‘Atari Lynx II’ Retrospective Review

Atari never ceases to fascinate me. A company that created an entertainment industry, to rival Hollywood. Which then attempted to endlessly milk their consumer base, while offering as little to the customer as possible. They had a huge, 30-million selling success with the Atari 2600, and in doing so, created an entire industry (their nearest rival, Intellivision, did 3 million, despite having a more powerful machine).

Atari then tried to follow that success up, by refusing to pay their employees bonuses, based on sales (which led to the creation of Activision) and making frankly bizarre business decisions, to either bring a badly flawed product to the market (5200) or sit on good technology for 3 years, before finally releasing it, to be hit by the MAC truck that was the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). They released the 5200, not because it was an evolution of the 2600, but because the Intellivision was coming out. The 7800 (except its awful sound chip) was a great piece of kit, that then sat on the shelf for 3 years. It got released because they got wind that Nintendo was up to something. There is a pattern here. This is not how market leaders should run their business (and they didn’t stay the market leader for long).

The 7800 was not outmatched by the power of the NES but Atari, the corporation was slow and flabby, and inefficient. The consumer division was at odds with the arcade division. In short, the gold dust that Nintendo sprinkled, coupled with their cynical, but effective exclusivity arrangements with publishers, kept the Atari machine firmly locked out from working with the best publishers. Throw in a certain Italian plumber, Metroid, Contra, Castlevania and any number of brilliant experiences, you couldn’t get anywhere else, and it is no wonder that the World never looked back.

Atari had shined so bright, and then always seemed to be a buck short, behind the 8-Ball, making decisions from a position of weakness. Atari had had a bleak time. From their disastrous run of decisions, that had seen them tarnish their reputation so badly, that it led to the entire games industry imploding. Atari had greenlit so many terrible experiences, and burned their customers so many times, that many people felt that this, brave new world of computer entertainment at home was done.

What lessons that may have been gleaned from this, were perhaps upended when Jack Tramiel, got booted from Commodore, updated his enemies list, and purchased the sinking ship that was Atari’s home division. Jack Tramiel was a ruthless businessman, and he would fire hundreds of staff, and close many offices. This part of running a successful business he had down, but how was Atari going to innovate? A man as mean as Jack Tramiel (either with people or with money) was never likely (or possibly able) to spend big on R&D.

In the short term, his policy was a sensible one. Flog off console inventory, cheap. Invest in a low-cost, entry-level computer (the Atari ST – similar, but not as good as an Amiga, but cheaper, and with excellent sound capabilities). But once Atari has stemmed the bleeding, and balanced the books, perhaps Jack Tramiel should have stepped aside, and sold up. He was great at making unpopular decisions, firing people, and ripping off Microsoft to use Basic for almost nothing, but in doing so he was polluting the will of goodwill within and without, what was at the time, a small Industry, where everyone talked. Some people loved working for Tramiel, they saw him as a winner, but many others compared him to Darth Vader or Jabba the Hut.

A possible alliance with Epyx presented Atari with an intriguing possibility. Epyx was a long-standing and successful Atari ST game publisher, and they had created a machine, they called the “Handy”. They proposed Atari would make the games, for this new handheld, and Epyx would produce the hardware. On hearing of a rumoured alliance, three of the most important Epyx employees quit on the spot, such was the reputation of Jack Tramiel, at this time.

The thing is, Epyx at this point, had made itself reliant on Atari, not just its fortunes, but also the predictable behaviour of the man that runs the company. Never deliberately put your neck in a Tramiel noose, is the lesson we learn. The short story is Epyx quickly went bust after Atari withheld payments. This made Atari responsible for both the software and the hardware.

The Handy, became the “Lynx” and on paper, it was the most powerful machine on the market. It was 16-bit! It had a full-colour screen, that could be played in normal mode, Tate mode, or the machine could be turned 180 degrees, to allow left-handed people to play. This was very forward-thinking (even today, when do you see that attention to detail?). The Game Boy (undisputed winner of the time against the Lynx, Game Gear and Turbografx) had exactly 2 colours but crucially needed 2 batteries to run. The Lynx was a big, thirsty teddy bear, that sucked up 6 AA batteries in one play session. Yes, of course, you can play with it plugged into its power cable, but suddenly the “play anywhere” ethos is suddenly filled with caveats. A bit like the 7800 the cost-cutting bit on the Lynx also has a pretty poor sound chip. Get ready for shrill beeps, and possible sheepdogs turning up in the garden, folks.

There is no question that overall the Lynx was a better piece of tech. It was backlit! You could play it in bed, with the lights off, you crazy go-getter. The thing was. The Game Boy was a much better product for the time. The huge negatives of the Game Boy were never a deal breaker for people. It was simple, with 2 colours, but that meant it had a good battery life. It wasn’t backlight: you can buy a light add-on. Players wanted a low-cost way of playing Tetris while sitting on the bus (or on the loo). They wanted to play Zelda or Super Mario for cheap, in a small form factor.

The Lynx, as impressive as it was, just wasn’t the handheld that most people wanted, in the late 80s and early 90s. The Lynx also had a slew of great arcade conversions (Joust, Robotron, Rampage) the issue was that the people who played these games in the arcade were getting older, they weren’t the millions of teens who would get a Game Boy (crucially bundled with Tetris) for Christmas.

Tramiel never seemed to have enough resources, the marketing for Lynx (effective as it was, I remember their “edgy, in your face” 90s attitude adverts) but their marketing spend was dwarfed by that of Nintendo. Nintendo had shrewdly picked up the pieces from the gaming crash, with their NES, and they had locked publishers and developers down with exclusive deals. Did you want to sign a contract with Nintendo, and their millions of fans around the world, or did you want to deal with Atari (terrible reputation for underhand business practices, horrible to work with, plus tiny install base)?

Atari had once been THE home entertainment company, and they had, due to their own bad decisions, made themselves the underdog. But the was little goodwill towards them, they weren’t the plucky, heroic rebels, they were the last few, bitter stormtroopers, to get cut down by Han and Luke.

Lynx sales were reported at 2-3 million, but I am highly sceptical that these numbers are genuine. From 1993 onwards, with the company circling the drain, Atari slashed all support for everything else, to allow them to focus on their last great gamble, the Jaguar. The thing was, it was already a dead duck. Over the Jaguar’s lifetime, it sold about 115,000 units worldwide (a historic disaster). They had another 100,000 units sitting in storage that no one wanted. I find the idea they dropped the “3-million selling” Lynx, for the shockingly underselling Jaguar unbelievable (the Tramiel version of Atari was not above “exaggerating”, to put it mildly).

Like most failed consoles today (and especially post-Covid) prices for the Lynx are far higher than they really should be. The console managed a similar number of game releases as the Jaguar (about 70). The best games on the Jaguar are very good indeed, but I would probably argue, that taken as a whole, the Lynx has a better hit rate for bangers.

While Checkered Flag was broken on the Jaguar, the Lynx game is fantastic! If you were in the market for arcade action games or racers, the Lynx was a terrific little machine. Tetris was the undisputed king, but you could hardly feel like you were missing out if you had a Lynx with Klax (unless you were colour-blind). While only one game a month came out on average during the life of the Lynx, a slightly different Lynx II was released in 1990, with a few tweaks, and a new lower price. History tells us that the Lynx was a failure. In a commercial sense, it probably was, but if I was a Lynx owner, back in 1993, I would never have considered it so. If I had paid 99 GBP to play Desert Strike, Ninja Gaiden 3, Robotron, Shadow of the Beast, and STUN Runner on the go, I would have been very happy. This is a fun “little machine” that fits right into your pocket (read “ruckstack”).

If you can seek one out on eBay for 100 Pounds. I highly recommend it (but get the wall charger with it). Talk a friend into getting one, some of the multiplayer games are fantastic (check out Xenophobe).

I am still early in my Lynx adventure. Likely an update will follow, dear reader.