Editing Fairchild Channel F (section)

== Reception ==
[[File:Two people playing a Fairchild Channel F.jpg|thumb|Gamers playing on a Fairchild Channel F]]
The Channel F had beaten the Atari VCS to the market, but once the VCS was released, sales of the Channel F fell, attributed to the types of games that were offered. Most of the Channel F titles were slow-paced educational and intellectual games, compared to the action-driven games that launched with the VCS. Even with the redesigned Channel F II in 1978, Fairchild was unable to meet the sales that the VCS and its games were generating. By the time Fairchild sold the technology to Zircon in 1979, around 350,000 total units had been sold.<ref name="fc history"/>

[[Ken Uston]] reviewed 32 games in his book ''[[Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games]]'' in 1982, and rated some of the Channel F's titles highly; of these, ''Alien Invasion'' and ''Video Whizball'' were considered by Uston to be "the finest adult cartridges currently available for the Fairchild Channel F System".<ref name="Uston-605" /> The games on a whole, however, rated last on his survey of over 200 games for the Atari, Intellivision, Astrocade and Odyssey consoles, and contemporary games were rated "Average" with future Channel F games rated "below average".<ref name="Uston-20" /> Uston rated almost one-half of the Channel F games as "high in interest" and called that "an impressive proportion" and further noted that "Some of the Channel F cartridges are timeless; no matter what technological developments occur, they will continue to be of interest." His overall conclusion was that the games "serve a limited, but useful, purpose" and that the "strength of the Channel F offering is in its excellent educational line for children".<ref name="Uston-23" />

In 1983, after Zircon announced its discontinuation of the Channel F, ''Video Games'' reviewed the console. Calling it "the system nobody knows", the magazine described its graphics and sounds as "somewhat primitive by today's standards". It described ''Space War'' as "may be the most antiquated game of its type still on the market", and rated the 25 games for the console with an average "interest grade" of three ("not too good") on a scale from one to ten and "skill rating" at an average 4,5 of 10. The magazine stated, however, that Fairchild "managed to create some fascinating games, even by today's standards", calling the poker game ''Casino Royale'' (actually Videocart-25, ''Casino Poker'') "the best card game, from blackjack to bridge, made for ''any'' TV-game system". It also favorably reviewed ''Dodge-It'' ("simple but great"), ''Robot War'' ("Berzerk without guns"), and ''Whizball'' ("thoroughly original ... hockey ''with'' guns"), but concluded that only those interested in nostalgia, [[video game collecting]], or card games would purchase the Channel F in 1983.<ref name="dionne198303" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Video Games Vol.1 #6 -83 |url=https://archive.org/stream/Video_Games_Volume_1_Number_06_1983-03_Pumpkin_Press_US#page/n71/mode/2up |website=Archive.org |date=March 1983 |access-date=29 January 2023}}</ref>