up2knowgood
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Posts posted by up2knowgood
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I'd compare it more to the Ford Model T.
It was the "first" home console, it was a product that people ween't sure would catch on.
You have to have "been there at the time" or be interested in the history/chronology/evolution of video gaming to appreciate the VCS.
By the NES... then you hitting the 30's + 40's, functionality and practicality have been optimized, so now they can focus on aesthetics and bells & whistles.
I'd consider the 16 bit generation the 50's style muscle cars...
Optional CD-ROMs like customized engines; using specs and jargon as selling points...
I'm kinda rambling.
I disagree. I am in my late 20s, and started collecting in my late teens for the history and an interest in the games themselves, and share my love with all. In fact, several guys in several stores just call me, "The Atari Guy." One store owner even calls me his "Atari Expert."
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I have two Supercharger cartridge, both boxed, one saying Arcadia the other Starpath. Along with the complete original library all boxed. All NTSC. I also own both versions of Stella Gets A New Brain, and Worship the Woodgrain. I will take pictures when I get home.
Since we're on the subject, I'd like to say I disagree, the Supercharger is not that common. I never saw one for sale in a store or anywhere other than online, and even there, there aren't that many. Same goes for the games, only online, and while easier to find, it still took me years of careful searching to get them all in nice condition.
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Honestly, I would love a scan line or some other way to play PAL games on it. Worship the Woodgrain has many PAL games on it I can't play because I don't have a TV with adjustable scan lines. The games just get blocked out when I try to play them.
Other than that? An already installed pause feature would be nice. Seems like they already thought of everything else.
One thing I would like to add though, I hope the cartridge slot is nice and big, so there are no issues with Tigervison games or Supercharger.
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I just purchased an Atari Space Age Joystick, but the red trigger fire button doesn't work. Everything else works fine, and is super smooth, but only button won't work. Can anyone make any suggestions as to how to fix it cause I'm at a loss as it is very different from a standard joystick.
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A JagPad vs. a Competition Pro knock-off? I'll take the JagPad. It has the 3 Fire Buttons, the Pause & Option buttons, and the numeric keypad.
Full disclosure, if a Pro knock-off was made, I'd probably buy it just to compare it to the original Pro. Maybe even do a YouTube video review.
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I never had problems with the Jag's DPad. But I am surprised I haven't seen any pics of anyone adding a thumbstick to the controller.
I'm skeptical about the "precision" of that other joystick. It's not analog so how could it really be precise? But more power to you if that's your weapon of choice. I'm biased because I like as many buttons as possible at my disposal. That's why as a former ST gamer it drove me up the wall that it only recognized 1 fire button through the DB9s and I really wanted so much more support for controllers through the Enhanced Joystick Ports of the STe and Falcon.
Good point with the thumbstick, I never thought of it before. I mean, I've seen a few different versions of the rotary controllers for Tempest 2000. So many that I thought some were officially released by Atari! Must be harder to do, might require a mold to make the new part.
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I'd take a Jag Pro Controller over just about anything.
Yeah, I like the Pro Controller too, that little groove in the middle the controller should be on all Jaguar controllers, it makes it so easy to remove overlays without damaging them.
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The pro controller molds were not founds recently among the rest. Maybe they were subbed out to China or Taiwan.
I've seen a few Procontroller boxes online, and they all say "Made in China" on them, so I think its likely that they were subcontracted out, and made in China. Who knows what could have happened to the molds after production stopped, they probably got destroyed.
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Interesting question, I wondered the same thing as I was looking at the various versions I had just last week. I know the machine was touted to be made in the USA but that can often be used very loosely. Seems there were at least two different black versions, one with a really thick cable and then one with a thin one with the end piece.
Yeah, the console itself says "Made in America" on it, but its hard to say how many of the internal parts were truly made in America.
I also kind of wonder what the difference between the two is. I mean, obviously I can tell the buttons are different colors, but what is the significance to the difference?
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I have two Jaguar Controllers, one with grey buttons that came with the system, and one with black buttons I bought as a spare. The black buttoned controller doesn't say where it was made on the back, which for electronics usually means it was made in America. However, this isn't proof of anything, and I have read the information on several Jaguar boxes online, and they all say "Controller Made in China" or "Controller Made in Republic of China."
Since the consoles themselves, the Jaguar CD add-on, the CD games, and many of the cartridges are all made in America, I wondered if it was possible that there were at least a few Jaguar controllers also made in America. Does anyone have any sort of information about Jaguar production?
Pictures below.
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Instead of becoming clearer, this whole mess has gotten muddier. I was hoping to find something to point me in the right direction, like a map of some sales records. Instead, I got an ink blot! I've gotten every popular title for the 2600 ever made, plus movie tie ins. It seems I've underestimated the popularity 2600. (FORGIVE ME!) It seems as if every game with a rarity of less than 5 on the Atari Age Scale sold more than a million copies. Which means that several games released in the late 80s sold more than a million cartridges, even including the last game released in North America, "Secret Quest" released in 1989, supposedly in response to "The Legend of Zelda" on the NES, sold over a million cartridges because it has a rarity of 4!
I'm calling it, there are more games that sold a million or more cartridges that can be easily listed by a single person. If only the companies back then didn't play their cards so close to their chests. As far as I can tell, no records were ever released, and so finding exact sales for even one game to get a comparative litmus test going is impossible.
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One thing was different back then vs today is everyone didnt own the cart. Between my friends and I there were 5 2600's around me. I dont think we had duplicate carts at all. If someone bought Frogger then someone else bought Berzerk. You would go to that persons house to play that game or in rare cases swap carts for a night. There were few carts that more than 1 was purchased among the 2600's around me.
I think that's more anecdotal than evidence-based. From my own personal account of what my friends and I bought, we rarely took into account what each other had, although obviously with limited resources at the time we were excited to play things we didn't personally have.
I think both are good points, but wouldn't have much impact on sales. Trading and some coordination probably did happen then as now, but really popular games would still have good sales because of this same word of mouth system. You know, something like, 'Little Jimmy seems to really enjoy that "Frogger" game Mike brought to the sleepover, I think I'll get it for his birthday so he won't have to borrow it.'
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It is very challenging to find solid sales numbers.
AMEN! That's why I'm just trying to get a broad idea of those games that probably did sell one million or more cartridges, because it really is impossible to get any exact numbers on anything in this era of video game history. Honestly, I think we're lucky to know the names of as many of the game programmers as we do.
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I don't think Warner Bros would have let this happen. They are a huge international company.
Yeah, but they let the drug use at Atari continue, and the hot tub parties, kegers, and generally did nothing to curtail the free for all environment at Atari, Inc. Unless you can prove other wise, it stands as logical that Atari, Inc.'s record keeping would be just as haphazard.
I haven't seen Atari Inc.'s records, but I have seen several scans of Atari Corps.'s internal documents, and if the links still worked, I would link you to them to show you just how little detail they get into when it comes to stock and production numbers.
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What makes you believe that?
You're right, probably shouldn't say that since I don't have first hand experience, but it is a common gripe I hear from other researchers. Do you have some internal records I could look at for myself? From any of the companies back then.
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I always felt Defender sold better than what is widely believed. I know it is only anecdotal, but I have seen almost as many Defender cartridges as Pac-Man and Asteroids over the years.
That's exactly what I'm talking about, but Atari was so poor at record keeping, its just sad. Even they didn't really keep track of the number of games they sold!
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The one thing that will never be matched will be market penetration. The VCS sold about 19 million units by 1982, which represents about 25% of all U.S. households in that year.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Second_generation_of_video_games#cite_note-2600_1989-4
http://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-households-in-the-us/
It appears you are using the Wikipedia list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
I think the problem is that no industry media conglomerate was tracking sales back then, so what you would need is some internal documents from Atari, Activision, Imagic, and a couple of the other big players.
this list exists and says 27 titles sold 1 million, but it also says Custer's Revenge sold 820k units, which is highly doubtable.
http://www.vgchartz.com/article/250871/the-best-selling-atari-2600-games-of-all-time/
Exactly, Wikipedia's list was helpful, and as much as I doubted it, I could also never DISPROVE it, or prove that others sold 1 million. And Custer's Revenge might actually have sold that many, but not in the usual way. I've heard talk that Atari Inc. and Activision both bought large numbers of the game to make sure they never made it to stores. Again though, I can't confirm this, its just what an old employee for KayBee toys said. Hardly enough for a factual study.
What's interesting about that newspaper article is that its not talking about the 2600 in the past tense, but as if it was still very much alive, and it was written in 1989!
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One Million. Its a big number, but the Atari Video Computer System had big sales numbers, and while it doesn't necessarily mean you've made a good and/or popular game, being able to sell a million copies certainly does win you some bragging rights. It is almost like an unspoken rite of passage; "how fast can we sell a million?" Its a question that is common in the modern age. But my question now is, "who managed it?"
The Atari Video Computer System had a very long lifespan, arguably longer than any other, and without a doubt, there isn't a single console out now that can hope to have a game released for it more than 10 years after its release like the 2600 did. With that lifespan in mind, I was shocked when I saw a list of games that sold one million or more cartridges. It had only 13 games on it. I found myself amazed, and at the time, my college buddies explained it saying that the 2600 was more of a fad than anything at the time. And between the low demand and the fact that there were just so many games for it, that only a few really popular games had actually managed to sell more than one million cartridges. At first, I accepted this explanation; over time though, that logic seemed more and more flawed to me, until now, when I think its completely absurd and impossible that fewer than 20 games ever sold one million or more copies over the 2600's legendary lifespan. More had to have done it, but I can't independently prove it, as many of the companies that developed games for the 2600 back in the day were short lived; others were large conglomerates with many interests. Either way, documentation was probably lost or destroyed years ago as companies when bust, or locked away and forgotten in corporate vaults as companies sold off their video game interests, or simply shut them down in favor of other ventures. Thus other means of information gathering are needed. So I'm turning to you in the community to help me. My questions are as follows:
Is it possible that records were released, and readily available to the public? If not, is it possible to find another way to prove a game was a million seller?
Common titles like Frogger surely sold well back then to be so common today, but how well? And what about all the initial release titles? Many were on the shelves for years and years, and surely over that amount of time they sold over a million copies of these games, right? And if they did it, its logical others like Space War that were also sold for many years could have done it too.
What about games like Donkey Kong and Q*Bert that were sold across multiple companies, does that still count if they sold a million between all of their alliterations?
And what about the SuperCharger? Is is possible that a million SuperCharger units were sold, and by logical extenstion, its pack-in Phaser Patrol?
Finally, what about Combat? Should it count as there is little doubt they gave away at least a million copies with consoles.
I've managed to gather some information of questionable quality over the past 2 years, but it still only gives me a grand total of 17 games. I've pictured them here:
I thank you all in advance for any and all advice and information. I feel we as a community need to disprove the belief that our beloved system managed to garner more than just a handful of hits, and prove it to be the giant we know it to be.
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It is normal. Many carts have the sliding instead of locking mechanism. Your cart is likely version i from here: http://www.videogamevariations.com/AtariCompanies/AtariGames/SpaceWar/space_war_cartridges.htm Cart2 means the sliding kind. Cart1 is locking and Cart3 is open.
Now that's helpful, thank you so much for the link!
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I think Atari Corp. used up existing inventory from Atari Inc. (Someone feel free to correct me!)
AFAIK the only cartridges Atari Corp. made themselves are the open-ended "fat shell" carts with the cutouts on the label side. Used for both 2600 and 7800.
Makes sense. Just use up the stock you have, then switch to the simpler to produce open ended carts.
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No repro involved, I have cracked open hundreds of these. They are just late release carts. They also exist on the 7800.
So did Atari Corp. make them like this too then?
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I got a couple like this & Im no collector. Nothing special.
Really? Cause I've bought and sold dozens and this is the only one I have ever come across. I didn't know what to make of it.
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Your suspicions are correct - Atari made lots of changes to their carts and systems throughout the 70's and 80's. What you've got there is simply an early to mid 80's release of the game is all.
Okay, cool, I knew from this site that they made many changes to the consoles, and game labels, but I didn't know they modified the cartridges themselves before they went bankrupt.
You wouldn't happen to have an idea of when that change was made, would you? Because I have several early 80s releases, and they all have locking ends too.
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Could be a bootleg or an old repro. Are the springs preventing the cartridge from locking into the slot?
Old repro seems more likely to me, because who would fake "Space War" so exactingly?
And no, the springs just push the end cover out over the contacts and the end slides back freely to be inserted into the console. They don't really prevent anything.
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about cartridges, molds, colors etc.. etc..
in Atari 2600
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