1987 Christmas Video Games Ad - What would you have chosen?

[fiddlepaddle]

The NES was sold in US in 1985, more widely in 1986, and easily found in 1987 at flea markets, albeit usually higher price but "broken" units were possible to find in dumpsters, even then. That said, I can't say exactly what year I found what, but I did look at sellers every weekend who picked through dumpsters and often got stuff very recently released, including NES units.

[InvaderPac]

I would have chosen the Atari. As a late teenager at the time, with the exception of Donkey Kong, I didn't know any of the NES games while the Atari had the already classics Galaga, Pole Position, Ms Pac Man, and Robotron. I also like the look of Atari's traditional joystick compared to the new style NES gamepad. 

[Flyindrew]

The 1987 version of me would have wanted the NES

 

The 2023 version of me would pick the Atari XEGS

[Keir]

At 13 I didn’t have a job yet so it’s a question of which would I ask for for Christmas, not which would I buy, and therefore the price wouldn’t have been a big factor. I may have been somewhat tempted by the 7800 to make up for never having a 2600 when I was younger. However I also would have thought it didn’t have any more to offer than what I could already play on my C64. The NES on the other hand had SMB which looked so cool when I saw it in the arcades (I only had one friend with a NES and he had already played SMB to death so he never wanted to play when I visited). I definitely would have wanted the NES.