Main > Main Forum

Video Game crash of 1983

Pages: << < (8/21) > >>

ark_ader:


--- Quote ---My main experience during the crash was that my family finally got a system to play video games on thanks to Texas Instruments.  My folks bought a TI-99/4A for Christmas that year thanks to a $100 rebate that let us buy it for $99 on sale at Sears.  It ended up being orphaned that next year during the crash, 1983.  I think we had five games for it.  Great choice Mom and Dad!
--- End quote ---

I got a TI 99/4A too with the $100 rebate, and got the tape cassette player with the change.  Spent all summer working at my Dad's shop saving up for the Expansion box with a floppy, CPM and voice box.  I just loved that computer.  1983 crash wasn't that big a deal.  I know Sega Centers were being bought out by Time Out, but every arcade in Los Angeles was in full swing.  Things started to taper off in 1988 and we started seeing arcade machines selling for $200-400.  About the time the NES started getting all the attention.

Yeah the 2600 cartridges were selling at $59.00 (Donkey Kong for example)  in 1983 but the year later you could go to Toys R Us and buy a bunch for $20.  About the same time Dinky Toys made by Mecanno was going out of business and I was buying up all their old stock for $5 a toy.  Now they go for $300.  I wonder how much that ET 2600 cartridge is worth today?  I remember my best 2600 cartridge: The Empire Strikes Back.  That game was so cool.  Yars too.

alfonzotan:


--- Quote from: yotsuya on August 30, 2012, 02:11:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: Necro on August 30, 2012, 12:19:05 pm --- They still sold games in Toys R Us and Kiddie City, and I remember getting one game that came with an extra keypad (a space shooter thing) that was just WAY too complicated for me at that age that we returned.

--- End quote ---

Star Raiders for life, yo!

--- End quote ---

Word.  Maybe the best ported game ever on the 2600 (it originated on the Atari 8-bit computers).

teeuwen:


--- Quote from: pinballjim on August 31, 2012, 01:26:43 pm ---I bought a Ti 99/4a at a garage sale for like $20 in 1992ish.  Turns out there was quite a weird and vibrant collector community in Dallas and they had figured out how to install hard drives and such.  I guess someone wrote a word processing program that allowed you to save files on a diskette and take them back and forth with another program on a DOS computer.  Recall them insisting you were basically getting a 286 computer for virtually nothing.

Who knows... but it was kind of fun to tinker with.

--- End quote ---

My first computer was a Ti 99/4a, the delorian of computers with its stainless steels case elements. I bought mine in 1998, it had the voice expansion module i believe aswell, I never had a computer growing up and though i had used better computer previous to owning the ti 99/4a and owned a Nintendo and a super nintendo previously to owning the Ti 99/4a it was my first computer, full keyboard and all, i believe i was 12 or 13 at the time when i bought it from a friends garage sale, i think i paid $20 aswell.

The Ti 99/4a's life ended pretty roughly though, the short of the long story would envolve my dad getting mad at me for something and then proceeding to shot put my ti 99 and tv monitor off our patio and over the fence into the back alley.

I would love to get another one though!


Namco:

At my house we got an Odyssey 2, so no cheap $1 games for us. We had to drive up to Zody's department store to pick out a new game for $39.99. If there was a bargain bin full of games, I never saw one. But then again my parents weren't all that excited about taking us out to spend money on home video games consoles. 

Then one day we heard that the Odyssey was discontinued and that was it. I do recall seeing all the Atari clones appearing in TV commercials and remember being confused by it all and noticing the drop in quality of the games. The rift between arcade graphics and Atari clone graphics was huge and widening. I was happy just going with my parents to the bowling lanes where I could play real arcade games.  I remember seeing Pac-Man coming out and laughing at how much it the graphics sucked. We were playing K.C. Munchkin at home and having a blast.

It would be a few years later before the NES came out and upon seeing how arcade perfect Super Mario Bros. was, practically literally BEGGED my mother to buy us one.

dfmaverick:

I like looking at the old Sears & Wards Christmas catalogs. I'm thankful for the scans by someone on the 'net to provide a remembrance of my youth. (Oddly enough, I was going through the scans and suddenly I had that distinctive wet paper smell of the catalogs in my head...weird)

Here's a sample of some of the 2600 games. You can see them starting to slash prices for Christmas '83 and the low prices ($5) of many games in '84.

Sears 1982
Sears 1983
Wards 1984


Pages: << < (8/21) > >>

Go to full version