O'Shea / Big Lots

[Andre81]

Bill Houlehan from O'Shea said that he bought the Atari inventory in 1990: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22318

 

I find this rather odd, because Motorodeo, Ikari Warriors and BMX Air Master were manufactured in 10/1990. Doesn't really make sense to manufacture new games just to liquidate them immediately. Has anyone seen these games in regular stores?

 

I always thought the Atari inventory was liquidated around 1992?

 

Also several forum members posted that Big Lots started selling the Atari inventory in 1992/1993. Did they get the stock from Atari or from O'Shea? O'Shea says they bought the *entire* Atari inventory.

 

I assume the Venezuelan games are from Musicland and they have Motorodeo and Ikari Warriors as well. That would mean that they went into distribution and not directly into liquidation.

 

 

[atari181]

I know for a fact Big Lots sold Atari games in late 1990. I was in my first semester of college and remember buying them at Big Lots in Columbus Ohio. It was definately 1990 as I remember living in campus housing and I only did so for three months

[Andre81]

Do you remember which months this were? I really wonder if MotoRodeo and Ikari Warriors went into regular distribution. They were never on the O'Shea order form, so it seems they were not liquidated.

 

The other 1989/1990 games (Double Dunk, Secret Quest, Xenophobe) are also not on the O'Shea order form.

 

I've also not seen a single copy of MotoRodeo or Ikari Warriors with a Big Lots price tag.

 

So it seems that Atari has not liquidated it's entire 2600 inventory in 1990, only older games.

 

The 1989/1990 releases were dumped in Venezuela.

 

[Lynxpro]

The 99 Cents Store chain also had 2600 carts between 1990-1992. I bought some copies of Battlezone there. The Dollar Tree chain eventually bought them [the 99 Cents Store chain] out, probably using the profits from having earned one penny extra per transaction...

Edited January 17, 2014 by Lynxpro

[AtariBrian]

Do I remember getting an atari game in some kind of generic white box from a dollar store back then ? It was Space Attack .

[atari181]

Do you remember which months this were?.

I would say it was Oct,Nov or December