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Did you ever see the arcadia 2001, bally astrocade, or apf m 1000 in stores


masschamber

Did you ever see an emerson arcadia 2001, bally astrocade, or apf m 1000 in stores?  

30 members have voted

  1. 1. Did you ever see an emerson arcadia 2001, bally astrocade, or apf m 1000 in stores?

    • none of them
      15
    • all three
      0
    • just the astrocade
      10
    • just the m 1000
      0
    • just the arcadia 2001 (or a variant)
      3
    • the astrocade and the arcadia
      1
    • the arcadia and the m1000
      0
    • the m1000 and the astrocade
      1

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So in my experience these 3 consoles are the most difficult to find consoles in the US (outside of the adventure vision, unisonic champion and a few 8 bit computers) and they have a there own quirky visual appearance and audio profile I tend to group them together.  Since I always enjoy hearing about people's experiences with consoles when they were contemporary, does anyone remember seeing any of these odd birds on store shelves, and if you remember where, when, how much and so forth would be neat to hear about.

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Not me, but I would have been quite young. I don't recall seeing the Odyssey 2 in stores either, and we had one of those at home. 
 

The 3 machines you mention were very early, quite expensive, and not super popular. I've seen Bally Astrocade in Sears catalogs. 
 

It wasn't until Atari 2600 and Space Invaders and Asteroids that I recall seeing video game consoles in department stores. I think it's a bit sad that they aren't in places like Macy's any longer. 

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10 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Not me, but I would have been quite young. I don't recall seeing the Odyssey 2 in stores either, and we had one of those at home. 
 

The 3 machines you mention were very early, quite expensive, and not super popular. I've seen Bally Astrocade in Sears catalogs. 
 

It wasn't until Atari 2600 and Soce Invaders and Asteroids that I recall seeing video game consoles in department stores. I think it's a bit sad that they are t in places like Macy's any longer. 

Hence why I'm asking for stories about seeing them

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There was a combination arcade, VCR/tape rental, and video game store in Madison, Ohio called GameTrek. They had a demo and sold the Astrocade and games. It was sort of odd thinking back on it...

 

This was not a mainstream department store or anything, though. Definitely just a specialty place...

 

Edited by R.Cade
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I wasn't really shopping for games/consoles when those were out as I was a little young.  Maybe my parents saw them, I don't know.  When I did go shopping with my parents it was either at a computer store for our Atari 400 (these wouldn't be there) or later on at the Toys R Us for my 2600 but these would have been gone by then.

 

I did have a friend who had an Astrocade though.  Never got to play it as he said it sucked and he always wanted to play with my 400.  It may have also been broken, my memory is fuzzy.

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I went a-googlin' and found this ... build your own Astrocade kiosk!!

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/articles/phillyclassic/kiosks/astrocade/astrocade.html

 

modeled after the real thing

https://ballyalley.com/pics/hardware_pics/astrocade_kiosk/astrocade_kiosk.html

 

ckiosk1.thumb.jpg.974e08904bc9194b0131e42eb0351e82.jpg

 

I've never seen one, but it strikes me as funny that they look a whole lot like the modern Nintendo Switch demo stations at Target. 

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It occurs to me that literally no person is ever pined away for Bally, Emerson, or APF to get back into the console business. Same for Magnavox, Philips, and for the most part, Coleco. There are probably others I've forgotten or never knew about. (I had to look up APF)
 

The people who yearn for Atari and Sega to get back into the game would do well to ponder this. 

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2 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

It occurs to me that literally no person is ever pined away for Bally, Emerson, or APF to get back into the console business. Same for Magnavox, Philips, and for the most part, Coleco. There are probably others I've forgotten or never knew about. (I had to look up APF)
 

The people who yearn for Atari and Sega to get back into the game would do well to ponder this. 

Well sega and atari have a few more IPs than the others listed and sold way more consoles then any of them, granted it doesn't really matter since sega isn't really the same company as it was in the 80s-early 2000s and atari definitely isn't

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The thing is, all those companies impacted their customers differently. Atari pretty much had a pinpoint advertising method and had a large impact.

Magnavox/Philips did had an impact at least in Europe, but, like Mattel and the Intellivision, those companies still exist and (save for the HyperScan) haven't show any intention to step in the video gaming market again, so people have little hope for them to get back in business.

The other companies have been dead for years and are little more than nameplates (ColecoVision) or may not even be protected anymore (as it seems to be the case for Radofin).

 

Plus there is certainly a generation difference between those eras.

I'm not sure about the US, but in Europe, it would be the 8/16 bits computer generation VS the NES/SMS generation.

 

Those generations are mostly separated and you certainly don't see anyone in the computer gen yearning for Sega to come back. And not even for Atari, as many people resent Atari for cancelling the Falcon 040 and not improving the ST line, in favor of the piece of junk hardware that was the Jaguar.

There is peopel hoping for "a New Amiga" but unlike Sega fans who just swarm forums each time Sega seems to announce something resembling a console, they create modern hardware and modernize the Amiga OS.

People that yearn for Sega to come back as usually delusional about Sega in general, taking Sega as bigger and better than they really were. For Atari, I guess that since the nameplate still exist, people have hope? But... for what? Even at the best of their financial health, Infogrames wouldn't have the strenght to release a console, even on an European scale. So what about now where it's a 25 employees company hiding in the basement of a Parisian suburb? The next PS5?

 

Edited by CatPix
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7 minutes ago, CatPix said:

The thing is, all those companies impacted their customers differently. Atari pretty much had a pinpoint advertising method and had a large impact.

Magnavox/Philips did had an impact at least in Europe, but, like Mattel and the Intellivision, those companies still exist and (save for the HyperScan) haven't show any intention to step in the video gaming market again, so people have little hope for them to get back in business.

The other companies have been dead for years and are little more than nameplates (ColecoVision) or may not even be protected anymore (as it seems to be the case for Radofin).

 

Plus there is certainly a generation difference between those eras.

I'm not sure about the US, but in Europe, it would be the 8/16 bits computer generation VS the NES/SMS generation.

 

Those generations are mostly separated and you certainly don't see anyone in the computer gen yearning for Sega to come back. And not even for Atari, as many people resent Atari for cancelling the Falcon 040 and not improving the ST line, in favor of the piece of junk hardware that was the Jaguar.

There is peopel hoping for "a New Amiga" but unlike Sega fans who just swarm forums each time Sega seems to announce something resembling a console, they create modern hardware and modernize the Amiga OS.

People that yearn for Sega to come back as usually delusional about Sega in general, taking Sega as bigger and better than they really were. For Atari, I guess that since the nameplate still exist, people have hope? But... for what? Even at the best of their financial health, Infogrames wouldn't have the strenght to release a console, even on an European scale. So what about now where it's a 25 employees company hiding in the basement of a Parisian suburb? The next PS5?

 

I think it would be safe to assume the infogrames atari console would probably smell like cheap cigarettes too, but more seriously I think the trainwreck of the vcs is an important testament to difficult creating original hardware is even using off the shelf parts.  Though in another direction do you think a videopac mini console might do okay in Europe?  I mean in the US it was an also ran that some people might recall, but it seems a decent number of Europeans and Brazilians have fond enough memories to give it a decent homebrew presence.

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I don't think so, but... it could create a surprise.

The pre-NES retrogaming market in Europe is very small; amongst all the retrogamer I know, none of them are interested into the Videopac really.

I think that maybe a very decently priced system (25€ max) could get people curious about it. Retrogamers would be interested for sure and probably the people that knew the system back in the day, but you certainly need for it to be a small price.

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I knew of the Astrocade because our Montgomery Wards had one set up and I tried it out.  I want to say it was $249 and that seemed astronomical to me at the time,...Still, I considered it for about 5 seconds when I had a paper route before I went back to collecting Atari, then getting ready for my ColecoVision upgrade.

 

With Astrocade I thought the controllers were interesting,..They had some unique ideas from what I could tell by reading magazines, but way too few Awesome games overall.  If they had maybe literally about 3 more arcade ports or so, I may have Seriously considered them, but instead they floundered in near obscurity...Didn't even seem to advertise hardly at all so they seemed less real.  Later in life I knew one guy from work who said he had one growing up.

 

The Arcadia I remember being mentioned about twice in old magazines...Never saw one,  They didn't seem to be too serious about it either...

 

The apf m 1000?   I don't think I know what that is...

 

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1 hour ago, CatPix said:

The thing is, all those companies impacted their customers differently. Atari pretty much had a pinpoint advertising method and had a large impact.

Magnavox/Philips did had an impact at least in Europe, but, like Mattel and the Intellivision, those companies still exist and (save for the HyperScan) haven't show any intention to step in the video gaming market again, so people have little hope for them to get back in business.

The other companies have been dead for years and are little more than nameplates (ColecoVision) or may not even be protected anymore (as it seems to be the case for Radofin).

 

Plus there is certainly a generation difference between those eras.

I'm not sure about the US, but in Europe, it would be the 8/16 bits computer generation VS the NES/SMS generation.

 

Those generations are mostly separated and you certainly don't see anyone in the computer gen yearning for Sega to come back. And not even for Atari, as many people resent Atari for cancelling the Falcon 040 and not improving the ST line, in favor of the piece of junk hardware that was the Jaguar.

There is peopel hoping for "a New Amiga" but unlike Sega fans who just swarm forums each time Sega seems to announce something resembling a console, they create modern hardware and modernize the Amiga OS.

People that yearn for Sega to come back as usually delusional about Sega in general, taking Sega as bigger and better than they really were. For Atari, I guess that since the nameplate still exist, people have hope? But... for what? Even at the best of their financial health, Infogrames wouldn't have the strenght to release a console, even on an European scale. So what about now where it's a 25 employees company hiding in the basement of a Parisian suburb? The next PS5?

 

CatPix,  That is a beautiful summary of ...of the MacroNeoretro Euro Collectiveretroperspective opinion man!  (I don't know haha) ... Let me just say you've encapsulated the opinions of the time frame in your area quite well!   Cheers for that!

Edited by GoldLeader
Edit,...I better spell CatPix right, huh?
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I cant say i remember ever seeing any of those 3 in stores ever. But i also wasnt looking for them back then. Mainly i remeber seeing atari, intellivision and colecovision stuff.

I do remember seeing apf imagination machines on clearance though for $49.99 in the late 80s at a computer store near me called Protecto that bought the apf backstock and maintained support for them for awhile after apf folded.

 

 

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Astrocade (well, Bally Computer System model, actually) was for sale at Play World on Long Island, NY in Syosset.  It's where I first saw the console and was like "WOW, what the heck is that?"  It looked amazing, as did the games, but I had never heard of it before.  It became my second system, the first being the Atari 2600. 

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As far as rare or odd systems go, I only remember seeing the Vectrex and 5200 at our Sears. That, and our independent drug/variety store carried the Timex Sinclair 1000 and accessories - which was the only place I ever saw that system.


Astrocade and Arcadia were available through the Sears and Ward's catalogs of course, just don't recall ever seeing them in person. Never heard of the APF Imagination Machine until decades later.

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On 11/9/2019 at 8:13 PM, Flojomojo said:

It wasn't until Atari 2600 and Space Invaders and Asteroids that I recall seeing video game consoles in department stores. I think it's a bit sad that they aren't in places like Macy's any longer. 

Man, I WISH- my Macy's has a space at the back of the housewares area that used to be giftwrap. These days it's fixture storage & overflow candy during the holidays. I've often though about how well a game dept. would fit in there- and I'd DEMAND to be reassigned if it ever happened! (Can't imagine they wouldn't- everyone knows I'm into games and it's adjacent to my current area, so it would be ideal ?)

Edited by HoshiChiri
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I remember seeing the Astrocade in a hi-fi shop in Pickering, Ontario.  It was the only place I ever saw one for sale.  I wanted to try it out, but I was 14 and the employees were like, "Get away from that!"... 

 

The Arcadia was sold in Canada as the Leisurevision, and I remember seeing the games at Consumers Distributing behind the counter.

 

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