"Street Fight" & "White Water Madness" (lost unreleased Atari 2600 video games; existence unconfirmed; 1990s)

Atari.

Status: Existence Unconfirmed

Street Fight and White Water Madness are two lost Atari video games for the company's aging Atari 2600 home console. These titles were announced throughout 1989-1991. The latter was even available on an order form in 1991 according to an AtariAge forum user, but none of these games have surfaced in the forms of screenshots, gameplay descriptions, box art, or prototype ROMs, whilst many other unreleased 2600/7800 titles from this era tend to have prototype ROMs readily available. Thus, making its existence unconfirmed to exist.

Context

Part I: The Video Game Crash of 1983 and the revival of the North American games industry (1983-1989)

In 1983, the North American video game market experienced a market crash due to market saturation in the console and games market causing many at the time to switch to personal computers like the Commodore 64. The video game company Atari, like many, were affected by the crash, and during this time Atari were making some changes to their business strategy. Around 1984, Atari had designed a revision for their popular 2600 console, which was nicknamed by fans as the 2600 "Jr" and a next-generation, backwards-compatible home console known as the 7800, as well as a 2 button "Pro-Line" Joystick intended for both consoles. While some claim to have gotten a 2600 Jr in Europe from a batch in Ireland from 1983/84. Both systems were shelves indefinitely around the time that Jack Tremiel, the founder of Commodore and Atari's parent company Time Warner Communications entered a deal where Tremiel would purchase the consumer division of Atari from Time Warner.

Also of note, in 1983 Atari and Nintendo would begin negotiations of a deal to bring Nintendo's Famicom, known in the West now as the Nintendo Entertainment System to the North American market. In exchange, Atari would license some of their properties for Famicom ports, and Nintendo gave Atari the rights to port some of their titles to home computers. This deal would grow sour when unbeknownst to either party the American company Coleco had showcased a version of Donkey Kong running on the Colecovision-compatible ADAM computer, which seemed to be in violation of Atari and Nintendo's agreements and later on the deal did not go through and Nintendo would go on to release the Nintendo Entertainment System themselves in 1985.

Terminal, in an attempt to cut back on the company losses, decided to liquidate their stock of products, shut down domestic branches and lay several employees off to keep the business steady while the company was finishing up their 16-bit line of home computers, with seemingly no word on the 2600 Jr or the next-generation 7800 pro system.

In 1986, when the 2600 "Jr" and the successor console Atari 7800 were announced at CES for a March 1986 release, also around this time the NES which was at the time a limited test release in New York City would be released in more US Cities and later nationwide in June 1986. Also at CES was INTV Corp, the then-current owners of the Intellivision system/IP also announcing new games and revised consoles. However at least with the 7800, the system was seemingly notorious for delays, vague and contradictory statements on if the system even shipped, which lead to one reader of Computer Entertainer to cancel their pre-order. The system would finally be released sometime around June-July 1986, and along with them were announced more titles for not just the 7800 but even the 2600.

With those announcements came many new Atari 2600 titles, mostly from Atari themselves but also from third parties like Activision. Titles of note from this time include Ghostbusters (1985),Jr Pac Man (1986), Solaris (1986), Kung Fu Master (1987), California Games (1988), Commando (1988), Dark Chambers (1988), Tomcat: The F-14 Fighter Simulator (1988), BMX Air Master (1989), Secret Quest (1989).

A few of these were already worked on/released during the crash but became more popular in the wake of the video game industries revival, but many would be released for the newly revived games industry and featured innovative features and gameplay mechanics for the time.

The Swansong Era (1989-1993)

Computer Entertainer Magazine that documents the upcoming release of "Street Fight" and "White Water Madness"

While many 2600 ports from the latter half of the 80s were impressive and sometimes even considered great games for their day, some were not as widely acclaimed, including games like "Double Dragon" which whilst it was reportedly a big seller for the aging 2600, it was regarded by many to be extremely difficult mainly regarding controls and difficulty, and generally the 2600 market was very small by the late 1980s, which to some was seen as not helped by Atari's actions regarding the repeatedly delayed and later seemingly neglected 7800 consoles which was thought to have been hampered by Nintendo's strict licensing policies, the rumored frugal nature of Atari Management and furthermore by Atari's XEGS system and SEGA's 16-Bit Genesis console. Some of the late 2600 titles did have NTSC builds but never saw a release in North America.

But in 1989, a few upcoming 2600 games showed up on Computer Entertainer Magazine and would re-appear with more detail in the Winter 1990/91 issue of fanzine Atari 2600 Connection, the following is a quote from said magazine.

" Atari is releasing some new 2600 games! They are: BMX AIRMASTER, IKARI WARRIORS, MOTORODEO, STREET FIGHT, and WHITE WATER MADNESS. we plan to review 'em as soon as we can get out hand[s] on them. BMX AIRMASTER is now available and the rest are "Coming soon." "

Whilst BMX Air Master, Ikari Warriors Motorodeo and an additional title Sentinel would release in North America by March 1991 and be available for purchase via Mail-Order from Atari directly and whilst Shooting Arcade from the Computer Entertainer Magazine would never release, a prototype was found and is available online. However, Street Fight and White Water Madness would never surface officially or unofficially in any form. According to an AtariAge user, their order form contained White Water Madness but they never received the game. As of now, it's unknown if these games were developed or even what they were supposed to be.