Today I'll take a look back at what led to the Atari 2600 and how it did during its console lifespan. This is the second in what will be me recounting the history of video game consoles that impacted the industry. I started with the Magnavox Odyssey and you can go to it on my blog page to read it.

With gaming becoming more popular thanks to the Odyssey and the release of PONG to arcades, bars, and amusement parks. The success of that led to an interest in home console gaming and a man named Nolan Bushnell head of Atari decided to bring PONG to homes with the PONG home console. It was a smashing hit among families everywhere and a step forward for home console gaming. In response to that in 1976, Fairchild Camera and Instrument introduced the Channel F system, the ROM first cartridge-based video game system. The release of the Channel F made the cartridge game system here to stay in the video game industry.

In 1977, Atari ended up releasing the Atari VCS with nine games initially and came out to Macy's and Sears worldwide. Later the Atari VCS was renamed the Atari 2600 and as we know it would come to dominate the industry for years to come. In the Christmas of 1977 oversupply wold be a bane to all gaming consoles except for Atari which came out unscathed by it. The following holiday season in 1978 Atari would come to have a spectacular holiday season. The release of games like Outlaw, Space War, and Breakout hitting the console helped the sales of the Atari 2600. Even with the rising success of the Atari 2600 internally the company was going through a major change. Nolan Bushnell the head of Atari and inventor of PONG left the company. Nolan went on to purchase pizza time theater and it would later become the franchise known as Chuck E. Cheese. Later, in 1979, Atari continued releasing games with 12 releases for the Atari 2600 forwarding the legacy of the console.

Soon Mattel and Magnavox would release another console to combat the Atari known as the Intellivision and Odyssey 2. Atari knew that they would need a hit to fight back against the competition and they released the now classic game known as Space Invaders. This turns out to be the first video game "killer app" selling Atari 2600s like crazy just so people can play it. Atari later after the gangbuster that is Space Invaders released a game called Adventure. Adventure was in fact the first video game with to have an easter egg and you would get it by placing an object in a certain area revealed the programmers name Warren Robinett.

1980 saw the creation of a gaming company that is so prominent today and as well was the one of the first third-party software producer Activision. What started with four former employees who were tired of working at Atari and fed up with the working conditions decided to break out on their own. They came out with four games Derby, Checkers, Dragster, and Boxing. These games came out to critical success and proved the Atari 2600 was capable of better games than Atari themselves had been providing. Atari not wanting sales to be taking from them wanted to stop Activision from making games and to avail they failed.

By 1982 Atari wanted to combat the ColecoVision and they released the Atari 5200 console. Due to that coming out and wanting the Atari 2600 to compete with everything else they lowered the price to $100. Later that year Atari released the games Pac-Man and E.T. and was a resounding failure, but despite these games selling poorly, the 2600 was still selling strongly. While Atari was fighting to stop Activision from selling third party games, but the issue was finally resolved when Atari allowed then to keep making games in exchange for royalties from them. Suddenly software companies everywhere started making games for the Atari 2600 and even a company by the name of Mystique who made x-rated games for the 2600. This however worked out to Atari's favor with the influx of software and many tried to cash in on this by releasing so many games for the hardware.

By 1983 with so many companies trying to jump on the gaming bandwagon in turned out to be to much to handle and many companies started to close as a result. The now infamous video game crash was starting to happen and everybody was taking on the chin even Atari. Due to the crash, they had to cut the price of their console in half with it now selling for 45 to 50 dollars. Even then Atari still managed to sell a million units over the next couple of years. In 1987, after the resurgence of the industry, thanks to Nintendo and the Famicon (Known as the NES here in America) Atari began again making games for the 2600. Q*Bert and Donkey Kong were licensed from other companies and Atari made games like Donkey Kong JR. Even third party companies started making games again for the 2600. 1988 saw the rehiring of Nolan Bushnell to Atari and a bunch of new games being sold under his name hoping to increase sales. Atari still managed to sell games until 1989 where the 2600 was seeming to reach the end of it's run as a console.

The Atari 2600 led to a lot of things good and bad in the video game industry. The formation of Activision and the creation of third party games for a console, but also the video game crash and how it showed that people weren't just going to play any craps games that came out. Today with the recent trend of retro gaming and the internet as a whole as reintroduced fans to the 2600 and it continues to "live" on 24 years after it's release.