The What and WHY of Atari 600XL! This week on ATARI UNLIMITED 17!

Now, Aaron, before we can get into the story, we have to talk about something way back, way back before the 600XL.

I've been back there.

We got to talk about the 1975 Atari Home Pong system.

All right.

This was obviously launched by Atari, hugely successful.

Do you know the launch price, Aaron, of the Pong system back in 75? Okay, so this is the

home Pong system based on the successful arcade version of Pong.

That is correct.

This is the dedicated console.

I would say this would cost

125 US dollars.

You were close, 100 buckaroos, okay? All right.

That's the equivalent of about $635 today.

So Atari was used- That's big money.

Used to making the big bucks, okay? I wonder how much they made on those.

Probably a absolute crap ton.

All right.

Because by 1977, they dropped the price to 40 bucks.

Okay.

So good answer.

So that lets you know that the overhead was probably pretty significant.

Yeah, or there were some major alien visits that helped.

So let's step forward a little bit.

What about 1977, Aaron? All right.

The launch price of the 2600.