Atari 2600 question......

[Corellian Corvette]

The console itself was $199.99 new - Intellivision was $249.99

Games were $29.99 to $49.99. I believe ones like Indy500 with the controller were even more.

Think about that for a second. Think about what games and consoles cost now vs. 1977. Essentially the prices haven't changed, but adjusted for inflation that console cost $500 with games costing $75!!

[MegoGeek]

As far as games, Haunted House was the shiznit

[toysrus]

Adventure

My favorite was the 2600 game " Adventure" that game had that hidden magic dot, anybody remember that? It was one of the first games to have a hidden easter egg. But the dragons looked like ducks.

They also made an Adventure part 2, but that was only for the Atari Flashback system that came out a few years ago.

[jds1911a1]

Still have one still play it. of course I caouldnt; play a PS2 game to save my life - too many buttons
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I just asked my mom and she remembers the games going for $30.

What brought me to this question was my purchase at Best Buy. I picked up the Atari Anthology for PS2. It was only $9.99 so I said what the heck. The game has over 60 Atari 2600 games and around 20 arcade classics. While playing the 2600 games I was shocked to see how primitive they were and how little effort went into designing these games. It dawned on me that at the time these went for a decent buck and you basically got C R A P. Although it feels this way now, at the time these games were the bomb. I wonder how much cost went into developing these gems and what were the profits?

Not really sure how old you are but I think you are looking at atari through modern eyes. It was the first system you could change games with (the first hom video game was Pong and it was black and white with the game code built into the console (i still have one). The technology of the time was primitive and so were the computers. even the "arcade games" of the time were only marginally better graphics. Now over time the arcade games got alot better but atari was only like 8 bits.
The profits were probably good because it got competition (intellevision and colecovision ) and survived (ATARI is still around making games). each system that is played today owes alot to the 2600. without it there probably wouldn't be a Xbox 360 or PS3.

as a general rule all video games are 30-50 when they are new regarless of the era they came out in (Nintendo and sega were too in the 80's)
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My favorite was the 2600 game " Adventure" that game had that hidden magic dot, anybody remember that? It was one of the first games to have a hidden easter egg. But the dragons looked like ducks.

They also made an Adventure part 2, but that was only for the Atari Flashback system that came out a few years ago.

Yeah I loved piling up everything ontop of each other and carrying the slain dragon

[Earth 2 Chris]

Man, that was a lot of cash back then. I didn't realize they were so high. No wonder I only had about 5 games!

My parents plunking down $200 on one gift back then was pretty substantial.

Chris

[megoat]

My parents plunking down $200 on one gift back then was pretty substantial.

Chris

Yeah, when we got one it was a SHARED gift between me and my two brothers! It was a BIG purchase for my folks......

[Wee67]

Man, that was a lot of cash back then. I didn't realize they were so high. No wonder I only had about 5 games!

My parents plunking down $200 on one gift back then was pretty substantial.

Chris

That would be about $684.22 for the game unit in today's money and $102.60 - 171.03 for the cartridges.

You should really call your folks right now and thank for them for whatever games you had as a kid!

[Earth 2 Chris]

I have a feeling the year we got an Atari, my dad worked A LOT of overtime, which he usually did to give us a good Christmas. He also worked in tobacco (cutting, stripping, hanging). Par for the course back then in KY.

Me, my dad and my sister all played the Atari. Mom wasn't interested.

Chris

[jwyblejr]

My folks didn't get me an Atari until the video game crash.

[noelani72]

my folks didn't get Atari until they went broke.
the 7800 was hitting shelves and they decided to get the 5200 model.
it came packaged with pacman and they bought only one additional game- galaxian.
funny thing, i bet they played pacman more than me or my brother.

I have since made up for that missed childhood. I got really lucky a nubmer of years ago and bought dowzens of atari sets from rummage sales. I have about 160 games for the 2600, have 20-30 or so fo the 5200 (which my controllers still work), 20-30 or so for the 7800 (which is backwards compatibile with 2600 carts). I also have about 25 coleco vision games and 3 or 4 units. I try to keep duplicate units incase one dies. naturally, i have all the expansion units for coleco and 5200 that allows me to play 2600 games.

i'd love to have a boxed collection of vintage atari stuff..but it would just be one more thing to store and dump $$ in to haha

[johnmiic]

I would like to recommend this book my friend Nick read:

The Ultimate History of Video Games

it is sort of a chronicle of the rise of those early video games systems, their designers, ( Bill Gates figues into some of that history), and the the companies which arised. I have not read it yet myself but my friend used to tell me about it every so often and it sounded pretty good.