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The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming
Gudlyf writes "GameSpy has a multi-part series this week titled The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming, highlighting some of the biggest debacles ever to plague our beloved pastime. While only the first part of the series is present, I can already think of a few that the list wouldn't be complete without. Anyone care to offer their own picks?" Predictions for the Top 5 also welcome, we'll run another story at the end of the week to see how people did.
I think it's meant to make the content look longer than it is so they can split it up into 50+ pages so that they can show more advertising.
Atari's biggest mistake has to be high up on that list, and I'm suprised nobody here has mentioned it yet.
They had the opportunity to buy the rights to produce and distribute a console from a Japanese company, back in the day when American companies were doing all the game consoles. However, it was during the video game crash, and for some reason, they decided to pass, and stick with their own system they were developing.
The system Atari could have had a huge chunk of? The Nintendo Entertainment System. Instead, they stuck to their own products, which really didn't go anywhere.
One wonders what might have happened if they had made the other choice...
Of course, we're talking about a company that had Jack Tramiel in charge, a man who was personally responsible for destroying multiple companies, and seemed to fight against turing the company around. During the Jaguar days, Atari hired someone to help get the company moving and going, a person who ended up quitting because Jack insisted in having control over everything, down to personally deciding when to approve overnight shipping of packages.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."