Atari 50: The First Console War

[Video]

Yeah, vectrex. Would be cool to see some adds from bitd, but yeah, I never even heard of it till late 90's personally.

 

Wonder between o2 and Fairchild which did worse? I knew a few people with the channel f, but not till the 90*s did I find someone who had an odyssey2, just as I was coming into finances and collecting everything was becoming a thing for me. Totally bought it, kind of disappointed it was "just A 2600 with a keyboard" (loved the joystick on that thing though, so springy)

 

Anyhow, yeah, following generations is a pain, especially when you go multiplatform as companies routinely tried to one up each other as their previous console was waning. Like atari, obviously pong, 2600, 5200, 7800, jaguar, pretty easy to follow, unless you count lynx, but I'd lump it with 7800 as it was intended to cohabitate with that.

[zzip]

30 minutes ago, Video said:

Wonder between o2 and Fairchild which did worse? I knew a few people with the channel f, but not till the 90*s did I find someone who had an odyssey2, just as I was coming into finances and collecting everything was becoming a thing for me. Totally bought it, kind of disappointed it was "just A 2600 with a keyboard" (loved the joystick on that thing though, so springy)

My gut says that O2 did better, but maybe because I remember seeing the ads for that, especially when they released the "KC Munchkin" game which caused a bit of a stir at the height of Pacman-mania

 

I don't recall seeing any ads or hype for Channel-F, but I might just have been too young?

 

I knew one person who had each system so that doesn't help haha.

[+jeremiahjt]

I have heard the Odyssey 2 sold upwards of two million units. Anecdotally, I have two or three Odyssey 2 systems, quite a few games, and I see them regularly in the wild. My local game store has two boxed ones right now, one of which is near pristine. Conversely, I have never seen a Channel F and I have only come across a small handful of games in my entire life.

[mr_me]

The Odyssey2 did particularly well in Europe and had a second life in Brasil. A March 1982 newspaper article had the Odyssey2 install base in the United States at the time at around 200 thousand homes.

[JPF997]

3 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

I have heard the Odyssey 2 sold upwards of two million units. Anecdotally, I have two or three Odyssey 2 systems, quite a few games, and I see them regularly in the wild. My local game store has two boxed ones right now, one of which is near pristine. Conversely, I have never seen a Channel F and I have only come across a small handful of games in my entire life.

If the Odyssey 2 sold around 2 million units then that means it sold roughly the same as Ataris other competitors (Intellivision and Coleco Vision), yet another reason why the name of this DLC is more marketing than actual history.

Edited Friday at 05:51 PM by JPF997

[zzip]

14 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

If the Odyssey 2 sold around 2 million units then that means it sold roughly the same as Ataris other competitors (Intellivision and Coleco Vision), yet another reason why the name of this DLC is more marketing than actual history.

Mattel engaged in a console war through all the head-to-head comparisons, and Atari struck back with their own ads.    I don't recall Magnavox doing the same.   There also weren't legions of Odyssey 2 fanboys proclaiming the superiority of their console,  so no I don't think that was a console war, they were just two products that happened to be on the market at the same time that ignored each other (apart from the time Atari sued Magnavox over KC Munchkin)

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, JPF997 said:

If the Odyssey 2 sold around 2 million units then that means it sold roughly the same as Ataris other competitors (Intellivision and Coleco Vision), yet another reason why the name of this DLC is more marketing than actual history.

Lifetime Intellivision system sales were more than double that number. North American Intellivision console numbers through 1981 more than four times Odyssey2.

Edited Friday at 07:20 PM by mr_me

[JPF997]

33 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Lifetime Intellivision system sales were more than double that number. North American Intellivision console numbers through 1981 more than four times Odyssey2.

The last sales figures I've seen for Intellivision put it's total sales at roughly 3.7 million units which is not more than double of the Odyssey 2 and Coleco Vision ( 2 million ).

 

Intellivision selling four times more  than the Odyssey 2 in 1981 in America reminds me of the Game Gears Christmas victories in 1991/1992 in the US  against the Gameboy, impressive but inconsequential at the end of the day.

Edited Friday at 07:51 PM by JPF997

[mr_me]

44 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

The last sales figures I've seen for Intellivision put it's total sales at roughly 3.7 million units which is not more than double of the Odyssey 2 and Coleco Vision ( 2 million ).

 

Intellivision selling four times more  than the Odyssey 2 in 1981 in America reminds me of the Game Gears Christmas victories in 1991/1992 in the US  against the Gameboy, impressive but inconsequential at the end of the day.

That number is only through 1983. We don't have numbers for Intellivision console sales from 1984 through 1990 but based on serials it would certainly take it over four million. Colecovision numbers are only through first quarter 1984, and based on serials, estimates take it to around 2.5 million maybe more.

 

Those aren't 1981 sales numbers, they are based on the install base in the US at the time from that March 1982 newspaper article. Considering that Intellivisions sold for about 50% higher price than an Odyssey2 that would give Mattel an even larger market share.

 

Another thing you can do to compare the impact these systems had is looking at discussion forum activity over time. You'd have to go find the popular Odyssey2 discussion forums because it doesn't seem to be on Atariage.

Edited Friday at 08:35 PM by mr_me

[+pboland]

19 hours ago, zzip said:

...There also weren't legions of Odyssey 2 fanboys proclaiming the superiority of their console,  so no I don't think that was a console war, they were just two products that happened to be on the market at the same time that ignored each other (apart from the time Atari sued Magnavox over KC Munchkin)

As an Odyssey 2 fanboy, I'm officially proclaiming the superiority of the Odyssey 2 console. Long live the keyboard!  😁 😎

[+cjherr]

On 10/12/2024 at 9:58 AM, pboland said:

As an Odyssey 2 fanboy, I'm officially proclaiming the superiority of the Odyssey 2 console. Long live the keyboard!  😁 😎

Agreed. The O2 has it's own charm.

[Flyindrew]

On 10/12/2024 at 9:58 AM, pboland said:

As an Odyssey 2 fanboy, I'm officially proclaiming the superiority of the Odyssey 2 console. Long live the keyboard!  😁 😎

My Odyssey 2 story-Christmas morning 1981, my best friend got an Odyssey 2 under his tree. We hooked it up, played it for over an hour, I looked at him and my 9 year old self commented "this is Atari for poor people". LOL!

[+Zeptari]

On 10/11/2024 at 1:50 PM, JPF997 said:

yet another reason why the name of this DLC is more marketing than actual history.

Nope. It's history and marketing, and It really happened.There's a story to be told, simple as that. Just like the SNES vs Genesis days.. Turbo who? 

[Hwlngmad]

On 10/11/2024 at 8:28 AM, Video said:

Wonder between o2 and Fairchild which did worse? I knew a few people with the channel f, but not till the 90*s did I find someone who had an odyssey2, just as I was coming into finances and collecting everything was becoming a thing for me. Totally bought it, kind of disappointed it was "just A 2600 with a keyboard" (loved the joystick on that thing though, so springy)

The O2 definitely did better as the Videopac G7000 was popular in Europe and Brazil, as noted earlier.  The Fairchild, while quirky and cool, just wasn't a winner.  Not to say that the O2 did amazing or anything.  But, it had legs and sold well.

[+pboland]

4 hours ago, Flyindrew said:

My Odyssey 2 story-Christmas morning 1981, my best friend got an Odyssey 2 under his tree. We hooked it up, played it for over an hour, I looked at him and my 9 year old self commented "this is Atari for poor people". LOL!

I guess we were poor. 😞 But back then it was still fun! 😀