ATARI 2600
1977
LAUNCH
523 GAMES
OFFICIALLY RELEASED
30 MILLION
UNITS SOLD WORLDWIDE
Arcade Enemy #1
ATARI 2600
1977
The Atari 2600 was launched in 1977 and seeked to revolutionize the course of gaming. The Atari 2600 is often tought of as the first video game console of all time but that honor goes to Magnavox Odyssey, the only difference is that the Atari was the first commercially succesful console with over 30 million consoles sold in it's product lifeline.
ET
The E.T game has become infamously notorious due to it being the poster child of the Video Game crash of the 80s that lasted from 1983 to 1985. The game has been deemed as "one of the worst games of all time" and has even had a documentary filmed in which a company dug up old boxes, cartidges, and consoles from a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico.In December of 2014 the Smithsonian Institution dug up a copy of the game and added it to their The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge, England
Arcade at Home
The Atari 2600 was the first console to replace the arcade in the sense that you no longer needed to leave your house to game. Games like Pac-Man which were arcade classics were having their own slightly watered down Atari 2600 versions of the game. This would prove troubling for the arcade industry as clients suddenly opted for the at home option and saved a few quarters in the process.
Legacy in Gaming
The Atari 2600 is eternally embedded in popular culture as the first "home console" to become a mainstream success, leading to a huge newfound interest in gaming. The Atari sold over 30 million units worldwide becoming the highest selling Atari console of all time. In December, 2023 Atari released the Atari 2600+ which came equipped with an HDMI port as well as a 10-1 game cart.
