the out-of-retirement 2600 that was poised at low-income audi-
ences. Neither of which could really make a dent in Nintendo‘s
armor nor could it even perform toe-to-toe market-wise with
Sega‘s Master System console. If Atari wanted to make a
splash in the new gaming market, they had to make the system
different enough from the others to get attention. As they were
not the powerful corporate entity they once were, Atari didn‘t
have the spending power to come out with something radical so
they had to make do with what they already had on hand:
home computers. Borrowing a tactic from their old war chest
(ie the 5200), Atari took their current 8-bit computer technology
(the XE line) and gave it a sleek facelift. The Atari XE Game
System was born.
The XEG was a slick looking system with large round colorful
function keys, a top loading cartridge slot, two ports for control-
lers and a Serial Input/Output (SIO) port. She was beautiful to
look at but under the hood the system was basically an Atari
65XE, which was the culmination of the technology spanning all
the way back to the 400/800 computers. It‘s hard for some to
imagine that the technology dated back to the 70s.
Since the XEGS was being sold as a game system, it was
given a feature none of the past Atari computers had: a detach-
able keyboard. This completed the state of the art look and feel
of the system. By separating the console and the keyboard,
this allowed XEG owners the freedom to use their system
strictly as a cartridge based game console. The only time the
keyboard was necessary was when a game required it or if the
owner was ready to use the machine as a bone fide computer.
The XEG also came with 3 games, a standard Atari joystick
(featuring the new XE grey colored base instead of the tradi-
tional black base) and Atari‘s newly released light gun. The
games were Bug Hunt (a new release light gun game), Flight
Simulator 2 (a re-release of a popular mid 80s simulator) and
Missile Command (a popular 1980 arcade game, which was - Patrick Wong
built into the system). With 2 of the 3 games being re-releases,
For Atari in the late 70s, the phrase, ―10 Years Ahead of Its it could be taken as an omen of what future titles would mainly
Time‖ best describes the Atari 800 computer. To help bring the consists of: re-releases of previous hit titles.
arcade home in the early ‗80‘s, Atari used the technology of
their Atari 400 computer for the new Atari 5200 Game system, In fact when the system was released, the games that were
the best phrase to describe this would have been: ―The Time Is released for the XEG were re-releases of games that were still
Now.‖ However in 1987 Atari decided to go into the well again in the original packaging styles of the 400/800 or XL series
with the same technology and the result was the Atari XE computers! Atari re-releases included ―Asteroids‖, ―Caverns of
Game System (XEG); the phrase appropriate for this final time Mars‖, ―Centipede‖, ―Donkey Kong Jr.‖, ―Jungle Hunt‖, ―Pac-
could have been ―10 Years Too Late.‖ Man‖, ―Moon Patrol‖, ―Ms. Pac-Man‖, ―Pole Position‖, and ―Star Raiders.‖ To inform the consumer that these games will run on
The Atari 8-bit computer line was traditionally a great series of the XEG, Atari placed round yellow stickers on the outdated
reincarnations that reflected the styles at the particular time a boxes that stated it would run on the new system. Despite the
model was released. The
400/800 (the late 70s) was bulky
and big to show users they were
getting their money‘s worth while
the XL series (early 80s) was
designed with a professional look
& feel to show off the sophistica-
tion of an Atari home computer.
The XE (mid 80s) was a nod to
its sister and Atari‘s computer
future: the Atari ST. For the XE
Game System, however, this final
reincarnation brought the com-
puter line full circle to its video-
game roots: a successor to the
Atari 2600 VCS.
By 1987 Nintendo had essentially
resuscitated the video game
market and Atari wanted back
into the market they helped cre-
ate. Unfortunately their only real
competition to the stellar NES
system was the now behind-the-
times 7800 (originally released in
1984 but shelved until 1986) and When the XEG was first released, stickers were put on the old Atari Computer Game Boxes… later Atari XE boxes
(Continued on page 10)
9 | Video Game Trader Magazine | July 2008 | www.VideoGameTrader.com
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