The reality: With too many consoles vying for customers, home computers taking a bite out of the market, and a flood of awful games going straight to discount bins—remember ET for the Atari 2600?—people stopped buying games practically overnight in 1984. The videogame “fad” was dead, and it didn’t resuscitate until Nintendo fast-talked the NES into stores in 1986.

The alternate reality: Kiss your tingly memories of a Nintendo-powered childhood bye-bye. If Atari had thrived during this first “platform shift,” as ET creator Howard Scott Warshaw calls the crash, the company would have released its 7800 on time, “which probably would have been successful because of its backward compatibility,” says Leonard Herman, author of Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Videogames. Also around that time, Nintendo offered Atari the rights to distribute the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States. “Had there not been a crash, the deal would have gone through,” Herman says, “but Atari would have mothballed the NES in favor of its own 7800.”

Fortunately for Nintendo, its deal with Atari allowed it to sell its system—called the Famicom in Japan—in its home country. The Famicom would follow its historical course, succeeding in Japan and attracting competition from Sega’s Master System. “Sega would then market the Master System around the world and compete with the 7800,” Herman says. “Third-party companies, such as Activision, would produce games for both systems.” So, instead of today’s GameCube, you’d have the Atari 96000, complete with faux-wood paneling, of course.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Electronic Gaming Monthly.