{::} NrG's OldSchool Stories {::}

In Off-topic

Just a thread for me to post my findings of the past, I will repost the 2 other storys (Atari vs Intellivision and The Mind-Link Mind Read). Feel free to give reviews, corrections, or additional info.

Hope I am being known for my historic stories I have been telling

First ever Console War Atari vs Intellivision


Atari I beleive was one of if not the first video game company and system to come out. In 1980, competition arises as Mattel (at the time, the world's largest toy manufacturer) decided to try to take up videogames. Mattel wanting to make videogames + Mattel Elextronics = Inttelivision. It was priced 100$ more then the Atari, when you compared the both by turning it on, you would see why. The Intellivision had nicer graphics, brighter colors, and onscreen characters were a lot more detailed.

Only one thing was wrong, the games tended to be slower and not as fast as they were supposed to be. Luckily, they were able to think of a strategy to hide that weakness by selling major titles like NFL, MLB, and NBA. It worked and within 1980-81, they were able to take a chunk out of Atari's Console Share.

The war carried on too Television media. Mattel placed George Plmpton, an author who wrote books on what it was like to be an athelete. Viewers would see how football and Baseball would look like on Atari and Intellivision. Plimpton said "If you try them both, I think you will find the clear winner to be Intellivision.
Atari being the fighter it was, made a great sports game called "RealSports" where not only was it better then anything it made in the past, it was even better then Intellivision's sports. They had on their commercials Ed "Too Tall" Jones, a proffesional footbal player, and Billy Martin a Baseball team manager. Ed "too tall" Jones even added insult by saying "Who are you gonna listen too, a guy who talks about sports, or a nice guy like me who lives it?" To add more insult to Intellivision, they took an Atari nerd and asked him to play Atari's arcades, then go to tell him to go play the Intellivision arcades. The nerd gets confused when he realizes Intellivision never made any.

Later on, Intellivision paradies Atari's arcade titles commercial by getting the same Atari nerd, Plimpton then hand him over to test Atari's arcade titles again and then gives him some of Intellivision's new arcade titles. The nerd had no choice but to agree on Intellivison.

This feud lasted until 1983 when both companys threw in the towel!


I was looking though one of my old Game Informer Magazines. A MUST READ for old school fans!!!!


MIND LINK -
System(s) - Atari 2600, Atari 7800 and Atari Comps



A comedic downfall

The project was used so that the player when focusing used the muscles on/by his temples by the eyes, it would move signaling to the controller, during it's debut for market selling, it was presented and many laughing did not beleive in it, if things could not go worse, the person showing it off working for Atari put it on his head and it fellbreaking not even being seen on commercials. The only prototypes left are in the hands of series Old School gaming collectors.

this looks like the other two threads mushed into a post, and will be deleted if that's the case, we don't need double posts.

I am making this thread for other findings, whenever I have a story, I will post it here, currently, I have one and I am trying to summrize it.



nes luke i thought u were a mod too? cant u delete it if thats the case

I checked the topics that were like this, and they have really good posts on them. I also don't think it's a bad idea to put your stories all in a single thread. Sounds like a cool idea!

So if you have more old school stories, _NrG_, post them on this thread how you want, just don't post them elsewhere at the same time.

I think we'll leave the others, though, since one of them is up to 3 pages! Anyway, get to lookin' for stories, dude! We're all interested!

When you don't want to delete a whole thread, wouldn't it be good to just close one of the two and give a link on the active thread?



nes luke i thought u were a mod too? cant u delete it if thats the case

yes, I can delete it, but my post was more as a warning to not post things that have already been said elsewhere on the forum. repeated posts aren't any fun.

Also this is good for others who have stories too...

anyway...

"Lost and Found of Atari Game Prototypes"

During the competition against Intellivision, Atari and other console makers were now being forced to focus on good ideas, every game had to be pretty much perfect even as far as a catchy title. Many game makers would other cancel their project halfway or just give up on a game thats already been made but thought to not have such a promising sale.
The Game Informer Magazine says (My source for this story) that many of the prototypes have been discovered and most of these games were housed in a plain black casing. Unlike most game titles back in the day where you see a catchy exciting title, they would often just be titled as if someone used an old type writer and typed up the title, and then stuck it to a game cartidge. Some had some more feeling too it like this one:



Notice how poor looking the title sticker is.

Sometimes Atari would keep the idea of a game but change it physically like Stunt Cycle. A biker would move in a left to right position but the bike would be moving right (Like Excitebike but with more ghetto graphics), the pic in my GI magazine shows a ramp with a guy using it to jump from. Unfortunatly Atari never releaced it via Atari 2600 and they changed it to Dukes of Hazzard where it looks exactly the same with the diffrnce of a car replacing the bike and some color changes.

Here is another funny story though. not a prototype, Coca-cola commisioned Atari to make Pepsi Invaders, a knock off of SPace invaders where the aliens are replaced the the word Pepsi



Most games that Atari kept as prototypes became Arcade Translations meaning you would find them on an arcade machine.

And they really sold Pepsi Invaders?? That's funny.

If this came out on a new console probably the spaceship would bear the Coca Cola (TM) logo.

And they really sold Pepsi Invaders?? That's funny.

If this came out on a new console probably the spaceship would bear the Coca Cola (TM) logo.

Sorry, I forgot to mention Atari only made 150 copies that went to CocaCola employees by the Atlantic. No public releases

And they really sold Pepsi Invaders?? That's funny.


Actually, sources tell me that Coke paid atari to make Pepsi Invaders as a gift to Coca-Cola employees, so it was never actually sold at retail.

EDIT: I guess NRG beat me to it

I can't believe Cocacola actually paid Atari to make an anti Pepsi game. Was it supposed to be an employee motivation exercise? "Watch out team. The evil Pepsi menace is coming to get us, we must destroy them!"



I think it was likely more as an inside joke kind of thing. if you were a Coke employee and liked your job wouldn't you love a game where you got the chance to destroy the competing product?

Pepsi Invaders was also known as such titles of 'Coke Vs. Pepsi' and 'Coke Wins'.
They were all Space Invaders clones (what a disgraceful bastardization to a great classic game).

If I find an atari emu, I might get that game if it's up on emu