Atari 5200 vs Colecovision

Atari 5200 boosts turbopower against Coleco

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Atari
• 5200
• Colecovision
• commercial

[senorverde09]

What do you mean Pac Man for the Colecovision? That port was made BY ATARI for THEIR 2600 in the first place!! Realizing how bad they screwed up on it, they decided to put the blame on Colecovision because it could play all the 2600 games as well as their own Coleco games which angered Atari.

[dystopika]

@senorverde09 Thank you. Yes, this commercial LIES!!! Incredible what they could get away with back in the 80s...

[uzi9millimetuh]

@robinkom Tramiel didn't care much about consoles anymore. He wanted to focus on home computers which he saw as supplanting consoles. What he didn't get was that consoles and home computers would continue to exist side by side, both being equally lucrative markets.

[southport97]

MAME FTW!

[datacipher]

@senorverde09

No....I keep posting this trying to debunk this myth.....

Coleco STARTED that tangent by claiming over and over that they could play "all Atari games". Here, Atari is pointing out that "no, you can't play the 5200 version".

It seems like a cheap shot by Atari but really the cheap shot came from Coleco, this was just a response.

[heartkiller1974]

nah atari 2600 is waay better

[technoshock11]

Why did Atari even release the 5200 ? I mean, nearly all its library is made of Atari 8-bit computer games. Check out any game made for Atari 5200 and then look for it on the Atari 400/800, usually both are nearly identical.

Not to mention the 5200's limited library (the 8-bit computers had many more games), the terrible controllers (the 8-bits used controllers similar to the 2600's), and the lack of backwards compatibilty (with both the 8-bits and the 2600).

[VirginiaBeachNative]

I wish I could live my childhood over and over again.. I actually had fun with no internet and video games with no graphics.

[wildsmiley]

@senorverde09 Atari never made mistakes. Didn't you know that?

[SardaukarPrime]

This commercial blows my mind. Imagine today if MS was making a commercial "You CAN play our games on PS3 ,BUT we have this OTHER console that plays the same games,but better looking. This was the last straw of Atari in trying to sell that trainwreck called the 5200.

[gamewizard]

@robinkom

You need to go over to the AtariAge forums because everything you said in all of your posts has been thoroughly debunked by people who were inside Atari at the time.

[robinkom]

Simply put, Atari didn't have the foresight to see how a lack of regulating software releases would saturate and crash the market. They didn't have the foresight to bolster customer loyalty by including 2600 compatibility in the 5200. They were too arrogant when they turned down Nintendo's offer to manufacture the NES for them in the US. Hindsight is 20/20 but even at that time is painfully obvious how terrible their business practices were. Or I could just say it was all Jack Tramiel's fault.