Coleco to Atari Red

[StanJr]

I know that some of the Coleco games were later released by Atari in a red label cart (I have DK and Venture), but I have two questions about that.

 

One, how did this happen? Did Coleco sell the games to Atari?

 

And two, was the code changed in anyway, or are these the EXACT same games just in different boxes?

[Atari-Jess]

Atari also did this with Q*bert. I was just wondering this myself just yesterday, thanks for saving me the trouble stan!

[Atari-Jess]

oh and the games are the same (it looks so anyways)

i have Mousetrap (for both) and it runs normal

and the same with qbert it seems the same as well.

[Ze_ro]

I don't know what the real answer, but here's my guess: Atari released these very late in the Atari's life span (late 80's I think). At this point, I doubt Parker Bros and Coleco had any plans to make any more of these cartridges, so it was probably easy for Atari to bargain for the rights. Heck, at this point, Coleco was probably already bankrupt.

 

--Zero

[Atari-Jess]

sounds about right..

i mean the dates on the carts are quite close to the crash...

[Sylentwulf]

Actually I thought the carts were released POST crash.

[Atari-Jess]

OOPS! i only read the first year on it.

but infact yes, it was created POST crash

1988!!

now thats what I call clinging on!

[Rhindle The Red]

Atari bought the licenses from Coleco, Parker Bros. and others (including Starpath), but only released a few.

 

I think with the exception of Donkey Kong, Jr., you guys named all the ones that were actually released under these deals.

 

And the code was unchanged. Right down to the word "Coleco" in Donkey Kong.

[Genki]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rhindle The Red:

Atari bought the licenses from Coleco, Parker Bros. and others (including Starpath), but only released a few.

---

 

I never knew Starpath games were going to be released under Atari. Was Atari planning to do the full Supercharger system or convert the games to ROM for cart?

[Ze_ro]

Strange that Atari would have chosen Rabbit Transit to be the first of these cartridges... Starpath had much better games than this.

 

--Zero

[Lemmi]

To bad Atari didnt try to make a better version of Donkey Kong for the 2600

 

My favorite version of DK is on My atari 800xl , whenever im in the mood to play DK i play that one

[slapdash]

Actually, I think Atari licensed the rights, but didn't buy them. Just to be clear.

 

Given the Rabbit Transit carts that are around, it seems Atari was considering re-releasing some of the Starpath games on cartridge. But there's been no real proof of that.

[Ze_ro]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lemmi:

To bad Atari didnt try to make a better version of Donkey Kong for the 2600

---

 

Yeah, no kidding... I can only imagine someone buying such great games as Xenophobe, Dark Chambers and Solaris along with Donkey Kong, only to find out how crappy the game was in comparison! Must have been quite a disappointment.

 

--Zero

[Albert]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ze_ro:

Strange that Atari would have chosen Rabbit Transit to be the first of these cartridges... Starpath had much better games than this.

---

 

If Atari was indeed planning on releasing Starpath games in cartridge form, their goal at the time was probably to license and release games with a minimal of effort. This would follow what they did with the various Coleco and Parker Brothers games they licensed.

 

I seriously doubt Atari would have released Supercharger games in cassette form, since so few people had Superchargers. However, if they could get these games into a bankswitched cartridge and spend a minimal amount of cash to do so, then it might be worth their while. The main problem I see is the Supercharger had extra RAM on board, so any cartridges produced by Atari would also need this extra RAM.

 

..Al