This Department Store Rebranded Atari 2600 Games. Here’s Why

Sears Tele-Games:
wearethemutants.com/2017/09/1...
Percentage of TV’s in Households:
americancentury.omeka.wlu.edu...
Atari’s Many Pong Consoles:
www.pong-story.com/atpong2.htm
List of Sears Tele-Games Games:
atariage.com/label_page.php?L...
Sears Catalog showing the Video Arcade:
christmas.musetechnical.com/S...
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:34 Home Pong
3:18 Release
4:27 Atari VCS
5:29 Sears Exclusive Games
7:39 Tele-Games Branding
9:38 Atari 2800
10:57 Why Rebrand?
Special thanks to the following users from pexels.com for the stock footage:
霍天赐, A frame in motion, Andrew Hanson, Anna Hinckel, Anvar Tushakov, Artem Podrez, Caleb Oquendo, Cottonbro, Curtis Adams, David McBee, Drones Scot, EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA, Free Videos, George Morina, Glen McBride, Jack Sparrow, Joseph Redfield, Kampus Production, Karolina Grabowska, Kelly, Kindel Media, Ksenia Chernaya, Mikhail Nilov, Miguel Á. Padriñán, Mike B, Monstera, Nicole Michalou, Pavel Danilyuk, Pete Wales, Polina Tankilevitch, Pressmaster, RODNAE Productions, Steve B, Thirdman,Tiger Lily, Tima Miroshnichenko, Tom Fisk, Tony Schnagl, Vlada Karpovich, Yan Krukov, Yaroslav Shuraev
Special thanks to streambeats.com for the music used in this video.
#atari #atari2600 #sears

[@ian_b]

Nitpicks/thoughts: in a steeplechase you don't jump over "steeples". It was originally a cross country race over natural obstacles (hedges) *to* a steeple (Church spire) because they were tall marker buildings in the British landscape. It was basically "let's race to that steeple over there!" "Stellar Track" is a port of Star Trek, a very popular game on early computers, text based because it was before graphics. You could thus play it on a terminal or even a teletype. So at the time the Atari was developed, it would have seemed like a standard choice. Let's not forget how many early console games were such thrill rides as Tic Tac Toe, maze solvers or "simple math test". Nobody at the time knew what the popular uses were going to be or what the video game landscape was going to look like. I'm old enough to remember the Pong craze. It was intense, because Pong seemed incredibly futuristic, because just interacting with video on your TV was like something out of Star Trek.

[@bkbreyme]

Stellar Track was just a port of the game "star trek" that appeared in many computer magazines at the time. They just changed some names: "Klingons" became "Aliens", "Phasers" became "Phasors," probably to prevent copyright issues. I remember typing this code in the 80's, modifying it to work with my particular version of BASIC, which was different than the magazine's assumption, modifying it to play the theme on a tape player connected to the computer, and then finding it did not workand having to debug it. Then the brief excitement in playing it. Never lasted long, as I quickly realized that I already know everything it did and the logic behind it. Therefore I could only lose by intentionally making mistakes, or getting rare, particularly bad, string of RNG responses.

[@Wallyworld30]

Sears branded 2600 consoles sold the famous Heavy Sixer made in Sunnyvale California for years after Atari moved their own production to overseas. I owned half a dozen 2600 consoles over the years and the Sears Heavy Sixer was my favorite. It's construction was much more heavy duty than the overseas variants. They built that original console like a tank and it's RF Shield was so thick it could probably have been used at Chernobyl after the disaster.

[@ferndog1461]

As a 9 year old, I would beg my mom to take me to Sears in Oxnard, Southern California, circa 1981. Several Sears then had a Arcade video game room complete with neon lights & sparkle ceilings. When I exhausted my two dollars ( I paced myself & watched other kids for their patterns and techniques ) I jogged to their toy floor, Sears had Telegames 2600's & intellivision's that you could play. I had an agreement with my mom that I would either be in this arcade or toy area. This was Sears providing quasi babysitting for their customers.

[@AltimaNEO]

Same Sears I used to shop at!

[@Dudeitsmeee]

Then the Adam Walsh... unfortunateness ended that in a negative way. He was shooed out of a Sears with a bunch of rowdy kids playing a sears telegames.

[@chouseification]

@@Dudeitsmeee only because he had not been taught to stick up for himself. If he had simply stood firm and said "I am not with them, and my mommy will be here in a few minutes. She will be very angry with you if you make me move from here", etc. I knew as a little kid to threaten the fake security dudes or even to start screaming really loudly if they tried to tell me anything odd. I would NOT have obeyed that command myself, since I hadn't been causing the trouble. Don't lump me in with those jerks... too bad little Adam hadn't been taught the same concepts and to stand firm. Not all adults are authority figures and rent-a-cops are among the very worst to obey as a little kid doing no harm.

[@Ti-nf4fq]

Same in Michigan

[@RetroDawn]

@@chouseification Did your parents teach you this? In what year were you 6?

[@realgtasacramentodashcam7292]

Great video, one of Sears' strong points was catalog sales. My cousins lived in a remote area and they had all the Sears versions of the Atari stuff because that was the only way they could get them.

[@pojr]

Thank you! Yeah the Sears Catalogs were really cool to look through.

[@fakshen1973]

So back in the day Sears was like THE store for everything short of groceries. Their mail-order catalog was like the internet of toys for kids. People would buy a Sears video game the same way they would trust their home appliances, certainly. Home electronics were a new thing outside of TVs and radios. The thing about the Sears Telegames I remember is it having a hard time with Atari cartridges. The spring loaded face of the cartridges were a tiny bit different. If you forced the cartridge the first time you played it, it would snap off a small tab of plastic in the cartridge and then you could get it all the way inside the Telegames unit.

[@pojr]

Yikes, I wouldn't want to risk breaking my games every time I play. I would prolly play the same game just so I don't risk breaking the others lol.

[@jimmyclaw9974]

Man, I miss Sears. They really did the private label stuff better than anyone else. Amazon has a bunch of private labels now, but they’re mostly just cheap knockoffs. The Sears stuff was generally made by the top brands in the business, but then sold at a significant discount. Back in the day I would take a Craftsman, Kenmore, etc. over any of their competitors.

[@ZachAttackIsBack]

Most private labels on Amazon are just generic products that someone slaps their logo on. I consider them fake private labels, as you can typically find the exact item with no brand label on AliExpress.

[@gabriellepe7839]

I had an air compressor made by Sears in the 80's, best tool i ever had, i sell it 2 years ago and i am still regret it.

[@Wallyworld30]

My father was a professional mechanic on the railroad for decades. He told me he knew a couple guys that swore by Craftsman tools because they were cheap but guaranteed replacements for EVER! So you could pass your tools down to your son and if it failed on him he could always get easy replacements.

[@floyd9572]

Silvertone guitars and amps.

[@jpotter2086]

@@Wallyworld30 Dad was the same. Dads across America were. Unfortunately forever didn't turn out to be forever, but it lasted a long, long time.

[@derelictfields]

My family had (and I still have) the Sears Tele-games 2600. I always thought it was weird that we had that version with Target Fun while my friends had the normal Atari-branded version with Combat. I found your video very informative and subscribed to your channel! This kind of content is right up my alley and you're very likeable. I wish you the best with your channel!

[@RetroDawn]

Atari brought the 2800 to Sears to offer them an exclusive. It wasn't Sears idea, but they loved it.

[@JamieStuff]

Back in the day, we all knew that the Sears Video Arcade was a rebranded Atari 2600. My best friend got the Atari branded version for Christmas in the late '70s, but since the mall was within bicycle distance, nearly all of his cartridges were Sears branded.

[@JeremyLevi]

You should consider a followup video on the other department store that sold their own branded line of Atari 2600 games, the Zellers department store (basically Canada's version of K-Mart). They sold an entire line of imported Taiwanese bootlegs of official Atari games with their own in-house titles, labels, and boxes at rock bottom prices.

[@themidcentrist]

I always thought it was crazy that a mainstream store like Zellers would straight up sell bootlegs, but the gaming industry and Atari in particular was very much the wild west back then. I wonder if Zellers ever got a cease and desist letter from Atari, or if being in Canada kept them off their radar? I had a few Zellers cartridges in my Atari collection and found them to be odd, but until I looked further into their origins I assumed they must be on the up-and-up similar to Sears cartridges.

[@pojr]

I will have to check this out. A few of my viewers mentioned this too. I'm in the US so I've never actually heard of Zellers, but I'm intrigued by this.

[@DanceDanceNorth]

There's some information about the Zellers game on Wikipedia! Zellers eventually only sold genuine games, and they even got an exclusive red Game Boy Advance, like Target but with no store logo.

[@LUCKO2022]

​@pojr Zellers is a thing of the past. HBC kinda revived the brand in 2023 by having a small section in some stores branded as Zellers but it is not the legit Zellers. I only bought a Zellers sweater because I remember the original Zellers so much. Allot of my childhood lies with that store. So I needed it for the nostalgia but it is not the real deal.

[@sandal_thong8631]

@@pojr Just came from your Zellers video. Good job!

[@GustavoValdiviesso]

What?! Sears used Albert Einstein on the cover art for Codebreaker?! 😂

[@pojr]

Didn't even notice that. 😂

[@syntaxerror9994]

One small detail you missed... This kind of branding was very common back in the day. But the packaging and item itself always lacked the logo of the original manufacturer. Atari, however wanted their name to spread so they negotiated to keep their name and logo on the power button... an unheard of thing to do at the time in these kind of deals.

[@pojr]

On the power button, eh? Actually pretty smart, since everyone is gonna use the power button on the console. This is good information, thank you.

[@rhuttrho88]

I don't remember that. Maybe it did.🤔 I still had mine by 87. Now it was like playing a throw back.

[@MiriOhki]

My grandparents had a SVA and mostly Sears branded games. It's why I hadn't heard of Combat when I was a kid but played the heck out of Tank-Plus.

[@JEdwardBanasikJr]

The Sears Tele-Games Video Arcade (version of the Atari VCS) debuted in the 1977 Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog for $178.00. That's $886.58 in today's money!!!!

[@themidcentrist]

And adjusted for inflation I believe games back then would have cost $60-$70 in 2023 money.

[@pojr]

Holy cow! That's insane. I would have thought a 1.5x increase, at most.

[@nateadkins1919]

Stellar Track is a port of the Mike Mayfield and Bob Leedom game Super Star Trek, which was released as a type-in Basic game. There absolutely WAS an audience for this game.

[@rumblehat4357]

My brother bought Stellar Track. Actually sought it out. The sales lady asked “are you sure you want THIS game?” You may know it was NOT an arcade game, but a strategy game. He told her “yes I played it.” I guess a lot of people didn’t like it and returned it. I, personally didn’t like it, but he did.

[@LaughinMyButtOff]

As you know, I am from the stone age and never heard of this. I remember being so confused 6 years ago when I saw a Sears video arcade II system at a garage sale... Oh, and they gave it to me for free.

[@rhuttrho88]

Awwwwe.🥹😉

[@chaseman94]

My dad used to work for Sears to my knowledge from the time I was born in 1978 up until 1991 as a salesman. I have a Sears Video Arcade 2 console my dad bought for my older brother when it was released in 1983 which was handed down to me when I was 8 in 1986. I still have the console to this very day I'm glad I didn't destroy it when I was going through a phase in my pre-teen years when I was just disassembling my toys and breaking things I didn't play with anymore. I'm grateful I didn't burn the console when I was 12 at a family get together where there was a bonfire and the only thing I burned was Kangaroo on Atari 2600 because I was frustrated with that game.

[@Johnmukket]

I had a similar issue with destroying my shit at at age.

[@OscarInAsia]

Got a Sears Video Arcade II for Christmas that year it came out. I asked for an Atari, and I got that instead. Turned out Sears had the better product, those combo controllers were awesome!

[@pojr]

That really worked out for you!

[@billcook4768]

Growing up, I only knew about Sears. It was the Sears Video Arcade. Only as an adult did I hear about the 2600 or VCS.

[@pojr]

I can understand that, especially if you and your family shopped at Sears more often.

[@brianwolters7560]

You earned a subscription today...I love the Atari videos...especially this one...I used to feel 2nd class when my parents bought me the SEARS versions of games...LOL...I eventually worked for SEARS when I was in college from 90-94 (great company to work for) and we had "Brand Central" because in years past, if it wasn't Sears Brand, they wouldn't carry it. I worked in Division 3 (Computers) and sold Computers...

[@WanderingCactus]

I might be able to explain the Indy/Race thing. Indy 500 is AFAIK trademarked, copyrighted, etc, and so Atari either got a license to use the name or used it without permission. Sears would've needed their own license, hence the name change, that or if'n Atari didn't have a license, Sears decided not to risk using the unlicensed name.

[@pojr]

I think you're correct. Someone else mentioned that as well.

[@Mechsrule1]

Correction: DireHard *was* Sears exclusives. It was sold in 2019 to Advance Auto Parts. Kenmore as far as I can tell, technically went down with the ship. Craftsman was sold to Black & Decker.

[@pojr]

Nice, didn't realize that. Thank you.

[@mdoerty13]

Sears was so big it could demand private label items for a lot of products. TVs , appliances, etc. That is what this is.

[@danieldaniels7571]

DieHard

[@rockyrococo2584]

Everyone talks about the Sears branded Atari. But they had the same deal with MATTEL Intelivision. The Sears Super Video Arcade also had an Intellivision version

[@TheBugkillah]

If you were a kid of the sears years, you’ll remember the “sears catalog”. OMG, that was Santa’s inventory.

[@kattz753]

There was a Pong game at my grandparents in the early 70s. I think that it came from Sears. It had Pong and some sort of tennis and hockey. I do remember that it completely destroyed the TV. Burn-in was a new concept at the time and learned the hard way. Nothing had ever been attached to a TV before. My father nearly lost it when he saw the Atari 2600 under the Christmas tree. He was convinced that his TV was going to be ruined the second it was connected. We had to use an old black and white "portable" TV that had been in their bedroom. It was carried downstairs and plopped on top of the console TV. That "portable" weighed about 40 lbs and could only be carried away by a fairly big guy. It still had tubes and it rolled. That's something a lot of you have never seen. It sure introduced a new element to game play. After about 6 months we were finally allowed to use the old colour TV in the rec room. No one wanted the 2600 and its box of games when mom sold the house so I took them. It still works after all of these years but the controllers are worn out. I should look into replacing them now that Im thinking about it.

[@kaxtorplose]

That Stellar something game was sold as a Star Trek game on the C-64 and it was super fun.

[@lurkerrekrul]

My family's first video game console was a Sears branded Atari Video Pinball unit. This was followed up with a Sears branded Atari 2600. My grandfather was actually the first to get both, and whenever he bought new games, he always bough the Sears branded ones.

[@exidy-yt]

Oh gawd the number of years I spent as a latchkey kid member of GenerationX waiting to come home and play Vanguard and Star Wars battle for Hoth on my Atari VCS/2600....the memories are overwhelming......

[@ChrisRoth1972]

Now I know how the Sears Telegames System became how it was as a Kid in the early 80’s I was blessed to have one of those.I loved this video.Thank You!!!!!

[@FeralInferno]

Awesome video. I didn't realize the 2800 came to the US in that form factor. Thanks man!

[@danieldaniels7571]

They were very common in the 1980s

[@chipgarrett3139]

I'm 43. Remember the Sears wishbook. Thats how I made my Christmas list. I circled what I wanted in the wishbook. Toys, games, clothes, whatever.

[@JEdwardBanasikJr]

Sears offered lots of special financing promotions on their branded items. Want the hot new Sears Telegame System for Christmas 1980? (equivalent to $650 today) - We're offering a special low interest 24-month payment plan. That drove their sales for major appliances and all the new super expensive electronics of the time (Microwave Ovens, VCRs, Answering Machines, Cordless Phones). Each game sold for $18-24 and that's like $70-80 today. Our house growing up was all Kenmore branded. Thank god we didn't get our school clothes there.

[@ofp8574]

I'd like to point out something for the people here who may not be familiar with the practices of Sears and Roebuck. Generally, Sears would not put their name on anything that they didn't trust to represent their company. Craftsman and Kenmore were both brands of Sears. While sure, Atari did "permit" Sears to put their name on Atari's products, I think this was a lot more beneficial for Atari than some may give it credit for. Say it's 1977 and I'm about 40 or 50, and I'm looking for a transistor radio as a gift. Hypothetical situation. If I see something called an "Atari Pong," it may be something I've heard of, but I don't know who Atari is. I'm not going to give $100 to some funny company with an oriental sounding name. Now, a name like "Sears," on the other hand. Sears is a company I have known all my life and a company I trust. They made my power drill, my wife's sewing machine, the whitewall tires on my Plymouth Satellite, all my wrenches. Atari being given the good faith and priveledge to carry the Sears name did benefit them, it wasn't a sacrificr. I know at least in my area, most of the Atari VCSs I see are Sears branded, most of my Atari games are from Sears and Roebuck. Note that this is just my speculation, I wasn't alive when the Atari was in its heyday.

[@KatriceMetaluna]

Ten years later and you'd have no choice but to give your money to companies with oriental sounding names.

[@BalderOdinson]

@@KatriceMetaluna "all the best stuff is made in Japan"

[@rhuttrho88]

​@@BalderOdinson Even back then. I had the SEARS version though. Didn't matter to me. I knew it was an Atari even at 7 years old.

[@seanh0123]

I remember this! I was probably 7 or 8 and played this in a Sears. They had a demo set up where you could flip a switch to change between a few games. My parents had to drag me out 😂

[@pojr]

Haha must have been addictive, eh?

[@deementia6796]

I remember going into a Sears as a 11-12 year old, and seeing all the variant versions of the 2600 games, and wondering why they were so much more expensive than in other stores, even in the same malls. I'm thinking that at the time, Sears did NOT like to mark down for clearance, or reduce the perceived value of their house brands for fear it'd make their brand names look cheap. And honestly, the Atari games box art, cartridge design, etc .. look like they placed more into their display packaging, and Sears pocketed those extra funds as extra profit.

[@pojr]

Yeah true. I think it's because Sears brand was a quality label. So adding it to the 2600 meant it was more valuable.

[@tehshingen]

9:11 Atari back then seemed to count all difficulty levels and variants as separate games. For example, one of the Missile Command covers said it was 34 games. I always found that hilarious.

[@kingforaday8725]

Those old Sears Christmas commercials bring back memories. Both pleasant and sad. Pleasant for the WOW I want one of those, sad for folks that are no longer here.

[@joninct]

I have an original Sears version. I remember getting it. I spend many fun years playing it. Best Christmas present ever. It was a joint present with my brother. We already had the 1st Pong game. The Sears Wish Book was the best!

[@wallacelang1374]

I have been a fan of Atari since I bought my first Atari 2600 VCS home video game console in 1981. I did eventually buy an original Atari home Pong console too from someone who had a garage sale. Both consoles still work to this very day. I never cared for Sears rebranding of Atari products, yet I realized that there was still hesitancy to buying an Atari in the late 1970s.

[@justicegaming1412]

Indy 500 to Race may have been a necessary change - Indy 500 was, after all, a trademarked name.

[@jackeldogo3952]

Breakaway was a Tele-games version of Atari Breakout standalone consoles. I am pretty sure there were 3 predecessors (Breakaway, Breakaway II, and Breakaway III) and, hence, the Tele-Games was named Breakaway IV.

[@JDoors]

My buddy and I made a lot of trips to Sears to play their display console. I mean, they let you play it for free! Crazy! Of course we both bought one eventually. One of my favorite games was Yars Revenge, which you featured a couple of times in your video. Whew, I got a lot of play outta that console.

[@danieldaniels7571]

Yar's Revenge was a great game. I have an Atari in a joystick I bought years ago that has that in it and I still play it from time to time.

[@nigelkirk3103]

Back in the early 80s text based games were actually pretty huge. Considering the graphic capability of the Atari you really only had to use slightly more imagination than you did with Basketball. In fact many of the earliest games were entirely text based. The first RPGs for example.

[@jasonbrassard5572]

Another Fact Sears matched the first release style Gatefold boxes to match Atari then games got an department number starting in #6 for the sporting goods department and then the later releases got Department #49 for Toy department. So almost all #6 are text label first release and the #49 were mostly Picture labels.

[@williamhaynes7089]

Back in the 70's and 80's The Sears Credit card was a big deal too.. People loved the dept store charge accounts in that day and you could buy a game system for chrismas easier.

[@tresf]

This editing and research is really good! I'm not sure where you're getting your content from, but it's way underrated. Subscribed! I grew up with the 2600, 5400 and 7800. To know they borrowed the 7800 design from the 2800 is very interesting, as well as the rebranding efforts. I know this continues to happen today with other products, but it's often harder to find concrete evidence of. Top notch!

[@pojr]

That's a good point. The limit of games per year might have had something to do with it.

[@radwolf76]

Stellar Track is fucking awesome, fight me. The fact that a text-based game exists at all on hardware only capable of generating two "player" sprites, two "missile" sprites, and one "ball" sprite is phenomenal. (Ok, I think the text is being generated as playfield background and not sprites, but even then they had to interlace it with alternate rows of pixels just to be able to render it.) It's a fairly faithful port of a game that was originally developed for a goddamn MAINFRAME COMPUTER. While this doesn't make it unique, as there were literally scores of ports of that mainframe game to anything with a microprocessor at the time (it was the Doom of its era), the fact that there were so damn many ports of it meant that it was a popular game that was in demand. But if you absolutely must have graphics, Star Raiders, also for the 2600, is a much looser port of the same concept.

[@greenaum]

Nah that text is all players. You can repeat the player sprite up to 3 times, and somehow if you're really quick, you can re-load the registers as they're being drawn. Since there's 2 players, that's 6 sprites, with 8 bits, so 48 pixels, or 6 characters. Interlacing them gives you 12 characters, drawing the left and right halves on alternate frames, and alternating that as you go down the screen. So one row of characters would have the left-hand 6 drawn this frame, then the next scanline down would have the right-hand 6 characters, for this frame. So all the, say, odd-numbered lines get their left 6 characters drawn, and the even ones get the right side. Then on the next frame this scheme is alternated. It's not as bad on a real TV as it is on an emulator, but that's not to say it isn't bad. Still, yeah, it's a miracle. ET used it to draw ET on the title screen in "high" resolution, the highest the Atari could do, compared to the 40 pixels it's background playfield was. You'd be able to draw 5 characters per screen using the playfield. 5 enormous characters, filling the screen! The playfield isn't subtle, but some games twiddled around using the sprites, missiles, and ball, to enhance a playfield. Some enthusiast a few years ago programmed his own adventure game using "text mode", was pretty good considering what it was. This was back when there were maybe a dozen homebrew Atari games, now there's getting on as many as were released during the console's lifetime!

[@RetroDawn]

@@greenaum I was gonna explain the same, until I read your reply. Since the advent of Batari Basic, which complies Basic code to machine language, there are more homebrew/aftermarket games than released until the VCS/2600 was discontinued (Jan 1 92).

[@LuckyBird551]

There is a perfectly logical explanation why Sears would rename Indy 500 under the title Race when they rebranded the game under their own Tele Games brand. Atari must have gotten the rights to make an Indy 500 games from the Indianapolis Race track owners in Indianapolis. At the time, the USAC Championship and Indianapolis race track functioned under different owners and had some different rules, and since the Indy 500 was the most famous, and profitable, race of the season it was common for companies to buy the rights to make products such as toys, or in the case of Atari, video games, to sell under said brand under license. Sears, then, had no such license. So if they wanted to sell the game under their brand, that didn't have a license for the Indy 500, instead of Atari's brand, they had to remove the Indy 500 from the title. So they named it "Race" and called it a day.

[@neosquirrel]

Atari wasn’t the only console to do this with Sears. Mattel’s far superior Intellivision (that’s not lip service, it had a 16 direction disc controller, four side buttons and a 12 button keypad in the center along with far more detailed graphics) struck a deal with them rebranding as “Sears Telegames Super Video Arcade” with again, a redesigned console, now in white as opposed to the faux wood brown look the original had. It also had detachable controllers (why is anyone’s guess) rather than the coily phone cord-like ones of the original, and also had redesigned cover art which looked equally fantastic; they kept the boxes red though to distinguish them from Intellivisions. Interestingly, with a few minor exceptions the game names remained the same-only minor changes were made in instances like INTV’s “Las Vegas Poker and Blackjack” compared to leaving off the “Las Vegas” for Sear’s version, and any major sports organization like the MLB or NBA were also left off the names of the Sears copies (Mattel had stuck deals with the organizations to contain official branding despite no team names, uniforms or logos). They also worked deals with other retailers like JC Penny and others with rebranded games, albeit minus console redesign.

[@panelvixen]

10:36 I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics site and used the Inflation Calculator. $189 in 1983 (Date based on line that the Family Computer had come out at the same time.) Equals $583 in March 2023

[@Bigbacon]

One of the best things of the 2600 is the box art. It was always so fantastic.

[@RogueA.I.]

One thing about sears from back then. They would give a store credit card to pretty much anyone with a pulse. You could only use it there (and later, Kmart I believe). Good times.

[@Alcarods]

That was my dad's ultimate flex was using that card 😂😂😂 we pretty much bought everything from there!

[@InfectiousGroovePodcast]

I remember being SO confused as a little kid. We had an Atari VCS but our cousins had a Sears Video Arcade. It sounds silly now but we truly thought they were 2 totally different systems when we were kids.

[@rhuttrho88]

👋🏿 I didn't. I knew they were the same. I think I was in kindergarten. Not sure though.

[@marklechman2225]

Stellar Track was a version of the old Super Star Trek game found on early university mini-computers and mainframes. It was often played using a paper printout rather than a CRT. It eventually appeared in the BASIC game books of the early 70s - the kind that listed the source code which you would have to type in manually. The game was mostly strategy-based and requires using long and short range scanners to track the enemy and hunt them down. I first discovered it in the book 101 BASIC Computer games published in 1978.

[@janlentan892]

"Stellar Track" looks like a port of the "Star Trek" text-mode game that was apparently popular on mainframes at the time...

[@TheGreenViper8]

Absolutely did not expect to hear Cosmic Carnage music in this already entertaining video haha. Subscription material.

[@ilexgarodan]

In Canada, we had the Zellers rebrand 2600 titles like this.

[@josephfrye7342]

Oh lord here we go again.

[@JenevieveDeFer]

Also with Sears using their own brand and artwork. They are guaranteed to not have to take returns of other retailer's product

[@Indyizzy2300]

Great video, had a couple 2600 games with the name swaps and was super confused. Got the info I needed and much more!

[@jh5124]

Thank you for explaining this. I learned a lot I didn't know.

[@paulhenderson4884]

Sears also did the same rebranding with Mattel's Intellivision.

[@jh5124]

I wanted those video arcade II controllers. But just found out they don't work quite right on 7800s or regular 2600s. The VA2 was wired a little bit different to accomodate them.

[@magoffin]

True, there was a switch on the 2800 console itself to select whether you wanted to use paddle or joystick mode.

[@user-zd7id9rx3f]

I remember a story about when Atari gave Sears a demo of Pong that the prototype unit was wire wrapped and they had to explain to the Sears reps that wasn’t how the final product would ship.

[@WowplayerMe]

I Had Stellar Track back in the day & I loved it. I used to think of it as a precursor to Star Raiders, although Atari did eventually release a proper version of Star Raiders for the 2600. Also interesting, is that Sears struck a similar deal with Mattel to sell the Intellivision under it's private label. That system was named the "Tele-Games Super Video Arcade". I'm not sure what exclusive games were released by Sears, but, maybe this could be a topic of a future video on this channel?

[@HeroJournalism]

7:40 - I think it's a mistake to assume Sears was looking at Atari games rebranding 'game-by-bame' - more likely they said they wanted Sears-branded games, to go with Sears-branded consoles, implying exclusivity when it wasn't really there. Atari themselves likely developed the alternate branding in-house for Sears. I find many of them lacking, perhaps Atari being lazy or purposely making them less dramatic and attractive than their 1st party versions. Of course licensed games were probably inapplicable to the re-naming due to licensing issues, so obviously Superman and Space Invaders or such titles wouldn't be re-named. For Yar's and Adventure, I'm not sure why no diff name, but I suspect they came out first on Atari and were hits and thus used same branding. Great video, loving your Atari stuff. Glad this video is taking off! Partially of selfish reasons, as I've been getting a TON of traffic from it to my video on the History of Crazy Pong Clones. I've even gotten some commenters I can tell cam from your vid. You've got a great channel, I really hope you keep it up. And I really appreciate your pre-NES coverage, so many retro channels ignore anything before that.

[@mosaton]

Awesome video! I forgot all about this. My thoughts: 5:30 My cousin had that "low budget", "poor man's" Sears Atari unit that everyone made fun of. and I remember playing the games. Steeple Race: This game broke controllers. I think you had to move the controller back and forth to run, press the button to jump. Everyone had that one friend with the special joystick jiggle technique to go fast that happened to also break the controller. Eventually we told our friends to bring their own controller, and you brought your own. The one kid without had to use the broken one. We would sometimes fight over our controllers, then cry and go home with a broken controller. Stellar Track: I owned a c64 around that time and text based adventure were normal. Text based PC games were normal. (You were eaten by a grue). The graphics is what made the Atari fun. When you're bored, alone and the Saturday cartoons are off, its raining, your best friend is gone away on vacation, your mom is in the kitchen talking for hours on the phone with the extra, extra long phone cord and theres only one phone line for the house, anything is fun. The game was in your head. Submariner: Yup its Battlezone

[@WebJavis]

I just found out that the Atari system I've had my whole life is the Japanese version of the Atari 2600, which is the Atari 2800. Not the Sears version, the real, true 2800! But me and my dad who bought it, we have never lived in Japan. 🤔

[@PatriciaCross]

Zellers sold the weirdest rebranded Atari games. A handful of common titles (Combat for example, which was a pack in title for 2600 consoles and everyone had it already) were sold in Zellers (Canada) with completely new (fantastic) art and new names. They are uncommon in Canada, and rare in the USA due to not being sold there.

[@themidcentrist]

I had a few Zellers in my collection and live in the Southern USA. They are uncommon, but there is not a high demand for them either which balances it out.

[@pojr]

I'll have to check out Zellers. I've had a few people mention it to me. I'll consider making a video on this.

[@tony--james]

@@pojr yeah, they are very bizarre, and were blatantly illegal at the time, These games were not licensed by the companies from whom they were taken,

[@poppaspank]

You may be underestimating Stellar Track. Text games were popular with computer nerds. And... well, you don't need a decoder ring: Stellar/Star, Track/Trek. It was not an authorized Star Trek game, it was more like "fan fiction". Later on some of the other companies making games for the 2600 also had unauthorized Star Trek knock-offs. There was one where your TV screen was the bridge view screen. I did have an Atari 2600. And I did play Stellar Track - not obsessively, but a few dozen times, as opposed to a few cheap off brand games that got played a couple of times and tossed in the box.

[@MotiviqueStudio]

There was definitely some interesting partnering relationships in the 70s. And then there's all the BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS. (yuk yuk). Anyway. The history of Chuck-E-Cheese/Showbiz and Atari is equally fascinating.

[@andycraig7734]

At my local Sears, they discouraged children from playing the game systems. If you spent more than a couple of minutes, they ran you off. They were too dumb to realize that an unused system attracts nowhere near the amount of buys. A granny walking by will definitely see the connection... purchase = grandchild happiness.

[@Yourmomgoestocolledge]

My grandma had a sears card, i remember going to sears and her buying me a black Game Boy Pocket and Pokémon Blue shortly after it came out lol i was about 12.

[@user-bv2be2ou1h]

Stellar Track one of my favorite games on the 2600 and it's branded under Sears Telegames but not Atari. Basically text based thinking man's game.

[@_Thrackerzod]

The Fairchild Channel F beat the 2600 by nearly a year for having the first programmable cartridge based system, but the Atari console was far superior.

[@Dariothehungry]

Great vid! Subscribed.

[@pojr]

Thank you!

[@LuckyStone888]

I believe Atari had a magazine, I remember reading the stories about new plans to have a keyboard attachment for the 2600. I believe marketing created the article with no idea how to make it possible, If I remember correctly they wanted to make a word processor and a whole suite of attachments, Of course, this is from my memory.I was a child when I read these articles.

[@_Thrackerzod]

Yes, it was called Atariage (a popular website is now named after it). Spectravideo did end up actually releasing a keyboard acessory for the 2600 along with a version of the BASIC programming language. Here's a video about it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d4LJlYqcf82kd9U

[@danieldaniels7571]

​@@_Thrackerzod Atari also released one before that but it was pretty useless.

[@jonstoll8278]

My mom got all our Atari stuff from sears, even our 7800.

[@GTVNewsForGamers]

Ah, Sears. The best store to buy lingerie and video games in the same trip.

[@pojr]

Can't believe Sears went out of business

[@danieldaniels7571]

And auto parts

[@LostForestX]

ANOTHER video. The most prolific person on KZbin right now 😎

[@dogsbark5750]

I bought a Sears Tele-Games Pong(in Color!) From 1974 at a Salvation Army in 1996 CIB for $15. Still own it. Takes D batteries and hooks up to rabbit ears. The color was just color banding. Like a filter. I had no idea why or how it came to be. That said I have yet to see another. It looks a little different than the image you are using. Still own it. It lives in its box. I imagine most are long gone.

[@justonemori]

Sears was everywhere, if your mall didn't have one then it was either because you were dirt poor or mega rich.

[@clutch2827]

Would always head to electronics to play the in-store demos.

[@idonothing7557]

Sub done in Seoul! Keep on growing with great contents!

[@Earths1stgamer]

Great job i loved the video so much information. Nolan Bushnell said that they didnt have enough money to start producing the VCS so Sears agreed to loan it to them in exchange for there own console and the 3 exclusive titles so Sears is the reason we have an Atari 2600.

[@richhutnik2477]

Stellar Track is the 2600 version if the text based Star Trek game. Star Raiders is an action version of Star Trek.

[@TheBlindDyslexic]

Ohh, Dodge 'em. Ohh, I broke the plastic lid to my Atari 2600 storage center to this game.

[@fazares]

cool video as usual...keep up

[@DeathMetalDerf]

We used to go Hills department store for my Atari games back in the day because, "Hills is where the toys are!" IYKYK 😏

[@jason92278]

my grandmother had like sears brand vcrs

[@JohnHenrySheridan]

Cool video !

[@riversarcadereview385]

very informative

[@TheBugkillah]

Man I miss sears.

[@riversarcadereview385]

Submarine Commander reminds me of the arcade "Sea Wolf"

[@williamhaynes7089]

but the accual Seal Wolf arcade game ahd the cool periscope that coulnt be done at home

[@riversarcadereview385]

@@williamhaynes7089 - I agree. I was only saying the gameplay looked similar to Submarine Commander.

[@MrCadet08]

Weird video recommendation I don't play video games, but I do collect sears branded guns....mossberg, Remington, winchester and marlin guns, which are really well made and dirt cheap because no gun collector wants a sears knockoff

[@ChicagoMel23]

Aw you should try some games

[@jpotter2086]

"Breakout" a big name at that time? No. Not at that time. It is in hindsight. But these decisions weren't made in hindsight. A big part of this story not mentioned was how MASSIVE Sears was in the '70s, and how massive and influential they had been for many decades at that point. Many consumers went to Sears for tools, appliances, and electronics, exclusively, loyally. CHains like Sears used rebranding to reinforce these relationships with consumers. It was very desirable for any manufacturer to get into Sears, and make concessions to do so.

[@ricflair9717]

Atari and Sears, a match made in heaven since both companies are essentially dead now.

[@pojr]

Never thought about that, but yeah they're both companies who are dead now

[@gamewizardks]

Sears didn't have a license with Indy car to use 'Indy 500' and had to change the name.

[@pojr]

This is a good point. Didn't realize this, but makes sense. Thank you.

[@fireguyCO]

Submarine Commander looks like the inspiration for The Hunt For Red October. 😅

[@sanguine111]

i had a version of stellar trek were you had a grid screen n blasted klingon ships w/ photon torpedos, it was a pretty decent game

[@themidcentrist]

I played it and a lot of other games in middle school on a TRS-80 Model III in a computer class. Funny thing was the teacher was always complaining about how old and archaic the computers and computer network was. This was circa 1991, so he did have a valid point LOL.

[@RetroDawn]

Yep, that's what the original and most ports were like.