ColecoVision Release Dates - Help Needed

[Ikrananka]

Recently I was digging around the internet trying to find the release date for the ColecoVision in the UK. I found that generally the release date is stated as either being August 1982 (i.e. the US release date) or is completely absent. Nowhere does there seem to be a list of release dates for CV hardware other than for the US.

 

So, I looked through some old UK magazines and put together the attached document which is a series of excerpts from the UK's "Computer & Video Games" magazine. This magazine was about the only large circulation commercial magazine that covered video games at that time (1982 and early 1983). These excerpts put the release of the CV in the UK as being May or June 1983, i.e. 9 to 10 months after the US. Personally, I purchased my own CV in the UK not long after its launch and that was in August 1983.

 

In Issue 95 (page 20) of the UK's Retro Gamer magazine it is stated that the European release was a few months after that of the US. This makes no sense when compared to the above UK release date and I suspect that the European release date would be much closer to the UK release date than the US (remember that the UK, European and Australian releases were all marketed and distributed by CBS Electronics).

 

All of this got me thinking about trying to collate a list of CV release dates in all regions other than the US which is known, i.e. Canada, UK, Europe (broken into individual countries) and Australia.

 

So, I'm asking for help. I'm looking for documentary evidence of CV release dates rather than just dates from memory. If you have any old magazines or documents that can confirm release dates for CV hardware then please post them here.

 

Thanks in advance.

ColecoVision Launch UK News.pdf

[retroillucid]

I would put my hands to fire that the Canadian release date was the same as the US one