Neat article from 1985 about Cosmic Commuter & Ghostbusters release

[+Psionic]

While doing some research last night, I came across this newspaper article from August of '85 discussing some new Activision releases...

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19850831&id=fGkaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UioEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7097,10642764

 

There's also some discussion about "rare" 2600 games that were known, even back then. A rather interesting read from a time when the 2600 was basically thought dead.

[Zwackery]

Damn, great article! And 5200 Gremlins was still kinda rare for quite some time after the article was written (and then copies were found in a warehouse, as predicted). Q*Bert's Qubes being discussed is also amazing - it would be useful to track down the articles he references. Mentioning the Atari Club releases and the rarer carts for the Vectrex is impressive, and then going on to Condor Attack, Magicard, and Atlantis II. The writer definitely knew some useful information. Kind of eerily well-informed.

[+SpiceWare]

nice find

[Serious]

While doing some research last night, I came across this newspaper article from August of '85 discussing some new Activision releases...

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19850831&id=fGkaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UioEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7097,10642764

 

There's also some discussion about "rare" 2600 games that were known, even back then. A rather interesting read from a time when the 2600 was basically thought dead.

 

Impressive insight for an article written back in 1985.

[BassGuitari]

Interesting that the writer specifically separates "Old Atari" and "New Atari." Most people still don't know there's a difference.

[toiletunes]

According to the article, there were 93 copies of Atlantis II

???

That's an odd number...

[+Psionic]

Damn, great article! And 5200 Gremlins was still kinda rare for quite some time after the article was written (and then copies were found in a warehouse, as predicted). Q*Bert's Qubes being discussed is also amazing - it would be useful to track down the articles he references.

I didn't bother looking for those earlier articles he mentions, but since he gives specific dates it shouldn't be too hard to find them.

 

According to the article, there were 93 copies of Atlantis II

???

That's an odd number...

There's been extensive discussion (and speculation) over the years of how many cartridges were made. I think at some point someone did claim that "around 100" were produced, but I think that's the first time I've ever seen anyone claim a specific number. I wonder where that writer's info came from? 93 is definitely an odd amount, especially considering that the game used a mask ROM and I can't see anyone producing a run of 93 ROMs.

[ferghead]

Here's the next article:

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19850907&id=GmgaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UCoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3902,5256667

 

This is really amazing, from my preliminary search the guy wrote a column on video games well into the 90s for that newspaper.

 

EDIT: I see he was the editor for EGM for a long time, I guess he knew his stuff!

Edited December 18, 2013 by ferghead

[ubersaurus]

Weird question - since these links have gone dead, does anyone still have copies of the articles? Or at least remember the author or newspaper?