RetroPC

“Retro video game store - we buy, sell and trade all video games & consoles
People Play Games is all about video games, past and present. We carry all things Atari, Odyssey, Intellivison, Colecovision, Vectrex, Nintendo, Sega, 3DO, Turbografx, Neo Geo, Playstation & Xbox. We also carry handheld games & tabletop games.”
- People Play Games Facebook Page

Atari 2600

I got out my Atari 2600 for my son to play with a bit tonight and snapped some pics to post. As you can tell, this is not one of the original versions of the Atari 2600. This is an Atari 2600 Jr. It has all of the same capabilities as the original versions but was a later model that was smaller in size and cheaper. It sold for around $50 when new. This one obviously is not in great shape but my main goal when I purchased off of Ebay last year was not to drop $150 on a mint unit without games or controllers. I instead just wanted something that was playable and came with everything or almost everything that I needed to get started. For the most part I got all of what I have for around $100. The unit itself with one joystick and a few games was about $70 which is what you can probably expect to pay for a unit like this these days. The rest of the stuff I bought is small lots of games on Ebay or off of atari2600.com (which I can highly recommend buying from). I saved a lot of money by buying some of the torn label games since I really only wanted playable games and didn’t really care to much about what they looked like.

As I’ve said before, I really want my son to experience some “retro gaming” before he really gets into the new mainstream stuff when he gets older. I guess I feel that maybe he will have a better appreciation for what is around now, like I do, than if he hadn’t ever seen old technology before. It’s worth a shot anyway and for now he thinks it’s cool but he wants to change the game cartridge about every 2 minutes saying “How bout a new game”. I’m sure that will change once he’s a little older and kind of knows what the point of the game actually is. Until then, you can’t help but to smile while he gladly plays what is basically vintage gaming history.

I did not have an Atari 2600 when I was young. My first console was the NES which sadly I sold long ago. I had some older friends that did have the classic Atari 2600 though and I remember fondly the times that we had playing Pitfall and other classic games in the living room of their homes. That was cutting edge stuff back then! You didn’t have to go to Aladdin’s Castle at the local “mall” to play arcade games! What a concept!