Atari bought Intellivision last year, do you think it's possible they will buy ColecoVision, Vectrex and the Magnavox Odyssey brands this year ?
Over the past few years Atari has managed to become the top dog in the retro gaming market, the acquisition of Intellivision only further cemented that fact in the eyes of everyone.
Since Atari is on a buying streak how likely do you it will be that they end up buying all the other dead but iconic retro gaming brands like Coleco and Magnavox thus becoming the defacto stewards of pre NES gaming ? Personally I think this is very likely scenario to occur in the future, If not this year then certainly sometime before the end of this decade this is going to happen in my opinion.
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u/mrbeefybites 2d ago
Nah.
Vertex is only interesting because of the screen. ColecoVision is kind of pointless as I don't think they have any of their own IPs. I don't know enough about Odyssey to comment on that one.
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u/JPF998 1d ago
If they made a ColecoVision Plus and a Vectrex plus people would buy them in droves, the hardware itself has value. They don't need to own the third party IPs just release a homebrew game or two ( like they did with the 7800+ ) and then people will either emulate the rest of the library of use their original cartridges, it's that simple.
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u/mrbeefybites 1d ago
The ColecoVision Flashback didn't sell enough to warrant it. Your statement about Vectrex is funny because it shows you don't know enough about it to understand why it's dumb or won't happen.
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u/Spelunka13 1d ago edited 9h ago
They made a Colecovision flashback and they made a collector vision console I believe. There's a guy out there that takes your Colecovision Flashback and turns it into a rasp pi system. I wouldnt pay someone to do that but it's there.
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u/NeoZeedeater 2d ago
It's possible but the downside to owning Coleco is that you still need to license from various other companies to re-release most ColecoVision games.
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u/JPF998 2d ago
Not a problem if they made a ColecoVision Plus, they can release a single homebrew game ( like with the 7800+ ) and for the other games people can use the original cartridges or just emulate them.
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u/bingojed 2d ago
I wonder if that means they’d have a license to Donkey Kong.
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u/Flybot76 1d ago
I would not bet on that unless it's already paid for, and as a Colecovision user/follower myself I haven't seen evidence that it is, like being on a mini system or officially licensed collection.
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u/CaptainIncredible 2d ago
you still need to license from various other companies
Don't these expire at some point? Honestly I've no idea, but you'd think they'd work like patents or copyrights, and eventually enter public domain. Especially if the companies who owned them are long dead.
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u/NeoZeedeater 2d ago
Contracts might vary by company. A lot of those companies still exist, too. Sega's Zaxxon made it onto ColecoVision Flashback a decade ago but I highly doubt Nintendo will ever allow the ColecoVision port of Donkey Kong to ever come back.
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u/bwware 2d ago
If they would PLEASE buy the Odyssey brand, I would be very happy. I know it is a long shot, but I want a super easy way to emulate that machine on my TV complete with Keyboard.
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u/Spelunka13 9h ago
There's no demand for odyssey. No one would buy it. I think it was a mistake to buy intellivision but that's another story. I love Atari and I'm annoyed that intellivision now gets lumped in with any compilation library they will release. I guess rehashing the same library over and over wasn't enough for Atari.
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u/TechnOuijA 2d ago
I wish they'd buy Voxon dammit
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u/JPF998 2d ago
Just one question... What even is Voxon ?
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u/TechnOuijA 2d ago
I made a post about this recently and provided concepts for games and nobody cared.
Check it out:
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u/jzr171 2d ago
The space it would need to view both sides would make it sell poorly. As much as I would want one, you would need almost a full room of its own to play it.
Now if there was a flat version with even a transparent LCD panel behind it for depth, I could see it working. Oh and cartridges. That's important.
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u/TechnOuijA 2d ago
A whole room? Nah. Just a table like the one they have. It has about the same footprint as a boardgame. But yeah, the kicker would definitely be the price.
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u/LeatherRebel5150 2d ago
They also bought atariage.com you can go and ask more or less directly on the forums
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u/largesonjr 2d ago
Vektrex my dear 1st console
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u/thelastspike 2d ago
Only if someone wants to build a CRT factory. Otherwise the graphics don’t work.
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u/EffectiveSalamander 2d ago
I remember the Atari-Intellivision war. I guess this is one way to win it.
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u/Spelunka13 2d ago
Ok so back to our regularly scheduled programming. Any thoughts on the VCS 800 and the black Friday deal this year that passed. It jumped back up in price will it come down again? Have friends that missed out on the deal.
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u/JPF998 2d ago
The year has barely started, no doubt they are going to do allot more of these big VCS sales throughout the year until their finally run out of their remaining stock.
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u/Spelunka13 2d ago
Hope so. I think the controllers are fantastic. Wished they had a dedicated spinner though. The spinner stick is hard to get used to. I'm running Batocera and it runs very well.
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u/Krommerxbox 2d ago
Coleco is already owned by someone doing the same thing:
The Dutch electronics company Philips owns the Magnavox Odyssey video game consoles:
IP rights for the Vectrex are owned by Jay Smith.
So likely, no, unless Atari tries to buy any of those.
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u/Spelunka13 2d ago
I heard they are buying Sony and Microsoft.