Atari is a legendary videogame company
founded in 1972.
It once was a household name in the video game industry
and pioneered console gaming.
But how have Atari consoles
evolved throughout the years?
This is the Evolution of Atari!
Nothing brings back good old memories like the Atari consoles.
For the first time,
people could enjoy their favorite arcade games
including brand new ones from the comfort of their homes.
It all started in 1971
when Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded a small company
named Syzygy Engineering.
These two men became friends when they found out
they had common interests in electronic games.
Together they created a game called Computer Space,
which became the world’s first commercially available arcade video game.
It could be played in a large custom fiberglass cabinet,
which Nolan Bushnell designed so as to look futuristic.
After discovering that another company had the same name,
they changed their name to Atari.
Although Atari is widely recognized as the
pioneer of home-video game consoles,
Magnavox released the world’s first home video game console in 1972,
the Magnavox Odyssey.
In fact, one of their games inspired Atari
to produce their first commercially successful video game.
In 1972 Atari developed an iconic arcade game named Pong.
Bushnell and Dabney needed a design engineer
and convinced Al Alcorn,
whom they already knew from previous work experience.
Although Alcorn was an intelligent electrical engineer,
he had no experience with video games.
This was a concern because
Bushnell and Dabney wanted to create a driving game,
which they thought might be too complicated
for Alcorn’s first game design.
However, Bushnell had seen the Magnavox Odyssey’s Tennis game
and thought it would be great if Alcorn would create a similar game.
So that’s what Alcorn did,
and the two founders were surprised by the quality of Alcorn’s work.
They dropped the idea for a driving game
and continued with Alcorn’s design to create Pong.
Pong was the first commercially successful video game,
and helped to establish the video game industry along with the Magnavox Odyssey.
During the 1975 Christmas season,
Atari released a console for the game Pong,
called Home Pong.
Chips for home consoles had only recently become available.
Initial development cost for a game on a single LSI chip
cost about $50,000,
which is equivalent to $325,000 dollars today!
Luckily once the chip was further developed and could be mass-produced
it became significantly cheaper.
Home Pong became a commercial success
and over 150,000 units were sold!
Fun Fact
Magnavox filed a lawsuit against Atari.
They argued that Atari had infringed the patents of their table tennis game,
and demonstrated that Bushnell had even played the game
before releasing Pong.
Bushnell later stated
According to their lawyer,
Atari could have won the lawsuit.
However, he estimated that the legal costs
would amount to 1.5 million dollars!
This exceeded Atari’s funds, so they decided to settle.
Eventually Atari had to pay 1.5 million dollars to Magnavox
in eight installments.
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Due to the success of Home Pong
and the Magnavox Odyssey,
other competitors also tried to create home consoles.
One of the competitors created a console called the ‘Channel F’,
which became the first video game to use ROM cartridges,
instead of having games built-in.
Atari also wanted to create a home console with ROM cartridges
and released the Atari 2600 in 1977.
At the launch it was sold for $199,
which may not sound like a lot,
but today that would be equivalent to $890 dollars!
It came with two joystick controllers,
two paddle controllers
and a game cartridge.
Initially it came with the game Combat
and later with one of the most famous games in the world, Pac-Man.
However, Pac-Man barely resembled the original
and consumers were upset.
Atari is thought to have been left
with approximately 5 million unwanted copies of the game.
Nowadays kids grow up with the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X
and might wonder why anyone could be excited with an Atari console.
But at the time these colorful graphics
and improved sound were a big deal.
Many successful titles were released
including Space Invaders
The Atari 2600 became a massive success,
more than 30 million units were sold.
In fact, it was so successful
that the name Atari almost became synonymous with video games in general.
Fun Fact
Atari implemented a risky pricing strategy
for the Atari 2600.
They lost money on the consoles,
but hoped to earn that money back by selling games at a premium.
The risk paid off,
and it revolutionized the pricing strategy for consoles.
Both Sony and Microsoft use this strategy today
and lose money on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
In 1979, Atari introduced its first 8-bit home computers,
the Atari 400 and Atari 800.
At that time, Bushnell had already sold Atari
to Warner Communications for $28 million dollars
and the new CEO of the company was Ray Kassar.
Kassar saw an opportunity to make money in the home computer era,
that had just began.
He wanted to challenge Apple,
who had just launched the Apple II home computer.
Multiple games were released for the 8-bit home computers,
including Pacman
Home computers weren’t cheap.
The Atari 400 was sold for $550 dollars at launch,
which would be equivalent to $2,000 dollars today!
Oh and the Atari 400 was the cheaper model.
The Atari 800 had a price tag of $1,000 dollars,
which would be about $3,700 dollars today!
In total Atari managed to sell an impressive 4 million units
of the 8-bit home computers!
In 1982,
Atari released their next generation console,
the Atari 5200.
The CPU and graphics were almost identical
to the Atari 8-bit computers.
The Atari 5200 had a controller with an analog joystick,
a numeric keypad and Start, Pause and Reset buttons.
In total only 69 games were released for the console,
while the Atari 2600 has
528 games.
Games that players could enjoy on the Atari 5200 were
But then the video game industry was hit by the video game crash of 1983,
also known as the Atari shock in Japan.
Revenues of the video game industry peaked at around $3.2 billion,
then fell massively to around $100 million dollars by 1985!
That is a drop of almost 97%!
Atari was losing millions of dollars a day,
and Warner Communications became desperate to sell off the division.
To make things even worse,
Nintendo released the Famicom in 1983.
This quickly became a major competitor,
mainly due to its incredible games like
The Atari 5200 became a failure,
only 1 million units were sold,
compared to its predecessor’s sales of over 30 million.
Fun Fact
Nintendo and Atari discussed the possibility
of the two companies working together to launch the Famicom in North America.
Nintendo offered Atari the opportunity to sell the Famicom under its own brand
in exchange for paying Nintendo a royalty on every console.
However, the deal was never signed
and Nintendo would eventually take over the reputation
that Atari once had in the video game industry.
The Atari 7800 was released in 1986
and it was the first console with backward compatibility.
This meant that players could enjoy almost all Atari 2600 games,
which many players had been begging for.
Surprisingly the Atari 7800 was released with a different version for Europe,
that even had a different controller.
In an effort to prevent the flood of poor quality games
that contributed to the video game crash of 1983,
all new games had to be digitally signed by Atari.
Some of these games include
And players could enjoy a few Nintendo titles like
Unlike its predecessor,
the Atari 7800 was profitable
and 3.8 million units were sold.
In 1989, Atari launched the world’s first handheld game console
with a color LCD screen,
the Atari Lynx.
This console was designed by Epyx
but they lacked the financial means needed to produce it.
Epyx had also tried to partner with Sega and Nintendo
but both declined.
But the partnership with Atari didn’t last long
as Epyx declared bankruptcy by the end of the year.
The major competitor of the Atari Lynx was the Nintendo Game Boy,
released just a few months earlier.
The Game Boy was much cheaper
and it had a better battery life.
Games released for the Atari Lynx were
Atari only managed to sell 3 million units,
while Nintendo sold a whopping 118.7 million units of the Game Boy.
In 1993 Atari launched the Atari Jaguar.
The team that developed the Atari Jaguar claimed
they could make a console superior to Sega Genesis and SNES.
Excited by this claim,
Atari contacted them to build the Jaguar console.
However, the Atari Jaguar was sold for $250 dollars,
while the SNES had a launch price of $200
and the Sega Genesis was sold for even less,
namely $190 dollars.
And to make things worse only 50 games were released for the Jaguar in total.
That is about 35 times less
than all the games that were released for the SNES.
Games that owners of the Jaguar could play were
Atari made a CD-ROM peripheral named the Jaguar CD.
Only 12 CD games were released during its lifetime.
In total only 150,000 units of the Jaguar were sold,
making it by far the worst selling console they had ever made.
Meanwhile Sega sold 30.7 million units of the Genesis
and Nintendo sold 49.1 million units of the SNES.
This massive commercial failure led Atari to leave the console market,
at least for a while.
In 2004 Atari released the Atari Flashback,
a console that resembles a smaller version of the Atari 7800.
It was sold for $45 dollars at launch.
It features 20 built-in games,
including 15 Atari 2600
and five Atari 7800 games.
Approximately 500,000 units of the Atari Flashback were sold.
The Atari Flashback 2 was released in 2005.
It was an improved version that had more games.
In the United States alone
860,000 units were sold.
Atari made many more Flashback units,
with the latest version being the Atari Flashback X
that was released in 2019.
The basic model includes two wired controllers
and an impressive 110 games.
In 2020 Atari released their latest console,
which is the Atari VCS.
It has a lot of streaming apps,
a streaming service,
Atari games,
and the console allows users to download and install other games,
including those compatible with Windows 10.
The Atari VCS isn’t cheap though
as it was sold for $299 dollars at launch for just the system
or $399 dollars with two controllers combined.
Fun Fact
Atari made their own cryptocurrency
named the Atari Token.
It’s primary focus is to be integrated as an in-game currency
and offers gamers a means of payment.
In 2021 Atari is still active and has created many games,
including Pong Quest,
While Atari no longer is the gaming giant it once was,
it did pioneer console gaming,
and helped to shape the gaming industry.
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