Page:Gametronics Proceedings.djvu/170

 survival may well depend on mass marketing capability combined with volume production expertise. Magnavox, the leader, and Atari, a close runner-up, in 1976, in terms of units produced, could be challenged by many companies not even in the TV games business today. TV game sales for leading producers are listed in table five.

Atari, strengthened by being acquired by Warner Communications, is believed to have commanded top spot in the TV games industry, moving past Magnavox, the previous year's leader. The ranking of the top producers, as shown in table five, actually shows Coleco with more sales than Magnavox or Atari. This information is based on unit sales reported by the game manufacturers to Creative Strategies, a West Coast company specializing in market studies.

HFD came up with another set of figures when it contacted each of the TV game manufacturers to estimate what they thought the industry did in units produced in 1976. Guesses ranged from 2.3 to 5.0 million units; the concensus was 3.39 (see table seven). HFD also came up with industry estimates for 1977 ranging from 4.5 to 12.5 million units (see table eight). The concensus for the companies supplying statistics was 8.14 million.

It is still difficult to determine the number of companies currently manufacturing video games. Some companies have folded after only three or four weeks of operation. Others have been in and out of the business two or three times during the last twelve months. The table of 80 TV game manufacturers (see table nine) compiled by Electronic Engineering Times was probably out of date the day after it was typed.

The projections that have been examined in the preceding paragraphs are for the home TV games market. The coin-operated electronic game marketplace (excluding pinball or flipper-type games and gambling equipment) is currently estimated at about 75 million. The principal manufacturers supplying this industry are shown in table nine. According to Charles McEwan, president of Ramtek, typical production runs for coin-operated TV game machines run in the 1500 to 3000 game range.

It's possible that non-TV electronic games, as they become more and more sophisticated, could provide serious competition with TV games for the consumer's dollar. For example, Mostek developed a highly acclaimed chess game in 1976, which still has not reached the marketplace, but which is considered a highly promising consumer product. Because it can be programmed to play the user at eight different levels of proficiency, it has more appeal than the one-level-of-skill models currently available.