Atari · 1982–1984

Atari5200

The 2600's big, misunderstood sibling: arcade-quality ports on a short-lived system.

[n] Atari 5200 games available

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Why it mattered

The SuperSystem that its own joysticks sank

The 5200 was Atari's answer to the ColecoVision: an Atari 400 computer rebuilt as a console, with the best arcade ports of 1982 and 1983 — Pac-Man without the flicker, a Centipede that looked like Centipede, Pole Position, Joust, Robotron. Then people picked up the controller. The analog stick did not center itself, the flex-circuit buttons wore out within months, and Atari spent the machine's short life apologizing for it. It launched in November 1982 and was discontinued in 1984, replaced by the 7800.

Roughly seventy games were released, almost all by Atari itself, so a complete set is a realistic goal and the library is mostly arcade ports, mostly good. The cartridges are enormous — three times the size of a 2600 cart — and the silver Atari boxes crush at the corners, so a boxed copy with a crisp box is the hard part. Loose carts are common and cheap; Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Meteorites and Zone Ranger are not. Every cart is photographed and tested on a working 5200.

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Fast facts

ReleasedNovember 1982 (North America)
Launch price~$270, with Super Breakout in the box
MediaROM cartridges, 16K–32K — far larger than 2600 carts
Units sold~1 million, usually estimated
Best sellerPac-Man and Super Breakout — the two pack-ins
Did you know?The 5200 is an Atari 400 home computer with the keyboard removed and the memory map rearranged — same 6502, same ANTIC and GTIA graphics chips, same POKEY sound. That is why so many of its games are near-identical to the Atari 8-bit computer versions, and why the cartridges are not interchangeable despite the shared hardware.
Did you know?The original joystick is the most notorious controller of its era. The stick is analog and does not spring back to center, and the fire buttons and keypad use a flex circuit that wears through. Most surviving controllers need a rebuild kit, and a boxed console with two working sticks is worth checking twice.
Did you know?There are two consoles. The 1982 four-port model used a single cable for power and video through an automatic switchbox, which is the part that fails. The 1983 two-port model went back to a normal power jack, and it is the one that accepts Atari's VCS Cartridge Adapter to play 2600 games — the four-port mostly does not without a modification.
Did you know?Super Breakout was the pack-in at launch, with the controller's analog stick meant to stand in for a paddle. It did not, and Atari switched the pack-in to Pac-Man within a year. Both are the most common 5200 cartridges by a wide margin, which is why they are the cheapest.
Did you know?Atari released a Trak-Ball for the 5200 in 1983 — a heavy, full-size arcade-style trackball. Only a handful of games were written to use it properly, Centipede and Missile Command above all, and it is one of the few reasons to prefer the 5200 Centipede over every other home version.
Did you know?Bounty Bob Strikes Back, the sequel to Miner 2049er, was published by Big Five Software in 1985, after the console had been discontinued, and sold mainly by mail order. It is usually named as the most expensive 5200 cartridge, with Meteorites from Electra Concepts and Zone Ranger from Activision close behind.
Did you know?The 5200 was Atari's most-ported catalog: almost everything on it also appeared on the 2600 or the Atari 8-bit computers. The versions here are the ones to compare — the 5200 Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug and Pole Position are the best Atari made of each before the 7800.
Did you know?Several finished 5200 games were shelved when the console was canceled in 1984 — Tempest, Asteroids, Xevious and Millipede among them — and survived only as prototypes. AtariAge and other homebrew publishers have since released some of them on real cartridges, which is why a 5200 Tempest can exist without ever having been sold by Atari.

Find your next Atari 5200 game

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Counts are listings in stock — the same game can appear more than once in different packaging.

The grails

Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Meteorites, Zone Ranger, Miner 2049er, Gremlins, Montezuma's Revenge, H.E.R.O. — the 5200 carts that turn a common-console collection into a hard one.

Namco and Williams, done right

Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Pole Position, Defender, Joust, Robotron: 2084, Moon Patrol — the coin-op ports that were the whole argument for owning a 5200.

The zoo shelf

Kangaroo, Pengo, Centipede, Jungle Hunt, Congo Bongo, Millipede, Gremlins — arcade games in which you are, or are being chased by, an animal.

The rest of Atari's coin-op aisle

Missile Command, Space Invaders, Super Breakout, Qix, Vanguard, Star Raiders, Kangaroo — Atari's own arcade licenses and the Taito and Centuri ports that filled out the launch line.

Parker Brothers

Frogger, Q*bert, Popeye, Super Cobra, Star Wars: The Arcade Game, Gyruss, James Bond 007 — the board-game company's arcade licenses, in the blue-bordered boxes.

Activision on the 5200

River Raid, Pitfall!, Pitfall II, Kaboom!, Megamania, H.E.R.O., Beamrider, Decathlon, Zone Ranger — the rainbow-stripe publisher's short but excellent 5200 run.

CBS, Sega and Big Five

Wizard of Wor, Gorf, Blue Print, K-Razy Shoot-Out, Mountain King, Zaxxon, Buck Rogers, Congo Bongo, Miner 2049er — the third parties who showed up for a console that lasted two years.

RealSports

RealSports Football, Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Tennis — plus Decathlon and Pole Position, because a scoreboard is a scoreboard.

The Q shelf

Q*bert, Qix, Quest for Quintana Roo. No other console has this high a proportion of games starting with Q, and we have decided that means something.

Numbers on the box

Robotron: 2084, Miner 2049er, James Bond 007, Frogger II, Pitfall II, Bounty Bob Strikes Back — sequels, years and secret-agent codes, all on a console named after a number.

Complete in box, best condition first

Every complete Atari 5200 game in stock right now.

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Cart with manual

Cart and manual, no box — the collector's middle ground.

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Loose carts

Cartridge only — cleaned, tested on real hardware, photographed.

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Sealed

Factory sealed and photographed through the shrink.

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Atari5200

The SuperSystem that its own joysticks sank