Pursuit of the Pink Panther for the Atari VCS/2600
The Odyssey guys planned to bring games to the 2600, but the company blamed a chip shortage as the reason none of its games came out. The game was originally programmed by U.S. Games and early working titles were "Pink Panther" and "Trail of the Pink Panther" (as advertised). How or when NAP got the rights to the game is unknown. It was announced in their summer 1983 CES literature as "Adventures of the Pink Panther", and later shown in the Nov 83 issue of Videogaming Illustrated (as "Pursuit"; an Atari 8-bit version also exists with "Pursuit" in the title. ). Scheduled Release Date: September, 1983. Description: "Players control the Pink Panther as he sneakily makes his way through several screens, attempting to outwit the Inspector. For his final challenge, he must dangle from a swinging rope, steal the famous Pink Panther diamond and escape unnoticed." The Pink Panther is the property of and was licensed by MGM-UA Home Entertainment Group, Inc. Only 2 prototypes are known to exist. Steve Averitt found a copy in an unlabeled Probe 2000 cart shell, at a thrift store in Sept/Oct 1994, and paid $1.50 for it! The other, which had a hand-written label, was sold via eBay in 2006. Unfortunately neither has released a copy.
In September 2006, the owner of a private Magnavox museum listed a copy of a rare Pink Panther game for the Atari VCS/2600, with an opening bid of 1,500, and actually had a bid of over $2k on it, but cancelled it. Not long afterwards, the seller relisted it, this time with an opening bid of 3,500! The same buyer who bid on the first auction ended up winning the item with a bid of $4,750 (purportedly to Jose "wonder007" Artiles). Below are photos from the 2006 eBay auction (click on the thumbnail pictures below for full-size images):
