Terrible controller. The 7800 effectively ended Atari’s home console division. Conclusion. It is almost fully backward-compatible with the Atari 2600, the first console to have backward compatibility without the use of additional modules.It was considered affordable at a price of US$140 (Template:Inflation). Classic Atari console design, backward compatibility with the 2600; Commando and Dig Dug! The … It looks a little better and I found the controls easier to manage. This is a result of MARIA’s zone based architecture. Poorly limited number of 7800-specific games, better graphics on NES (sorry to say that, but there you go). Stacked against the dominant NES and a stubborn Master System, Atari's competitor was doomed to fail. The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by the Atari Corporation in 1986. 7800 SOFTWARE GUIDE INTRODUCTION The 7800 is a product which combines the ATARI 2600 hardware with a new graphics chip called MARIA. Winner: It's really close but I'm going with the NES version. If you were an Atari 7800 owner in the '80s you definitely would not … The graphics were a clear step above most games on the console and the attention to detail was pretty surprising. To use taller sprites in your game, simple define more sprites and position one above the other. The Atari 7800 never had a chance. The Atari 7800 and NES in a cage match battle for 8-bit supremacy. One stage even involves a massive underwater melee! The entire 2600 library of cartridges will run on the 7800 as they do on the 2600, but new cartridges designed to access the improved hardware will be able to take advantage of a large number of improvements. Exclusive games on the Atari 7800 were few and far between, but Atari went all out with Alien Brigade. The bad. Other 7800 games with sprites taller than a zone are doing the same, one way or another. Aside from graphics the 7800 plays a tad faster but it's not a huge difference. Exclusive to the Atari 7800, it’s a faithful and fun port, save for the limitations of the 7800’s 2600-based sound. Although the 7800 MARIA GPU has the capability of creating better graphics than the NES, it is hamstrung by the amount of CPU power required to maintain the display lists needed to create those graphics. Atari planned to allow its more-advanced POKEY sound chip to be included in cartridges to resolve this, but this game didn’t get that treatment. Graphics in 7800basic are limited to either 8 or 16 pixels tall. Plus, the 7800 GPU halts the CPU while the graphics are being created, further reducing the amount of CPU time available to the game.