How Donkey Kong Toppled Atari(dfarq.homeip.net)
53 pointsby giuliomagnifico8 hours ago4 comments
  • nyeaha few seconds ago
    [delayed]
  • ndiddyan hour ago
    > Nintendo was about to release a next-generation console, the Famicom, in Japan. They wanted to export it to other markets, but didn’t want to do it alone. Nintendo really wanted to license the Famicom to Atari and have Atari distribute it in North America. Atari CEO Ray Kassar was going to sign the deal at CES in June, but delayed due to the spat over the Coleco Adam version of Donkey Kong. Then the deal fell through the cracks after Atari forced out Kassar as Atari CEO on July 7, 1983. Atari’s next CEO, James Morgan, never revisited it.

    There's a leaked memo about this deal available here: https://web.archive.org/web/20080327135150/http://www.atarim... . Atari had already paid General Computer to design the 7800 when Nintendo reached out to them about distributing the Famicom. Atari viewed the 7800 hardware as likely being superior to the Famicom, so their strategy was to string out the negotiations for as long as possible until the two systems could be directly compared. The Coleco Adam dispute was probably just a convenient excuse to continue delaying.

    When Ray Kassar was forced out due to insider trading (he sold a bunch of Atari stock around half an hour before Atari reported much lower than expected earnings), the business press was generally dismissive of the idea of introducing a new console into an already oversaturated market. The 7800 ended up getting delayed into 1984, then Jack Tramiel bought the company and didn't want to pay General Computer royalties on the consoles or software so they sat in a warehouse until 1986 when Atari finally paid up.

    If Atari did end up going with the Famicom instead of the 7800, I imagine it would have ended up delayed and hamstrung the same way the 7800 was. If anything, maybe this would have left space for the Sega Master System to take over in the US.

    • bluedinoan hour ago
      The other big problem with the 7800 was it was mostly arcade ports. They didn't really do any original games.

      People were tired of the 5th home version of Galaga, Pac Man, and Dig Dug (even though the 7800 had decent ports, especially compared to the 2600, which it was also backward-compatible with). Nintendo came out with originals like Super Mario Brothers and Zelda, and then all the third party games...

      • ndiddy30 minutes ago
        Yeah the 7800 library was basically a bunch of ports of early 80s arcade games that GCC had done for the initial 1984 release date, then ports of whatever computer or arcade games the Tramiels could get cheap licenses for, done by external contractors. Tramiel led Atari wasn't willing to put a bunch of money and effort into pushing video games forward like Nintendo was, they were mainly focusing their internal efforts on the ST computers.
  • rk064 hours ago
    wow, it is kinda unexpected that both Mario and Donkey Kong started in the same game. and that in first Donkey Kong game, the main mario was the main character.
    • technothrasher3 hours ago
      Hard to be unexpected for the many of us who lived it. It wasn't that long ago. I remember first seeing a ColecoVison, which shipped with Donkey Kong, and being amazed that, unlike on the Atari 2600, the home version of Donkey Kong actually looked very close to the arcade version.
    • pipes3 hours ago
      Was he called jump man at that point or am I misremembering this?
      • ido3 hours ago
        He did, as is stated in the article.
    • rjsw3 hours ago
      You could run the original game in Mame.
      • amiga3862 hours ago
        You could stick it in an arcade cabinet and pretend it's the real thing, like Billy Mitchell

        https://perfectpacman.com/2022/09/06/new-technical-analysis/

        • werdnapkan hour ago
          I fired up DK in mame after the King of Kong documentary came out and ended up playing quite a lot as I recalled as a kid having a very difficult time getting anywhere in the game. It was fairly satisfying getting through all the main stages for the first time.
      • chocochunks2 hours ago
        It's also been re-released on Nintendo Switch as a part of Arcade Archives.
    • rusk4 hours ago
      It’s not a big secret. I’m pretty sure it was mentioned in Chris Pratt’s recent adaptation…
      • rk063 hours ago
        it is not a secret but very unexpected. when I heard of donkey kong, it was in context of donkey kong franchise which obviously feature Donkey Kong as main character just like mario is main character of mario games.

        so technically first Donkey Kong game in Donkey Kong series is actually a Mario game. i understand why and how it happened. but this is a trivia that you either know or you would not believe from untrusted sources

        • hnlmorg2 hours ago
          It’s more the other way around: the first Mario game was a Donkey Kong game.

          The user avatar is only “Mario” in appearance. He was called “Jump Man” in that game and even his outfit colours differed from the Mario games that followed.

  • ButlerianJihad5 hours ago
    I thought that HN didn’t permit “How…” article titles?