Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Watch what this commercial is actually selling, because it is not just Donkey Kong. This exact spot aired on Chicago television between 7 and 10 PM on Sunday, October 17, 1982, starring an actor named Brien Varady, and the entire pitch was that ColecoVision could also play your entire Atari 2600 collection through an add on called Expansion Module Number 1.
That module was not software trickery. The ColecoVision genuinely was not powerful enough to emulate the 2600 that way in 1982. What Coleco actually built was close to a complete Atari 2600 hidden inside the add-on itself, borrowing only power and video output from the ColecoVision underneath it. There was even a port so you could plug in your original Atari joysticks if you preferred them to Coleco's own controllers. Functionally, it meant ColecoVision could claim the largest game library of any console on the market, its own growing catalog stacked on top of the entire Atari 2600 back catalog in one move.
Atari did not find that clever. The clone chip powering the module was built by a company called VTI, and by most accounts it was close enough to Atari's own chip design that Atari sued Coleco for three hundred and fifty million dollars in December 1982. Coleco fired back with a five hundred million dollar antitrust countersuit. The two sides settled out of court in March 1983, with Coleco agreeing to license Atari's patents and pay royalties going forward, and Coleco pushed the idea even further the next year with the Gemini, a standalone Atari 2600 clone built on the very same design.
None of this hurt the console early on. By Christmas 1982, barely four months after launch, Coleco had already sold over half a million units, cutting straight into sales of both Atari's own machine and Mattel's Intellivision. The boot screen you see here, the one reading Your Vision Is Our Vision, ran on every single console with no cartridge inserted, and it is the exact line that closed the ad campaign. It just wouldn't last. The video game crash of 1983, combined with the disaster that was the Coleco Adam computer, forced Coleco to shut down ColecoVision production by 1984. Did you have the expansion module, or was your ColecoVision Atari free?
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#colecovision #coleco #atari2600 #expansionmodule #donkeykong #videogamehistory #consolewars #retrogaming #retrogames #80sgaming #classicgaming #vintagegaming #videogamecommercial #1982 #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
Watch what this commercial is actually selling, because it is not just Donkey Kong. This exact spot aired on Chicago television between 7 and 10 PM on Sunday, October 17, 1982, starring an actor named Brien Varady, and the entire pitch was that ColecoVision could also play your entire Atari 2600 collection through an add on called Expansion Module Number 1.
That module was not software trickery. The ColecoVision genuinely was not powerful enough to emulate the 2600 that way in 1982. What Coleco actually built was close to a complete Atari 2600 hidden inside the add-on itself, borrowing only power and video output from the ColecoVision underneath it. There was even a port so you could plug in your original Atari joysticks if you preferred them to Coleco's own controllers. Functionally, it meant ColecoVision could claim the largest game library of any console on the market, its own growing catalog stacked on top of the entire Atari 2600 back catalog in one move.
Atari did not find that clever. The clone chip powering the module was built by a company called VTI, and by most accounts it was close enough to Atari's own chip design that Atari sued Coleco for three hundred and fifty million dollars in December 1982. Coleco fired back with a five hundred million dollar antitrust countersuit. The two sides settled out of court in March 1983, with Coleco agreeing to license Atari's patents and pay royalties going forward, and Coleco pushed the idea even further the next year with the Gemini, a standalone Atari 2600 clone built on the very same design.
None of this hurt the console early on. By Christmas 1982, barely four months after launch, Coleco had already sold over half a million units, cutting straight into sales of both Atari's own machine and Mattel's Intellivision. The boot screen you see here, the one reading Your Vision Is Our Vision, ran on every single console with no cartridge inserted, and it is the exact line that closed the ad campaign. It just wouldn't last. The video game crash of 1983, combined with the disaster that was the Coleco Adam computer, forced Coleco to shut down ColecoVision production by 1984. Did you have the expansion module, or was your ColecoVision Atari free?
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#colecovision #coleco #atari2600 #expansionmodule #donkeykong #videogamehistory #consolewars #retrogaming #retrogames #80sgaming #classicgaming #vintagegaming #videogamecommercial #1982 #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
