Talk:Atari 2600

Laminate or wood veneer?

Is that beautiful wood grain finish made of laminate or is it made of wood veneer? 195.32.65.198 (talk) 00:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

1992

Discontinuation is said to be Jan 1st 1992. But does it specifically refer to strictly production of the hardware, or support for software?

Dreamcast for example was discontinued, in terms of hardware, in March 2001, but Sega continued supporting it in terms of software by releasing new games themselves and giving licenses to third parties.

They are two distinct things. This article states at the end that "production ended" in '92 but it's unsourced and may be wrong. Sceeegt (talk) 01:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

On a hardware article, the lifespan field/discontinuation date would refer to hardware. Sergecross73 msg me 17:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Right, but is it really accurate? There is no source given in the paragraph and I haven't been able to confirm yet from research that Jan 1st '92 is the date. Sceeegt (talk) 17:22, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

It's sourced to Racing the Beam in the infobox, which should be duplicated in the body if not there. Racing the Beam is very much our best source for anything 2600 related. Masem (t) 18:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the source should be in the body, not the infobox, but otherwise it's a good source. Sergecross73 msg me 14:20, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, that is not quite what Racing the Beam says. On page 137 (not 150, though if one has a pdf of the book, that is the 150th page of the file), the book says "models were manufactured from 1977 through 1992." The specific, and highly suspect, date of January 1 is not mentioned. I will go ahead and update the article to reflect what (and where) the source actually states. It would still be nice to come up with a better source for the 1992 discontinuation such as a contemporaneous announcement (Bogost and Monfort do not cite their source of information), but it will have to do for now.

Launch date

Article states in multiple places that the product launched in September of 1977, but I've found extensive evidence that it was on sale in stores across the country in August. In fact, here's an ad from the end of July. I'm left wondering if the September 11th date is accurate. Editor B (talk) 16:15, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

• Is September 11 the release date? Of course not. There was no such thing as a street date for video games in the 1970s. Companies shipped out product in waves and stores would put it on sale as soon as it arrived. The idea of pinpointing a specific release day for the VCS is laughable.

Does your newspaper ad prove it was available in July? Of course not. Newspaper advertising is not proof of availability. A retailer might entice customers with ads for new product to get them into the store and then either sell them a similar product or lock them into a future purchase by putting them on a waiting list. That ad does not even have the right name for the Star Ship game, proving advertising material was going out before the retail products were even finalized. Indrian (talk) 21:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC)