Pac-Man on Atari 2600

[gamevet]

Agreed. The market simply wanted new hardware product at affordable prices. ColecoVision was doing fine, but Coleco had heavily invested in the 2600 market for software and didn't have the stomach to stick out the dwindling demand for that hardware. 5200 was too expensive and problematic. Then, of course, there was the rise of the home computer, best exemplified by Commodore 64, but also the earlier VIC-20 which Commodore marketed more directly against video game consoles (why buy a video game system when you can get a Commodore?), going so far as to offer rebates on Commodore computers with the trade in of a video game system iirc.

Coleco's investment in the horrible Adam computer is what took them out of the market. Maybe if they had kept the Adam separate from the Colecovision, they could have sold a couple more million consoles.