This is an interesting subject. Having lived through the beginning of the video game era, I had an Atari Pong console. I believe I got it for Xmas in 1977 when I was 15. It was still a big seller Xmas 1977. But I really don’t think there ever was a crash of 1977. Though pretty much a fad in the early 70’s, there were pretty much a good core of video game fans. There wasn’t that much time between what you say was a crash in 1977 and the Atari 2600 coming out (September 1977) and it being a massive hit that Xmas season. In fact, when my parents gave me Pong for Xmas 1977, they told me that there is a new system they saw in the store where you can change games by switching cartridges, but they couldn’t afford it at the time (got it Christmas 1978). I was blown away with how they described it. Also, arcades kept the fascination of video games alive during that era as well. I respectfully disagree with you about the crash of 1977. I don’t think there was one. Was there an over saturation of Pong type systems ? Sure, but it was quickly overtaken by the Atari 2600 late 1977, so no time for a crash. Interesting subject though. I was obviously a gamer in 1983, so I witnessed THAT crash. But I myself stopped playing video games for 4 or 5 years, I was 21 and, and had other priorities in life. NES got me back to gaming.

8:45 As I am watching this video _right now,_ I will take one guess as to why the market crashed in 1977, with two words: PONG CLONES! Chief among them, the Coleco Telstar, introduced in 1976, to be followed by a bunch of no-name-brand clones. I had one of these no-frills clones back in 1978.

It was hard to understand generations of consoles at the time

funnily enough, 1977 is the year Nintendo made its first console and it was, ironically, a pong clone

Here we go again: more revisionist history about the NES “saving” video games in 1985. 🤦‍♂️ Clearly you weren’t born when all this was happening in the 1970’s and 80’s, but as someone who remembers all of it well I can tell you that this was not the case whatsoever. I was 15 in 1983 and this “crash” wasn’t noticed by any of my gaming friends. All that happened was some companies stopped making games and consoles, so we loved finding deals on ColecoVision and Atari VCS cartridges that were previously unaffordable. After this so-called “crash” most of us Gen X’ers moved on to home computers and played our games that way. No one in America was playing the Nintendo NES in 1985. No one. It didn’t really take off in the U.S. until the late 80’s, and within a year or so of it gaining popularity it had a much better console, the Sega Genesis, to contend with (in addition to the Atari 7800 and Sega Master System which came out in the U.S. at the same time as the NES plus the TurboGrafx-16 and others). I am not hating on Nintedo: the NES had a handful of decent titles. But it did NOT save the video game industry since gaming never went away in the first place.

I was 10 years old in 1977, I remember playing the arcade version of pong , my first console was the Atari c-380 which was before the 2600 and you’re right about the pong clones being everywhere but maybe if Atari didn’t come out with the 2600 or the 2600 failed I still think that arcades would have been just fine with the games that were coming out in the late 70s , space invaders asteroids, galaxians then quite possibly that the arcade scene itself would have lasted longer than it did, I mean without the home console market systems like the 2600 , Colecovision, Nintendo people wouldn’t have been able to play games at home . Eventually somebody would have tried another home console I’m sure but I think the arcade scene would have lasted a lot longer than it did , who knows ? Anyways great video, I’m a fan of 70s and early 80s video games and it’s always nice to see someone shining light on an era most people don’t know or care about because without these old games they wouldn’t have the games they play today

im another comment after 12 years of no comments

Atari stopped being a game console company when Jack Tramiel bought it and decided to concentrate on being a computer company. He didn't really want to run Atari, he wanted to run the second coming of Commodore. By the time the PC platform had destroyed both company's computer markets, Atari's desperate attempt to survive by reverting back to a game console company was a well documented and disasterous crash-and-burn saga.

Thank you for this video. I appreciate it. Here are my thoughts on this topic: 1) Atari had a hard time developing the Panther. Their press release at that time stated that they were developing the Panther and the Jaguar at the same time, with the intention of releasing the Panther first. However, development of the Jaguar was faster than that of the Panther, so they decided to launch the Jaguar. With this info, I dont think the Jaguar would have been available by 1991 and perhaps would have been released rather late too. Other reasons why their release would have been delayed is that Atari took time to find a manufacturing partner (IBM), and when they did, their manufacturing partner took a lot of time to setup and make their console. 2) "The Jaguar might have competed with the Saturn..." Maybe. Again, my ideas are just as speculation are yours, so lets just have a bit of fun with them, this shouldn't be a serious debate :). Like the Jaguar, the Saturn had a complicated architecture and some people believe that the release of Sega's 32x was because Sega panicked when Atari released the 64-but Jaguar. If Atari had released a less powerful console (such as the Panther), Sega might not have been threatened so much and might not have been pressured to develop and release the 32x. The 32x eroded consumer confidence in Sega and was one reason why Saturn sales were poor. So yes, the Saturn did badly in tha market, but if Atari launched the Panther instead, maybe the Saturn could have been better developed and marketed. 3) One of the Playstation's greatest strength was its price. I doubt if Atari Jaguar 2 with CD will be able to match Sony's pricepoint. For one, with the Playstation, Sony introduced the concept of selling the hardware at a loss. Secondly, Sony OWNS the patent to make CDs, its players, and the equipment to make them. So Sony doesn't need to pay itself royalties for these, but Atari would have needed to do so (or Atari would have to pay the other company that owns the right - Philips). This means Sony can aggressively bring down their price to beat the nextGen Atari if Atari went with CDs.

Sorry if you covered this in the video already - I think they got the pong hardware down to a single chip, which made the cost of all of the hardware quite cheap, which is why we had a million and one clones.

The 80s just made game systems more of a household thing. The console games systems of the 70s were marketed to adults ....mostly. Sit on the sofa together or lay in the floor and play Pong! Pong was a tennis type game your parents would play ...and did. It was very addictive because prior to this there really hadnt been anything like it. Atari was everything in the late 70s and early 80s. My family did have a Sears Pong system i think around 1974. I was four so i barely remember it but the adults playwd it and by 1977 i was certainly into Atari and Pong and Combat were two major go to games. And the adults played those too. I lived through it and MY opinion wasnt too many games and systems...it was too many clones and too many CRAP games. An atari game in 1978 cost 30 dollars...thirty......that would have bought you new jeans, cheap shoes and some groceries. And no one wanted to buy a game and end up hating it. And no one willing to trade for it. Atari was flooded with crap games. Then Nintendo put a seal of approval on their games...basically promising them to be good games. They built consumer confidence back up.

The pong crash

Atari Lynx was made by Epyx and the Lynx name came from the ‘Comlynx’ up to 4 handhelds. The Panther and Jaguar were just named after cars. There was no ‘cat phase’ lol

Shame you're no longer making videos. I actually think this is a pretty interesting topic and a well thought out explanation. If you ever do make another video, it would be interesting to hear your take on a more moden failure like rhe Stadia or even the NGage, which was pretty ahead of it's time

That would be SEGA (Seyyyga) not SEGGA.

KZbin has done you dirty my man. This is good stuff

Omg this is like a time capsule full of time capsules.

Atari was dead way before the Jaguar debacle. Their lack of R&D and marketing killed them in the late 80s. There 8 bits were dead and there 16 bits which had tremendous potential died on the vine. They were pumping out products that never caught on, like the lynx and portfolio and Stacy. The Jaguar was a piece of crap from the first day and with Sony and Sega coming out with next gen systems it was all over.

As interesting as this is, Atari Panther would not have been a blip on the radar when the Genesis and SNES was on the market. I have been a gamer through the 80s-90s-etc. Nobody thought about Atari except as a dying company. Atari focussed on selling Atari STs competing with Amiga which split their dev and prod resources - you forgot that part. If the Panther would have been released, it would have been absolutely ignored by gamers at the time. The Jag is a whole other story of failure.

Panther would have been a higher spec Neo Geo , a system whose software was too expensive for the average user Panther would have dominated. Jaguar was too hard to develop for , with hardly any games - most of which were Amiga port overs. Panther would have sold like hot cakes with a few decent games . A longer Jag development could have ironed out critical design faults , meaning it would be far more visually impressive .

if the panther or jaguar back then were able to port samurai shadow 2, i think we would have a different talk..

A game console is only as good as it's games. NEO-GEO was the gold standard of consoles, but was priced way out of reach for many gamers. Whereas, the Atari Jaguar was a sad attempt to beat the SNES & Genesis in terms of next-gen gaming. Who knows how the Panther would have turned out had they been given the chance.

Atari 2600 was awesome for the time it was released. The 5200 and 7800 were huge failures. NES games still hold up to this day, nice 8-bit 2-D graphics and sound tracks. Atari 2600 graphics you have to use your imagination and not any music really. Just high-pitched beeps.

let us not forget though, Sega in 1989 Sega was attacking the NES which was a four year console at the time.

Atari, always too little too late. This is a good analysis! Dreamcast should have had a DVD instead a CD drive. I bought CDi as I told my wife it would be a good CD player. I had a dream cast and it was very impressive! Maybe someone should release an Atari Panther based on Mister technology.

Excellent work lord. As a baron myself I say touche!

This Video Game Crash for me is a good thing, honestly. This helps getting rid of all the pong consoles. But the second one could've been avoided, but it's inevitable ajd nowadays it's all too well now

nintendrone jibberish. sega kicked ass and the failure of the dreamcast is a testamount to what a horrible audience "gamers" are. the idea the neptune which never even came out killed the dreamcast is the most mental gymnastics nonsense i've ever heard

SG 1000 is third generation not second generation

I know Segas consoles died but the Dreamcast is still my favorite console and has more classics for me than PS2. The Dreamcast came at the perfect time because it was the last generation when hardware played a big role in the look of the games because PS3 and X360 and PC all looked the same and consoles started to be only weak PCs. Dreamcast 2 would have been useless because it would have been the same as PS3 and X360. And the Dreamcast was one of the coolest consoles ever because it was exclusive to the cool pelple who bought it and played it's awesome library while others waited for the PS2. And today consoles are just really weak PCs and console games aren't future proof in any way because they can't be ran at future resolutions and can't be modded. And their exclusive titles are a rarity because pretty much every game is released on Steam. So it really doesn't make any difference that Sega's consoles died because the Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast were all awesome and still may people's favorite consoles and the Dreamcast was the last console generation that mattered. Nintendo also died when they stopped making competitive hardware after the Game Cube and now they are two generations behind and repackaging the same Nintendo IP to a new generation of children.

It's really a 5th generation console not 4.5

The best Pong Console is the atgames blast vol 3 paddle system. It has pong, super breakout, night driver.

Who Cares Atari Sucks

I thought the Virtual Boy was just OKAY and I OWNED ONE. I've also talked to plenty of people who played it when I grew up as a teenager in the 90's who hated it. So don't assume that everybody who hates on it didn't play it. I can also understand AVGN's and the Gaming Historian's criticism of it from my experience of it. And no I don't fall into bandwagons because 3DTVs were hated and I happen to love them.

The 32x happened because the Sega Japan CEO was scared from what he heard about the Jaguar circa late 93/early 94. So Atari inadvertently took Sega down with them.

Great video man! If we look at the at the sales of gamecube, N64 and xbox 1st gen, the Dreamcast was not a commercial failure. Actually, not at all: 9 million in 1.5 years are actually solid numbers. And they were still succeeding in the arcade market. In a 5-6 years life time and with the title they had and upcoming titles that were scheduled for a release (yo, half Life would not have been cancel if the console was not announced as discontinue, plus jsfr, crazy taxi 3, pso episode 2, sega gt 2002, beach spiker, sonic heroes, international release of Shenmue 2 and all the 2k sport release being playable online, you can bet your ass that more console were going to sales) they would have had sold at least 40 million units. Plus they were actually giving them at the time they stopped the production, with an at & t internet subs. This was a smart move: it would have helped them démocratise the console and its services, and help people getting into online gaming and online services without buying an expensive PC. This very badass marketing move was exploiting Sony’s biggest flaws in their playstation 2 market strategy: the lack of internet and online support when it was becoming the big thing happening in home all around the world, and sony had nothing about it until SOCOM was released way later in august 2002. It took a long while in 2003 until EverQuest to see another online mp game released, plus the modem wasn’t built in and you had to purchase it separately. I think DVD player included with the ps2 was good, but DVD was not as big as the internet in term of revolution happening in the house of people in the early 2000. The web browsing capability incluse with each dreamcast was a point of sales they were exploiting, and they were doing it in the right direction too at the moment they had to call it a quit, that’s too bad. This is what is so cruel about sega’s story in the end: they were basically FORCED and TOLD to stop when they finally found a way to get successful and on a very good sales streak. The online capability of the Dreamcast was the key. I really think that if at least they would have been given just a little 1 or 2 extra years, story would have been very different, or at least, it would have brought more money home. Look at today’s market: dlc, online arena, online lobby, browsing… Dreamcast was not only in the right direction, it literally shaped the way the market is today. But with microsoft coming in the market and having to pay their debt, they could not make it.

An eventual Sega Neptune would have cost more than the add-on 32X,which was priced at $170, and at best could run games like Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter which pales compared to even early PS1 games like Ridge Racer and Battle Arena Toshiden. Only a fool like Sega could think that a stopgap strategy wouldn't hurt third-parties and consumers confidence in Sega's future products. Fool me once, shame on thee; fool me twice, shame on me.

Actually a Jaguar sold super well early on but they lost all their momentum because IBM who made the chips for them couldn't keep up and they had a severe shortage of product to sell. That in turn led to a smaller install base and kept third parties away. And Atari did not have the resources and programmers to support a console by itself they needed third parties

Detailed history here:ctrl-alt-rees.com/atari-panther-cancelled-prototype-console-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know#lost-dragon-atari-forum-2018-05-12

The Jaguar had a 64-bit blitter processor, object processor, and data path to memory, so Atari never lied about that. However, it's 32-bit RISC processor (DSP) was ignored because its Genesis-like 68000 was sitting right next to it, so easy to write code for in Assembly. Because that advanced hardware was so difficult for 8- and 16-bit developers to learn, the powerful Jaguar hardware was never put to full use. SONY learned this lesson and developed great software tools for the PlayStation and had extensive libraries and APIs built right in. SEGA did not learn that lesson, killed the growing Genesis market, and released an 8-processor Saturn that was even harder to write software for. In 1990, when Atari started seeing that the Panther was behind schedule in development, they could've released an Atari Lynx console with the upgraded "Mike" 65SC02 processor running at 14Mhz, similar to the one in the SNES, but four times faster, a dramatically upgraded "Suzy" graphics chip, twice as much RAM (128KB, like the Genesis) and CD-ROM. That would be a perfect fit because the Lynx already had to load game data into RAM before working with it. It could've upscaled Lynx games to 320x104 while playing the new games at a PlayStation-like 320x224 showing 256 colors from its palette of 4,096, like many arcade systems. With the increased RAM and more powerful Mike audio chip, Atari would be back in the game with a powerful, 4th generation console--the only one with a CD-ROM at the time, and the ability to play music CDs, read CD-ROMs (encyclopedias, etc) and offer game developers of Myst, RPGs, music-based games, and others a very cost effective way to get games into stores without tying up millions in cartridge inventory. And they'd have a great upgrade path for the Atari Lynx handheld.

SEGA had already gotten its customers accustomed to ignoring all of the new Game Gear/ CDX add ons and complicated requirements to buy their games. Even game developers like those Naughty Dog with Crash Bandicoot decided that there was nothing to make games for except this new, untested PlayStation from SONY. Had SEGA simply released a combined 32X portable (with optional screen for those who just wanted to use it like the Game Gear/Nomad), they could've continued selling millions of Genesis consoles and games in Europe and the North American market while waiting for the cost of the Saturn to come down to that magic $200 price point.

It'd be cool to see these old console companies would come together if possible to create an actual competitor. Possibly done with an Atari VCS 2 with an exclusive deal between Google stadia who'd offer the online gaming ability. Probably never will happen but just a wild thought.

And this system would of been 1056 bit

RIP Tokyo Colour, Binatone, Prinztronic, UltimaVision, Mentor, Duotronic, Inter-Electronica, and other 200 brands of PONG clones.

Gamepass is hot right now but how sustainable is it? I can still see Microsoft leaving the hardware business and selling Gamepass, on PCs, PlayStations, and Switches in the future.

I tried one once at a test display at a Target store. It was fun

You have no fucking idea what you are talking about.

What if What if? I hated to see Atari & Sega fall to the bottom. I believe Atari Panther could've done something.

Panther should had cd capability if not Jaguar

I used to watch your entire console war series whenever I was sick as a kid, and I’ve been trying to find these videos again for years. Seeing this again just brought back a wave of memories. It is because of you that I have a wealth of knowledge of video game trivia and I am forever grateful. Also the music in these still slaps 100%