Kevin Bunch (ubersaurus)
@atariarchive
Science Communicator, Video Game Historian, author of Atari Archive, old school FGCer, occasional Retronaut host, and chicken owner. He/him
I may not be at combo breaker but we’re still playing the really good shit out here. Shout out to @minovskyarticle.bsky.social for coining the “Dogpatch Dozen” term for 22-can matches
If you go by Atari's internal newsletter Coin Connection, today is the 50th anniversary of Breakout, their most popular title since Pong at the time and such a massive hit in Japan that it spawned a bunch of clones and inspired Space Invaders. Granted, other internal sources say April 76, but hey
I had picked up imports from local shops but Border Down is the first game I actively mail ordered from Japan. Absolutely no regrets about that one (and it’s way more fun than my early Japanese game pickups from the shops, i.e. the ps1 dragonball fighters)
Visited the Vintage Computer festival East show yesterday. Maybe ambitious to make a day trip of it, but I got to see some very cool stuff!
this one comes up in our household frequently, as well as Zap's "what makes a man turn neutral?" soliloquy
The Neo Geo+ stuff is throwing me back to when I used to bring my old modded Neo Geo Mas joystick to play in Samurai Shodown tournaments. It worked so well for that game with the button layout! People kept asking me if I’d sell it to them, as I recall.
There also is contemporary news reporting that Atari anticipated selling between 7-8 million copies of Pac-Man in 1982, which tracks pretty closely with their actual sales figures (the fall off in 83 was likely because starting in January that year it became their 2600 pack-in title)
to wit: There were an estimated 17.4 million VCS units sold by the end of 1982. What we know of ET is that it sold very quickly for Christmas and then sales fell off a cliff, and we have firm numbers for 82 and 83! 2.6 million ETs sold in December 82, with a net negative of 669,000 in 83
This snippet from Videogaming & Computergaming Illustrated describes the real issue with the 83 crash. Nothing about game quality so much as retail stockrooms being so full that they couldn't really get new stuff, and what they did have had to be discounted or sold back to publishers eventually
Now that @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social has added Tips & Tricks to its library, it's possible to dig in and read about early FGC history and results. I used to play at Wizzard's (and was even in that cvs2 tourney, I got 9th!) and this page was posted near the entry until the place closed.
My 9 games, which was difficult to nail down but these are probably the ones that I can think of offhand that really influenced me and my tastes, or otherwise had a big positive social impact.
Visited Brewbit at the Dugout Arcade yesterday and had a wonderful time. Played some Rumble Fish 2, Space Harrier, Sam Sho V Special, Donkey Kong, and more. And also set new personal bests on a few cabinets!
Shadow Labyrinth got me in a Xevious mood and I decided to not only play the excellent 7800 port I grew up on, but also to start learning the locations of the flags and sol towers. Got a pretty good score on my second run.
Also the Japanese movie posters were a neat addition, the only other time I’ve seen anything about Flight of the Navigator recently was hearing @enerjax.bsky.social talk about it
Went on a work trip this week to Winnipeg and got to pop into Select Start, which was a neat little arcade. The cursed Donkey Kong with a circle gate notwithstanding, anyway
I was told last night that as of around 8:30pm no one had beat my high score on the Magfest museum space invaders cabinet. Count those shots! Asteroids was also pretty okay, though I’ve never been quite the UFO hunter in that game I aspire to