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Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 9th, 2015, 2:33 pm
by Wallyworld1
I have put a lot of thought into this topic. It's an important one as I believe before to long the NES market will follow.

Reason #1: As the people become older in life they reach a point where they don't want as much stuff. My dad is a perfect example. He is now 60 and trying to get rid of his stuff he has accumulated over the years. He told me the older he gets the less stuff he feels like he needs to own.

Reason #2: Collectors that are interested in this console already own all the games they want for it.

Reason #3: The value just doesn't seem to be there. I bought Gremlins CIB for the Atari few months back for $40. I played that game for 5 minutes and never wanted to play it again. Guess what... that's the last time I spend that kind of dough for an Atari game. 

Reason #4: Kids today will not play games this simple.  Basically these games are so ugly the new generation of children will not even consider playing them. My god son (14 years old) will play and enjoy NES games with me but will not even entertain the idea of playing my Atari games.

Flashback consoles are not responsible. The market for Atari crashed well before the first one was released.
 
In my opinion retro collecting is like a giant wave. As the kids grow older and graduate college and all of sudden they have a lot of disposable income games from there childhood will be very sought after.  They can finally buy what they couldn't as children. That wave's peak currently is on SNES.  N64/PS1 will be next to peak in value. IMO as PS1/N64 increases in value NES carts will decline in value.

One huge fly in the ointment for my theory though is Youtube. Youtube has caused a huge boom in retro gaming. Will Youtube video's of NES games keep the kids from today wanting to play the games from well before they were born? Fact is I don't know and neither does any one else. IMO suspect it won't. And my original theory of the Wave effect will stay true.


Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 9th, 2015, 5:10 pm
by scotland171
[QUOTE=Wallyworld] ...Flashback consoles are not responsible. The market for Atari crashed well before the first one was released. In my opinion retro collecting is like a giant wave...
[/QUOTE]

The wave theory is demonstrably true in other collectibles for sure.  For example, look at Hummel figurines.  These figurines began to be popular in America post WWII as vets brought them back from Germany in the 40s and 50.  In the 70s, nostalgia hit, and they became collectibles and prices rose. Now though, the generation that appreciated them have downsized or died off, and younger people don't see the fascination or have any nostalgia for them.  So things 20-30 years past their day are prime for nostalgia price peaks.

I will defend the flashbacks having some responsibility though as they (and the Jakks plug and plays that generally preceded them) have indeed sold *millions* after being widely available in Dollar General and Wal-Mart and grocery stores.  I think millions of people had the itch scratched for $30, and now can move on.  Like watching that old TV show from your youth, its enough to spend a few hours to relive it.  Very often these turn out to be like rebuying Rock'em Sock'em Robots and finding out it really wasn't that great of a toy. 

Yet tales of the total death of interest in Atari are greatly exaggerated. Note the Atari joystick in the banner up above because its iconic of old skool gaming more than even the NES controller.  The Atari logo and joystick are sold on novelty tee shirts. The word 'Atari' was just an episode name of 12 monkeys tv show. The word is still commonly known and associated with simple video game fun.  I don't think interest in the 2600 has died, but it is waning on the back of that wave. 

I think interest in these games will it be like frisbees - old fashioned fun that maybe you don't spend much time with, but everyone plays with a Frisbee now and then.  

Do you think anything will happen when Nolen Bushnell passes away? Will we see a 'death effect' price boomlet for Atari stuff?

Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 9th, 2015, 5:38 pm
by Rev1
[QUOTE=Wallyworld]
Reason #1: As the people become older in life they reach a point where they don't want as much stuff. My dad is a perfect example. He is now 60 and trying to get rid of his stuff he has accumulated over the years. He told me the older he gets the less stuff he feels like he needs to own.

Reason #2: Collectors that are interested in this console already own all the games they want for it.

Reason #3: The value just doesn't seem to be there. I bought Gremlins CIB for the Atari few months back for $40. I played that game for 5 minutes and never wanted to play it again. Guess what... that's the last time I spend that kind of dough for an Atari game. 

Reason #4: Kids today will not play games this simple.  Basically these games are so ugly the new generation of children will not even consider playing them. My god son (14 years old) will play and enjoy NES games with me but will not even entertain the idea of playing my Atari games.

Flashback consoles are not responsible. The market for Atari crashed well before the first one was released.
 
In my opinion retro collecting is like a giant wave. As the kids grow older and graduate college and all of sudden they have a lot of disposable income games from there childhood will be very sought after.  They can finally buy what they couldn't as children. That wave's peak currently is on SNES.  N64/PS1 will be next to peak in value. IMO as PS1/N64 increases in value NES carts will decline in value.

One huge fly in the ointment for my theory though is Youtube. Youtube has caused a huge boom in retro gaming. Will Youtube video's of NES games keep the kids from today wanting to play the games from well before they were born? Fact is I don't know and neither does any one else. IMO suspect it won't. And my original theory of the Wave effect will stay true.

[/QUOTE]

I agree with almost all of your points. I have one opinion that may or may not turn out to be relevant in the future (who knows really). I think another reason why Atari games are worth less, other than the short nature of games, primitive graphics, etc, is that Arari has been out of the spotlight for years. Many years. There last console was the Atari Jaguar and that was over 20 years ago. Atari has been on the sideline making crappy games (do they even still make games?) for decades and have never had a huge following on their own IP's. Compare that to Nintendo, which still has many of their characters in the spotlight nearly 30 years, who are still relevant today. I can't see games on the NES dropping as much as the Atari 2600 simply because as long as Nintendo is making games there will always be a Mario, Zelda, Metroid, or whatever that is reminding people of these characters.

All of the consoles today have at least a few games with these characters who have been around decades; I think that these characters will keep people interested in these older consoles for as long as they are around. If the time comes that Nintendo folds up shop, then I imagine after a decade or so, the consoles will become less desirable because the newer generation won't know who these characters are. They won't do the research to find out the roots of these characters, who are no longer in the spotlight. Atari doesn't really have any of these classic franchises still in the spotlight, which just adds on with the primitive nature of the games, the super simple graphics, etc to make the console less desirable.

tl;dr- I agree with all of your points, but I think that consoles like the NES forward may just stick around longer than Atari did because of the factors I listed above.

Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 11th, 2015, 5:14 pm
by SpiceWare1
[QUOTE=videogamecritic]The harmony cart may have something to do with it.[/QUOTE]

There's been a noticeable impact in homebrew sales.  First two years of Space Rocks sales were 25% less than Medieval Mayhem.   There's a similar drop for other new homebrews.

Stay Frosty 2 was an exception though, it's holiday sales were slightly higher than Stella's Stocking.  We believe that's because the SF2 ROM hasn't been released yet.

Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 11th, 2015, 6:18 pm
by Teddybear1
[QUOTE=SpiceWare]

Stay Frosty 2 was an exception though, it's holiday sales were slightly higher than Stella's Stocking.  We believe that's because the SF2 ROM hasn't been released yet.[/QUOTE]

You might frighten me into placing my order tonight for Stay Frosty 2 if you say there's only a few left.  To be honest, I have been waiting for Star Castle to be released and was planning on ordering both games at the same time.

Feel free to scare me, SpiceWare....I need a kick in the behind sometimes.

Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 11th, 2015, 8:00 pm
by SpiceWare1
[QUOTE=Teddybear]
You might frighten me into placing my order tonight for Stay Frosty 2 if you say there's only a few left.  To be honest, I have been waiting for Star Castle to be released and was planning on ordering both games at the same time.[/QUOTE]

It'll be available, but not as the numbered "Holiday Greetings" version.  Compare the original release of Stella's Stocking with the current release (click on the Photos tab then the first image).  The end label is different and the front of the label lost the number box and Holiday Greetings text.

The box will be available soon:
SF2 box front.jpg 

SF2 box back.jpg

Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 19th, 2015, 6:02 pm
by eraserhead1
IMO another problem--if you will--with the 2600, is the primitiveness of not just the graphics but the overall design of the games. There's a lot of them that I couldn't figure out how to start a game or make my guy shoot and stuff.

Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 20th, 2015, 11:22 am
by SpiceWare1
[QUOTE=eraserhead]There's a lot of them that I couldn't figure out how to start a game[/QUOTE]

I thought all 2600 games could be started by hitting game reset, the rightmost switch on the console.  Is that not the case?

[quote]or make my guy shoot and stuff.[/quote]

I am aware of a few games that use the right joystick instead of the left, such as Wizard of Wor.  In that instance it's because they were true to the original arcade game where player 1 used the right controller.  Perhaps you were trying one of those.  

Other than that, there's only 1 firebutton so you probably had to obtain your weapon first.  I know you have to do that for Raiders of the Lost Ark and Halo 2600.

When all else fails, read the instructions.  You can find most of them at AtarAge via their Rarity Guide.

Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 20th, 2015, 4:19 pm
by Rev1
I think what he's getting at, is when you have to look up instruction manuals for games that have only a joystick and a single button, the games start to lose their appeal.

Has interest in Atari 2600 collecting died?

Posted: March 20th, 2015, 5:19 pm
by eraserhead1
Not a case of needing to find a weapon -- among the games I'm thinking of are Asteroids and Space Invaders. Atari was before my time, so the lack of title screens and other relative obtuseness are mystifying, at times. My first 2600 was given to me by a friend who had no idea what to do with it. (He was not a video game player at all.) This was in about 2006. I messed around a bit, and sold it for store credit in 2010, after concluding that Yar's Revenge was the only worthwhile game.

I don't mind manuals, when they actually add something. Manuals from the most recent couple of generations just suck, but I love NES manuals and I can definitely see VCS manuals being useful and interesting as well.

So I will try those things, SpiceWare. Thank you very much. I think those basic tips will actually help me a great deal. Last month, along with a pile of NES games I obtained another 2600 with many more games and some manuals. I'm looking forward to cracking the nut this time and understanding how to appreciate this system for more than its less-advanced versions of Burgertime and Defender.