Never owned a 7800 so this is all new to me. Still, I am intrigued to know that games were still being made for the system in 1990. Looks like something I would see on a C64 which is a good thing!
The story of the Atari 7800 is a pretty interesting one. It was actually ready to be released in 1984, two years earlier than when the NES was released in the U.S. However, after it was test marketed but before it was released nationwide, Atari was sold and Jack Tramiel (former head of Commodore) took over. He put a hold on everything video game related to concentrate on computers. Then the NES came out and the 7800 was rushed to market to compete. By then it was too late.
The 7800 was technically as capable as the NES but Atari was very cheap at the time and would not put large amounts of memory on their carts, much less extra hardware like developers later did for the NES. Also, because the NES became so successful so quickly, Atari had a hard time finding 3rd party developers because of Nintendo's strict licensing rules (a developers who released a game on the NES could not release it on another system).
And if you think 1990 is late for a 7800 game, the last licensed Atari 2600 game in the U.S. was released in 1989 (Secret Quest) and 1992 in Europe (Acid Drop). Klax was also released in Europe for the 2600 in 1990. Of course, the 7800 could play 2600 games also...
Never owned a 7800 so this is all new to me. Still, I am intrigued to know that games were still being made for the system in 1990. Looks like something I would see on a C64 which is a good thing!
The story of the Atari 7800 is a pretty interesting one. It was actually ready to be released in 1984, two years earlier than when the NES was released in the U.S. However, after it was test marketed but before it was released nationwide, Atari was sold and Jack Tramiel (former head of Commodore) took over. He put a hold on everything video game related to concentrate on computers. Then the NES came out and the 7800 was rushed to market to compete. By then it was too late.
The 7800 was technically as capable as the NES but Atari was very cheap at the time and would not put large amounts of memory on their carts, much less extra hardware like developers later did for the NES. Also, because the NES became so successful so quickly, Atari had a hard time finding 3rd party developers because of Nintendo's strict licensing rules (a developers who released a game on the NES could not release it on another system).
And if you think 1990 is late for a 7800 game, the last licensed Atari 2600 game in the U.S. was released in 1989 (Secret Quest) and 1992 in Europe (Acid Drop). Klax was also released in Europe for the 2600 in 1990. Of course, the 7800 could play 2600 games also...