Video Game History Page 2
With the Atari 2600 showing that consumers wanted more, several other companies began to release their own systems in the early 80's.
Most notably of these systems are the Odyssey 2, Intellivision and Colecovision.
The intellivision and Colecovision had some notable advances on the Atari 2600 including a more advanced paddle and keypad, 16 color display and 256x197 pixels of resolution.
Colecovision was released in 1982 and by the end of 1982 solf over half a million units. An add-on even allowed the collecovision to play Atari 2600 games giving it the largest library of playable games at the time.
In what was the start of the 3 year turnover as well as a video game crash in 1983, the Colecovision only lasted until 1984 before being discontinued. At that time it had sold 6 million units. which was amazing in that day.
In comparison the Xbox 360 sold 1.5 million unit From November 2005 to January 1, 2006 (Just 2 months) and was lower than expected due to limited supply of systems.
Matell also tried thier hand at the Video game market with the Intellivision system in 1980. Boasting better graphics and performance than the Atari 2600 it was the first real challenger to the Atari held market.
Again, by 1984 this system was discontinued. In 1980 the unit fetched $300.00 per unit but sold for just $69.00 before fading away in 1984.
Even Atari tried to revamp it's image with the Atari 5200 which lasted about a year, but the 2600 held firm and was even revamped into the Atari 2600 JR.in 1996.
For almost 10 years Atari held the market and survived the 1983 Video Game Crash. A game crash that reduced all the players on the field and caused a 3 year lul in Video game systems until a new player on the block arrived. No one had heard of them then, but no one today will forget the day Nintendo came to town.