It all depends on the title and the condition of the game. The most valuable Atari game is Air Raid for the Atari Air Raid With titles like Superman, the Atari produced some of the rarest games of all time.
Air Raid for the Atari could possibly be the rarest of them all. The game, published by Men-A-Vision in , has become one of the most prized possessions in gaming history. Is Atari losing steam?
You know, the zappy stuff what comes outta the little plug thinguses in the walls and such. Atari did have some hair-brained ideas back then though. On a side note, it is interesting to see this AtariAge thread from earlier in where Atari fans had a hard time wanting to pay even a small premium for a text color variation.
The true rarity that belongs on this list is the original Ultravision releases. In , Ultravision was promoting a product that was supposed to be a TV, game console, and personal computer in one hybrid device. The game software remains consistent through all the Ultravision and Froggo Games releases. Even though it was supposedly designed with the help of black belt Joseph Amelio, it is considered one of the worst games in the Atari library. One is a more traditional black square cartridge case while another has a T-shaped handle.
Both of these variations are roughly worth the same, and of course, the Ultravision box holds significant value as well if you ever find one. Classifications of some of the games on this list can be tricky, but the Ultravision Karate release might be the rarest and most valuable licensed retail cartridge on the Atari While Nintendo eventually created some valuable game collectibles via tournament cartridges see the NES and SNES Rare and Valuable guides , Atari publisher, Imagic was an early innovator in providing their gamer community with a special tournament version of the port of their popular shooter, Atlantis.
In this special release, the gameplay is much faster, the scoring system has been slightly altered from the original, and enemy ships are worth far less points than the original version.
Read our guide on how to tell the difference between an original Atlantis cartridge and a rare Atlantis II cartridge It is unknown who won the competition, but some of the original contestants still have the Atlantis II cartridge. However, due to this lower sale price, we are lowering our price range for this game. Avalon Hill, a traditional board game company, ventured out into video game publishing with rather poor timing. Despite showing some innovation and thoughtful game design from their experienced board game designers, the games were not finished and shipped until retailers already had a glut of inventory from other vendors and needed to reduce orders.
Avalon Hill ended up publishing five different Atari titles and released Out of Control in the middle of the video game crash of The game remains as their rarest release Death Trap is another one of their treasures, but a bit more common. The company is still around today, publishing board games and computer games. For those interested, the objective of Out of Control is to weave your ship through space buoys and pop several balloons before executing a perfect landing in a space station.
Does anyone remember the Pepsi Challenge? While there continues to be a battle going on between Coke and Pepsi now, the s and 80s were filled with a promotional war between the soda giants. It was distributed to the executive levels of Coca-Cola at a sales conversion, so there are believed to have only ever been of these games, at most.
Instead of waves of aliens being fended off, the player must shoot invading letters that say PEPSI, as well as a flying Pepsi logo that replaced the flying saucer at the top of the screen. The game also includes a three-minute timer to test player skill. There have been a number of fan-made labels designed for the cartridges over the years.
There are some nicely-designed ones showing up frequently as reproductions on eBay , etsy, etc. This title has nothing to do with the later action RPG series Atari would release. Instead, the plot follows Sir Robert Whittenbottom as he runs the gauntlet of an ancient tribe in an attempt to prove his manhood and join the tribe. The player could run around or leap over various obstacles, and could survive multiple hits before finally succumbing to wounds.
The game was mail-order only from Answer Software and was not contained in a box, instead coming in a foam case. There has only been one or two boxes copies showing up.
With more copies of Air Raid surfacing these last 5 years, Gauntlet stands as rarer than Air Raid in both loose and boxed form. If more units would surface and go up for sale, we might see these valuations rise. Easily the rarest educational game ever made, as well as one of the rarest cartridges for the Atari The players are challenged with math questions in order to help Eli climb a ladder back to his ship so he can fly to the moon.
This is the original release of the game Shark Attack, put out before Apollo changed the name due to a pending lawsuit of copyright infringement for the film Jaws. Some Lochjaw games still lingered at places like Kay-Bee in their bargain bins as late as — even after Shark Attack was already in the hand of gamers. The point of the game is to grab as many diamonds as possible without letting the shark get you. If the shark does get you, he eats you, just as he eats any diamonds he comes into contact with.
The Loch Ness Monster can also be found hiding in various undersea caves, and will hunt the player down if disturbed. Much like Red Sea Crossing, The Music Machine was a religious-themed title, but instead of mail-order, it was only available through Christian bookstores. In the game, two children must collect the Fruits of the Spirit that fall from the Music Machine in a basket, then grab a heart to move to the next level.
This game was the only video game release by Sparrow and a Music Machine LP was released at the same time which contained several inspirational songs which could be listened to at the same time. Even in the early days of the console business, there were times that a game got pushed aside by a publisher and developers go indie to sell their creations.
Cubicolor was developed by Rob Fulop during his days at Imagic. Each cartridge was signed and numbered by Rob. In the letter he mentions being flattered that anybody would pay attention to these games anymore. He goes on to say he kept 50 copies of the ROM and guaranteed that no more will ever be made. Due to a very limited run for a port of an obscure arcade game, River Patrol is considered extremely rare. It is unclear why the game is so rare, though there is speculation that it has to do with the trouble engineers had programming the game to licensing problems over the arcade game, as well as its post-video game crash release date.
The game also holds the distinction of being one of the few titles with music. Players must navigate a large boat down a river strewn with obstacles. In this release from Spectravision, you must either eat the plates of pasta your mother is constantly making, or throw it to your pets. The game is also noted for having one of the most annoying sound effects of the entire Atari library.
Xante was a small company based out of Oklahoma which opted to sell popular games via blue rewritable cartridges. With this interesting innovation, whenever a player grew tired of a certain game, they could return the cartridge to a Xante kiosk and have a new game written on their cart, complete with generic label and box.
The player must touch the aliens in the correct order to unlock the airlock before a time ends. Much like Gauntlet also from Answer Software , Malagai was a mail-order only game and game in a foam case instead of a box. Much like Karate mentioned above, this game is only valuable if you have the Ultravision release.
There are bare cartridges showing up on eBay fairly regularly, but a complete, boxed copy typically only shows up every now and then. However, there have been a couple AtariAge members that have put up complete copies up for sale in Just another example of finding some treasures in oddball places. X-Man is a sexually-explicit game released in by Universal Gamex its only game publication.
The game has nothing to do with the X-Men comic book series. Instead, it plays off the Pac-Man inspired maze setup with a man trying to reach a woman in a limited amount of time. The adult elements are contained in the bonus mode after the player reaches their game objective. Understandably, most retailers declined to carry it — or if they did, it was restricted to adults or kept under-the-counter. X-Man cartridges could also be purchased via mail order, and an ad inviting such purchases appeared in at least one gaming magazine.
A full-page ad can be found in the July issue of Videogaming Illustrated. Obviously, with all these restrictions, it has been hard to track down a copy. It is rumored that there are between 20 and 45 cartridges of this game in the wild. For the era, it gives a respectable presentation and challenge to keep improving your technique and score.
In this game, you must catch and pass on the cakes as they come down different conveyer belts and avoid dropping them on the floor. This gem was published by CommaVid, one of the more innovative mail-order game publisher of the era. Here is another rarity that is actually a solid gaming experience.
Stronghold is a space shooter developed in by CommaVid same mail-order published as Cakewalk, mentioned above. This frantic shooter is actually rather impressive from a graphical standpoint and will definitely give you a challenge.
It has 16 difficulty variations — the easiest of which is way more than just a warm-up. I can sense inspirations from Robotron: , Breakout, and Defender.
Check for Stronghold on eBay. The Swordquest series of games was an ambitious project started in the peak of the Atari boom of Earthworld sold around , copies, 5, players ended up submitting answers, and only 8 players had all the correct answers to grant them access to the tournament. Fireworld sold well, but had a much better turnout of correct answers, so there was an essay phase to narrow down to 50 tournament participants. Instead of being sold in wide retail distribution at launch, the third installment, Waterworld was only available to Atari Club members who purchased via mail order, starting in February of The contest for Waterworld was abruptly ended in the middle of by request of Tramel CEO, Jack Tramiel, after his company bought out Atari during their financial troubles.
This title has edged up nicely since our last revision in This title was released exclusively via mail-order by Atari for their Atari Club members however, there are rumors that it have have made it into stores in very limited quantities. The Atari management apparently was scared off by this limited feedback and only produced 10, cartridges.
While the the game might not have appealed to the girls, the game is still more interesting than many other games in the library and was the first Atari game to utilize voice synthesis the only other was Open Sesame. The K-Tel corporation was previously known for selling disco compilations and teflon pots and pans on late-night TV. The decided to create a software division to jump on the video game bandwagon in the mid—80s.
The company ended up filing for bankruptcy in It is also easier to find in PAL format as it had more distribution overseas. Comparisons One weird thing that has surfaced is that some old Ultravision cartridges seem to have been sold off to K-Tel and re-labeled for K-Tel games.
These Atari adaptations ended up being the first horror games in the industry. Because they are both rare and they have a cool tie-in with pop-culture horror franchises, they have become quite the collectible items.
They are especially challenging to find complete in the box. To make things more interesting, Wizard Video ended up selling a good chunk of cartridges with the name written in black marker sometimes misspelled to reduce labeling costs.
With this considered, we decided to revisit this list and add a few more rare Atari games hard for collectors to come by. Believe it or not, some companies did not sell many games over many different cartridges. The Xante cartridges allowed consumers to continuously rewrite new games onto the format.
They coul play new experiences without having to clutter up their home with numerous games. If players thought a PS5 hard drive was too little space, think about this cartridge only holding one Atari game.
Six games came out in total for this format, all of which are difficult to come by. Mangia means "eat" in Italian, and serves as a just description of the game's mechanics. Players are forced to eat plate after plate of spaghetti until their stomach explodes. To prevent this game over, players must feed some food to their dog or cat without their mother looking. The graphics are surprisingly good for an Atari game.
It's hard to tell if the game's rarity and desirability among collectors is because of the weird concept, or in spite of it. River Patrol came out in the arcades and several other platforms, but that does not stop the Atari version from being extremely valuable.
Players have to save NPCs on a river while avoiding hazards along the way. The arcade version came out in , but the port for the Atari was released in , the same year as the infamous video game crash. The poor sales due to the crash is seen as a major reason for its rarity. This simple shoot 'em up is worth well over 30 thousand dollars with the complete package. This is partly due to the curious T-shape design of the cartridge. Even in an incomplete state, just the cartridge itself has been known to sell for about three thousand dollars.
Less than five transactions of this game have taken place, making it the veritable holy grail for collectors looking for truly valuable Atari games. The story behind this game is as mysterious and magical as the biblical event that inspired it.
Only one hundred copies were made, and they all disappeared without a trace. Only within the past ten years have copies popped up, often selling for exorbitant sums. The real kicker is the coloring book that accompanies the game. If the two were sold together, the value would be exponentially higher.
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