Rare Atari 2700 Prototype Console Found, Sold for a Massive Profit
Sometimes it pays to be thrifty. Redditor 'L064N' posted a picture of his latest thrift store [...]
Why are they so rare?
If these things are so hot, then how come Atari never actually release them? Kotaku reached out to National Video Game Museum director John Hardie to find out:
"Those controllers were really the main reason the system was never released. They were radio controlled and the range of the controllers was said to be about 1,000 ft. which means you could easily affect your neighbors system with your joysticks," said Hardie. "Imagine living in an apartment building where that 1,000 foot range could potentially affect 3 or 4 other systems. Since the controllers were only unique to left & right players and not to the system itself, it also meant that a large family that might want to purchase 2 units would have the same issues."
prevnextThere could be more...
And how about this? There may actually be more than 12 or 13 of these bad boys in existence. In other words, there's a chance that you may strike it rich too if you're in the right place at the right time.
"Personally I think there are more," Hardie said. "There have been several that have popped up over the years. In fact, in addition to the 3 that we have, we can probably account for another 5-6 out there. So, given the propensity of companies (especially Atari) to destroy/throw out products that were scrapped, it seems highly unlikely that 8-9 of the original 12 survived. In fact those would be amazing odds. But I suppose anything is possible."
How about that? So if you live in the area, you may want to make a point to head out to some garage sales of thrift stores and shop around for a bit. Who knows, you could be the next lucky owner of a rare console prototype!
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