Atari 5200 Muppets Go Round Prototype Lab Loaner

Nicola briefly mentioned this before, but as it’s ending today I wanted to take a second look at it.

Up for auction is the only known copy of Atari Muppets-Go-Round for the Atari 5200. This game was under development for the rumored Kid’s Controller but was discontinued after massive cutbacks at Atari during the 1983 video game industry crash.

It’s a previously known game, but never had a confirmed prototype until now.

So it’s unreleased, undumped game. Big bucks right? Well in theory, no. Problem is that it’s an Atari 5200 game. A Atari system which had nowhere near the love, or number of collectors of the 2600. In reality, the auction is garnering a lot of bids and looks well on track to sell for more that I, or many collectors would have guessed. As I’ve stated frequently lately, If you’ve got one of a kind stuff in your collection, now is a good time to dig it out to sell.

Though the game is called Muppets Go Round, it actually features Seseme Street Characters, which admirably are technically Muppets (Both are Jim Henson creations). Characters included are Bert, Big Bird, Grover, Cookie Moster, and more

The game play is done mostly through the keypad. There is no sound included, as the game was still in early development (sound was usually added later in the development process). Gameplay is obviously kid orientated, having you matching letters and completing words.

Game controls are the numeric keypad and start/pause/reset buttons only. The trigger buttons and joystick do not do anything (apparently), although it`s possible the children’s controller might have introduced additional button combos or functionality.

I’m excited to see this auction end and even if the game remains publicly unreleased, it will be great to see it dumped to make sure it survives.

Link – Already at $810.00 with sixteen hours to go.