Gen-X and Xbox just don’t mix.
For those old enough to have seen the dawn of the video game era, retro is winning out over realistic graphics.
Or so it seemed this holiday season, when old-school video games like Atari and Mattel Classic Football flew off the shelves in record numbers, largely in the hands of twenty- and thirtysomethings looking to relive childhood memories.
“I had an Atari 2600 when I was 7 or 8, so for me it has a definite nostalgic quality,” says Joe Maidenberg, 30, a post-production supervisor at Oxygen, who owns the 10-in-1 vintage Atari Joystick, which includes classics like Asteroids and Pong.
“[And] the games are very simple, so it’s good for a short amount of time wasting – as opposed to some games nowadays, which take a long time.”
eBay recently reported that more than 43,000 vintage gaming items – including Atari, ColecoVision and Commodore – are on auction and that over the past three months, merchandise sales for the Commodore alone are up 61 percent.
Radio Shacks throughout the city are sold out of Mattel’s classic handheld football and basketball games. (The white plastic ones with the LED lights that move across the screen – remember?)
Even modern gaming systems are getting in on the act – both Playstation2 and Xbox offer Intellivision’s “Intellivision Lives!” package, which includes blast from the past games like “Shark! Shark!” and “Space Armada.”
“They’re a curiosity thing,” says Santos Gonzalez, 27, manager and technical advisor at Manhattan’s Game Time Nation Gaming Lounge. “You play the game, you remember your childhood, you get that big smile on your face. “