The Atari 2600 was one of the most popular consoles of all time. In the early 80s, competitors such as the Mattel Intellivision and the Coleco Colecovision were hot on the trails of Atari 2600. Atari began to realize that game developers needed to be able to take advantage of more advance hardware than the Atari 2600. So in 1982 came the follow-up to the very popular Atari 2600, the Atari 5200.

The Atari 5200's hardware was based off Atari's 400/800 computers. This allowed development for the console, and porting of Atari 800 games much easier. Add this along with the ability to have up to 4 controllers connected at once, the console was very promising. As for the games, unlike previous consoles such as the Atari 2600, the Arcade game conversions are of a much higher quality. There were, though, two major contributing factors as to why the Atari 5200 did go over as well as Atari was hoping.

Everyone's major gripe with the Atari 5200 was its poor controller. It did add a much needed extra fire button to the controller, plus one the first ever pause buttons were made available. Those were the pros. Unfortunately, the cons weighed out the pros. The keypad attached to the controller made for a very cumbersome experience. Also the new analog stick did not return back to the center after being let go of. This damaged many controllers, and they were very expensive to replace.

Although there were many great titles available in the home video gaming market, there just simply was too much supply, and there was not enough demand. This caused for the home video gaming market to crash in 1984. A lot of consoles were going under that year. This is including the Atari 5200. Despite all of this, the Atari 5200 had some great titles available for the console. Some of those include Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Montezuma's Revenge, Mario Bros, Centipede, Millipede, Defender, and much more.

The Atari 5200 is viewed as a great classic console. Although there weren't many games available for the system, the ones that are there are considered to be some of the best available. Many game collectors appreciate this system because of the availability of the games. This is including prototype carts that were produced before the market crash. One who is looking for a classic system with a good number of great games should check out the Atari 5200.