Vanguard

Did they say 'Bite My Shiny Metal Ass'?

Actually, I do know, and have worked with, the people you will need to be getting a license from. And, I'm telling you unequivocally, it's not going to happen. Your total possible profit, on all the platforms you're discussing, won't cut the legal fees for the license involved. I dub thy project 'foolish' and thy time 'wasted', and thy attitude 'amateur'. At best, you're incredibly ignorant of what you're getting into. At worst, you're a troll. Show us a working demo or something someday. Until then, you're blowing hot air.

Edit: I suppose I should be nice, but this project really feels like a pipe-dream.

Well, I have to admit, I was stuck with the Coleco Adam as my game rig after the 2600 finally died. My dad would simply not buy me another dedicated gaming console, because it was waste of money, of course. So he bought the Adam. So much for not wasting money. At least I still had my trusty MC-10. The Atari 5200, though, was a 'legend' machine. Only one guy I knew had one, and we played Qix and Ms Pac Man for hours. Then he would come over, and we played Donkey Kong and Venture for hours. Worked out well, that. Then the Adam died a fiery death. Literally. Black smoke poured out of the back as the power-system finally overloaded the bloody thing. Dad chose a replacement, though. A CoCo 1. It was cheaper than the C64, you see, and he didn't want to waste the money. See a pattern? Alas.

Man, I haven't done assembly for years, but I've looked at programming for the Atari 2600 more than once, and just sighed every time. Just seems to be this wee bit shy of totally masochistic. I guess I'm spoiled for making games on the PC for so long - as well as drawing sprites for my own ditties in Paint Shop Pro. But, the idea of a 'Spy Hunter' type of game, where you can use the 'turbo boost' button to speed past obstacles and 'ram' criminal cars to catch them is a bit intriguing. So, a question for those who have and do program for the 2600 now. Would a 'Spy Hunter' style game, with the scrolling street, some 'traps' in the road (such as cones, spikes, bombs, whatever), 'pedestrian' cars, and then 'bad guy' cars, along with a few stanzas from the Knight Rider theme bleeping away, be more realistic to create in a 4K or 8K cart? (I could do similar for the MC-10 way back when, at about 4K, but it was much much easier to program for.) And, lastly, I'll tell the author of this thread that Fox Entertainment, Inc has about zero interest in licensing Knight Rider for the 2600 these days. It just ain't gonna happen. They're going to look at 'maximum 200 sales at $25 a piece?' and just laugh at you. Forget it. Sorries.

Dates were going by memory, jeeze... didn't realize I needed my books next to me or anything! Still, arguing that a slapped-together Breakout mod for 1978 was a good idea for a 1983 console seems rather daft, though. Breakout, super or not, just looked pretty damn primitive. Of all the games in Atari's vast catalog, that's one near the bottom of the 'must get' list. There were better looking games on the 2600 at the time. Oh, that was certainly the biggest factor. And, truth be told, if Coleco had gone the route of the Vic20 (and eventually the C64), their gamble would have been on the money. Sadly, they threw together a totally buggy, crap-laden system with hardware that was already being rendered obsolete, and at a price-tag that kept them out of the market. But, that's for another thread, I guess. Point being, though the Atari 5200 was slaughtered by the ColecoVision in the 'third console war', that war ended with pretty much everyone losing in a big way. Too bad, though, with some work, either system could have lasted it out until the NES came out.

There were a few reasons that the Colecovision did better than the Atari 2600. The two I hear most cited, though, were the pack-in and the joystick. The pack-in was Breakout... they had to be insane for that. A 1975 game released as a selling point in 1983. The next generation of arcade games were already coming out, and Atari packs in Breakout? At least it wasn't Pong, but they could have (and should have) put in Pac Man or Ms Pac Man instead. The joystick! Egads! While it's true that the Colecovision stick was no charmer, the 5200's controller was just plain abysmal. Many of the 5200's games were just frustrating to play with that dog. Third party sticks helped a bit, but most moms and dads weren't about to spend the extra cash on the 5200 unless those sticks were actually broken. There are other issues. Most of the 5200's line up seemed too familiar. Games from 1975-1980 had already been driven to death on the 2600, which was still being heavily pushed. (Atari didn't push the 5200 much, if at all, and continued to bank on the 2600). Too few of the 'new games' were passed by to focus on the 'safe hits' from years before. Despite it being a solid system at the time, there just wasn't a lot of reason to actually go out and buy it. Colecovision dominated for the time, though they too would collapse in a relatively short time.