What Happened to the ColecoVision? Why the ColecoVision Disappeared

1983 was the ColecoVision's best year, and 1985 was the year Coleco sold it off. The console that outsold Atari and Mattel during the video game crash was not killed by the market; its own maker chose a doll over it. Coleco shipped 560,000 ColecoVisions in late 1982 and 1.5 million more in 1983, every one with Donkey Kong in the box. Then the Adam home computer, promised through the expansion door on the front of the console, arrived late and faulty, while the Cabbage Patch Kids arrived on time. By 1984 the toy division was earning more than $200 million and the electronics division was losing more, and in 1985 the last consoles were quietly cleared at a markdown. Inside this video: • What did the Adam computer really cost the ColecoVision? • How did a Donkey Kong demo in Chicago help Nintendo replace it? • Who inside Coleco decided the console had to go? • What became of Arnold Greenberg and the company he ran? If you owned one, you remember the number pad on the controller and the little door under the cartridge slot. Tell us what you plugged into it. Subscribe for more histories of the first machines families brought home. The ColecoVision proves an old rule: a product does not have to fail to be abandoned.