Pro Vision: The Mysterious 'Super Console' of Atari That Never Saw the Light

Before 1983 became the monster that nearly devoured the video game world, the ideas floating around corporate hallways were quite extravagant. Atari canceled a fair share of projects overnight, but one that never left the prototype stage was Pro Vision, a rolling console with the entire Atari library built in.

It was the beginning of the 1980s, and video games were in their golden age. The new generation of arcade machines had taken Western players by storm, while a recent wave of consoles tried by all means to reproduce that fun at home. Different sources consider Space Invaders to be one of the titles that carried the golden age of video games on its shoulders.

Not only was it extremely popular in arcades, but Atari had the speed and precision to turn it into an exclusive title for its Atari 2600, quadrupling console sales. Nor should we forget that Atari had other high-profile titles in its ranks (such as Asteroids), so bills and coins were piling up. This gave Atari a little leeway to explore unusual ideas, and one of them was Pro Vision.

Pro Vision, Atari's Super Console

According to Roger Hector, who in those years was Atari's top designer (including games and machines), Pro Vision was conceived as a prototype of a rolling console, with the entire library of Atari games up to that moment integrated into the hardware. From a distance, the design of Pro Vision seemed to imitate a drinks cart, with the difference that in its drawers were stored all the control variants available for the Atari 2600. The idea of placing multiple Atari games in a single cartridge would come later (especially through unofficial copies), but Pro Vision never left the "showroom" the company had for executives and other visitors.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Atari had several projects that it decided to sweep under the rug. Perhaps Pro Vision was never a priority to hit the market, but one that practically knocked on store doors was Atari Cosmos. Technically it wasn't a console per se, but it was presented as an electronic toy with holographic capability. Cosmos even had a space at the CES and the Toy Fair in 1981.

Criticism from the specialized press was quite harsh, but with eight thousand purchase orders, everything seemed to indicate that it would reach the shelves, until Ray Kassar, then CEO of Atari, gave it the thumbs down. The official reason is that Atari needed to redirect all its production capacity toward Atari 2600 console orders, and it couldn't afford to manufacture more Cosmos, but almost forty years later, that still sounds like an excuse.