Atari 2600
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. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982, alongside the release of the Atari 5200.
Atari was successful at creating arcade video games, but their development cost and limited lifespan drove CEO Nolan Bushnell to seek a programmable home system. The first inexpensive microprocessors from MOS Technology in late 1975 made this feasible. The console was prototyped under the codename Stella by Atari subsidiary Cyan Engineering. Lacking funding to complete the project, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976.
The Atari VCS launched in 1977 with nine games on 2 KB cartridges. Atari ported many of their arcade games to the system, and the VCS versions of Breakout and Night Driver are in color while the arcade originals have monochrome graphics. The system’s first killer application was the home conversion of Taito’s arcade game Space Invaders in 1980. Adventure, also released in 1980, was one of the first action-adventure video games and contains the first widely recognized Easter egg. The popularity of the VCS led to the founding of Activision and other third-party game developers and competition from the Intellivision and, later, ColecoVision consoles. Games grew to use four or more times the storage size of the launch games with significantly more advanced visuals and gameplay than the system was designed for, such as Activision’s Pitfall!.
By 1982, the Atari 2600 was the dominant game system in North America. Poor decisions by Atari management damaged both the system and company’s reputation, most notably the release of two highly anticipated games for the 2600: a port of the arcade game Pac-Man and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Pac-Man became the 2600’s highest-selling game, but was panned for being inferior to the arcade version. E.T. was rushed to market for the holiday shopping season and was similarly disparaged. Both games, and a glut of third-party shovelware, were factors in ending Atari’s relevance in the console market, contributing to the video game crash of 1983.
Warner sold the assets of Atari’s consumer electronics division to former Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel in 1984; in 1986 the new Atari Corporation under Tramiel released a revised, low-cost 2600 model, and the backward-compatible Atari 7800, but it was Nintendo that led the recovery of the industry with its 1985 launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Production of the Atari 2600 ended in 1992, with an estimated 30 million units sold across its lifetime.
The Atari 2600+ is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. in collaboration with Plaion since 2023. The console is a slightly smaller replica of the four-switch woodgrain model of the Atari 2600 and supports the use of original 2600 as well as Atari 7800 cartridges. The console comes bundled with a 10-in-1 cartridge that includes several classic Atari games.
