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Trouble determining Atari 2600 launch price


evan-amos

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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.
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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.

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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.

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  • 5 months later...

$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.

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