Youngest 2600 console?

[LU8]

I have a 1991 PAL system 2600, which I bought in August that year. However, I remember still seeing the 2600 on sale new later on in Australia, possibly as late as 1994/95? I know I actually bought a copy of Dig Dug brand new in a normal store in 1994.

I had a woodgrain 2600 years earlier, but this machine stopped working after a couple of years. Surprisingly the 1991 2600 jr is still working well.

If anyone has a 2600 console built after 1991 lets hear it. Still can't get over the fact that the 2600 didn't cease much earlier than the Jaguar.

[BigFairy321]

yeah, in australia they were sold all the way into the 90's.

i remember seeing them in kmart in 92-93 for about $30 and laughing at them. ( now i wish i bought one lol )

 

they seized production of them in the US in 1989 ? i think

 

also the 128 in 1 console wuld have been released in the 90's in aus also.

nice to hear from people from australia

[LU8]

Years earlier I bought the VCS (2600) console, avec wood, when the VCS was in its heyday (1981/82). As with any current system it wasn't cheap, to my mind, so I was pretty annoyed when it became faulty. I got rid of the console/controllers, but kept my Atari cartridge collection in the intervening years until 1991 when I bought the 2600 jr. I think I had some ESP that Atari was coming to an end because I bought a lot of 2600 games in those final years from the shops, Dig Dug, Mario Bros, Space Invaders, Centipede (all genuine red labels) plus third party carts (HES distributed Activision titles). Plus some 3rd party obscure titles written in Australia. Strangely enough the Mario Bros cart was made in Australia.

I have been very happy with the 2600 jr, I like the look of it, it's very compact and IMO the joypad game controller is a big improvement over the original VCS controller which was manouverable, but always made the palm of my hand very sore after long play sessions. My 2600 jr isn't a 128 in one unit. I did see those machines in Big W, so many games for such a tiny console. :wink: One thing I have to get onto is to find a set of paddle controllers so I can play my copy of Street Racer.

In the mid 80s I was in the UK and can say that the console scene was absolutely dead, in that country at least. People were playing games on their home PCs (BBC Micro, Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64 etc). I guess they figured that with the home PC you could play games and do other tasks so it was a case of two birds with one stone. Looking back I can understand why Jack Tramiel went the home computer route after the video game crash.

I personally got a console quite late, my first experience with video games was in the 70s in Singapore (South East Asia)where I played machines like Gran Trak 10 etc at the "amusement arcade" (weren't called video arcades in those days as far as I can remember). This country had Japanese style shopping centres where it was common to have an amusement arcade on the toip floor. Children's rides, pinball machines and the early video arcade machines. The video games in those days, the driving games, were really deafiningly LOUD, that plus the pinball machines. Unlike the sanitized feel of the modern scene.

[Stingray]

I remember seeing Juniors in stores in the US in the early 90s. Usually on closeout for very cheap. I wish I had the foresight to have bought up a few of them. I was too enamoured with NES at the time.

 

-S

[LU8]

I regret not buying the Atari 7800 console that was in the Big W store over here circa 1990/91. I believe that if Atari worked with the 7800 and got some titles written that harnessed it's power it could have been an NES beater, plus the 7800 had so many peripherals planned like keyboards, disk drives, a real wasted opportunity. I was in the UK when the 7800 came out and only heard about it when I came to Australia in 1989/90.

My 2600 jr. is made in China, but it has been no problem. I think that given the interest in retro gaming today the Atari 2600 could be produced today, priced at around 45$ US (console, controllers, adaptor, couple of carts) and it would sell in the shops. For 45$ how could you go wrong? For youngsters it's a cheap toy, for oldsters it's nostalgia and they could play all the old carts on it, plus the new 2600 carts that are being written.

[Whisper]

I think you'd have a hard time selling it to the PS2/XBOX generation... I'm still pretty young, from the NES age, so I am used to blocky graphics, but I've heard comments from lots of people like "what fun is a moving square on the screen?" when I told them about my Atari 2600 and the good games it has. If this was so hip then the 10in1 Joystick would have been a huge hit, but it's nothing more than a novelty device to people that are already into retro gaming.

[LU8]

Moving squares on the screen is the Magnanox Odyssey I's job!! The decisive factor is price, the retail price of a PS2 in Australia is over 300$, Xbox well over 200$ (AUD), if you can put out a 2600 console with a couple of games for 60$ Australian, then it has a chance. Heck, 60 doesn't even buy you a single PS2 game.

2600 games vary a great deal, something like Mario Bros is colorful, has nice sound and action, plus I am struggling to get past 120,000 points. Throw in a Pac Man cart and I don't think you will do better for 60 AUD.