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The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor -based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976.
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Atari was already flying high by the mid-1970s, having launched the coin-op video game industry with Computer Space and Pong. But it had nothing in the home yet—that fell to Magnavox, which was selling Ralph Baer's brilliant Odyssey. Originally designed in 1967 and launched in 1972, the Odyssey played 12 different games on your television; it didn'...
Thanks to the 2600’s cartridge slot, you could never get bored of the system—all you had to do was buy another game, or ask your parents to. Some early cartridges were mediocre (anyone out there love Basic Math?), but other games were fun despite their simplicity. It’s tough to beat two friends shooting up the carriages, and each other, in Outlaw. ...
Mattel tried to compete by launching the Intellivision, a solid system with numerous hardware advantages over the 2600 that especially helped in sports and strategy games. Mattel secured licenses from all the major sports organizations such as the NBA, NFL, and NHL. It eventually sold several million units, but it never threatened the 2600’s lead. ...
Famously, Atari kept its formulas secret—and even its employees, refusing to give them credit in games. In response, the Adventure cartridge contained the first popular Easter Egg, a hidden feature that showed programmer Warren Robinett's name in a special room if you executed exactly the right steps, a wonderful protest in retrospect. Four other k...
Then it all went south. Many people erroneously blame E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial as the reason the market sank. It certainly wasn’t a great game, with its crude graphics and frustrating pits. Anything less than perfection would have made a mockery of Atari’s $20 million deal with Steven Spielberg, but it wasn’t a terrible cartridge. Still, it fuel...
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the 2600 is how much has happened since. The homebrew scene lit up in the 1990s with excellent titles such as Oystron (1997) and Conquest of Mars (2003). All kinds of people began hacking existing titles, such as “fixing” the original 2600 Pac-Man release in various ways, or adding the missing voices to Berzerk ...
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Oct 13, 2023 · When did Atari come out? The Atari 2600 debuted in September 1977. Does Atari still exist? The original Atari is long gone. However, Warner sold the arcade division of Atari under the name Atari Games to Namco in 1985. What killed Atari? Atari has gone through multiple transitions to stay alive as a company.
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Atari, under Warner’s guidance, aimed for the 2600 to become obsolete within three years. So they started working on a replacement: the 5200. And the 2600 did become obsolete, but the market was changing too. Atari was no longer the only console. Other manufacturers, like Magnavox, Mattel and Coleco were getting in on it.
Atari 2600. Years: 1977-1984 (Returned in the late '80s; officially discontinued 1991; Also known as the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), Sears Video Arcade
Mar 20, 2014 · Atari just wasn’t set up to come out with a convincing successor to the 2600; instead, Warner was obsessed with continuing to sell its existing hardware.
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Atari was incorporated in the state of California on June 27, 1972. [23] The third version of the Atari 2600, which was sold from 1979 to 1986.
