It sure sounds like a similar situation is developing on the hardware side.
Let me just say that anyone thinking of selling ANY 2600-related hardware
in quantities of 10,000 - even to emulate it on other platforms - is
smoking a big bowl of cheap crack. You may proceed with the "nuh-uhs".
First of all, Activision Classics for PSX sold an upwards of a half a
million copies--despite bad reviews. So your opinion of the market is just
plain wrong.
Just because there are only a few hundred die-hard online classic gamers and
modern gamers think the 2600 is a joke doesn't mean that's the only market
for this stuff.
There is an after-aftermarket.
It's always been my opinion that the marketability of this stuff is a
function of how much it's pushed into the mainstream outlets. Sure, the
homebrew stuff doesn't sell a lot because it's not highly visible. You have
to go out of your way to buy this stuff via mail-order. But if you had a
major company getting stuff onto the store shelves worldwide, and you
promoted it, you could probably do okay.
Why do you think the candy and the gum is in the check-out lane in the
supermarket? How many people go to the Supermarket specifically to get
candy and gum? They don't. They buy it because normal people IMPULSE BUY
when it comes to inexpensive items that grab their attention.
They don't know they want it until they see it. They aren't going to come
across a Cuttle Cart at Sears, but if there were a Cuttle Cart in every
Sears in the country, Chad would probably sell thousands of them, as nichey
as these items are.
I mean, there are several TV-boy variants sold worldwide into the 90s.
These had to have been manufactured in the tens of thousands--at the very
least.
We're not talking about competing with the Gameboy Advance. We're talking
about cheap toys for kids who weren't even around when the 2600 was
"viable". Something closer to the keychain LCD market. And let's face it,
LCD games haven't evolved much in the last 20 years--and nobody cares in
that market segment!
http://www.toymax.com/ToyCentral/EL/10in1.htm
And the other market segment is the expensive nostalgia crowd. It's past
the point where people would see 2600 and 7800 tags at Toys R Us and pass
them by for NES or Genesis games. 2600 stuff is a potential novelty now,
like Lava Lights and massage chairs. I think it's really gone full-circle.
That's why the VCSp has gotten so much attention despite the pricetag.
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