1983 was the year of the video game crash and that year’s Sears Wishbook was chock full of the detritus of a bloated dying industry. You got the handhelds, Vectrex, Gemini, Colecovision, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 in this issue. Along with some great games and accessories. My favorite is the Handsome Hassock storage system on Page 9. I would love one of those now.
A great system with games that were very realistic for a home system. Those Hand-grip controllers were one of the more interesting form factors for this gaming era.
Mr. Do!!!
Every one of these was great, but I have a special place in my hearts for anything with smurfs in it.
Great graphics compared to the 2600, but that joystick killed me.
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23 thoughts on “The Video Game Systems of the 1983 Sears Wishbook”
Thats awesome! I wish I could find my 90s JC Pennys catalogs :(
Oh wow, I want that Vectrex system badly. Thanks for this!
I still have my Galaxian and Defender games, along with two others. i can’t remember which ones cause they are in storage.
I have the Donkey Kong game somewhere in my basement.
Can you imagine paying $29.99 for an Atari game now? Granted, it was the coolest thing ever back then, but still. What if you spent $29.99 on E.T.? You’d stop gaming forever!
*makes notes for the next “History of Video Game Console” article*
Is it me or do those joysticks look like something you might find for sale on an adult website?
It’s just you :)
Well, consider how the joystick got its name. It was a control for aeroplanes that came up between the legs of the pilot.
So don’t be surprised. The things always had a phallic innuendo, and it doesn’t help that some adult toys are made to camouflage themselves as more innocuous objects. “Oh no, Mum, that’s just a wireless joystick!”
Sears was obviously feeling the effects of the ’83 videogame crash.
I couldn’t help but notice all the price cuts on these pages. As much as half off on some items.
$29.99 in 1983 dollars is about $62 today. So imagine paying **$62** for E.T.
Damn those pages bring back memories. I remember Sears having their own version of the Intellivision. All the games and the console were the same as Mattel’s, only the names of everything were changed (and were usually cheaper than the same games at Toys R Us).
I used to spend hours looking at these pages, dreaming of owning all upon ’em. Ahhh…to be twelve again.
its one thing games did learn me if it piss me off its serious hammer time1!
I can’t wait till we look back in 25 years at the super primtive Wii and xBoxes and laugh at the low quality graphics we would tolerate and how much we paid for them
Hehe, this brings back memories, especially when looking and comparing these prices to today’s prices.
I feel so old, but thank you for posting this!
Longtime friends of mine were sales execs for Mattel and Atari at the time. 2 weeks after the ’83 Christmas, everybody in sales was fired, especially the guys with diamond pinkie rings and fat cigars. Some had made $500k the year before.
Frogger on Colecovision (plus four slices of buttered toast with cinnamon and sugar and a giant glass of milk)… I never understood what was supposed to be so tragic about being a “latchkey kid” in the 80s. It felt pretty damned okay at the time.
RIP Sut
Old Store Catalog
Exactly Joey?
Is it just me or all the links the images broken? I can only get the last one to work?
The images had been down as a consequence of some unpleasantness a few months back. Thanks for bringing this up. They should work now.
Metal Misfit: that’s why they’re called “joy” sticks. As in Dr Alex Comfort “Joy”.