The Story of the Colecovision, What Could Have Been! - Video Game Retrospective

I’ve had mine since 1984. I bought it with money from my after school job. Strangely enough, I’ve bought ms y computers, laptops to game on over the year, but I’ve never bought another games console. The ColecoVision is the only console I’ve ever owned.

My dad had one of these. He bought it new, but unfortunately it doesn't work. And although we might be able to fix it now, it's location is currently... somewhere. Not helpful.
But it's interesting interesting learning about this thing I've known about my entire life, but didn't really actually know anything about.

I remember having one that I got for Christmas back in the day. I had the Atari 2600 and the Coleco Vision was a upgrade 😂 I had the best of times in the 80’s.

My starting console with Turbo and steering wheel , Mousetrap and many other games !!! ❤❤❤

Very strong memories, then C64

I used to play this with my friend. Played cops and robbers

I had in intellivision in 1982 and I remember the hype about the new consoles (coleco, vectrex). When I saw donkey kong running on the coleco, I said to myself: "so that's it?". I was underwhelmed, very simplistic gameplay, graphics not so great.
Also I was some sort of spoiled kid but even then I found the prices of the extensions (the rocky joystick, the turbo wheel...) way too excessive.
I would have been impressed if the coleco had been as powerful as the C64 but that was not the case. The C64 had hardware scrolling, better sprites abilities, much better sound, much more ram. You can't pretend having an "arcade machine at home" and not having hardware scrolling.

I loved me some Smurfs n Space Fury. Also, great video. Thanks for this great insight to the gems of our childhood.

Just before my time as I started gaming with the Nes and Master System in 1986. However, I have heard many good things about the Colecovision. Is it true it was the most powerful of the 2nd generation (in the US)? *Edit you answered my question!

Addendum- Whoa, whoa what kind of Sega Master System was that?! It had two cartridge ports?! I'm guessing a standard Master System port and SG1000 and Mark 2 ports?

the f*cking controllers, man.. my hands hurts just thinking of the pain we went through playing zaxxon for hours.. lol

I was fortunate enough to grow up with a Colecovision as a kid. Though I didn't appreciate it at the time.

Between Tandy and Coleco thats a whole lotta leather in the computer industry back in the 80s

There was a time about 13 or 14 years ago when the Colecovision wasn't so available and cheap. I remember an Atari 5200 on average running around $150-200 for the console alone in some cases. And the Colecovision wasn't far behind it.

I owned consoles of four systems in the 1980s, starting with the Odyssey² and then the Atari 2600, but the Colecovision was clearly the best, followed by the Intellivision. The actual Colecovision was never released in my country, but we had a compatible console - ugly as hell, basically a beige brick with a silver front panel, but it did the job. I had it until a couple of years ago, when I lost it in a flood.

Got one steering wheel too

The Colecovision might have been a good offer in the US, in Europe it was so expensive that you got wet eyes...but BOY did I adore it

THIS, gentlemen, was THE BEST console ever made. It was just like a dream that became reality.

Colecovision is my holy grail of old school consoles.
Just watch the start of this video when it’s shown close up,it’s a sexy console that looks absolutely gorgeous. If i could get hold of one it would sit pride of place in my living room where everyone can see it. Basically it’s the best looking console and it’s games had the most amazing graphics,just look at Donkey Kong as an example. Closest to arcades and that’s what it’s all about,having an arcade at home

Really curious how things would have gone if the computer was a success or if they made the Clecovision 2 around/before the NES would have released.

Preordered my CV in May or June 82 at a mom and pop video store across town.
Got it August 1982.
The Golden age of video games at its best.

Videos are too short. GAME SACK nailed this kind of stuff

"Lesser channel" 🙄

The ADAM was Coleco next wonder. With an adapter it turned into a real computer. I bit on it but it never happened.

Ahh memories of playing Donkey Kong at Sears, as no one owned a Coleco.

i dont get it. as a kidd i knew that this was the best on the market.

I have never seen this 😮😮 🤪🤪

ｐ０い

Video game history seems to repeat itself or follows a trend.

One in which there's a dynamic of 3 major players most times.

Loved mine…

I had one. It was great. So much better than anything else out at the time. I remember Donkey Kong and Carnival, but I know we had a few others games. It all ended one day when our cat pissed on it. It died. We never got another.

Ah, the nostalgia. For Christmas of 1983 my folks went on an unprecedented gift-giving spree and bought the family a ColecoVision plus the 2600 expansion unit and a stack of both Coleco and 2600 games. I don't remember what they all were now, but I do recall on the Coleco side that we had the Smurfs game (a reasonable early-80s side-scroller) and Ladybug (a Pac-Man derivative), and on the 2600 side the trifecta of Terrible Movie Games: Superman (two players can control him cooperatively, for a terrifically unplayable experience!), Indiana Jones (incoherent and nearly impossible to win!), and ET (millions of copies buried in the New Mexico desert!).

We loved them all, even the terrible ones. It was our first gaming console, and everyone in the family used it. We acquired more games before Coleco went bust, titles like Pepper II (which was also a Pac-Man-like, I think) and Q-Bert. We had at least one game that had Mylar inserts for the controller keyboards - they had a slot for overlays - though I can't for the life of me remember what it was. I know my mother was still playing games on it in the early 1990s. Don't know what eventually happened to it, though.

Coleco is also famous for getting the rights to Cabbage Patch Kids, which was a huge coup; they were among the best-selling toys in the mid-1980s. Hasbro picked the license up when Coleco went bankrupt in 1988.

Incidentally, if anyone's wondering why Coleco and Mattel had consoles but Hasbro didn't, there's a bunch on that in Miller's /Toy Wars/. Hasbro tried to come out with a really advanced console in the 80's, and had to cancel the project after millions in R&D. Then they did the same thing with a VR console project in the early 90's. They simply aimed too high each time.

Coleco was almost like a beefed up Intellivision.
The console itself was released with their own version of Donkey Kong with a agreement with Nintendo and thus causing conflict with Atari when Atari thought they had the Console Rights to the Donkey Kong game.
(Atari only had Home Computer rights to Donkey Kong, NOT Console rights)
Leading to the fallout of Atari and Nintendo when it came to Nintendo agreeing with Atari to releasing the NES into the West.

The 1983/84 North American Console Market Crash was the downfall of many consoles at the time, Coleco was unfortunately one of the victims (when Coleco tried to enter the Home Computer Market and failed) never to return to consoles.

Still have mines. I remember the laserdisc player Coleco wanted to add to the ColecoVision and ADAM to play Dragons Lair but never happened. I remember the waferdrive which were thin as a stick of gum for the higher graphics quality of games they never made. In the end, a disc drive was made for the ADAM and you had was Dragons Lair on a 5.25 inch floppy disc which looked so horrendous but given the technology at the time, it was the best the devopers can do. Zaxxon was $50. Then again so was Pac-Man for the Atari 2600. The only flaw on my ColecoVision was its occasional freeze up that you simply pressed reset and start over. I have disassembled the console and cleaned up all the contacts so that it keeps working. Fun times.

I have a colecovision

I always wanted one of these and used to hungrily look at pictures of it in magazines, but this was all just before the Spectrum and C64 landed

I had a Coleco Vision. It was similar to Intelevision. First game I got was Donkey Kong .

I prefer the ColecoVision controllers than the Atari controllers I like that silver shiny on the controller then the Atari 2600

This console was underrated. My neighbor had one and we played games all day long. It was a great system.

I still Identify as a Colecovision but no one ever uses the correct pronouns while addressing me. ☹️

I HATED COLECOVISION!!!!, not because it wasn't great, I was still rockin the 2600 and my grandmother could not afford to get me a Colecovision, this kid in my neighborhood got one and we would go over his house, he just made it a point to rub it in my face how ATARI was garbage "Look at my DONKEY KONG and look at yours!", he made me feel like crap...I never touched my Atari again after that.

But kudos to COLECOVISION, that was the first system I ever saw where the games damn near replicated what was in the arcade.

Talk about an Adam bomb

No it's Wonka vision!!

War Games with the insert for the controller with the keypad was effing awesome! I loved playing that with my dad

My middle name is Coleco yay

My friend moved to south africa and I bought his brother's colecovision for $25. Had lots of games. A couple years later I got an NES for christmas.

'Iconicness?'