"What If" moments of the gaming industry...

[mike_intellivision]

disolitude said:
@ mike_intellivision

Great opinions about those 5 what ifs. Those would be my guesses as well. You know your gaming history alright. More-so than me as I have no idea how your Atari What if would reflect on gaming in 1984. Could have worked for Atari, but considering the best gaming started coming from Japan with exlcusive nintendo agreements, Atari may have been shafted again.

What if Atari went ahead and distributed nintendo entertainment system in the US like nitnendo asked them to?

The Atari Home Entertainment System took America by storm in 1985.

Replicating the model used a decade before, Atari went back to Sears' Sporting Goods departments with its latest contraption -- a dark box resembling a toaster that played game.s 

Once it proved the concept, it unleashed its design studios to fully support the AHES -- supplementing the Nintendo offerings with unique games such as Ballblazer and Xevious (games originally planned for the now scrapped Atari 7800) as well as the only home versions of popular computer games like Mean 18 Golf. It also put all of its arcade hits on the AHES -- such as RBI Baseball as well as games from its ST computer series such as Plutos.

The partnership benefitted both companies initally. Atari remained the name for video games in the US while elsewhere the Nintendo FC and Nintendo NES were king. And other than token opposition from Sega and NEC, the playing field belonged to these giants.

It reached a point though that the relationship began to fray about 1990. Atari mangement wanted more control over the SuperNES/Super Atari. Eventually, its management was ousted in a proxy fight and Atari became the North American subsidiary of Nintendo. It has remained that to this day, though mostly as a second-party software producer as Nintendo has released its consoles in the US under its own name since 1992.

 

Mike from Morgantown