Atariboy2600 Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 I just notes that for the main deluxe set for XE system I seeing two types of packaging one with three layers of Styrofoam and one with only two pieces and I was wounding if it a region like US vs Pal? Three peace layer Styrofoam Two peace layer Styrofoam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 I'd never thought about it but you are right. Mine is the 3 layer one and it's PAL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred_M Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 Sorry guys, Atari and packaging... 🤣 My system is PAL, includes manuals for Norway and has 2 layer styrofoam packaging. The serial number of the console matches the serial number on the box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Whaat games came with the XEGS? I won mine at an Atari Convention in Chicago years ago and it the games were removed and it had no power supply (I'm guessing that the PS was the Ingot variety). I still have it and it's hardly been out of the box after all of these years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbaeza Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 (edited) Hi Missile Command was included in the form of ROM within the system, and Bug Hunt and Flight Simulator II were included also, but as a physical cartridge. Kind regards, Luis. Edited December 1, 2023 by lbaeza Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Hello guys Two layers are probably cheaper than three. Saving money was Atari's main hobby. I own two XEGSses. IIRC both came with two layers of styrofoam. PAL, with Italian manuals. (A local shop who didn't know much about Ataris somehow got their hands on a lot of Italian XEGSses. The first one I bought didn't work, so I exchanged it. Then asked what they'd do with the broke one. I told them I would be willing to pay a small amount for the broken one. That's how I got two of them. The broken one has been fixed years ago. Might have been Guus Assmann. Both came with a three prong power supply, which is, AFAIK only used in Italy.) Sincerely Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy2600 Posted December 1, 2023 Author Share Posted December 1, 2023 45 minutes ago, djglish said: Whaat games came with the XEGS? I won mine at an Atari Convention in Chicago years ago and it the games were removed and it had no power supply (I'm guessing that the PS was the Ingot variety). I still have it and it's hardly been out of the box after all of these years. Last I checked mostly repackage old 400/800 games with new grey carts and I think 30 plus XE label games? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dinadan67 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 10 hours ago, djglish said: Whaat games came with the XEGS? Usually "Bug Hunt" and "Flight Simulator II" were bundled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 (edited) This might be controversial but I am gonna say it.... Bug hunt is a terrible game! Where you had popular light gun titles like Duck hunt bundled with the NES BITD, why Atari didn't ship the XEGS with a decent new shooter, or at least with Barnyard blaster or Crime buster carts, I'll never know. I had the misfortune of trying Bug hunt once. I powered down after a couple of minutes of sheer bordom and frustration and the cart has been sitting idle since. I know the following came out a good few years later in the 90s, but Atari games like Operation Blood and it's sequel(?) Special forces would have been ideal had the timing been right. (I realise the latter are Mirage titles and way after XEGS's had stopped being made). Edited December 1, 2023 by Beeblebrox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 So what would be some decent cartridge based games for the XEGS? I'm hopefully going to be showing the XEGS at a Retro-Gaming show in Stevens Point WI in a couple of weeks. Should also have my old 800XL and STfm there too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 2 hours ago, djglish said: So what would be some decent cartridge based games for the XEGS? There are a ton of cartridges for the Atari 8-bit computers. Atarimania lists 437 of them. Take your pick. Atarimania cartridges [Edit] If you get a multicart you can play just about anything made for the systems, which is thousands of games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy2600 Posted December 1, 2023 Author Share Posted December 1, 2023 9 hours ago, Beeblebrox said: This might be controversial but I am gonna say it.... Bug hunt is a terrible game! Where you had popular light gun titles like Duck hunt bundled with the NES BITD, why Atari didn't ship the XEGS with a decent new shooter, or at least with Barnyard blaster or Crime buster carts, I'll never know. I had the misfortune of trying Bug hunt once. I powered down after a couple of minutes of sheer bordom and frustration and the cart has been sitting idle since. I know the following came out a good few years later in the 90s, but Atari games like Operation Blood and it's sequel(?) Special forces would have been ideal had the timing been right. (I realise the latter are Mirage titles and way after XEGS's had stopped being made). BOTH Bug Hunt and Flight Sim was a bad idea to trying competing Super Mario and Duck Hunt? And you wonder why NES killed Atari XE. Atari XEGS vs Nintendo Entertainment System 1987 TV Commercial.mp4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Wow, thanks for sharing that video. The irony of Atari's put down tactics there given what Nintendo went on to achieve. I am surprised anyone went out and bought the xegs off the back of seeing bug hunt and fs 2 showcased. Interesting to see Atari stress the system is more than just 'a cartridge based games console'. If only they had showcased Rescue on Fractaus and included it as a bundled cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 Sorry, I should have asked, what cartridge games work well with the gun? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 AFAIK the main cart based A8 light gun games are: Barnyard blaster Bug hunt Crossbow Crime buster Also check out: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 10 hours ago, Beeblebrox said: I am surprised anyone went out and bought the xegs off the back of seeing bug hunt and fs 2 showcased. Interesting to see Atari stress the system is more than just 'a cartridge based games console'. It‘s also a real useful computer was more important then than now, even if probably waning by the time the XEGS came out. Remember the various keyboard attachments or the Odyssey2 with its mostly useless built-in keyboard. FS2 was quite hot and long-awaited (at least among my aviation-interested peers) a bit earlier and having it on cart rather than requiring endless disc loading times like the original seemed quite a coup to me. Basically Atari threw in yesterday‘s top seller „for free“ which is a sales tactic still used today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 38 minutes ago, slx said: It‘s also a real useful computer was more important then than now, even if probably waning by the time the XEGS came out. Remember the various keyboard attachments or the Odyssey2 with its mostly useless built-in keyboard. FS2 was quite hot and long-awaited (at least among my aviation-interested peers) a bit earlier and having it on cart rather than requiring endless disc loading times like the original seemed quite a coup to me. Basically Atari threw in yesterday‘s top seller „for free“ which is a sales tactic still used today. Sure. I think though in hindsight fun games and ones that really showed off a light gun should have been bundled with the xegs. Whilst a realistic (for the time) flight sim title is great for sim enthusiasts, IMHO it's not a mainstream seller. And again bug hunt is not a great title to show off a light gun. I still think rescue on Fractaus and a really fun lightgun game would have made more sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 The light gun was brought to the table very late in the Atari 8-bit computer lifespan. Even a system as popular as the NES -- which brought the zapper with its U.S. offerings out of the gate -- never had more than about 16 zapper-capable games commercially produced. I'm glad Atari made the choice to go as far as they did with the light gun idea (even if they were just trying to cash in on Nintendo's success with it). It hasn't amounted to all it could (yet), but it's still a fun peripheral, and the few games (aside from Bug Hunt) aren't too bad at all. It adds some extra depth to the system. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 It‘s interesting that light guns never amounted to more than a side note as the Ataris had had light pens since the beginning and light guns were all the rage in the „2nd generation dedicated console“ era as an add-on to Pong-style games. I remember playing it with a gun that could be converted into a rifle. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 (edited) For a very interesting interview with Rob Zdybel, one of the creators of Bug Hunt, check the following link. Go to the final part for Bug Hunt and its title screen, and a bit of history of the light gun in general. Highly recommended. https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-184-rob-zdybel-star-trek-missile-command-bug-hunt Edited December 2, 2023 by manterola 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 I also got a 3 pieces of Styrofoam XEGS. I bought it in Chile. The box is different, though. It is supposedly a "65XE computer system" ?!?!?. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 1 hour ago, manterola said: It is supposedly a "65XE computer system" ?!?!?. ...and, conversely, 65XE computers were packaged with a light gun and XE-colored joystick and called the Atari XE Video Game System. I think this was in South America too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 Are the buttons on the XEGS known for being hard to engage? The Power button seems to take a lot of pressure to turn on and the Start button is even more problematic. Otherwise it works pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwinmac Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 1 hour ago, djglish said: Are the buttons on the XEGS known for being hard to engage? The Power button seems to take a lot of pressure to turn on and the Start button is even more problematic. Otherwise it works pretty good. It might depend on the particular XEGS. On mine, the console buttons don’t take much pressure to engage. Unfortunately, my XEGS is currently in my closet due to lack of space. I have an 800XL with a Syscheck II (external PBI-based diagnostic tool and memory upgrade) as my current daily driver. Bob C Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hunmanik Posted December 4, 2023 Share Posted December 4, 2023 I see two different versions of the box art as well, at least the top panel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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