2600 Dealer Price Sheet from 1985

[JayAre]

Going through some internal Atari documentation that I recently acquired, I found this Dealer Price Sheet from 1985 for the 2600.

 

Since this is post-crash, I'm assuming these prices are lower than what dealers would have paid a few years prior.  Interesting that the term "2600 software" was used, I guess due to the influence of home computer terminology at the time.

 

 

[Curt Vendel]

Atari Corp was trying to liquidate as much old inventory they purchased from Atari Inc's assets, so they were pushing out everything they could.  I would agree.  You have former Commodore management. There were computer people, not video game people and they had no experience whatsoever in the video game field.  Totally different industry, terms, sales and marketing.   Their lack of knowledge and experience in that field is just one of the numerous things that lead to Atari Corp losing the entire race to Nintendo and Sega in the video game industry.

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

No E.T.  

[Electric-Dreams]

CX2600 Model CRP ? 

[Video]

Case pack 6?

 

So you were ordering 6 packs of ite!s? That's sure a hell of a price there. I'd love to get 48 paddle controllers for $8.

[JayAre]

5 hours ago, Video said:

Case pack 6?

 

So you were ordering 6 packs of ite!s? That's sure a hell of a price there. I'd love to get 48 paddle controllers for $8.

When I first saw the list, I was thinking the same thing.  But I believe the prices indicated are per item.

[glazball]

I'm not so sure.  There's no indication that the price is per item, so I would assume that is the price per case.  After all, 1985 wasn't after the crash, that was right smack in the worst of it.  By that time a lot of places like Toys R Us were selling games heavily discounted, sometimes as low as $5 each.

[atari181]

3 hours ago, glazball said:

I'm not so sure.  There's no indication that the price is per item, so I would assume that is the price per case.  After all, 1985 wasn't after the crash, that was right smack in the worst of it.  By that time a lot of places like Toys R Us were selling games heavily discounted, sometimes as low as $5 each.

Curt would probably know better than anyone. Even for 1985, i find it hard to believe that they were selling Track&Field with the controller for just over $2 ea. 

 

[glazball]

No, what you see is the dealer's cost for the pack.  Each game in the pack would have been individually marked up later for retail sale for whatever the retailer could get for them.

I agree that Track & Fields for $2ea in bulk seems really low, but by that same line of thinking $7.50ea for Centipede seems high.  This was at a time when no one was buying.  No one.  Of course I could be wrong and apologies if so.

 

Edit:

Also, let's assume that the prices are per each rather than per case.  A case of 48 paddles would be $384, which would be $936.96 in 2020 dollars (per Google)!  Everyone had paddles, most families had 2 pairs and few games used them.  I don't think people were paying $8 plus retail markup for paddles in 1985.

Or perhaps it was a sneaky trick by the Tramiels by not clearly stating "Price/Each" so people would assume it's a bulk price, order a 6-pack of Centipedes, and then get stuck with that bill of $45 (7.50 x 6)!

Edited July 20, 2020 by glazball
clarity

[Crazy Climber]

16 hours ago, atari181 said:

Curt would probably know better than anyone. Even for 1985, i find it hard to believe that they were selling Track&Field with the controller for just over $2 ea. 

 

I don't know either...but what I do know is back in 1985 I was personally purchasing Atari games on this list for just a few bucks each at retail stores. Children's Palace frequently had them for $2.99 etc... I never saw Track n Field, even at full price. I did purchase Snoopy for, IIRC, around $4.99 at Kay-Bee...around 1986ish?

[JayAre]

I contacted Curt Vendel in order to get a clarification as to whether the pricing on the dealer price sheet was per case or per item.

 

He was able to confirm that the pricing was per unit or item.  Here's his exact response:

 

"If the pricing was for a dealer pack, it would have specifically stated pack and would have indicated the quantity.   The price sheets were unit quantity and priced for dealers."

 

Many thanks to Curt for confirming this. 

[Video]

Wow, that's a lot. Considering just a year earlier games were commonly going for .25-$5 each, most hovering in the $2 range. By 85 I don't recall seeing 2600 stuff anymore, outside a few Activision titles. They seemed to weather the crash better than most others, even atari.

[Shawn]

My local stores like Zellers, Canadian Tire and for sure Consumers Distributing still had lots of 2600 stuff for sale right up til around 88 or 89 maybe? After the NES took the world by storm the allotted space for 2600 stuff was much smaller but it was still there to be had if you wanted it. I remember when Dr. Mario came out I got it the first week it was in store at Consumers and they had 2600 Junior consoles on sale at that same time. I recall this as I thought to myself at the time "why would anyone still by an Atari"   30 years after that and I'm still playing Atari

 

 

EDIT: Just looked up Dr. Mario and it came out in 1990 so that shows the 2600 was still actively for sale in my area even in 1990.

[jhd]

16 hours ago, Shawn said:

My local stores like Zellers, Canadian Tire and for sure Consumers Distributing still had lots of 2600 stuff for sale right up til around 88 or 89 maybe? [...]

EDIT: Just looked up Dr. Mario and it came out in 1990 so that shows the 2600 was still actively for sale in my area even in 1990.

 

When my local Woolco department store closed in about 1994, they still had a handful of Atari 2600 games remaining in stock. I bought Robot Tank, Commando, Skateboardin', and probably a few other titles.

 

My local Zellers also had some 2600 games around this point (Defender II, California Games, Tennis, and maybe some others). 

 

I don't remember Canadian Tire having any Atari games left by that point, but I did not often shop there. 

 

A few years later, I visited some Zellers stores located in smaller communities in case there was any remaindered or overlooked stock, but there was not anything to be found.     

[+davidcalgary29]

23 minutes ago, jhd said:

 

When my local Woolco department store closed in about 1994, they still had a handful of Atari 2600 games remaining in stock. I bought Robot Tank, Commando, Skateboardin', and probably a few other titles.

 

My local Zellers also had some 2600 games around this point (Defender II, California Games, Tennis, and maybe some others). 

 

I don't remember Canadian Tire having any Atari games left by that point, but I did not often shop there. 

 

A few years later, I visited some Zellers stores located in smaller communities in case there was any remaindered or overlooked stock, but there was not anything to be found.     

Canadian Tire largely sold computer games in the late '80s and early '90s. CT was one of my last sources for A8 titles; they sold those C64/A8 "flippies" on metal spinning racks (and all those Awardware titles) into '91 in Toronto. 

 

And I doubt Zellers would have wanted to give up their own pirate line cash cow while they were still getting some money for it. I didn't see any of those titles in my local Zellers after about '86, though.

[Pete5125]

I know Hills, Toys R us, Sears, and Kay Bee Toys all carried 2600/7800 all carried games into the early 90s, around 93 they were liquidated at Big Lots.