7800 Collections back in the day

[7800 Pro Gamer]

I had a 7800 as a kid and I was recently reminiscing of what my old collection used to look like.  And if I'm honest there wasn't a whole lot of 7800 in my 7800 collection. 

Almost all of my games were hand me downs from aunts and uncles, family friends etc that found out we had an Atari. They would bring me boxes of joysticks, paddles, 2600 cartridges and sometimes 2600 consoles.   Because of this I had a cardboard box of nothing but controllers and like 3 copies of Pac man, space invaders, combat, asteroids, and all the other common 2600 games.  I couldn't even name them all off.  

Those stayed in a box(s) on the shelf.  Then I had one of those Atari media center things full of my favorite Carts.  For 2600 this is where I held breakout, super breakout, Canyon Bomber, Night Driver, Yars Revenge, Keystone Cappers, and Pitfall to name a few. This is also where my unboxed 7800 games was stored.   I remember having Pole Position 2 (of course), Ms Pac man, donkey Kong, donkey Kong Jr, Mario Bros, and a few others. 

Then we had a few boxes games.  My mom sent away for a copy of Chase the Chuck Wagon and always told me that was a special game, that's why we had kept the box. And I had to ask her to open it and handle it for me because she insisted it was rare. My mom was a genius looking back. So of course I had "my special games" too. These were games I refused to throw the box out for. Hell some were still shrink wrapped because we already had loose copies of the 2600 games and my mom found them for a buck at some store. 

So CIB games we had were Chase the Chuckwagon, Solaris, Rampage for the 7800, Double Dragon for the 7800 and Asteroids for the 7800.  We had like 2 sealed copies of Pac Man (I remember opening one just because) along with a few others. 

I've never had any game collection like my original Atari collection.  It was such a mish mash of new and old, opened and sealed, working and non working.  Maybe that's part of the reason why it sticks out to me.  It felt different, it felt fun and wild and exciting to see what was being donated to my collection or finding random carts at garage sales.   Hell I remember my mom ordering rampage and double dragon from a catalogue and me waiting everyday hoping the mail would bring them.  It felt like an eternity waiting. 

This was my 4 -6 year old mind and experience with the 7800 so I'm curious how other people's collections grew or what their experience with the 7800 was.  It's always fun to share stories so let me hear yours!

[CrossBow]

Well, I got my first 2600 back in Christmas '82 and it came with Space Invaders, and Defender along with the included combat of course. Over the course of a few years I added to it a little here and there but it required me to use my allowance money. I know that I bought Kangaroo, Ms. Pac-Man, and quite a few others. By about '86 I had about 20 or so 2600 games for it. Then sometime around '88 I found a pawn shop about a mile from my home at the time that had about 100 Atari games. Many of them were games I already had, but most of them were games I didn't have or had never heard about. And all of those games were only like $1 or $2. So I mush have bought about 20 or so more games during that time. It was also around this time that I did get a few 'new' games during the 2600 revival 'The Fun is Back' and also got my 7800. Initially I only had the Pole Position 2 it came with. But it wasn't long before I built up a small collection of 7800 games as I was now mowing lawns and able to do other things around the neighborhood for money here and there. So I know that I had the following 7800 games during the 7800s time frame:

Joust, Food Fight, Xevious, Galaga, Super Skateboardin', F-18: Hornet, Double Dragon, Dig-Dug, Ms. Pac-Man, Choplifter, Donkey Kong, and...

Crossbow.

I didn't have anything for the 7800 beyond that until the early 2000s when I got back into retro gaming and consoles again.

BTW most of my 2600 games in the early 80s came from stores like TG&Y and ToysRUs. When the 7800 came out, there were only 2 stores near me that sold them. ToyRUs again, which is where I got a few of them, but also Service Merchandise became the main location where I picked up the newer released 2600 games like Midnight Magic and Solaris along with a good chunk of the 7800 games. Later on, it was through local retro game stores where I picked up the rest of my 7800 and 2600 games. Other than maybe about 3 or 4 times, have I ever found Atari related stuff at Garage sales. Mostly Sega and Nintendo at garage sales.

 

 

[7800 Pro Gamer]

@CrossBowvery interesting story thank you for sharing it!  The time referenced in my Atari collection story was about 87 to 91.  In 1991 we got a Sega Genesis that took the Ataris spot in our play room. 

 

I was very young so I have no clue how many stores carried games.  My mom worked at Toys r Us so I vaguely remember a few Atari tickets but it's fuzzy.  Everything I mentioned about buying games was from my mom's memories of the time. 

 

For my aunt's and uncles especially video games was a fad that their kids out grew and they were no longer interested in so giving the stuff away made sense to them.  I asked my mom about the games we were given and she told me my aunt was letting us borrow her stuff so I better still have it if she asks for it back lol

[Atari 5200 Guy]

My Grandmother, Mom, and Great Aunt all gifted me 7800 stuff one Christmas holiday.  I already had an NES and SMS at the time.  I was probably 15, 16?  And a trip to a mall that was out of town is what made all that happen.  

I have already posted elsewhere how that trip went.  For that reason I won't repeat myself.  But my dear Grandmother I believe forked all the money for all those gifts that year and just let Mom and my Aunt pick which they want to gift.  The console and majority of the games came from her, though.

I ended up with PPII, Xevious, Galaga, Asteroids, Joust, Centipede, Robotron, Dig Dug,, and Ms. Pac-Man.  I'm glad I got it that year or I would have never been able to again.  Shortly after the holiday that her the toy store those came from up and left.  No warning.  I never seen another 7800 again until 1999 in a secondhand store.

I kept the boxes to every 7800 game and the console... something I did t do with my NES. I loved that little console.

[CrossBow]

5 hours ago, Silver Back said:

@CrossBowvery interesting story thank you for sharing it!  The time referenced in my Atari collection story was about 87 to 91.  In 1991 we got a Sega Genesis that took the Ataris spot in our play room. 

 

I was very young so I have no clue how many stores carried games.  My mom worked at Toys r Us so I vaguely remember a few Atari tickets but it's fuzzy.  Everything I mentioned about buying games was from my mom's memories of the time. 

 

For my aunt's and uncles especially video games was a fad that their kids out grew and they were no longer interested in so giving the stuff away made sense to them.  I asked my mom about the games we were given and she told me my aunt was letting us borrow her stuff so I better still have it if she asks for it back lol

I'm guessing you are younger than me then it would seem given the time line you stated. By 90 I wasn't even gaming on consoles anymore because we then got our first computer. A very beefy for the time 286. Once I had those Sierra Adventure games and Wing Commander with my Adlib card...consoles just couldn't compare in my eyes. It wasn't until the dreamcast that I got more seriously interested in consoles again and even then it was just after the DCs demise around 2003. Now I tend to game equally between my PC and consoles but the newest console I own is a PS4 Pro. Just never seen a need to go with the current gen as yet with my gaming PC still able to play he newer games I'm mostly interested in.

I also forgot that owned Rampage for the 7800 back then as well. I know because... I...might have opened that present a bit earlier and played it very late at night when everyone was asleep and then taped it back up in its wrapping paper the next day... yeah... that 'might' have happened.