Could the 5200 have succeeded?

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, littleman jack said:

Most kids had to convince their parents that a home computer was more than a game machine. At least in my neighborhood. So getting a 5200 wasn't an option. We did all want one because the games looked great in the magazines and in the Toys R' Us, but our parent wouldn't go for it.

This was very true of low-cost cheaply made computers like the C-64, never mind it was a revolution in the industry. Grown-ups don't see those things. So.. to a lesser extent it applied to the Atari 800. And almost non-existent with the Apple II. This because of price. The 800 wasn't exactly "cheap toys" to begin with.

 

And Apple II was SO expensive there was no way in hell it was just a games console. This flipped parents' thinking into a different realm altogether and they were MORE likely to buy it (or save for it) over some cheaper crap like an Adam or Aquarius. Or any of those console-to-computer conversion keyboards.

 

In fact with Apple II mine wanted me to have it over several other choices. And they supported me upgrading the system throughout the years. Perhaps not all with cash assistance, but, setting up a lot of those summer-weekend jobs.

[schuwalker]

 
NES in the U.S. in '85?     
 
B A R E L Y ! ! !
 
 
Technically, it was there for a select, tiny, few who happened by that tiny handful of stores...And Only within the test market cities...
 
Has anyone ever even met someone who knew about the NES in 1985 who didn't live in the test market?
 
 

I didn’t… I got mine in Feb. of ‘86. I reside in the Chicagoland area, I read somewhere that this specific area was the next “test” launch. Like others stated, I think ‘87 was the big year and was more accessible.

I noticed something about the Colecovision arcade ports. It seems Exidy was the only company that Colecovision had the licensing for the majority of their library. The Coleco red box box games for the 2600 just migrated over to the Colecovision - I never noticed that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Chris+++]

 

This is interesting, seeing the different times at which people learned about the existence of the Atari 400/800 and microcomputers in general. It's cool to get others' perspectives, as I don't remember hearing about any kind of "crash" at the time -- there was a gradual migration to computers among myself and my classmates who were into this stuff, although I never stopped playing Atari 2600 games, even after I became obsessed with my new C64. I had probably found out about "home computers" in '82, two years before finally getting one. There certainly never seemed to be any industrial downturn for those. Software and magazines about nearly every brand remained available into the early '90s.

 

[johannesmutlu]

If the atari 5200 was straight backward compatible with atari 2600 games,if it had a normal rf output and power input,if it didn’t had a controller storage compartment and no cable compartment(thus being 2/3th smaller in siz),if the controller was robust and did reliably work along with a selfcentered poke syick along with donkeykong and donkeykong jr, it absplutely would,ve sold like hot cakes,but sadly it didn’t and games such as pac man,ms ps pac man dig dug,frogger 1 & 2 ,congo bongo,mario bros and popeye etc,,, just could not save the console from it’s grace,sadly.