What fun life was: the 1983 Sears Wishbook's game wares
I was still content with my TI-99/4A when Sears was touting the Intellivision and the still frankly beautiful Vectrex (I'm still waiting on a nice package of repro- overlays, guys), but The Retroist's scans of the 1983 Sears wishbook remind me of two holidays following, when I was absolutely fraught with anxiety over whether I'd be choosing this 'NES' newcomer or the Atari 5200.
The latter I wanted solely because months earlier I'd impressed my elementary school crush with a bowling alley arcade run of Food Fight so amazing I surprised even myself (the trackball was on fire that day). In the end, I made the "right" decision.
The Video Game Systems of the 1983 Sears Wishbook [The Retroist]
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4649
#1 – 4:49 PM December 17, 2008
So, like, if copyright were sane then I could get a far-cheaper-yet-identical replacement for my long-loved yet long-lost miniature-arcade pac-man game and give it to my nephew? (an example of the game I mean is what brought me here from http://www.boingboing.net/images/searswishbookok.jpg)
chip
#2 – 5:10 PM December 17, 2008
The day the Wishbook showed up in the mail was one of the most important days of the year. Close behind Christmas itself. There is an ongoing project to scan and preserve old Wishbooks (and a few other holiday catalogs from yesteryear) here: http://www.wishbookweb.com
thesimplicity
#3 – 5:19 PM December 17, 2008
I actually still have my Vectrex and play it quite a bit. What an underrated system! Vector graphics still hold up, and Clean Sweep is still a sublime experience.
belldl
#4 – 5:21 PM December 17, 2008
Wow, haven't thought about those games in literally decades, but as soon as I saw the pic the nine year old inside me screamed, "WANT!".
Anonymous Anonymous
#5 – 6:50 PM December 17, 2008
Wow...that takes me back, but MAN!! Mom and Dad paid a pretty penny for those games even back then. I wonder how much those would cost today if you factored in inflation?
webmonkees
#6 – 8:02 PM December 17, 2008
The Coleco Pac-Man minis are going for up to $250 on eBay.. so us game freaks are getting a better return on their investment..
I'm invested in long term Galagas and Atari color vectors, a mature and entertaining holding much more reliable than that shaky real estate thing..
Anonymous Anonymous
#7 – 10:01 PM December 17, 2008
I still have a PacMan one, many they sound so annoying!
takeshi
#8 – 12:18 AM December 18, 2008
I have Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong minis in a box at my parent's house. If they're really fetching that much on eBay, I may have to take a road trip. Fast.
I remember how disappointed I was that the maze in Pac-Man was different from the arcade version. I'll bet I would love playing it now.
Anonymous Anonymous
#9 – 5:51 AM December 18, 2008
Food Fight with a trackball? That had to suck.
Anonymous Anonymous
#10 – 7:55 AM December 18, 2008
The truth is, were all just getting old. We are no different from the guys who rant about the "good ol' days" and think every modern car should look like a muscle car from the 60's. Just old folks trying to reclaim their "glory years". Thats really what all of this retro stuff boils down to. It may not seem like it, but someday there will be adults looking at pictures of PS3's, XBOX 360's, and Nintendo wii, saying "that's when video games were 'REAL'."
n
#11 – 9:46 AM December 18, 2008
I had the Ms. Pac Man one! I would sit in my beanbag for hours playing that stupid thing and then get all pissed when the controls were flaky,.
Anonymous Anonymous
#12 – 1:57 PM December 18, 2008
The scanned images on the retroist site were used without attribution to either wishbookweb.com or flickr.com/photos/wishbook. I left a polite little message advising readers they could find the rest of the catalogs (and many others) at the source sites above, but the retroist moderators chose not to publish it and published later comments. *shrugs* This stuff all belongs to Sears, but we put a lot of time into these scans and we don't try to earn revenue from our sites--unlike at retroist.com.
goldenboat
#13 – 6:03 PM December 18, 2008
Vectrex is still one of the coolest videogame machines ever made. I worked briefly with the company that made the unit, shortly after it shipped ... they were particularly proud of the joystick, which was made (I recall) from RC plane controls. The machine was a joy to play and it is a shame it never caught on beyond those two dozen or so games. Best game was likely Battlezone or Asteroids (although I had a soft spot for their football game, too). The worst had to be Spike.
susan01
#14 – 12:43 AM August 12, 2009
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Susan
http://onlinemariogames.net