Graduate Games’ Blog

First Released: Nov 1982 (USA)

Gaming Era: Early 8-bit
CPU: 1.79Mhz

Cost: $249.99

Sales: Exact Figure Unknown, but very Poor
Controller: Joystick w/keypad
Death: 1984
Life: 1.5 years
Best Games: Space Invaders, Dig Dug, Q*bert, Robotron 2084

The Atari 5200 was a failure despite it’s improved graphics. It’s big mistake was that it was not backwards compatible with the successful Atari 2600 (this was later resolved albeit too late). Of course there was another big mistake: the joystick sucked – it broke and wore easily and didn’t auto-center making games like pac-man miserable. Atari didn’t really support the 5200 either, instead continuing to focus on the 2600. Then the Video Game Crash hit…which pretty much killed the 5200. There were 125 games released for the 5200 and they were of good quality garnering a cult following for the 5200. However the 5200, remains one of the first misteps of many by Atari.