; and it was affordable.
Includes AC Adaptor, RF unit, and one Atari 7800 controllers.
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The Atari 7800 was released in 1986 as Atari's answer to the NES, although it wasn't meant to be an NES competitor at first. The 7800 was designed by second-party developer General Computer in late 1983 in wake of the failure of the Atari 5200. Unlike the 5200, the new system would be cheap, use simple digital joysticks, and most importantly, it would be backwards compatible with almost every Atari 2600 game, meaning that people didn't have to get rid of their 2600 games or buy an adapter. The 7800 was introduced at the CES in May 1984, and was set for a fall 1984 release date. The 7800 would be priced at $140, and include 2 joysticks and Pole Position II as the pack-in game. A computer keyboard and high score cartridge (that saved high scores through battery back-up) were also planned for the new system. However, in July 1984, Warner Communications, the parent company of Atari, sold Atari's consumer division to Jack Tramiel, who was the founder and former CEO of Commodore. Under Tramiel's new leadership, the 7800 was put on hold while Tramiel worked out financial issues with General Computer. The 7800 would not be released for another 2 years as a result. When it did come out, the 7800 couldn't stand a chance against the NES, due to the NES' skyrocketing popularity and the fact that developers who signed to Nintendo could not develop for other systems. Nevertheless, the 7800 was produced for almost 6 years, until it was officially discontinued in January 1992. Despite it being short-lived and only having a library of less than 60 games, the 7800 is regarded as an "underdog" system and is fairly popular with collectors. The 7800's library is mainly known for its great arcade ports (e.g. Joust, Xevious, Ms. Pac-Man) and quirky original titles (e.g. Ninja Golf, Scrapyard Dog, Midnight Mutants).
