In 1984, Atari was in trouble. The Video Game Crash of 1983 had taken its toll on the industry in America, and it seemed that the end was near for Atari’s two console lines, the 2600 and 5200. This didn’t stop Atari from announcing a newer, more powerful console, the 7800, in mid-1984. Developed by GCC for Atari, it was to be released that year, along with several ports of arcade games Atari had already released (and re-released) for their previous consoles. It received a very limited early release, but then a monkey wrench fell into the works.
Jack Tramiel (of Commodore fame) bought Atari in mid-1984, and immediately halted production of the 7800. Then, in 1985, Nintendo released the NES, which over the next few years proved that the home video game industry hadn’t died in America, it had just been in hibernation. Tramiel finally gave the 7800 the green light for production in 1986. It was launched as a lower-priced alternative to the NES, and Atari did their best to entice consumers with “all new” arcade ports of games like Dig Dug, Joust, and Ms. Pac-Man, while also advertising that the 7800 was backward compatible with the entire 2600 library (which would benefit those that still had their 2600 games). However, Atari did have some new games in the pipeline, such as ports of Food Fight, Pole Position II, Ballblazer, and an original game that was referred to as both “Sphinx” and “Nile Flyer” in the initial 1984 announcement. It finally saw release in 1987, but by then had been renamed Desert Falcon.
