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Pong console marketing?


BassGuitari

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Companies like Atari, Magnavox, and Coleco put out an absolute ton of dedicated consoles in the mid-'70s. Like three or four or five a year from 1976, often with only incremental improvements upon the previous machine. Atari, for example, had Super Pong. Then Super Pong Ten provided for 1-4 players instead of only 1-2. Then Super Pong Pro-Am went back to 1-2 players but added Amateur and Pro ball speeds. Then Super Pong Pro-Am Ten had 1-4 players AND Pro/Am ball speed.

So how were so many consoles marketed? Atari and Magnavox can't have expected people would purchase one unit and "upgrade" to another in so short a time. Certainly not at around $50-80 a pop, which of course was a lot of money then. Was the idea to put out a bunch of different systems with varying features to be able to offer something at various price points? Or were the Pong Wars just so crazy that companies HAD to continually crank out product just to keep the brand visible?

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At 45, I am just a wee bit too young to remember Pong games being sold in stores, so I cannot directly answer any of your questions. It may be useful to look in some old Sears/JC Penny/Montgommery Wards catalogues to see how many different models were being sold in any given year. This will give you some information on how retailers approached the marketplace.

 

I do recall being in a Radio Shack store as a very small child, probably in the mid-1970s, and seeing a HUGE pile of Pong systems. They were in bright, red boxes -- so a very visable display. RS only ever sold one model, and that was getting on towards the end of the Pong lifecycle.

 

I do not remember seeing any other game systems at retail before the Atari 2600/Colecovision/Vic 20. (The Leisurevision was very definitely sold in Canada; I don't know about the Channel F or the Astrocade.)

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RS sold several models here in the states(I have them). There most famous one was my first game system in my house. The markup was so much for these systems, that a company could just offer a wide variety of options and variations to still make a good profit. My favorite model of TV scoreboards was the 60-3057 system with a cool looking gun packaged in with it.

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