Jake67

If we get something similar to the Atari 50th Anniversary on consoles like the Playstation, I’d be so happy. As much as I thought the original controller was OK (especially for the D&D games), I don’t necessarily feel a great desire to spend a lot of time with the original controllers any more. But the games? Yes, definitely. Happy to see Atari lift the Intellivision brand out of the mud it has been pulled through these last number of years. Admittedly I haven’t followed it close, but is Coleco available for Atari to buy, too?

When I was a kid, my mom and I used the manuals to record high scores. I lost them somewhere along the way and it never fails to make me a bit sad that a part of our gaming history is gone forever. For us, the manual was a record of our game-playing time together... in addition to helping keep track of games that had tons of game options. When I went on an eBay game-buying spree earlier this year in anticipation of the 2600+, an included manual was a must.

I truly loved that! Thank you, Ben. I imagine there are meetings, or at least a flurry of e-mails, about the smallest things that most consumers wouldn’t think about, yet fully play into how people will respond when they interact with the product. When my pre-order arrived yesterday, I immediately wrapped up the main box. As mentioned earlier, my mom (who arranged for us to get a 2600 when I was a kid) doesn’t know this yet but this is her gift to me for Christmas. She’s at that age where she just gives the kids and grandkids money so they can buy what they want. So I'm anxious to see her reaction when I unwrap it in front of her in a few weeks. That box, from the cover artwork to what it looks like when it’s opened, will be nice when she sees it for the first time. Dodge ‘Em was one of the main games we played, so it’s nice that one is on the included cart. (And it’s the reason it’s my avatar here.)

Sorry to go off-topic and talk about preorders, but mine arrived today after a delay from Atari. I found it slightly amusing that the Paddle box and extra Joystick box had tape on the top to keep it securely shut, but no tape on the bottom. Hardly a big deal in the general scheme of things, but something I wonder about when there’s a discussion on packaging and how certain decisions are made. As much as the centerpiece is the 2600+, my biggest joy came from the sealed game boxes for Berzerk and Mr. Run and Jump. As a kid, I remember going to department stores and seeing either on the wall behind a counter, or a glass display case on the floor, dozens and dozens of 2600 games. I’ve tried to create that somewhat in the house and it always provides some joy and good memories from those days. (Although back then it was usually 5 or so copies of each game in the stores.)

Many of them actually related to the topic of the thread, too! (This thread has gone a bit off the rails at times. Such is forum life.)

Interesting. As someone who pre-ordered from Atari and still waiting for anything to ship, I certainly wish you the best of luck with your plan.

This was a slightly disappointing e-mail to get from Atari about my pre-order: Thank you for purchasing an Atari 2600+. We are eager to get your order to you and will do so as soon as possible. Our fulfillment partner is shipping orders in waves as product arrives at their distribution center. Your order is planned to ship in the first week of December. I suppose I wish their “fulfillment partner” was Amazon. 😁

That remains to be seen for those of us still waiting for word about our orders from Atari.

I started buying 7800 games on eBay in September after going through reviews of every original title and deciding which I wanted. In the end, I bought 13. Where possible (and financially realistic) I tried to buy sealed versions. At the very least an opened box with the manual. Dark Chambers is the only one where I thought I might need an intervention of some kind.

So I should probably strike something like this from my wishlist, right? 😉 I think this is the one I saw as a kid. I wanted it so bad. I was in a computer store asking about it and the salesman was kind of in shock asking, “Why don’t you just buy a real computer?!?!” I didn’t have the courage to honestly say, “Because in the ad it seems cool!” Somehow in my young teen-age mind, I was overly confident in the power I might wield with an Atari 2600 and a keyboard.

For me, the Game Select Matrix was the best part of the manual. Seeing over 100 variations for Space Invaders, for example, made it feel like I was getting a ton of content when the ability of buy multiple carts at once didn’t exist in our house. No shipping e-mail from Atari yet. Not planning to open it until Christmas, but it would still be nice to have in my hands as soon as possible.

I also bought Berzerk. Always a favorite on the 2600, and when I fire up OpenEmu it’s one of my go-to games. It was must-by for the 2600+. So simple in concept, yet always a fun challenge when you get up there a bit in levels.

Yeah, that’s nice packaging. I can’t imagine wanting to have the cost of various packaging based on different things someone might have ordered, though. I ordered all that plus and extra joystick, so would that mean there’s a box to accommodate that configuration? As a customer, I’d love to get a box like that. As a company, I would probably be the one saying, “Hey, let’s think this through a bit more.” I’ll be curious to hear what Ben says.

Typo to fix: Can be used with orginal Atari carts (Sorry, I work as a writer/editor.) That aside, it looks great!

(Sorry... duplicate post.)