The 2600 Holding It’s Own In The 90s

[RugglesTx]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GoM3IKJZ5yY

 

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m8f_TD_nfqs

 

Not sure if these have been posted before or not but a cool look back at Atari in a gamers household in the 90s. The dad is as big a gamer as the kid. :0

 

Touching videos IMO. Good stuff.

Edited July 21, 2018 by RugglesTx

[BassGuitari]

IIRC the kid (now a grown adult of course, ha) posted these here himself a little while back.

 

I'm still jealous he got Glacier Patrol.

[RugglesTx]

IIRC the kid (now a grown adult of course, ha) posted these here himself a little while back.

 

I'm still jealous he got Glacier Patrol.

I was not aware he did that. Sorry.

 

But yeah he was spoilt rotten with video games, thats not hate speaking but jealousy :0

[BassGuitari]

I feel like Telegames should get more recognition in videogame history. They supported all these great old systems long after most gamers had moved on, and in some cases even introduced them to new generations of videogame enthusiasts. Thanks to Telegames (and others like O'Shea's, but moreso Telegames), systems like the Coleco, 2600, Lynx, Intellivision, Jaguar, and others never really died completely. They just went underground.

 

My brother and I actually ordered a bit of stuff from Telegames (or rather, our grandparents did at Christmas and birthdays) in the late '90s up until they discontinued support for classic systems around 2004. I got 2600 stuff like Defender II, Gravitar, Solaris, Venture, Home Run, Street Racer, Football, and some others, and also Ballblazer, River Raid, and Kaboom! for the Atari 5200. Pretty mundane stuff, but it was new to me (and literally NOS, which was mindblowing to me). I don't recall if the Telegames 2600 exclusives, Universal Chaos and Glacier Patrol, were still in the catalog at that point; I kinda hope not, because then I'd REALLY be kicking myself now for not getting them instead.

 

(I also wish I'd asked for a DINA and some of the Telegames exclusives and other now-rare Coleco titles back then. D'oh!)

 

My brother got a new Jaguar, Jaguar CD, multitap, and about a dozen cartridge and CD titles from them. Turns out he was the smart one there. (Except he also got Santa Claus Saves The Earth for GBA, so maybe not. He always had a weird thing for those early '90s "exotic" systems like Jaguar and 3DO...and also objectively terrible games like Bubsy 3D. )

[RugglesTx]

I feel like Telegames should get more recognition in videogame history. They supported all these great old systems long after most gamers had moved on, and in some cases even introduced them to new generations of videogame enthusiasts. Thanks to Telegames (and others like O'Shea's, but moreso Telegames), systems like the Coleco, 2600, Lynx, Intellivision, Jaguar, and others never really died completely. They just went underground.

 

My brother and I actually ordered a bit of stuff from Telegames (or rather, our grandparents did at Christmas and birthdays) in the late '90s up until they discontinued support for classic systems around 2004. I got 2600 stuff like Defender II, Gravitar, Solaris, Venture, Home Run, Street Racer, Football, and some others, and also Ballblazer, River Raid, and Kaboom! for the Atari 5200. Pretty mundane stuff, but it was new to me (and literally NOS, which was mindblowing to me). I don't recall if the Telegames 2600 exclusives, Universal Chaos and Glacier Patrol, were still in the catalog at that point; I kinda hope not, because then I'd REALLY be kicking myself now for not getting them instead.

 

(I also wish I'd asked for a DINA and some of the Telegames exclusives and other now-rare Coleco titles back then. D'oh!)

 

My brother got a new Jaguar, Jaguar CD, multitap, and about a dozen cartridge and CD titles from them. Turns out he was the smart one there. (Except he also got Santa Claus Saves The Earth for GBA, so maybe not. He always had a weird thing for those early '90s "exotic" systems like Jaguar and 3DO...and also objectively terrible games like Bubsy 3D. )

Great post

 

Yeah in hindsight..oh in hindsight..the differences on what we would have gotten :0

 

I agree Telegames played a huge role.

 

Atari 2600 games seem timeless.

 

Whenever we start zipping around space on intergalactic trips Im pretty sure every ship will have at least three things..

 

1. A roll of duct tape

2. A model 1911 handgun in .45 ACP

3. Some 2600 carts

 

Somethings are just perfect and cant be improved upon

[Rom Hunter]

Thanks for sharing!

Great videos.

[onemoretime]

I had no idea they were still selling stuff that late in the game. Around here, after the crash, games where even sold in gas stations. I suppose folk bought them off of the clearance isle and resold them. Then after around a year of that it seems, nothing at all.

[MrMaddog]

I remember Radio Shack still selling 2600 carts through special order, but mostly they were so easy to find at yard sales & thrift stores.

[RugglesTx]

I had no idea they were still selling stuff that late in the game. Around here, after the crash, games where even sold in gas stations. I suppose folk bought them off of the clearance isle and resold them. Then after around a year of that it seems, nothing at all.

I was knee deep in computer gaming at that point so no real ideal what exactly was going on in consoles at that point. The Dreamcast sucked me back into consoles.

 

I would imagine somewhere there are still boxes to be discovered of Atari games, at least I would like to believe that!

[BassGuitari]

I remember Radio Shack still selling 2600 carts through special order, but mostly they were so easy to find at yard sales & thrift stores.

 

I got my copy of Pitfall from Radio Shack in, like, 2001.

 

It's been a long time, my memory is fuzzy, and I have never been able to locate scans of those giant Master Catalogs they had in stores at the time (which classic gaming stuff was sold out of), but I believe they carried a lot of the same stock as Telegames--I think somebody even mentioned once in the Coleco subforum that they got a DINA from Radio Shack in the late '90s. Perhaps Telegames supplied Radio Shack?

[Video]

I got quite a lot of nos from telegrams through the 90's, including the dyna system for coleco.

 

Awesome and disappointing at the same time.

 

Awesome that you could literally buy new games for these old systems through the 90's (and even into the new millennium) but at the same time, disappointing, as you can clearly see why so many old systems went under. WAY to much overstock, despite the majority of the nos stuff being good games.

 

I got many things I already had, just because I wanted a new copy. Most my childhood stuff is bare carts due to being in a poorer household, and this stuff being readily available for cheap at yard sales back in the day.

Edited July 22, 2018 by Video

[Lord Thag]

I worked at Radio Shack in the 90s and I ended up ordering a ton of (now rare) Intellivision and Atari 2600 games from their awesome back catalog. You could even order one of those Dyna 2-in-1 Colecovision systems which I, sadly, passed on. There were a lot of Telegames products in the catalogs for sure, I *think* that's where I got my Quintana Roo, but it's been too long to remember.

[InactiveX]

I would imagine somewhere there are still boxes to be discovered of Atari games, at least I would like to believe that!

 

I think it's known that there is a lot of NOS Atari stuff still laying in boxes.

 

One of the history experts on here will know more, I'm sure.

[Lord Thag]

 

I think it's known that there is a lot of NOS Atari stuff still laying in boxes.

 

One of the history experts on here will know more, I'm sure.

Yeah, this is why you can get NOS red label games all day long from Brazil/Venezuela, they sold warehouse overstock there. So much so that games that were once extremely rare (Motorodeo, Xenophobe, Ikari Warriors etc.) are not as rare now, due to the huge number they found.

 

A lot of the NOS stuff in the US used to be sold by O'Shea Ltd. Those were the days. $5 for a sealed copy of tons of 2600/7800 games. Most of my 7800 library came from there.