A Look At: Colecovision - The Rise & Fall Coleco's Amazing 2nd Gen Video Game Console -1980's Tech

[Music] now you can bring the arcade experience home introducing k Vision the most advanced video game system you can buy it plays more games than any other system arcade games with multiple screens like Donkey Kong arcade games like zackon with its threedimensional look and Venture with 15 different screens Cosmic Avenger and kion's new Smurf game coming soon Kika vision's first expansion module that lets you play all the Atari BCS compatible cartridges now you can bring the arcade experience home because your vision is our vision kico Vision the story of kico really starts in 1932 this is when Maurice Greenberg opened the Connecticut leather company they started producing leather goods and Leather Shoe repair kits during World War II the demand for business grew and so did the company in early 1950s Maurice Greenberg son Leonard Greenberg joined the company it was his idea to sell leather lacing and leather craft kits to children at a 1954 Toy Fair their leather moccasins kit was chosen as the Child Guidance Prestige to toy and it was at this point the Connecticut leather company decided to go fullon with kids toys in 1956 Leonard Greenberg bought a technology used to vacuum form plastic which led the company to develop several small toys made out of plastic including waiting pools in 1961 the Leather and Shoe finding portion of the business was sold off and the Connecticut leather company abbreviated its name to kico in 1963 kico acquired castra corporation which was a leading manufacturer of vinyl pools and toys after this acquisition kico became the largest manufacturer of above ground swimming pools in the world in 1966 the company had grown so large that Leonard persuaded his brother Arnold Greensburg to join after Arnold joined several other toy manufacturing companies were acquired by kico kico enjoyed success during the late 1960s in the toy manufacturing sector in 1971 Cleo became public on the New York Stock Exchange and then acquired a snowmobile company after the acquisition of the snowmobile company sales were very poor in that sector kico had to find a way to make money and make money fast right around this time Arnold Greensburg was named CEO of the company and wanted to get into the growing video game Market kico in 1976 started producing the tailstar dedicated game consoles nearly all these dedicated systems were built around a general instruments pong on a chip which there was a shortage of at the time but since kico was one of the first to order they got their entire shipment while other companies didn't this made kico a leader in the dedicated game console Market in the 1970s the sales of the dedicated game consoles allowed kico to break even with the failing snowmobile business kico was so successful with the tellar units they almost sold a million consoles you're watching the most exciting game you will ever see on your TV set tellar by Kik with three different games tellar tennis with digital scoring variable speeds tellar hockey each player controls a goalie plus a forward on the other side oops a goal and tell star singles handball a game you play yourself tellar handball tennis hockey all three at an exciting low price for great Family Fun hit your TV to a tell Star by kico kico did well in the electronics video game market and wanted to continue their success in 1979 Arnold Greensburg wanted to create a programmable home video game console with arcade quality games made up with off-the-shelf parts Eric Brimley and his engineering team began to design the cico vision in 1979 they had already developed a prototype system that used a Texas instrument chip for the video and a general instruments chip for the audio but because of the high cost of ram at the time it was not approved but shelf for a later date by early 1982 that later date had come the cost of of ram had fallen and Brumley saw that the cost was well within the profit margin now development of the cico vision was very fast as the system was already developed and was just shelved the kico vision was launched in August of 1982 and by Christmas of 82 had already sold over 500,000 units in early 1983 more than 1 million units had already sold greatly surpassing what their biggest rival the Atari 5200 was doing sales were looking good and kico decided to launch the kico atom computer unfortunately this was the beginning of the end for kico the atom was not a success due to bad manufacturing and defects which gave kico a bad name and then it happened the video game crash with horrible cells of the atom and the CCO Vision cells plummeting along with the sales of its games by 1985 kico had announced the discontinuation of the atom computer and an October of the kico vision this gave the kico a 37-month run selling just under 2 million units in that time frame unfortunately for kico the timing was just bad when they released it had they released it in 1979 we might still be playing cico video game systems today nobody would question the quality of the graphics and the games of the cico vision far beating what Atari or any other video game system was doing at the time just another example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time kica went on to produce the Cabbage Patch dolls which kept them afloat for a few more years but by 1988 Cleo had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and by 1989 what was left of cico was swallowed up by the toy giant Hasbro while Atari keeps trying to sell you new systems like the 5200 with kico vision you only need one system because kico Vision expands to give you a super action controller set with super action baseball a driving module with turbo an expansion module to play all Atari 2600 games and only kico Vision plugs into the atom module to become the complete atom computer system so if you don't want to keep buying new systems there's only one system to buy Kiko Vision sorry Atari [Music] n the [Music] the [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] you'll never finish by morning no problem Now command the powers of Adam with professional keyboard high-speed memory drive and built-in word processor program all in one package oops you got to start over relax Adam we got paragraph is that legal and Adam even a letter quality Daisy wheel printer you did it Adam my launch sequence is that legal command the powers of Adam and program your future game over man it's game over [Music]

Channel: Retrogamer Gen X

Views: 1,473

Keywords: retro gaming, retro games, Colecovision, coleco, video game console, old video game console, video games, atari, nintendo, sega, joystick, 1980's commercials, video game history, intellivision, arcade, home console, 2nd gen video game consoles, 2nd gen, 1980's

Id: Gpgk62S78hA

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2024