Coleco was another great childhood video game manufacturer in the same vein as Atari and Mattel. Originally known as the The Connecticut Leather Company, they were well known for their handheld Coleco sports games like Electronic Quarterback (got it), Hockey (got it), Baseball (got it), Basketball (got it a few years ago) and Soccer (got it a few years ago) among many others. They also produced the Cabbage Patch Kids which were incredibly popular in the early 1980s and the Coleco Telstar Arcade home video game system first released in 1977.
In 1982, Coleco released their ColecoVision home video game system that they became a direct competitor to both Mattel’s Intellivision and the Atari 2600 and 5200. A cartridge-based game like both these two systems, it was bundled with Donkey Kong which was still an incredibly popular arcade video game and was a hint of which way Coleco was going to proceed: While Atari and Mattel created mostly their own sports, action, shooter and other games, ColecoVision would focus on arcade ports, licensed replicas of actual arcade games for their home system.
In 1982, Coleco released other recent arcade games like Carnival, Zaxxon, Cosmic Avenger, Lady Bug, Mousetrap and Venture for the ColecoVision. By 1985, Coleco had 145 games available which is also the year that Coleco stopped producing the ColecoVision and withdrew from the video game market. I recall that cartridges were similar in price to Intellivision and Atari games and tended to settle in the $25 – 40 USD range. I recall paying around $40 CDN for ColecoVision games.
In all, over 2 million ColecoVision consoles were sold, a success by any standard although less than the over 3 million Intellivision and the estimated 30 million units of the Atari 2600 which continued to be produced until 1992.
Console
ColecoVision used a ROM-cartridge system similar to its Atari and Mattel competitors. They appeared to mimic the Intellivision controllers with a keypad overlay with 12 pressable numeric buttons as well as a button on each side other control. It also has a small joystick at the top of the controller for directional movement. So the controller was perhaps similar to many arcade games of the day which had a joystick for directional movement rather than a disc like Intellivision.
ColecoVision also came with a separate slot that was used for future developments including a plugged in device that enabled you to play all Atari 2600 games. Another development was the Coleco Adam home computer which could also be plugged into the ColecoVision game unit.
Controllers
Unlike the Intellivision console, ColecoVision controllers could be plugged in and removed which was a better design for several reasons. If a controller broke, you could easily replace it. It also meant Coleco could (and did) add other controllers for different games that you could purchase separately. Specifically they created a controller for baseball that was held in one hand and operated with the other. An auto racing game also used a separate steering wheel controller.
I have the baseball controller and it is very detailed with numerous buttons enabling players multiple options for pitching, batting and fielding. It also came with a large red knob joystick that looked very similar to what an arcade joystick looked like.
Gameplay
ColecoVision had hardware that was similar to other video games of the day including 16 KB video and RAM 8 KB ROM. One of the things that made ColecoVision successful and so memorable looking back was its gameplay. While you can easily search online these days and quickly find a port of Donkey Kong or another arcade video game that is 100% like the original from the average user’s perspective, ColecoVision’s gameplay and ability to mimic the arcade version was the best that was available at that time. In the early 1980s ColecoVision was superior to Intellivision and vastly superior to Atari in that regard. ColecoVision gameplay wasn’t 100% the arcade version but it tended to be very good and the best available at the time.
Coleco Legacy
ColecoVision was manufactured between 1982 and 1985 so its lifespan was much shorter than Atari or Intellivision but it managed to climb aboard the first great video game wave that effectively ran from 1977 to 1983. They managed to wring money out of the an industry that grew from virtually nothing in 1977 to become a $7 billion industry (arcade and home combined) in 1982.
The original Coleco company filed for bankruptcy in 1988 following the decline of their Cabbage Patch Kids business and unsuccessful decisions related to several acquisitions of other companies. While the Coleco name has gone through several ownership changes since this time, the Coleco company that we knew effectively disappeared decades ago.