Coleco gets a bad rap?

[supercat]

If I recall, Coleco was FORCED out of the business not because of the Cabbage Patch Dolls (which temporarily saved the company) but because of the awful decision to put it all in the ADAM basket.

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I recall reading the licensing terms for anyone who wanted to develop games for Coleco systems and discussing them with a programmer friend. Both of us agreed at the time that there was no way either of us could imagine any reasonable person wanting to agree to their terms.

 

Of course, that was before obnoxious licensing requirements from console vendors became the norm; I wonder how modern licenses compare to Coleco's?

[George Gray]

If I recall, Coleco was FORCED out of the business not because of the Cabbage Patch Dolls (which temporarily saved the company) but because of the awful decision to put it all in the ADAM basket.

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I recall reading the licensing terms for anyone who wanted to develop games for Coleco systems and discussing them with a programmer friend. Both of us agreed at the time that there was no way either of us could imagine any reasonable person wanting to agree to their terms.

 

Of course, that was before obnoxious licensing requirements from console vendors became the norm; I wonder how modern licenses compare to Coleco's?

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I would imagine they are equally bad. Nintendo, for instance, has very strict guidelines about content. I remember that for the N64, they were the manufacturer of the cartridges, so they had ultimate say so. If they did not approve, the cart was not made. Just look back to the NES and early SNES days. They sued some third parties (Tengen, for one) for not playing by their rules. If I remember right, only one 'third party' ever got by with unlicensed carts. A really bad company, but I don't recall the name. The games started out as 'normal' but to avoid Nintendo's wrath, the company went religious. Nintendo dare not mess with religion.

I'm sure Microsoft is tough too. Sony apparently is more open. Just look at the quality of quite a bit of the games. Awful, just awful. I think they could use more of Nintendo's rigidness, while Nintendo should lighten up a bit. They are in a very precarious postion. It would seem prudent to loosen the controls a bit to get more third parties. I hope the Revolution lives upto it's name.

[supercat]

I would imagine they are equally bad.  Nintendo, for instance, has very strict guidelines about content.  I remember that for the N64, they were the manufacturer of the cartridges, so they had ultimate say so.

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From what I recall of Coleco's licensing terms (required to receive development documentation/tools), if Coleco didn't like your game, they not only had the right to refuse to let you distribute it, but they also had the right to demand that you destroy all work produced for that game, and they had the right to search your premises to confirm that you in fact did so.

[shadow460]

My thought on 2600 Zaxxon is simply that it's not Zaxxon in any sense of the title.

 

I haven't played it much, really, but I was shocked by two things: One, the differences between it and the arcade port, and two: the idea of somene trying to make that game for the 2600.

 

My favortie Coleco titles wer Mouse Trap and Front Line (despite the controls). They were good games, pure and simple.

[Foxsolo2000]

Front Line was a surprisingly good arcade conversion. It wasn't as detailed as the Colecovison version but it did manage to capture the true essence of its arcade cousin. The only problem it faced was awkward controls for in the arcade you had a knob that could be rotated to aim your gun and you had a second button for the grenade but all in all a reasonable conversion

[NovaXpress]

Also, I think, the Colecovision was the top selling console for '82-'83, but I might be wrong. It certainly outsold the others during it's initial release, mainly due to Donkey Kong.

Colecovision beat the 5200 in the 82 season while the 5200 took over in Xmas 83 (too late). The 2600 probably had the most sales of all in both years.

 

Notice that Colecovision had the hottest titles for Xmas 82 while the 5200 had the better games for 83. It wasn't just concentration on the Adam, but on the Super Game Module that turned people off. Instead of acquiring hot arcade titles, they drizzled out some original games and hyped up the 1983 version of the 32X. So a year after buying the Colecovision, they were telling us we'd have to buy a new setup to play new versions of the same games we already owned? This was worse than the Adam fiasco but no one seems to remember it.

 

It was also a bad move to make the sports games dependent on those expensive controllers. Coleco made a lot of bad consumer decisions throughout 1983.

Edited January 19, 2006 by NovaXpress

[Lord Helmet]

So my original question has been answered...Coleco probably does get a bad rap...next question:

 

Out of the 3rd party developers that did primarily arcade conversions, which one would be better than Coleco...CBS? Sega? Parker Bros? Those three come to mind, especially CBS and Sega, but I'm not sure if they were better than Coleco.

Edited January 19, 2006 by Lord Helmet

[else]

Also, I think, the Colecovision was the top selling console for '82-'83, but I might be wrong. It certainly outsold the others during it's initial release, mainly due to Donkey Kong.

Colecovision beat the 5200 in the 82 season while the 5200 took over in Xmas 83 (too late). The 2600 probably had the most sales of all in both years.

 

Notice that Colecovision had the hottest titles for Xmas 82 while the 5200 had the better games for 83. It wasn't just concentration on the Adam, but on the Super Game Module that turned people off. Instead of acquiring hot arcade titles, they drizzled out some original games and hyped up the 1983 version of the 32X. So a year after buying the Colecovision, they were telling us we'd have to buy a new setup to play new versions of the same games we already owned? This was worse than the Adam fiasco but no one seems to remember it.

 

It was also a bad move to make the sports games dependent on those expensive controllers. Coleco made a lot of bad consumer decisions throughout 1983.

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I agree with a lot of what you say. However in Coleco's defense just about all the hardware manufacturers at that time were searching for a way to lower their costs and risk exposure associated with producing a game. ROMs were (and still are) very expensive to make, and if the sales of the game tank, your company was in a world of financial hurt -- which is basically what happened during the crash (all the console game companies got stuck with a lot of very expensive ROMs that they couldn't sell). The console companies were looking at how cheap it was to produce a game on tape or disk for home computres and trying to figure out how to do the same for consoles. So Coleco's answer was to use tapes, first on the super game module and then on the Adam.

 

Ultimately of course their effort failed, and not until CDs came along could the console makers finally ditch ROMs. So there was a legitimate reason for Coleco doing what it did. Had they succeeded the price of games might even have come down since the would be cheaper to make.

 

So yea, Coleco screwed up. But in the end I guess I can't blame them too much for trying to do the right thing....

[George Gray]

Also, I think, the Colecovision was the top selling console for '82-'83, but I might be wrong. It certainly outsold the others during it's initial release, mainly due to Donkey Kong.

Colecovision beat the 5200 in the 82 season while the 5200 took over in Xmas 83 (too late). The 2600 probably had the most sales of all in both years.

 

Notice that Colecovision had the hottest titles for Xmas 82 while the 5200 had the better games for 83. It wasn't just concentration on the Adam, but on the Super Game Module that turned people off. Instead of acquiring hot arcade titles, they drizzled out some original games and hyped up the 1983 version of the 32X. So a year after buying the Colecovision, they were telling us we'd have to buy a new setup to play new versions of the same games we already owned? This was worse than the Adam fiasco but no one seems to remember it.

 

It was also a bad move to make the sports games dependent on those expensive controllers. Coleco made a lot of bad consumer decisions throughout 1983.

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Thanks for the correction. I did a bit of checking on the Super Game Module because I did not recall that. Here's a quote from ClassicGaming.com's Colecovision entry:

"Expansion Module #3 was originally intended to be the Super Game Module. The SGM was supposed to add 30K of RAM and use 128K "microwafers" shaped like microcassettes. It promised games with intermissions, high-score lists, and extra levels. At first Coleco said the SGM would come packaged with Super Donkey Kong, but later they changed it to Super Buck Rogers and Super Gorf. Later rumors indicated that the Super Game Module would utilize Capacitance Electronic Disks (CEDs), a storage medium similar to vinyl records that had been developed by RCA as a cheap alternative to laserdiscs. A former Coleco employee recently confirmed that prototype Super Game Modules were test-marketed, but in the end, Coleco shelved the SGM and developed the ADAM computer instead. ADAM became the new Expansion Module #3. "

 

So, while I think my original statemen is mostly valid, I can see how the SGM would have scared people. What would have been REALLY bothersome is if they had decided to use CED's as the storage medium. Those things wore quickly (I had three players and over 260 discs) and would have been a lousy storage medium. I think it is fair to say the concentration on wild hardware schemes versus acquiring new titles is more accurate. BTW, they lost $80million on ADAM alone. I wonder how much they sunk into the SGM. I have not seen a figure.

 

You raise a great point too. It is really fascinating to note the difference in consumer thinking then and consumer thinking now. Back then, selling the public on the notion of UPGRADING to a new and better console and then buying the games for said console was just too tough for most to handle. After all, televisions would last ten to twenty years. Why the hell do I need to replace something I've only had a year or two? What are you? NUTS!?

Contrast the with today's thinking...how many iPods have you bought? How many game consoles? Hell, I have three versions of the same freaking game, all for different consoles. It was definitely a different world then.

[George Gray]

So my original question has been answered...Coleco probably does get a bad rap...next question:

 

Out of the 3rd party developers that did primarily arcade conversions, which one would be better than Coleco...CBS? Sega? Parker Bros? Those three come to mind, especially CBS and Sega, but I'm not sure if they were better than Coleco.

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Was'nt CBS just the European arm of Coleco?

[NovaXpress]

"Expansion Module #3 was originally intended to be the Super Game Module. The SGM was supposed to add 30K of RAM and use 128K "microwafers" shaped like microcassettes. It promised games with intermissions, high-score lists, and extra levels. At first Coleco said the SGM would come packaged with Super Donkey Kong, but later they changed it to Super Buck Rogers and Super Gorf. Later rumors indicated that the Super Game Module would utilize Capacitance Electronic Disks (CEDs), a storage medium similar to vinyl records that had been developed by RCA as a cheap alternative to laserdiscs. A former Coleco employee recently confirmed that prototype Super Game Modules were test-marketed, but in the end, Coleco shelved the SGM and developed the ADAM computer instead. ADAM became the new Expansion Module #3. "

That's not quite how it went down. Coleco was talking about the Adam from the start. The Colecovision landed in fall 82 with 12 killer launch titles. Over the following year, only a few new first-party games emerged with the sports games requiring a $90 set of controllers (which added a whopping TWO buttons) to play. So when the summer game magazines come out to hype up Xmas 83, all Coleco has to trumpet is this Super Game Module. It was just an Adam without the keyboard. Meanwhile, those who really wanted a gaming computer were buying C64s and the 2600 still outsold the competition. After a disastrous launch, the 5200 finally had great software in 1983 and was starting to catch up when the crash hit.

 

 

So yea, Coleco screwed up. But in the end I guess I can't blame them too much for trying to do the right thing....

The right thing? Instead of nurturing their console with fresh titles, Coleco thought they could ask gamers to pay an extra $2-300 for this add on which lets them type in their initials and play the pie level on Donkey Kong. It was a blatant rip-off and even the kids could see that. As far as the price coming down, when has that ever really happened over the long run? CDs are cheaper than cassettes, DVDs are cheaper than carts, yet the prices today are higher than ever. And why even think that Coleco wanted to lower prices?

 

Coleco was so thrilled about the success of the Turbo wheel that they spent 1983 trying for force their customers to buy more peripherals which should have been optional. You had to buy the $80+ steering wheel or you couldn't play Turbo. You had to pay it for the new joysticks or you couldn't play sports games. You had to pay it for a trak-ball or you couldn't play Slither. You would have to pay it for a add-on or you couldn't play the fourth levels of their year-old games. They were trying to screw us and we knew it.

[NovaXpress]

Was'nt CBS just the European arm of Coleco?

CBS is the same CBS that airs "60 Minutes." They were and are entirely separate companies. CBS' game division made some sort of deal to buy up or distribute Coleco's games.

[chuckwalla]

I still fantasize about the games originally advertised by Coleco for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision that could have been, like Ladybug for the 2600, Smurf Rescue for the Intellivision, and Cosmic Avenger for both systems.

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When I occassionally scan throught the classic game ads on the web or my own collected literature, I wonder what those games would have looked like also. Considering that Cosmic Avenger and Super Cobra are the same in concept and that Super Cobra exists for the 2600 (and I actually like playing it sometimes), it would have only required a little tweaking with some graphics to make Cosmic Avenger a reality (probably some people would have just shrugged it off as a redundant title, but it would have been pretty cool for those of us who love collecting and playing all the classics!).

 

Also, I like most of the Coleco titles for the 2600. Of course Donkey Kong was a bit of a disappointment at the time but atleast playing some of the screens AT HOME- AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANTED was definately welcome! Smurfs, Carnival, Mouse Trap, Mr DO!, and Venture were decent ports in their own right.

[Lord Helmet]

Was'nt CBS just the European arm of Coleco?

CBS is the same CBS that airs "60 Minutes." They were and are entirely separate companies. CBS' game division made some sort of deal to buy up or distribute Coleco's games.

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Yep. I guess I should have said CBS's in house 2600 games: Gorf, Omega Race, Wizard of Wor, etc.

[shep]

I secretly rather enjoy the 2600's Donkey Kong. Yea, its way short, but its Donkey Kong

[else]

"Expansion Module #3 was originally intended to be the Super Game Module. The SGM was supposed to add 30K of RAM and use 128K "microwafers" shaped like microcassettes. It promised games with intermissions, high-score lists, and extra levels. At first Coleco said the SGM would come packaged with Super Donkey Kong, but later they changed it to Super Buck Rogers and Super Gorf. Later rumors indicated that the Super Game Module would utilize Capacitance Electronic Disks (CEDs), a storage medium similar to vinyl records that had been developed by RCA as a cheap alternative to laserdiscs. A former Coleco employee recently confirmed that prototype Super Game Modules were test-marketed, but in the end, Coleco shelved the SGM and developed the ADAM computer instead. ADAM became the new Expansion Module #3. "

That's not quite how it went down. Coleco was talking about the Adam from the start. The Colecovision landed in fall 82 with 12 killer launch titles. Over the following year, only a few new first-party games emerged with the sports games requiring a $90 set of controllers (which added a whopping TWO buttons) to play. So when the summer game magazines come out to hype up Xmas 83, all Coleco has to trumpet is this Super Game Module. It was just an Adam without the keyboard. Meanwhile, those who really wanted a gaming computer were buying C64s and the 2600 still outsold the competition. After a disastrous launch, the 5200 finally had great software in 1983 and was starting to catch up when the crash hit.

 

 

So yea, Coleco screwed up. But in the end I guess I can't blame them too much for trying to do the right thing....

The right thing? Instead of nurturing their console with fresh titles, Coleco thought they could ask gamers to pay an extra $2-300 for this add on which lets them type in their initials and play the pie level on Donkey Kong. It was a blatant rip-off and even the kids could see that. As far as the price coming down, when has that ever really happened over the long run? CDs are cheaper than cassettes, DVDs are cheaper than carts, yet the prices today are higher than ever. And why even think that Coleco wanted to lower prices?

 

Coleco was so thrilled about the success of the Turbo wheel that they spent 1983 trying for force their customers to buy more peripherals which should have been optional. You had to buy the $80+ steering wheel or you couldn't play Turbo. You had to pay it for the new joysticks or you couldn't play sports games. You had to pay it for a trak-ball or you couldn't play Slither. You would have to pay it for a add-on or you couldn't play the fourth levels of their year-old games. They were trying to screw us and we knew it.

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By the right thing, I mean Coleco was trying to lower their risk for shareholders in the event of a downturn by switching to tapes instead of ROMs and perhaps also lower the cost of games for the cusumer as well. It is the fiduciary responsibliy for executives to look out for their shareholders, after all.

 

So why did they just rerelease enhanced versions of their original games to begin with? Probably because they knew that for it to be successful they needed to get a lot of games out in a hurry. So they enhanced their existing games so they could get a library built up quickly. Pretty smart move in my book. And if you look at their later releases and prototypes for the Adam, they were original games.

 

And yea, the Turbo wheels sold well so why shouldn't they offer more hardware peripherals? It's easy to look back now and criticize this since now it's pretty clear that this isn't generally a good idea. But at the time, Coleco and everone else was experimenting. It was a brand new industry. Hindsight is 20/20, but they didn't have that luxury.

 

I guess I never got the idea that they were trying to screw anyone. I always thought all the hardware add-ons were pretty cool....

Edited January 19, 2006 by else

[Bruce Tomlin]

norm; I wonder how modern licenses compare to Coleco's?

The thing is, it was still possible to manufacture your own cartridges anyhow. AFAIK, the 7800 was the first system with a way to lock out unauthorized 3rd-party games, and the NES was the second. The 7800 lockout was even cryptographic and impossible to break without modding the console until five or six years ago when someone dug a hard drive out of a dumpster in Sunnyvale. The NES lockout is irrelevant now that CIC chips can be salvaged from junk commons, but it served its purpose back in the day.

 

I don't recall the name.  The games started out as 'normal' but to avoid Nintendo's wrath, the company went religious.  Nintendo dare not mess with religion.

Color Dreams / Wisdom Tree

 

I'm sure Microsoft is tough too.  Sony apparently is more open.

Just ask Working Designs about that. Sony is apparently rejecting 2D games for the PS2 unless they're compilations of more than one game. Never mind if it's a big 2D Japanese RPG, it's still 2D, and that's not "cool" enough for Sony any more.

[NovaXpress]

I mean Coleco was trying to lower their risk for shareholders in the event of a downturn by switching to tapes instead of ROMs and perhaps also lower the cost of games for the cusumer as well. It is the fiduciary responsibliy for executives to look out for their shareholders, after all.

These are the people who bet the farm on the Adam. Shareholder risk wasn't an issue.

 

Probably because they knew that for it to be successful they needed to get a lot of games out in a hurry. So they enhanced their existing games so they could get a library built up quickly. Pretty smart move in my book

Like it was a smart move for Atari with the 5200 launch?

 

And yea, the Turbo wheels sold well so why shouldn't they offer more hardware peripherals?

Offering peripherals is great, but nearly all of Coleco's 83 releases required peripherals. Great for the rich kids. There's no reason for Baseball or Rocky to require a different controller.

[supercat]

norm; I wonder how modern licenses compare to Coleco's?

The thing is, it was still possible to manufacture your own cartridges anyhow. AFAIK, the 7800 was the first system with a way to lock out unauthorized 3rd-party games, and the NES was the second.

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I would have guessed Coleco was doing some sort of cartridge validation during the annoyingly-long power-on screen. Do they not?

 

Given that the Colecovision is based on off-the-shelf parts for which data sheets would have been available, what would have been the obstacle to someone reverse-engineering the system as Coleco had done with the 2600?

[else]

I mean Coleco was trying to lower their risk for shareholders in the event of a downturn by switching to tapes instead of ROMs and perhaps also lower the cost of games for the cusumer as well. It is the fiduciary responsibliy for executives to look out for their shareholders, after all.

These are the people who bet the farm on the Adam. Shareholder risk wasn't an issue.

 

Probably because they knew that for it to be successful they needed to get a lot of games out in a hurry. So they enhanced their existing games so they could get a library built up quickly. Pretty smart move in my book

Like it was a smart move for Atari with the 5200 launch?

 

And yea, the Turbo wheels sold well so why shouldn't they offer more hardware peripherals?

Offering peripherals is great, but nearly all of Coleco's 83 releases required peripherals. Great for the rich kids. There's no reason for Baseball or Rocky to require a different controller.

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Like I've said multiple times already, looking back with 20/20 vision these were all stupid moves. I'm in 100% agreement with you, got it?. You have to go back to 1984 though. Everyone thought the Adam was going to be a huge success. Everyone. Same with the 5200. Everyone knows what not to do now. I don't agree that everone knew better back then -- that's pretty difficult in a brand new industry like the console market was.

 

If you think Coleco was out to screw you, that your opinion. I thought they were pretty innovative, that's my opinion....

Edited January 20, 2006 by else

[frogstar_robot]

Given that the Colecovision is based on off-the-shelf parts for which data sheets would have been available, what would have been the obstacle to someone reverse-engineering the system as Coleco had done with the 2600?

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It would have also been necessary to create a replacement for the system ROM in the ColecoVision itself. The effort required to do this would have been comparable to the effort Compaq put into reverse engineering the IBM PC BIOS. A team would have had to disassemble and document the ROM built into the ColecoVision. This specification document would have to list all of the functions, maximum permissible length for each function, and the jump tables at least. The documentation would then have to be correctly implemented by a second team that has had no other contact with the first. This is clean room or "chinese wall" reverse engineering.

 

The entire extant ColecoVision library would then have to be tested on the clone system to ensure at least reasonable compatibility. It would have been a very expensive and risky undertaking to create a legal ColecoVision clone. Of course, a pirate knock-off WOULD have been fairly easy.

[George Gray]

Was'nt CBS just the European arm of Coleco?

CBS is the same CBS that airs "60 Minutes." They were and are entirely separate companies. CBS' game division made some sort of deal to buy up or distribute Coleco's games.

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Yep. I guess I should have said CBS's in house 2600 games: Gorf, Omega Race, Wizard of Wor, etc.

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Sorry, but CBS games is NOT the Columbia Broadcasting System - or CBS TV.

It is the European arm of Coleco. Check here AtariAge Coleco page

and here Intv Funhouse's CBS page

 

Finally, here's a nice article that sums up Coleco's console biz:

Dot Eaters Coleco story

 

This has been fun. I love topics like this.

[supercat]

It would have also been necessary to create a replacement for the system ROM in the ColecoVision itself.  The effort required to do this would have been comparable to the effort Compaq put into reverse engineering the IBM PC BIOS.  A team would have had to disassemble and document the ROM built into the ColecoVision.  This specification document would have to list all of the functions, maximum permissible length for each function, and the jump tables at least.  The documentation would then have to be correctly implemented by a second team that has had no other contact with the first.  This is clean room or "chinese wall" reverse engineering. 

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That would be true if the goal was to clone the Colecovision. If the goal were merely to write games that would work with the CV, all it would be necessary to do would be to examine the BIOS enough to determine the cartridge entry point and NMI vectors, and then ignore everything else in the BIOS. True, a cartridge might be able to save some code by using the BIOS routines, but I wouldn't think they'd really be needed for much.

[frogstar_robot]

That would be true if the goal was to clone the Colecovision.  If the goal were merely to write games that would work with the CV, all it would be necessary to do would be to examine the BIOS enough to determine the cartridge entry point and NMI vectors, and then ignore everything else in the BIOS.  True, a cartridge might be able to save some code by using the BIOS routines, but I wouldn't think they'd really be needed for much.

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Sure. That would be a lot easier. I was thinking of cloning the system itself.

[NovaXpress]

Sorry, but CBS games is NOT the Columbia Broadcasting System - or CBS TV.

It is the European arm of Coleco. Check here AtariAge Coleco page

and here Intv Funhouse's CBS page

Sorry but that's not true. The CBS which released Gorf, Wizard of War, Blue Print,and those other US releases with the distinctive box is not Coleco.

 

Look at the manuals:

CBS Toys, A Division of CBS, Inc., Newark, NJ 07105 2L-2205

Why did they have the license to John Madden, CBS commentator?

Edited January 20, 2006 by NovaXpress