Search results
The period from the late 1970s to the early 1980s saw the Atari 2600 becoming a staple in households across the United States and eventually internationally. Its success in pioneering home gaming laid the foundation for subsequent generations of gaming consoles, shaping the landscape of the video game industry as we know it today.
- The Engineer Entertainer
- Simplifying A Revolution
- Atari Is Born
- Pong Is A Smash Hit!
- According to Nolan Bushnell
- Innovative Leisure
- Partner’S Split
- Pong at One
- More of The Same
- The Crunch Hits
Born in 1943 in Clearfield, Utah, the founder of the modern video games industry, Nolan Bushnell, always loved playing games. “I can remember playing Monopoly and Clue with my neighborhood friends, chess incessantly. I played tournament chess. I played #2 board at Utah State University. I’ve always been a game player, period” i -Nolan Bushnell He a...
In the Spring of 1971, while still working for Ampex, Bushnell along with fellow engineer Ted Dabney, started crafting their own version of Spacewar!named Computer Space. They worked out of Bushnell’s daughter Britt’s bedroom, turning it into a computer lab in which they could engineer their masterpiece. All sort of ideas crossed their minds, inclu...
On June 27th, 1972, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney officially created their own company named Syzygy Co., each contributing a $250 share -- mostly from the meager profits earned from Computer Space.xiBushnell said they decided on Syzygy because “I thought it was a cool name when I found it in the dictionary”.xiiHowever, they soon discovered that the...
"As a result of Pong, a player can gain a deep intuitive understanding of the simplest Newtonian physics." xxx - Carl Sagan By March of 1973, Pong was deemed a bona fide phenomenon for Atari. They had sold 8000 - 10000 machines, and would eventually sell upwards of 35,000. The day Pong was released is marked by the coin-op industry as the first nai...
“Atari was always scrambling for cash, and we thought to spend money on attorneys was not a smart thing to do.” - Nolan Bushnell However, it wasn’t just the copycats Atari had to worry about, it was other legal problems as well. Magnavox and Ralph Baer did not take kindly to the success of Atari’s Pong, especially since they had created a very simi...
Besides fighting copycats and legal battles in 1973, Atari continued to strengthen their engineering team, and create new games. At this point, creating games was almost entirely an engineering process. All the gameplay, graphics, and controls were governed by the TTL discreet logic and mechanical engineering skills of the technical team. For this ...
By late 1973 the growing competition in the games manufacturing business made Nolan Bushnell’s partner Ted Dabney very nervous. He decided to leave the company. “We only had so much money and somewhere along the line he said ‘let’s split, I’ll take the operations business’ because at that time operations was making more money than manufacturing” - ...
After one year of operations, in November 1973, Atari had built and sold 6000 Pong machines, and sales were about $1,000,000 a month, with $15,000,000 in sales expected by the end of the fiscal year (June 1974). xlviiEven though there many competitors, Atari was still tried to push Pong in directions that the competition had never considered. Some ...
Atari started 1974 on a high note. Pong had sold well in ’73, and they were creating new and innovative games almost every month. In January they released another Pong variant named Superpong. "An Improvement On a Proven Money Maker From The Originators Of Pong” liv - Superpong Arcade Flyer Superpongwas a one or two player contest, an evolution ove...
While these variations on Pong were very interesting from a game design perspective, they were not as thrilling to the public or arcade operators are Atari had hoped. Sales were off, competition up, and Atari needed something new. Sensing the need for some serious innovative development away from the grind of company, Nolan Bushnell contracted with...
Aug 21, 2008 · This comprehensive look back, filled with quotes from the original creators and other primary sources, offers a detailed peek into the company that popularized video gaming as the '70s turned into the '80s, and created the first viable market for home consoles.
Dec 22, 2021 · So why isn't Atari listed next to PlayStation and Nintendo today? The answer is one of the most dramatic stories of meteoric ascent and catastrophic cratering in corporate history. Let's take a look at the rise and fall of Atari.
Feb 28, 2022 · The arcade machine was so popular that Atari literally had to send representatives to the venues to collects sacks of quarters by hand.
Pioneers in the Gaming Culture Since 1972. Co-founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney changed the way we approached gaming – from the way games were designed to the way they were played. Half a century later, Atari’s legacy endures.
People also ask
Why is the Atari 2600 so popular?
When did Atari start?
How did Atari market its games?
What was the first Atari game of 1980?
What games did Atari create?
What is Atari's history?
Jan 27, 2013 · Not only is the company Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded synonymous with some of the best-known early arcade hits such as Pong, Asteroids and Centipede, it played a vital role in shaping the...
- 29 sec
- Mark Langshaw
