The final wave of 7800 cartridges are closer in style to what was available on other late 1980s consoles, such as Scrapyard Dog and Midnight Mutants.

Designed by General Computer Corporation, the 7800 has graphics hardware similar to early 1980s arcade video games and is a significant improvement over Atari's previous consoles.

[8] It was developed in 1983–84 with an intended mass market rollout in June 1984, but was canceled after the sale of the company to Tramel Technology Ltd on July 2, 1984.

[5] Thirteen games were announced for the system's launch: Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position II, Centipede, Joust, Dig Dug, Nile Flyer[12] (eventually released as Desert Falcon), Robotron: 2084, Galaga, Food Fight, Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractalus!

This led to additional negotiations regarding the launch titles GCC had developed, then an effort to find someone to lead their new video game division, which was completed in November 1985.

[1][16] It launched with titles intended for the 7800's debut in 1984[17] and was aided by a marketing campaign with a budget in the "low millions" according to Atari Corporation officials.

The 7800 addressed many of the most common complaints with the preceding 5200, including a smaller size, built-in backward compatibility, and an improved controller design.

In February 1987, Computer Entertainer reported that 100,000 Atari 7800 consoles had been sold in the United States, including those which had been warehoused since 1984.

[21] By the time of the discontinuation, the Nintendo Entertainment System controlled 80% of the North American market while Atari had 12%.

[23] Retro Gamer magazine issue 132 reported that according to Atari UK Marketing Manager Darryl Still, "it was very well stocked by European retail; although it never got the consumer traction that the 2600 did, I remember we used to sell a lot of units through mail order catalogues and in the less affluent areas".

To compensate, GCC's engineers allowed games to include a POKEY audio chip in the cartridge.

This digital signature code is not present in PAL 7800s, which use various heuristics to detect 2600 cartridges, due to export restrictions.

When playing an Atari 2600 game, the 7800 uses a Television Interface Adaptor chip to generate graphics and sound.

[39] Similar in style to controllers found on Nintendo and Sega systems, it was not available in the United States.

Atari released five 7800 light gun games: Alien Brigade, Barnyard Blaster, Crossbow, Meltdown, and Sentinel.

[44] Eleven games were developed and sold by three third-party companies under their own labels (Absolute Entertainment, Activision, and Froggo) with the rest published by Atari Corporation.

Through this loophole, Atari 7800 conversions of Mario Bros., Double Dragon, Commando, Rampage, Xenophobe, Ikari Warriors, and Kung-Fu Master were licensed and developed.

[citation needed] A final batch of games was released by Atari in 1990: Alien Brigade, Basketbrawl, Fatal Run, Meltdown, Midnight Mutants, MotorPsycho, Ninja Golf, Planet Smashers, and Scrapyard Dog.

[47] Several new Atari 7800 games such as Beef Drop, B*nQ, Combat 1990, CrazyBrix, Failsafe, and Santa Simon have been released.

In July 2009, the source code to 13 games, the operating system, and Atari ST-hosted development tools, were released.

[48] Commented assembly language source code was made available for Centipede, Commando, Crossbow, Desert Falcon, Dig Dug, Food Fight, Galaga, Hat Trick, Joust, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Stunt Cycle, Robotron: 2084, and Xevious.