Never thought two of those ill-designed Atari 5200 joysticks could sell for so much... Then again this Atari 5200 Controllers auction is far from over, their price is bound to reach shocking levels and both joysticks are admittedly both new and boxed. Seller ships to Europe, North America and Australia.
My brother-in-law bought me a box of a dozen or so Atari 5200 games for around $2 at a garage sale a few years back so I've kinda been on the lookout for a cheap system to play them on and more often than not the controllers are either broken or missing altogether.
ReplyDeleteI did finally get to play a 5200 at the local arcade festival last year and yeah those controllers are as bad as advertised.
Most probably some of the worst controllers ever designed. Then again Atari's mistakes and oversights under Warner were numerous...
ReplyDeleteI rather liked the wand style joysticks that came with the 1st Atari Flashback - they were a nice size and fitted the hand well. Wish I hadn't given mine away now. But those Atari 5200 sicks - blech. The Jaguar pads were pretty bad as well. Comfortable - but lacking in useful buttons and had that useless spongy numeric pad again.
ReplyDeleteNever tried those Flashback controllers, though I'm still thinking about grabbing one. Possibly mark III.
DeleteOh, and I have to admit I always had a soft spot for all things Jaguar. Yes, even those huge joypads...
I haven't ever played the Flashback but those controllers look like the 7800 controllers and I agree those were actually pretty nice. They didn't give you claw-cramp like the big boxy base of the 2600 joysticks did sometimes.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Which does lead us all to the conclusion that the Atari 7800 is a fantastic console with good controllers. Also, as it's cheap, it's also one I can actually buy. Hooray!
DeleteYeah, that's the one problem I always found with the 2600 sticks, too.
ReplyDeleteThe Flashback consoles are actually pretty good fun though. Obviously, the software selection is limited, but for a quick blast, they're not bad. As I said, I foolishly gave away my Flashback 1 and immediately regretted it, so a few months ago, I got hold of a Flashback 2 from the US, which of the three versions so far, is the only one that's actually based on 2600 hardware, as I'm sure you know. It's a rather lovely machine - though the big yellow buttons in place of the the silver switches spoils the effect somewhat.
Apparently, the Flashback 2 isn't supposed to work in the UK, but I plugged in a UK ac adapter of the appropriate voltage it works perfectly. Wish it was a little easier to add a cart slot though. I did see one mod on You Tube, where the guy had used a leaf switch from an arcade cab, so that when you inserted a cart, it pushed the switch and disabled the built in games. Oh, for those sort of modding skills.
I'm up for the challenge! Well, I have seen a soldiering thingy once. Surely, this counts for something.
DeleteOh, and once again thanks for the info dear Bob!