SalemFrost7800 Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 (edited) http://www.oshealtd.com/ Monday, February 16, 2009 GameSetInterview: On Atari Cartridges In Deep Caves [We're continuing a series of quirky Todd Ciolek-conducted interviews for GameSetWatch, and here's a really odd one - with the folks at O'Shea, Limited, who have stashed 3 million sealed Atari cartridges in a cave back in 1990, and have been selling them ever since.] A Missouri limestone cave is hardly the place you’d expect to find a towering tribute to the excesses of the Atari era, but that’s exactly what a liquidation company created there years ago. When Atari ditched its stockpiles of unsold games in the early 1990s, O’Shea Ltd. was there to buy up some three million brand-new copies of Joust, Galaga, Tower Toppler, Pole Position, Ms. Pac-Man, and other common titles for the Atari 2600 and 7800. O’Shea chose an uncommon place to store them: 150 feet underground, in a warehouse built from the unused space of a limestone mine. In the 20,000 square of storage space leased by O’Shea, stacks of sealed Atari games stand in testament to Atari’s past dominance of the video game market, and every title there is available for sale to the public (along with a few Jaguar games) through O’Shea’s website. In an interview, O’Shea president Bill Houlehan (right) revealed just how the market for mint Atari games is doing today: How did you come to buy these games in the first place? How did you find out that Atari was liquidating them? We've been in the closeout business for many years and we were notified by Atari that they were selling everything off. What really inspired you to grab all of the games? Was there heavy bidding for the unsold games? In our business it is important that if you have an opportunity to purchase an entire inventory instead of just part of it, you purchase all of it. Otherwise you run the risk of having another company purchase the remaining inventory. Yes, there was heavy bidding for the games. What year did you buy all of these games? What was the market for Atari games like in the early 1990s? Had Atari 2600 collecting really taken off at that point? We bought the inventory in 1990 and we had a great deal of business from overseas. We were selling container loads of games to a company called Intertoys based out of Holland. At the time we purchased the inventory, Atari collecting had not taken off. That really happened in the last few years. What games are the best sellers? Why do you think they're popular? Pole Position, Ms. Pac Man, and Dig Dug are our three best sellers, followed by Battlezone, Galaxian, and Hat Trick. I think these are the most popular because they are the videogame classics. So many of our customers say how they feel like a kid again when they get these games. Atari started the videogame industry and they built themselves on games like Pole Position and Ms. Pac Man. Do you find that most of the people who buy your games are simply going to open them and play them, or do you get a lot of business from collectors who want their sealed copies to stay that way? We have numerous buyers who buy two of each game so that they could play one set of the games and then they can put the other set of games aside as a collectable set. Do you see the demand for Atari 2600 games increasing in the years to come, or do you think that nostalgia-driven collecting has already peaked in the generation that grew up with the system? The generation that grew up with these games have children now and with the new movie Atari coming out with Leonardo DiCaprio, it is bringing back childhood memories around the Atari console. Their kids have the Wii, but they were the generation of the original videogamers and many customers want to bring back a piece of their childhood with these games and also show their children what they grew up on. You've been selling these games for some time now. You started with three million, correct? How many games are left? How many do you sell a year? Yes, we purchased Atari's entire inventory of just over three million games and we have about one million left. There is usually a very steady flow of purchases for the games, but since the announcement about the movie Atari, we have noticed a drastic spike in sales over the past few months. How do you decide to raise the price on these games? I see that you've gone from $2 to $5 per game in the past few years. The cost to store and maintain the games has considerably increased since we first purchased the inventory in the early 90's, and it got to a point where we had to increase the price a few years ago to maintain a reasonable profit. Edited February 17, 2009 by SalemFrost7800 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Oshea's? Never heard of 'em. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homerwannabee Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Yep, that guy has been around for an awfully long time. Maybe it's good that you posted this again. It seems that on Ebay some of the games do go for a little more than $5 like Ms. Pac-man. So anyone into getting mint sealed games on the cheap can go here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Primus Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Didn't these used to be like $2 each? I seem to remember buying some from them in the early 2000's... -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mirage Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I got them when they were all about $3 each, I think some of them (maybe 7800 ones) were $4 each. That was a long time ago, probably 2001. They saved me a ton of money getting one or two copies of everything they had all at once! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcprs1 Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 At one point, I think they were only like 80 cents each. I could be wrong though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Oberhäuser Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 At one point, I think they were only like 80 cents each. I could be wrong though. Yep, I bought about 1,000 from them way back for $0.80/unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zwackery Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Yup, I bought from O'Sheas several times when the games were 80 cents each. I'm impressed that he's managed to sell almost 2 million games. Go Atari Go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I have lost count of how many times I have tried to buy from them, guess they don't want to ship to the UK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xZanU Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Well it is nice to see they have an order form now. I've checked in the past and it was just the broken front page with links that go to ocnetstream instead of an actual page. Too bad they have no games I need right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I think everyone has bought from the O'Sheas at one point. Nothing like opening up NOS to play! I see they finally depleted their Jr. Pac-Man's though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I bought like a dozen of each type of game they offered when they were .80. That was well over 10 years ago. I remember the day they came, they were shipped in two HUGE boxes. At that time they must have had around 16 different titles (If I remember correctly) I still have many left. I would clean up old Atari 2600's, include some loose games and a few mint sealed game and get about $100 an auction. What did I do with the $$? Went towards a down-payment on a house!! WOOT! Thanks for sharing SalemFrost7800 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 He has sold 2.000.000 games??? Unbelievable! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yuppicide Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 One thing that pisses me off about their website.. They do sell other things, but the products page never opens. Been that way for years for me. Not that I want any of their other stuff anyway. I was able to find a way in and see the other stuff. I find it hard to believe they can stay in business with the crap they sell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari Dogs Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Didn't they have a minimum number of cartridge you had to buy? I remember only needing a few of their stock and never ordered because I had to get 10 or something. If O'Shea's bought the entire stock, how did Big Lots end up with their stock in about 1993? Tim since you live in Columbus, about giving Big Lots a call. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonner242 Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Didn't they have a minimum number of cartridge you had to buy? I remember only needing a few of their stock and never ordered because I had to get 10 or something. If O'Shea's bought the entire stock, how did Big Lots end up with their stock in about 1993? Tim since you live in Columbus, about giving Big Lots a call. Funny you bring up Big Lots...That where 80% of my atari collection came from around that time 92-94...hmmmm Some still sealed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carey85 Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 I indeed used to go to Big Lots and plonk down my entire $5 a week allowance and then some on 2600 and 7800 games when they used to have mounds of them on display circa 1992-93. Many of the chain dollar stores around here had NOS 7800 games in dump bins at the time for $1. Fast forward to 2009, I'm still seeing sealed 2600 and 7800 games with Big Lots stickers on them here and there at fleas and thrifts, seems like the Cincy area had a bunch of late Atari inventory dumped here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari Dogs Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 (edited) I indeed used to go to Big Lots and plonk down my entire $5 a week allowance and then some on 2600 and 7800 games when they used to have mounds of them on display circa 1992-93. Many of the chain dollar stores around here had NOS 7800 games in dump bins at the time for $1. Fast forward to 2009, I'm still seeing sealed 2600 and 7800 games with Big Lots stickers on them here and there at fleas and thrifts, seems like the Cincy area had a bunch of late Atari inventory dumped here. Oh, yes. The Queen City had tons. Went to the Big Lots in Milford, Colraine, Harrison, one on Werk road, Oxford, Hamilton, Brentwood, Middletown, a couple in KY, name another location. I was there. Forgot Lebanon, how could I do that. I lived there for 5 great years. Edited February 18, 2009 by Atari Dogs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dino Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 He has sold 2.000.000 games??? Unbelievable! He's probably sold more copies than Atari did Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Thanks for this reminder. I'd forgotten about him! I placed my order yesterday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinball22 Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Yeah, I bought a bunch of games from Big Lots in the early-mid 90s too. Still have a couple of sealed ones. Ever since then, when I go in Big Lots, I have this faint hope that there will be more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Yeah, I bought a bunch of games from Big Lots in the early-mid 90s too. Still have a couple of sealed ones. Ever since then, when I go in Big Lots, I have this faint hope that there will be more. I do the same thing! Not with Big Lots, but sometimes I'll imagine that if I walked into Toys R Us, there would be a wall full o' TG-16 games. Or that if I went back to California, Games Unlimited in the Willows shopping center would still be selling the role-playing-games I used to buy there in the early 80s. I must be getting old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aftermac Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Yeah, I bought a bunch of games from Big Lots in the early-mid 90s too. Still have a couple of sealed ones. Ever since then, when I go in Big Lots, I have this faint hope that there will be more. Same here! Every time I go to Big Lots, I get that nostalgic feeling and hope that some stray game is still left on the shelf. My 7800 and my boxed and sealed 2600 and 7800 games came from Big Lots. Glad to see O'Shea's has updated their web page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tisaperfectdayelise Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 My only complaint is the $15 charge for UPS Ground for (I think it was) three games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Last time I was at Tanger Outlet Mall they had 2600 and 7800 games for sale. That was in 1993. If Tanger was still around, they might still have NOS of classic games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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