Revisionist History

OK, I have read many times that Nintendo originally offered USA marketing rights for Famicom/NES to Atari. In a historical blunder, Atari declined.

This made me wonder what if...

Would 7800 and XEGS have been released? Would 2600 games have been released into the early 90's? Would NES have been anywhere near as successful as it ultimately became in the states? Would Sega and NEC have had any greater success with Master System and Turbografx consoles respectively?

Lots of questions.

That's a lot of questions! If the NES had been branded as an Atari console, I don't believe Atari would have released the 7800. The XEGS, maybe, as it was also meant to be used as a computer. Could it have been as successful? Good question. Atari wasn't making wise decisions at the time (as this historical blunder demonstrates, among others), so they may have screwed up marketing. That is, unless the agreement with Nintendo had something to say about how it would be marketed.

Since the NES revived the home gaming industry in the US, it is possible that things may have progressed as we know if an Atari-branded NES had been released.

I agree about Atari maybe screwing up the marketing of NES. With Jack Tramiel at the helm, who knows what might have happened? It is weird, though, that Mattel actually had marketing rights for NES in Europe. Was Nintendo somehow afraid of marketing such a popular system outside of Japan? I don't understand why.

I think they were looking for established names to sell their product, for whatever reason. In the end, it worked out well for them to sell the product under their own brand.

I look to Sega's handling of the Master System. Tonka had the rights to sell the consoles. Sega seeing the writing on the walls wisely decided to take back over when the contract was up. Too late for the Master System but on the plus side lesson learned when releasing the Genesis/Mega Drive.

Same might have been true with Atari and Nintendo. The Snes might have saved the Nes.

Wonder if Sony had released the Nintendo Playstation, if they would have had the same problems.