ColecoVision
Developer: Coleco
Year Released: 1982
Generation: 2nd
Having released over a dozen Pong systems in the 70s through their Telstar range, Coleco returned to the gaming industry with the ColecoVision. Its main competitor was the more advanced but less commercially successful Atari 5200. The controllers were similar to those from other systems at the time. They had a 12 digit numeric keypad on the front, a basic joystick and side action buttons.
On February 1, 1982, Coleco and Nintendo signed an agreement, which gave them a six month exclusive license for the famous Nintendo arcade game, Donkey-Kong. Their excellent version was exclusively sold as a pack-in with the ColecoVision as a purchase incentive. The ColecoVision was an instant success. Coleco did very well until the video game crash in 1983. Unfortunately the console suffered the same fate as the rest in the great video game shake out. Coleco stopped production of the ColecoVision in 1984.