The Story Of: 5 Surprising Console Comebacks

In this video I tell the story of 5 game systems that made very unlikely comebacks some time after they had been discontinued by their original manufacturers.
Video Links:
10 Amazing ColecoVision Facts: • 10 Amazing ColecoVisio...
10 Amazing Atari Jaguar Facts: • 10 Amazing Atari Jagua...
10 Amazing Amiga 1200 Facts: • 10 Amazing Commodore A...
10 Amazing Intellivison Facts:
Story of the Intellivision 3: • The Story of the Unrel...
Telegames Catalogue Retrospective: • Telegames Catalogue & ...
Please support my creative work on Patreon: / lairdslair
#intellivision #atari #colecovision

[@MrMegaManFan]

"The infamous North American" crash. Bruv I'm glad you put it that way because even as a yank I've watched enough European gamers to know our crash wasn't YOUR crash. Gaming continued there just fine.

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yeah, it's a really big bug bear of mine!

[@momosgarage]

@@TheLairdsLair thanks for the quick reply. It kinda makes me wonder why the re-release of the Colecovision didn’t try to capitalize on that unreleased expansion port at relaunch? I know those kinds of things aren’t cheap, but the Famicom and Sega III were well on their way, so you’d assume adding the expansion as the base product should have been a mandatory business strategy.

[@bassguitari928]

The DINA was available from Telegames right up until they ceased sales of classic games in the mid-‘00s. In the late ‘90s they started bundling Pitfall or River Raid with it-and later, both. Telegames must have had a deal to sell it (and their other classic stuff) through Radio Shack, because these could also be ordered there from the big in-store catalogs they used to have. Considering the features of the DINA, it appears to have actually been designed as an SG-1000 clone first and foremost, with Coleco compatibility tacked on. It’s fully compatible with SG-1000 games (including MyCard) and controllers, while Coleco controllers and add-ons don’t work, some games can’t be played very well with only one console-mounted keypad (which also can’t fit Coleco controller overlays), and a few others don’t even run properly. Still, the DINA is my favorite way to play Coleco games. It was actually my introduction to the Colecovision!

[@TheLairdsLair]

Only Telegames USA stopped selling classic games, the parent company in the UK still do. It might seem like the Dina was SG-1000 first and foremost because of the controllers and such like, but it was the ColecoVision part that was always focused on with all of Bit Corp's Dina games using the ColecoVision hardware and there was a computer version too that was also promoted as Coleco compatible.

[@yf_NorthernAreas]

When it comes to this channel.........I always come back😈

[@caeserromero3013]

I started work at a PC reseller in 1996. As I walked through the door, I met a guy I went to school with who was in his final week of his months notice as he was leaving to join Escom. After finishing on the Friday, he was back in the office on the Monday. He'd had a call from his new manager that Friday evening telling him Escom were going down and to try and get his old job back if he could. Irony was, the place I'd just left had an Escom PC that blew a processor, and the last thing I'd done before leaving was arranging to get the processor replaced under warranty. If that processor had blown a few weeks later, they'd have been massively out of pocket.

[@pcjohn0308]

I still have my Dina ! Modded it years ago for composite video and audio out !

[@benonemusic]

Great video! I was unaware of the full Dina/Telegames Personal Arcade story. I hadn’t previously reflected on how the ColecoVision in its initial incarnation came to a premature end because of the ADAM. Fascinating!

[@mymomsaysimcool9650]

I was 11 during the “crash” but didn’t realize it. I thought it was awesome. Mowing a lawn would net me 2 games. Still have my Colecovision games and peripherals from that time.

[@mr.vidjagamez9896]

The Core System GameGears were also a whole more reliable and didnt suffer the same hardware faults of the original Sega versions.

[@ChrisDreher]

Nice coverage of the Intellivision. One minor correction is that Spiker Volleyball is typically regarded as the last officially released Intellivision game.

[@RedAsTheFire]

That Jaguar segment was a wild ride in and of itself.

[@cabbitkisser2620]

I'm 51 & I've been thru it all growing up. i got my Atari 2600 when i was only 9 at time in 1980 for Christmas. i didn't know about the video game crash of 1983. all i remember as a kid was my mom brought 10 Atari games home & asked me & my brother which games we had. so, he didn't know but i did. i still remember going to ames & the Atari games on sale for $2. i didn't start buying video games & systems until the 90s. i found so many video games & system's & old Atari computer at goodwill. this was before the internet & ebay

[@retrojoe85]

The last Intellivision games were very surprising, considering the limited hardware. Commando was a weird but efficient reimagination of the original arcade but it's up to Thunder Castle that goes the gold medal of "programming masterpiece"!

[@joesshows6793]

I do not remember the re-release of the game gear. That’s wild how cheap it was

[@davarosmith1334]

I would definitely have bought a Jaguar for £30 back then out of Game if we had one! back when Atari jaguar came out it was out of my price range. I reckon if it had been reasonable priced from the beginning it would definitely have took off a lot better!

[@TheLairdsLair]

The thing is that the Jaguar was actually very cheap for what it was, it was cheaper than all of its rivals by some distance and Atari were already making a huge loss on every console sold, so I don't think an even cheaper price was remotely realistic. I was more than happy to pay £229.99 for mine on launch.

[@davarosmith1334]

@@TheLairdsLair I was 16 at the time and I only got £29.50 a week Y.T.S money. I was left with £19.50 after paying my mum a tenner! So my mega drive continued to my computer.

[@stevew8513]

I have a couple Telegames DINA 2-in-1 units. I live near the warehouse in Lancaster, Texas that was damaged by a tornado, and there was a three store chain in the area called Electronic Discount Sales. They picked up loads of Telegames product, none that seemed particularly damaged. It's an odd little machine, considering most US consoles at that time would need to be tuned to either channel 2 or 3 to play games, but the DINA required TVs to be set to channel 13. That was a problem, since channel 13 is frequently used across the US for public broadcasting TV network PBS. So it never had a decent picture since another signal was trying to break in. Still, it was more functional than traditional Colecovisions, and could play SG-1000 games if you could find one.

[@stevendobbins2826]

The channel 13 thing might've been because it was designed for Taiwanese TV sets and wasn't adjusted. Kind of like how you if you're using RF a Japanese console has to be tuned all the way up to channel 95 to work in America.

[@elijahvincent985]

You should cover the 2600+ as an upgraded 7800. It's an actively successful comeback.

[@TheLairdsLair]

I have already done a whole video on the 2600+. I did think about putting it in here, but it didn't really fit with the rest.

[@2crude2crudeofficialband3]

Brand new Jaguar for £30?! Jeezus Christ, why not in America too?!!!

[@autofox1744]

That happened! If I remember right, they were clearing the things out of bargain bins in the late '90s for about $20. Same for the Sega 32X. Really wish I'd been able to convince my parents to buy in.

[@jeremysart]

I grew up with the VCS and Intellivision II, but was lucky to get a Colecovision with the expansion module and a ton of games at a garage sale my mom drug me to in the early 90’s

[@ParsnipCelery]

Great video! I'm always a fan of a good comeback.

[@momosgarage]

Could either the re-released Intellivision or Colecovision have grown in performance by adding an expansion slot or special cartridge with better chips, in order to squeeze out similar performance to early NES games? Also, was it possible to improve the battery performance of the game gear back then?

[@TheLairdsLair]

Coleco yes, an expansion for that was originally planned but cancelled in wake of the crash. You can watch this video if you want to know more about that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hJLPk3iQaMpjiJI Probably, if they radically redesigned it. For example changing the screen and making the backlite optional.

[@robertgijsen]

I love the colecovision, it's my favorite console of that generation. But boy, that advert was bad😂 Showing just 1 second of each game and they didn't show Congo Bongo at all! I wonder how that pulled us over the line back then.

[@DragonNova]

Amiga shout out 😊

[@danielespeziari5545]

Great topic. I wasn't aware that the Game Gear made it into the 2000s, although I wouldn't say that all these systems were actually resurrected. They were undead, not really alive

[@zmbdog]

20:43 What is the "Personal Arcade" system advertised here?

[@TheLairdsLair]

The same one I talk about this video!

[@fattomandeibu]

It always kinda makes me laugh when I saw these new "super powerful" new systems like the 3DO and Jaguar coming with games I'd been playing on Amiga for years, complimented by crappy FMV games and very experimental, uninteresting 3D stuff. I realise that these systems were much more powerful than my A1200 now, but you try convincing a teenager of that, I'd written them all off as pointless rubbish. Really makes you wonder how they got as far as they did when it's pretty clear they don't know how important first impressions are.

[@janwilt6974]

You have to remember the Amiga was originally invented by Atari. When jack Tramel bought Atari he came out with the Atari ST. It was close to the Amiga and at first ST games were ported over to the Amiga . Amiga owners bragged that the Amiga was more powerful than the ST. That was true until Atari came out with the Atari STe which equalled the Amiga then Atari came out with the Falcon which was more powerful than the Amiga. But alas none of these machines are made anymore. Still home brew games have been coming out for the Atari ST’s and Falcon and the Amiga. So these computers are still alive and kicking!

[@baroncalamityplus]

I had a DINA. The controllers weren't great. I don't remember what happen to it. Did I trade it? Was it one of the systems destroyed in my basement flood? I'm just not sure. Wish I still had it. I didn't know about the SG1000 compatibility at the time. As for Intellivision, I wonder if Atari is thinking about an Intellivision +? Then we have the Jaguar. In the US, Telegames Jaguars were sold through a chain called KB Toy & Hobby. I picked up a couple of extra consoles with the goal of playing 4 player Doom and multplayer Battler sphere (or was it Battle Spear?)

[@TheLairdsLair]

BattleSphere - yeah, great game

[@joesshows6793]

Kick ass stuff

[@ShaelRiley]

[@dbnpoldermans4120]

Wow, so much information. Thank you! kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6ibc3WifLCgndEsi=mnT7MPyg9tInM7wg&t=71 Isn't this game also on Sega SG-1000? But this looks more like an arcade release Did the colecovision ever got a volume controller for ping/breakout style games? Is the Atari 7800 really more powerful than the colecovision? Sega Game Gear, poor build quality. Wait, what? The battery life was indeed a factor. I think the most problematic was the high cost, but mostly the competition: gameboy, Lynx and pc engine GT. Also back then having a handheld device never appealed to me. I had a crt in my room and wanted to play on the big screen,. not on a small screen. And when I left the house, it was play time Did Majesco really market it as a game gear II? I never heard of that Amiga 1200 designed for games? No, not at all. I guess they marketed it like that perhaps

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yes it is and it's virtually the same. The Game Gear had terrible build quality, which is why its now so hard to find a fully working one that hasn't been re-capped. The Amiga was originally designed as a console, one look at the hardware tells you it was made with gaming in mind and the A1200 was a computer very much aimed at Europe and particularly the UK and Germany where most people used the Amiga to play games.

[@stevendobbins2826]

The earliest Game Gears (think launch day in Japan) were plagued with issues that really soured first impressions.

[@Sinn0100]

For another good example of a failed revival attempt...look no further than the TurboDuo.

[@TheLairdsLair]

That wasn't discontinued and then revived though, like the systems in this video, that was just taken over by somebody else. That's a whole other video, but one that I will probably do at some point.

[@colinmcdonald2499]

It is a shame the Collecovision didn't keep rolling into the post NA video game crash long enough for me to get it in between the 7years i got the Atari 2600 and the "N -E- S" ( yeah. "En Ee es" .. not 'nes'. 'Nes' is a great aunt!

[@pruthuchauhan2159]

PS3 is the comeback king. It had a horrible launch and even more horrible launch software. But Sony deserves credit for making a successful comeback and regaining lost ground to x360.

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yeah but a totally different kind of comeback to the consoles in this video as it wasn't discontinued then brought back later on.