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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.
Atari VCS, also known as the Atari 2600, the most popular console prior to the crash. The Atari VCS (renamed the Atari 2600 in late 1982) was not the first home system with swappable game cartridges, but by 1980 it was the most popular second-generation console by a wide margin.
- Press Reset
- The Key to Success
- Riding High
- The Market Splinters
- What Goes Up…Well, You Know
- Atari Forever
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 ...
- Jamie Lendino
- Editor-In-Chief, Extremetech
Aug 4, 2023 · Atari was founded in 1972 by Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell. Its Atari VCS had sold 15 million copies by the end of 1982. The Atari 2600 was inducted as part of the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2007. There are few video game consoles that are as iconic and important as the Atari 2600.
- $199
- September 11, 1977
- 1977-1992
- 30 million
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
May 28, 2021 · Production of the Atari 2600 ended on January 1, 1992, with an estimated 30 million units sold across its lifetime. In addition to third-party game development, Atari also received the first major threat to its hardware dominance from the Colecovision.
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Nov 27, 2020 · Only two years later, in 1977, the company released the console that most of us recognize instinctively and automatically when we think about Atari (or video games in general): the Atari...
