Jinks Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 My friend had 2600 and he was not rich. And neither were we but we got a 5200 back in the day. And it was way more. My friend had one in 82 I never had one till prob 85 or 86. I was 8 or 9. Mine was 49.95 tho. His was from sears. Vcrs were 800 bucks. Maybe people put aside more for this new groundbreaking tech than today and thought nothing of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaximRecoil Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 Retailers don't determine the "official" price of anything; it is determined by the manufacturer, i.e., the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). It can safely be assumed that the trade magazine from January 1978 has it right ($199.95). They wouldn't have called Sears, or JCPenny, or any other retailer for their information; they would have contacted Atari, Inc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 I am not 100% certain, but I believe certain U.S. FTC regulations and court rulings interpreting those regs are what caused retailers to begin publishing MSRP's alongside actual selling prices for things. Price fixing and collusion in certain market segments periodically draws governmental attention and, if I recall correctly, the exploding field of consumer electronics of the late 70's/early 80's was just such a market segment. Like I said, I don't know this for a fact, but I have partial memories about this subject bouncing around in my head from somewhere. I could make a good graduate business school or LLM thesis topic for the academically-inclined. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0078265317 Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 My frst vcr in 80s was 600 not 800. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 My frst vcr in 80s was 600 not 800.For a panasonic top load maybe I am wrong sorry. But in Canada everything is even more money. I have no proof just a distant memory of the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hunmanik Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 The launch list price: $189.95 This is from page 88 of the June 1977 issue of Merchandising. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamc Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Nice find, hunmanik. Do you still have access to that or other issues of Merchandising? I'd love to see what it reports for launch prices of other concoles, like the Bally Arcade and Odyssey2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hunmanik Posted April 22, 2016 Share Posted April 22, 2016 I don't have any of my own copies of Merchandising. Libraries can be great. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamc Posted April 22, 2016 Share Posted April 22, 2016 Heh, my wife works in an academic library so I agree. I'll have to see if her library can hunt up copies of Merchandising. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted April 24, 2016 Share Posted April 24, 2016 $199.95. I started mowing lawns, raking leaves and shoveling snow in 1980 to buy one and $200.00 was my goal. On the rare occasion, they'd go on sale for $179. By late July of '81, I had $150 saved up and Toys R Us put them on sale for $149.95. Got there first thing in the morning and there were people in line to buy them at that price. Got it home, and to my disappointment, it had one dead joystick port. Raced back to exchange it for another and luckily they had 2 left. Still using it till this day. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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