Local Walmart finally catching up with the times!

[RamrodHare]

My local Walmart is known for being horribly behind when it comes to toys and games. most of the time, their stock is 6 months to a year behind the Walmart 30 minutes from here. They also tend to skip waves when it comes to toys, making it really annoying to collectors and children. On to why I'm posting...

 

I went to Walmart today and as I was passing the electronics, I happened to look down the video game isle and something caught my eye. They had the Atari Flashback portable, the Genesis Portable and Genesis Flashback, along with the Atari Flashback 8. I was amazed that they had these, since I've NEVER seen any of the retro systems here. I know the Atari Flashback Portable has been around for a while, but I'm not sure about the others. I know this doesn't seem like something really important, but knowing how horrible this Walmart is, I was really surprised. What makes this Walmart such a horrible store is the fact that we have a Distribution Center right here in town, yet nothing is ever stocked when it gets released. I'll give you an example, I collect Transformers. Like most other toy lines, they get released in waves. Let's say wave1 gets released in January in the next town. It may be May or June before it shows up here and that may be the only wave that ever shows up, since the next line starts before this Walmart ever gets the second wave in. This isn't just an issue in the toys, it's also the same in the electronics and games. The only thing they seem to stay up to date on are the Blue-rays. Even the PS4 games are late.

 

So, I just wanted to share my amazement that something fairly interesting had shown up at "the Walmart that time forgot".

[Krip316]

Mine too.

[Video]

Flashback 8? Cool. Wonder if our Walmart has those? I'd like a portable Atari, and another genesis.

[digdugnate]

our local Wally-worlds have em too. Definitely a cool time to be a gamer!

[0078265317]

I saw some flashback 8s at bedbath also.

 

http://mvvg.blogspot.com/2017/11/bedbath-retro.html

[0078265317]

And just saw a flashback 8 gold at gamestop for 70 dollars.

[KeeperofLindblum]

When I worked at a Wal-Mart in Oklahoma, we got all the flashbacks for the holiday season... and then never again!

 

We got a full box of Sega, Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovision.

 

The Sega and Atari ones sold out, but we never really moved the other two...

 

(This was a couple years ago. I don't work there now).

[Tanooki]

Flashback aside they're actually ahead in one solitary way when it comes to stand alone retro gaming.

 

Arcade Classics from the Bridge Direct.

 

If you buy them from Walmart they have an exclusive contract for a special model of most the arcade cabinets they've done so far. Centipede (7800 version) Frogger, Q-Bert, Joust, Rampage (and upcoming Defender) are all NES/FC games with appropriate hacks/tweaks to fit the format running on a NOAC, LCD screen(good decent one too), and a nice form factor with good cabinet art. If you buy them elsewhere they're just shitty mostly(#1 and #2 aren't color) color coleco VFD and friends style displays instead they try and make up for using recorded arcade audio sound effects. I collect the things and play them so have a mini arcade hall along my desk. Joust/Rampage just hit the market like 3 days ago so they're now filtering out and I don't have those yet.

[tbb033]

hasbro sucks, that's why you're missing transformer waves, not the local walmart.

[digdugnate]

Flashback aside they're actually ahead in one solitary way when it comes to stand alone retro gaming.

 

Arcade Classics from the Bridge Direct.

 

If you buy them from Walmart they have an exclusive contract for a special model of most the arcade cabinets they've done so far. Centipede (7800 version) Frogger, Q-Bert, Joust, Rampage (and upcoming Defender) are all NES/FC games with appropriate hacks/tweaks to fit the format running on a NOAC, LCD screen(good decent one too), and a nice form factor with good cabinet art. If you buy them elsewhere they're just shitty mostly(#1 and #2 aren't color) color coleco VFD and friends style displays instead they try and make up for using recorded arcade audio sound effects. I collect the things and play them so have a mini arcade hall along my desk. Joust/Rampage just hit the market like 3 days ago so they're now filtering out and I don't have those yet.

If it's the ones i'm thinking, one of our local Wal-Marts had a huge display of the mini arcade cabinets where you could push a 'demo' button on them to look. i thought that was pretty cool tech with the color displays!

 

definitely far cry from the red LED ones i had as a kid

[Tanooki]

That's the ones. Only place you can get the non-gutter garbage circa 1981-83 model versions. The Walmart stuff like I said NOAC + LCD. They're fantastic. I need to back out and look again for Rampage and Joust.

 

Here a cheap easy video, around 1:20 in the dude spins it so you can see all sides of the body. This is the NOAC release of the game Centipede.

 

Beyond that there's the others I listed before and they all have ghetto LCD versions of the existing but Joust/Rampage are newest and they don't have LCD garbage copies (as of yet?)

Edited November 22, 2017 by Tanooki