Did the NES hurt the success of Atari 5200?

The Atari 5200 is a game system that not too many younger gamers know about considering its short lifespan in retail during the early 80’s. The reason why Atari 5200 was such as big deal was because it was a game system that came out about a year before Nintendo’s NES console. The Atari 5200 was released in ‘82 and was discontinued sometime in ‘84. As it related to sales the Atari 5200 had only reached roughly one million units in sales and is seen as a commercial failure. Unfortunately, the lifespan of the Atari 5200 was mainly during the video game crash of 1983; which did not end until 1985. It should also be noted that Nintendo had released the NES in ‘83 a game system that is highly credited for the rising popularity & interest in video games from ‘85 onwards. The popularity of the Super Mario series and the overall sales numbers for Nintendo’s Famicom console was one of the best things that have ever happened in gaming. To say that the success of the Famicom console contributed to the failure of Atari 5200 would be an understatement at this point. In fact, there were multiple factors that lead to the downfall of Atari’s second generation console including: market saturation and lack of interest in video games during the early 80’s.