High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a video game console released by Atari Corporation in June 1986. A test market release had occurred two years earlier under Atari Inc. The 7800 was designed to replace Atari Inc.`s unsuccessful Atari 5200 and later to re-establish Atari Corp.`s market supremacy against Nintendo and Sega. With this system, Atari Inc. addressed all the shortcomings of the Atari 5200: it had simple digital joysticks; it was almost fully backward-compatible with the Atari 2600; and it was affordable (originally priced at US$140).