Question: How Many Lost Atari 2600 Games do you Think is out in the Wild?

[Magmavision2000]

I've had this thought in my mind for sometime and I'm curious on what you guys and gals on Atariage think?

 

I believe there's probably like 150-200 lost or unknown Atari 2600 games out in the wild.

[Rom Hunter]

I've had this thought in my mind for sometime and I'm curious on what you guys and gals on Atariage think?

 

I believe there's probably like 150-200 lost or unknown Atari 2600 games out in the wild.

 

Just curious: what are you basing this on?

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by Rom Hunter

[Magmavision2000]

Just curious: what are you basing this on?

I'm basing the question on the possible amount of Atari games nobody knows about at all, I'm not talking about games like Birthday Mania and Extra Terrestrials.

[Rom Hunter]

In that case: could be a million, who knows?

[Supergun]

As for discovering any more previously unknown but yet officially released USA/NTSC games, personally, I would say none. Weve pretty much rounded up the last few obscure stragglers over the past decade. (Birthday Mania, Gamma Attack, & Red Sea Crossing)

 

As for discovering any more (known or unknown) unreleased games (at the prototype and/or produced but not distributed stage), Id agree with Rom Hunter, its anyones guess.

 

Recent examples of (almost made it to market) like Extra Terrestrials & Arkyology are good examples.

 

The 1984 crash caught the entire industry off guard. So there may have been more lone wolf programmers who were working on 2600 games at home when it happened who simply abandoned their work at whatever stage it was at, through it all in a box, and then just moved on.

[Rom Hunter]

Rumored, unreleased and WIP titles here:

http://www.atariprotos.com/rumormill/2600/2600rumor.htm

http://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/unreleased/unreleased.html

But completely unknown VCS games?

I don't think there are many left.

[Hannacek]

What do you mean by out in the wild? You mean unknown games in a garage, attic, storage locker, or somewhere else. These would have to be unreleased or prototype games, because all the released games as known.

The people who worked at Atari in the 70's and 80's are getting older and older. There probably will be some new games found when these people die and the families go through their garages and attics. Someone will buy a box of Atari stuff thinking it is just a bunch of common games, but find an unreleased or prototype game. The owner probably worked for Atari back in the day and didn't care, or didn't remember what they had.

[pacman000]

And let's hope those aren't tossed as "worthless obsolete junk dad used to work on" or "something which may get us sued if Warner Communications finds out."

[+Atari_Warlord]

Maybe 15 more games. Less than 5 being totally unknown.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I think there's probably a few at most but probably many prototypes not found yet.

[moycon]

I'm going to guess that there are 32 lost or unknown Atari 2600 game in the wild, and probably another 6 or 7 hiding in plain sight.

[pacman000]

Now, how many are know to exist, but have never been dumped?

[Emulator]

My top 5 games that I would like to see dumped for emulation playing:

 

Anteater

Loco-Motion

Pursuit of the Pink Panther

Birthday Mania

Seal to Whales