KLXVER said:
Colecovision is 2nd gen. At least according to Wikipedia. Im not very familiar with that console. |
I wouldn't pay attention much to what Wikipedia says about console generations.
ColecoVision was shock for Atari, and quite a big jump compared to 2600 - which is understandable, given that 2600 is from 1977. Not only its hardware was much more advanced (being envisioned for easy porting of arcade cabinets to console), but ColecoVision came bundled with very good port of Donkey Kong arcade - yes, that Donkey Kong, and Coleco had exclusive console rights for DK, releasing versions for 2600 and Intellivision as well along the way.
As I said, it had same hardware as SEGA's SG-1000 Mark I, which launched in Japan almost a year later, the same day as Famicom, July 15th 1983. "Masayuki Uemura, head of Famicom development, stated that the ColecoVision set the bar that influenced how he approached the creation of the Famicom".
They even had expansion module that enabled it to play all Atari 2600 games (practically, 2600 clone inside it) and was dominating market from '82 onward.
And then the crash came - and funny thing is, ColecVision would keep on selling and getting more expansions if it was not for mismanagement of Coleco thinking console market was over, gimping ColecoVision's production and focusing on home computer market with ADAM - which itself turned out to be costly disaster that led to demise of Coleco...but that's the story for another time.
In the end, in its short lifespan (82-85) before Coleco pulled the plug, it sold over 6 millions (including CBS Electronics packaged and labeled CBS ColecoVision), and if it was not for Coleco's mismanagement and bad decisions, console history might've been fairly different that what it is.
