franka (12/09/82)
I was listening to the news and heard that the video game makers'
stock plummetted yesterday (12-8-82). It seems that WarnerCom made a sur-
prise announcement yesterday that their Atari cartridges weren't selling.
This seemed to set off a wave of stock selling, not only for Atari, but
also for companies like Magnavox, Mattel, and branched into retail sellers
since video games were seen to be one of the biggies this year.
What I was wondering is, "Why?" I had assumed that the video game
market was booming. Certainly, the rate of advertising on the cartridges
has increased. Has the bottom dropped out of video games or is everybody
waiting to see who wins the big Coleco-Atari fight (both in the marketplace
and the courts)?
Any ideas?
Frank Adrian
Tektronix, Inc.
uucp: {ucbvax,decvax,chico,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!teklabs!tekcad!franka
CSnet: franka@tek
ARPAnet: franka.tek@rand-relaymel (12/10/82)
The failure of video game cartridges to sell in the number predicted was certainly predictable. Who would want all that junk? When there were very few available, and few models of game machines to play them, the few companies made a huge killing on that limited market. Now EVERYBODY is in the business, flooding the marketplace with expensive advertising and mostly junk products. In our neighborhood every kid has a game machine, purchased many months ago. Only the idle rich ones have or will purchase another to get brighter colors or round top joysticks. Our kids have about 10 cartridges, and even in their naive enthusiasm notice that only a very few of them are any fun to play (Pacman and Space Invaders). One glance at the advertising is all it takes to see that there is more hype than substance in the packages. Funny how all this seems to apply to the IBM PC and its software, too. Only there the costs are 20 or so times as much per package. "Like son, like father"? Mel Haas , houxm!mel
rg (12/15/82)
I've had several stock brokers recommend Commodore stock to me. It is currently selling at about $75. They say it should be a $100 stock first quarter of 83. Just food for your thoughts.