Pole Position

$8.99
Regular price
$10.99
Sale price
$8.99

In stock·1 available

Collector Grade

Game only

The cartridge or disc on its own, cleaned and tested — no box or manual. Game condition guide →

this is just a warning

Ships in 1–2 business days·Tracking on every order·Signature required on orders $250+

Item Condition

Game only: the cartridge in a protective holder, no box or manual. The photos are of this exact cartridge — look them over closely for its condition, packaging and details. Every cartridge's shell, label and board are checked for authenticity when it comes into the store, and it's tested before it's listed. It ships in a collector's bag or a hard plastic case.

Item Description

“Prepare to qualify.” That voice from the arcade cabinet introduced a generation of players to what a racing game was supposed to be. Namco's 1982 Pole Position put the camera behind the car, modeled its circuit on Japan's Fuji Speedway and made you earn your grid spot with a timed qualifying lap before the real race began. Atari brought it to American arcades, where it became one of the biggest hits of its day, and the template it set, from the chase camera to the checkpoint clock, shaped racing games for decades.

The Atari 5200 version, programmed by Mike Horowitz and Betty Ryan Tylko at General Computer Corporation for Atari in 1983, keeps the essentials. You still qualify first: a lap of 73 seconds or better gets you into the race, and 58.5 seconds or less wins the pole and a big bonus. Then the field fills in and the clock becomes your real opponent, with extra time awarded for laps you finish fast enough. There is a no-traffic practice run plus three races, the Malibu Grand Prix, Namco Speedway and Atari Grand Prix, each busier than the last, and you can set anywhere from one to eight laps.

Control is where the 5200 earns its keep. The analog joystick gives you graduated steering that comes far closer to the arcade wheel than a standard eight-way stick could, while separate buttons handle the gas and brake and a push up or down shifts between high and low gear. Passing cars roar by with convincing engine sounds as you thread the pack. The arcade's scaling effects and roadside billboards were beyond the hardware, but the speed and the tension of threading through traffic come through.

Racing games as we know them start here, and with analog steering and separate gas and brake buttons, the 5200 cartridge is a satisfying way to play it on hardware from its own era.

Fast factsgame data via IGDB
Released
1982
Publisher
GCE
Developer
Namco
Players
Single player
About the game

The very first racing game with the rear perspective camera and track based on real life.

Summary from the IGDB community database — the condition and contents of this listing are described above and in the photos.
Watch gameplayPole Position on Atari 5200
Video: Pole Position

Ships in 1–2 business days (Monday–Friday, excluding major U.S. holidays). During the holidays and big sales, allow one extra business day.

  • Live USPS and UPS rates at checkout. Every order ships with tracking.
  • We ship to all 50 states, U.S. military addresses (APO/FPO/DPO), and Canada. Canadian orders may owe duties and taxes on delivery.
  • Orders of $250 or more ship with signature confirmation.
  • Delivery dates shown at checkout are estimates, not guarantees.

Read the full Shipping Policy, including holiday order-by dates.

Most of what we sell is one of a kind, so all sales are final unless something goes wrong on our end.

Contact us within 14 days of delivery if your item doesn’t work, arrived damaged, is the wrong item, or isn’t as described. We’ll send a prepaid return label and make it right with a replacement or a refund. Orders placed November 1–December 24 can be reported through January 15.

Not covered: change of mind, compatibility issues, and opened sealed trading-card products.

Email support@coolection.com with your order number. Read the full Refund Policy.

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)