CX numbers

[AtariKen64]

OK this one has been bothering me for LITERALLY 20 years.....

 

the cx26xx numbers on each and every atari made game. i know that they ar ethe part number but what decision was made in numbering them.?

 

heres what

 

combat was THE first 2600 game it came with the system it was # 2601. yet the other 9 games that orginally came out in 1977 are not 2602-2610 i think they go as high as 61, not sure...

 

so why would a game that was done by 77 start with such a high number yet others released a bit later would be under that? it is obvious in later years that the last games were saved the highest numbers, of course a few spaces up to 190 are missing!...

 

 

so does anyone know how the numbering system at atari worked? or just share your thoughts.

[Pitfall Harry]

I believe that Atari originally planned to assign product numbers by game genre. Note that the first three numbers

 

CX2601 Combat

CX2602 Air-Sea Battle

CX2603 Star Ship

 

are all warfare games. Perhaps they thought they'd only ever make 10 games of that genre, because the next two product numbers (of the original nine that were released) are

 

CX2611 Indy 500

CX2612 Street Racer

 

Again, Atari must have thought they'd never make more than 10 games of the car racing genre because the next product number was

 

CX2621 Video Olympics

 

Could this block of 10 have been reserved for a "ball and paddle game" genre? Although it was not one of the 9 titles to debut with the system, CX2622 Breakout suggests that may have been the idea.

 

The remaining three titles of the original nine are:

 

CX2641 Surround

CX2651 Blackjack

CX2661 Basic Math

 

Separated by 10 each, the product numbers of the last three games also suggests that perhaps each of them was the first of their own genre. Here are my guesses about what the intended genres could have been:

 

41-50 Two-player Strategy Games

51-60 Casino Games

61-70 Educational

 

Note that CX2642-45, which came later, were Hunt & Score, Codebreaker, Flag Capture and Video Chess. All are 2-player strategy games.

 

Note also that CX2652-53 are Casino and Slot Machine, which fit in quite well with Blackjack.

 

CX2662 Hangman and CX2664 Brain Games may be thought of as Educational.

 

Atari's original roadmap for product number allocations was not strictly adhered to. Over the years, the idea was abandoned altogether. Atari must have quickly realized they would be making more than 10 games of some genres, and overlapping genres would make placing certain games into certain product number categories impossible.

 

 

Ben

[Tempest]

Geez Ben, I was about to say the exact same thing. Did you dig up my old post about this or something?

 

Tempest

[Pitfall Harry]

No. I just have an annoyingly good memory. Thanks for the info!

 

Ben

[Ze_ro]

I always just assumed that they assigned numbers to games as they thought them up, and that development slowed some games such that the numbers were no longer sequential... but what Pitfall Harry said makes sense too

 

--Zero