Second Generation Video Games consoles – there is another

  

The first generation of video game consoles included the Coleco Telstar, the Atari Home Pong , and the Odyssey series.  They were mostly variations on Pong-like games, some with overlays for the TV, but they also included some tank games.

 

The first of the second generation consoles was the obscure Fairchild Channel 4.  It came out in 1976 and was discontinued in 1983.  It came with two games preloaded and had another 26 games available for it.  It had a unique controller with a triangular 8-way joystick / rotary dial and action button.  It sold the least of the second generations, with about 350,000 units.

 

The Atari VCS (later Atari 2600) system came out next in 1977 and wasn’t discontinued until 1992.  It ended up with between 470 and 500 games.  It had  paddles, and an 8-way joystick with an action button.  It was the clear winner of the console wars, with about 30 million units sold, more than twice as much as all the other second generation systems combined. 

 

The Odyssey 2 came out in 1978 and was discontinued by 1984. It had a full keyboard, an 8-way non-centering joystick with one action button, and about 50 games.  It sold a respectable 2 million units and was clearly fourth of the top four systems.

 

The Intellivision came out in 1979 and did not get discontinued until 1991.  There were 129 games released for it originally.  The controllers included  a 12 button keypad, 4 buttons, and a 16 direction disc.  Because it changed hands between Matell Electronics and INTV, the numbers are a bit tricky, but it is figured to have sold between 3 to 5 million units. 

 

The Colecovision did not come out until 1982 and it was discontinued in 1985.  It also had about 137 games released for it.  The standard controllers were a full keypad, with two action buttons and a stubby joystick.  The company claimed about 6 million units were sold, but it is believed to be closer to 2-3 million units.

 

There was also a Vectrex system that came out in 1982 and was discontinued in 1984.  It included a built-in monitor, and only had about 28 vector style games with screen overlays.   It had a controller with a small 8-direction joystick, and 4 action buttons.   It only managed to sell between 500 to 600 thousand units.