A couple surprises in that article. First, no mention of the Commodore 64. Maybe because the C64 was much more than a game console? Anyway, the other surprise (for me) was that it outsold the Atari 5200 - at least for awhile. I never considered the ColecoVision a major contender. Clearly I was wrong there. Anyway, yeah while "all things must pass" sometimes it is sad to see them go.
I had the Commodore 64 and the VIC-20 (only 5k) and neither was a great gamer. The Atari was much better for games. The ColecoVision was mostly good for pong. I never knew of anyone to do much else with it, regardless of what it was capable of.
