up2knowgood

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.

Now that's helpful, thank you so much for the link!

Makes sense. Just use up the stock you have, then switch to the simpler to produce open ended carts.

So did Atari Corp. make them like this too then?

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.

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.

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.

I would like to ask if anyone knows anything about his strange Atari cartridge I have. On the outside, it looks like a normal Atari Picture Label of "Space War," but the end of the cartridge slides on a pair of coil springs, and doesn't lock like a normal Atari Inc. Cartridge. Before anyone says its a normal cartridge who's end has broken or gotten stuck, I've taken apart a standard Atari Inc. Cartridge, and there are no coil springs inside of it, just a single leaf spring. Like so. It seems to me that Atari Inc. changed their cartridge design at some point, but don't know when or why. Since I only have one like this, I don't know how common they are either. In fact, the only thing I really know about it is that its something different, and I'm really curious as to why. If anyone can tell me anything about it, I'd be very grateful. I have more pictures in this album here, if anyone wants more, let me know and I will take more.