[game_preservation] Where's the figure of 30 million Ataris sold come from?

[Martin Goldberg]

The figure is more in the mid 20's. By May '84 there were around 17 million sold, and the 2600 continued to sell in the aftermath of the crash (remember the industry crash started in December '82 and reached a crescendo with Atari's split in July '84) when prices for it dropped. (Tramiel was counting on selling the large inherited back stock of consoles and computers to keep the company afloat while RBP was in development). Then Katz came in and dropped the price to the $50 point and re-released the cost reduced 2600 (nicknamed the Jr. by collectors but never actually called that) in the Fall of '85, which pushed it to be a strong seller in the late 80's as a low end console. Press releases and internally, Atari Corp. was promoting 26 million consoles sold by '88, and the 2600 was still the strongest selling console for the company - outselling the 7800 easily. It was still in production through '91, until it was cancelled in January '92.

-
Marty

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 21, 2012, at 9:00 PM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:


> Was curious about the origins of the 30 million Ataris sold. The number seems to come from the 2004 Video Game Price Guide (which I do not have, and the Amazon listing makes it sound rather dubious). I ask this because the book I'm reading now (Sullivan's Screen Play, 1983) states about 10-15 million units were sold, which seems far more likely (no source given by Sullivan, as it's a children's book, but even though he's been flat-out wrong in other places, the book has some surprising information in others, and is supported by the estimate that there were only about 10 million out when Pac-Man was released a year earlier). I highly doubt Atari moved 15 million more since 1983. Are there any more accurate figures out there? Or is that 15 million units not the full story?

> 

> In terms of how this is important... Well, indicates the size of the market at the time of the crash and provides a nice comparison with sales figures of the NES, Genesis, and SNES. What would be really great is if we had sales figures up through 1983 for the system - apparently, it didn't start selling well until new advertising campaigns and finally the Space Invaders port.

> 

> -- 

> Devin Monnens

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> 

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

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