7800 is probably the only console to have its contemporary releases outdone by homebrew. If only that port of Ghost 'n Goblins gets finished...

The 7800 was our family’s first console. I think you nailed it on the head; but I have lots of nostalgia for it. Had I not grown up with it, I would probably feel as many others do--but the nostalgia is strong for me on this one. For a few years, I had begged and begged (I’m sure annoyingly so to my lower middle class parents) for an NES. But in 1988 we ended up getting a 7800 for christmas that year. It was half-off at KB Toys and my mom picked it up, along with its pack-in (Pole Position II), Ms. PAC-Man, One-on-One and two 2600 games for it: Pitfall and Keystone Kapers, both bargain bin choices at the time. You’d think I was disappointed--NOPE! I was stoked to finally have a system--any system--at home. I had friends that had an NES, an my older brother--who had already moved out-had an NES. But no one I knew had a 7800! I was super excited about Ms PAC-Man especially. My sister and I played that one to death and it got very competitive. And because 2600 games were cheap, I was able to build a decent library. 7800 titles-at $20-remained ones Id ask for for birthdays and Christmas, and over time I added Mario Bros, DK Jr, Commando and Food Fight. In 1989, I begged for ‘Karateka’--and unfortunately got that one; that’s WAS disappointing, but my fault. Fortunately I also got Rampage, which is a solid port. A neighbor give me some of his old 2600 titles for free--like Kaboom (with a paddle). In the end, I had over two dozen games, and many hours of jr high amd high school spent on them. So, ultimately, I was just fine with it. That system remained the one we had through to the end of 1993. Then, I purchased an SNES with my own money, which I consider to be the greatest console of all-time. The homebrew and after-market games for the 7800 show us “what could have been”. It is Atari’s best worse console. The Top 15 7800 games (not including after market games like KLAX or home brews, like Bentley Bear and Popeye): 1. Mario Bros 2. Ms PAC-MAN 3. Food Fight 4. Ball Blazer 5. Commando 6. Ikari Warriors 7. Joust 8. Dig Dug 9. Donkey Kong Jr 10. Rampage 11. Xevious 12. Galaga 13. Desert Falcon 14. Impossible Mission II (It is unbeatable, tho) 15. Mean-18 Golf HM: One-On-One, Pole Position II, Donkey Kong, Tomcat F15, Dark Chambers

Really enjoyed this! I like your humor and pacing - very nice. Cheers!

My family was an Atari family growing up. We got the 2600 when it first came out, the 5200 and the 7800. I didn't get a Nintendo until just before the SNES came out and I was living on my own. My memory of the 7800 was mostly positive due strongly in part to the backwards compatibility aspect. Our 2600 crapped out and we had all these games we couldn't play. The 7800 had very few good and original games, none coming to mind at the moment. So, yeah, it was a good system to play 2600 games with a worse controller. But, like you said, at least it wasn't the 5200!! Thanks for the video.

Always enjoy listening to this video. One of the most underrated game channels I’ve seen

underrated channel deserve at least 10k subscribers

The TIA chip was used to be backwards compatible with the 2600 games. This, in turn, created a limitation of the console.

The 7800 is a great system for me now. I had a NES, SNES, and a Wii after my 2600. When I got nostalgic I got a 7800 and some “better” modern controllers. There are a good number of homebrew games that definitely add to the value. And as he said the backwards compatibility allows me to play my 2600 games. It’s ironic that the new 2600 plus is coming out now, when an old 7800 has advantages.

There were a few reasons the 7800 was doomed from the start. First of course is the sale of Atari to Jack Tramiel, which caused the 7800's launch to be delayed by 2 years, plus it also resulted in the game development division being split off on it's own, which left Atari without any in house game development for the 7800. Lastly, there were no real development tools available for the 7800, which were critical for making games for it because of it's hardware architecture being a bit convoluted and very difficult to make games for otherwise. And the 7800 used the TIA chip for sound reportedly because GCC went over budget when developing the console, and they had to sacrifice the new sound chip. With modern development tools created by passionate Atari fans, 7800 games can look and perform as good as Master System games. Also, I hold the 7800 controller sideways to get the best grip, and control.

At the time, those "slightly polished graphics" seemed VERY upgraded to gamers. The built-in backward compatibility with 2600 games was great. It looked good and should've been the console that replaced the 2600 rather than the failed 5200 offering.

I didn't know if the Nes beats the 7800 in system specs or hardware capabilities. The Master System sure does, it beats both consoles. Yes, the sound chip wasn't great but that was done for backwards compatibility. Unfortunately, we never really got to see either the Master System or 7800 pushed. The reason for this was Nintendo's predatory, illegal licensing practices. Had that not happened who knows what we would have seen. I can tell you this the 7800 can actually scale sprites which is something neither the Nes nor Master System could do without software scaling being applied (like with the Genesis). It also apparently has more colors than the Nes and Master System combined. Addendum- I never owned any Atari console accept for the Jaguar. I started gaming in 1986 with the Nes and Master System. I moved onto the Genesis in 1989...and so on. Say what you will about Atari's other consoles but in 1994 the Jaguar had a stone cold stunner with Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and AVP. Iron Soldier was pretty damn sweet as well.

Clever jokes, made me lol. Wonder why your channel isn't bigger.

Hell yea this is awesome for such a small channel man one more

Nice video!

2 years in eartly 80s is like 20 years now of evolving technology. If the system had been in shop 2 years early the NES would have not existed….The 7800 is much more powerful than the nes for the number of objects moving at the same time. Tramiel is an idiot who could have , with the 7800 released one and half year before the Nes , ruled the video games home market.

They just came out with a 2600+ which plays 2600 and 7800 games. It's a 7800 that looks like a 2600. Seems your observations have come full circle. 😩

Well, this was impressive for a channel with only 371 subscribers. You get one more. Keep it up man.

Dont talk down about the atari 7800 it could have more going for it if atari would have paid more attention to it i believe it could have successed

Anytime you don't want your 7800 I'll take it off your hands :)

Poor old Atari

Subbed, good stuff man.

♡

Slightly better console than the 2600. Less switches and less glitchy. Controller was poorly designed tho.

trust me we want to get off this rock... its only gotten worse

I've got a 7800 with 40 games if anybody wants to buy it :)

You made a claim early in the video I suspect is spurious to a high degree. So you have data or statistics to back up the “largest computer company in the world” claim?

Great Video 👍