The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by Atari Corporation in 1986 as the successor to both the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200. It can run almost all Atari 2600 cartridges, making it one of the first consoles with backward compatibility. It shipped with a different model of joystick from the 2600-standard CX40 and Pole Position II as the pack-in game. Most of the announced titles at launch were ports of 1981–83 arcade video games.
The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development began in 1977, the same year as the launch of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. In 1984, Mattel sold its video game assets to a former Mattel Electronics executive and investors, eventually becoming INTV Corporation. Game development ran from 1978 to 1990 when the Intellivision was discontinued. From 1980 to 1983, more than 3 million consoles were sold.
Pong is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
Battlezone is a first-person shooter tank combat game released for arcades in November 1980 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a tank which is attacked by other tanks and missiles, using a small radar scanner to locate enemies around them in the barren landscape. Its innovative use of 3D graphics made it a huge hit, with approximately 15,000 cabinets sold.
Breakout is an arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and released on May 13, 1976. It was designed by Steve Wozniak, based on conceptualization from Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow who were influenced by the seminal 1972 Atari arcade game Pong. In Breakout, a layer of bricks lines the top third of the screen and the goal is to destroy them all by repeatedly bouncing a ball off a paddle into them. The arcade game was released in Japan by Namco. Breakout was a worldwide commercial success, among the top five highest-grossing arcade video games of 1976 in both the United States and Japan and then among the top three highest-grossing arcade video games of 1977 in the US and Japan. The 1978 Atari VCS port uses color graphics instead of a monochrome screen with colored overlay.
Track & Field, also known as Hyper Olympic in Japan and Europe, is a 1983 Olympic-themed sports video game developed by Konami for arcades. The Japanese release sported an official license for the 1984 Summer Olympics. In Europe, the game was initially released under the Japanese title Hyper Olympic in 1983, before re-releasing under the US title Track & Field in early 1984.
The Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) is the custom computer chip, along with a variant of the MOS Technology 6502 constituting the heart of the 1977 Atari Video Computer System game console. The TIA generates the screen display, sound effects, and reads the controllers. At the time the Atari VCS was designed, even small amounts of RAM were expensive. The chip was designed around not having a frame buffer, instead requiring detailed programming to create even a simple display.
Paperboy is an arcade action game developed and published by Atari Games and Midway Games, and released in 1985. The player takes the role of a paperboy who delivers a fictional newspaper called The Daily Sun along a suburban street on his bicycle. The arcade version of the game featured bike handlebars as the controller.
Night Driver is an arcade video game developed by Atari, Inc. and released in the United States in October 1976. It's one of the earliest first-person racing video games and is commonly believed to be one of the first published video games to feature real-time first-person graphics. Night Driver has a black and white display with the hood of the player's car painted on a plastic overlay. The road is rendered as scaled rectangles representing "pylons" that line the edges.
Cinematronics Incorporated was an arcade game developer that primarily released vector graphics games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While other companies released games based on raster displays, early in their history, Cinematronics and Atari, Inc. released vector-display games, which offered a distinctive look and a greater graphic capability, at the cost of being only black and white (initially). Cinematronics also published Dragon's Lair in 1983, the first major LaserDisc video game.
Stunt Car Racer is a racing video game developed by Geoff Crammond. It was published in 1989 by MicroProse, under their MicroStyle and MicroPlay labels in the United Kingdom and in the United States, respectively. The game pits two racers on an elevated track on which they race in a head-to-head competition, with ramps they must correctly drive off as the main obstacle.
Hang-On is an arcade racing game released by Sega in 1985 and later ported to the Master System. In the game, the player controls a motorcycle against time and other computer-controlled bikes. It was one of the first arcade games to use 16-bit graphics and uses the Super Scaler arcade system board, created with design input from Yu Suzuki, as technology to simulate 3D effects. The deluxe cabinet version also introduced a motion-controlled arcade cabinet, where the player's body movement on a large motorbike-shaped cabinet corresponds with the player character's movements on screen.
Daredevil Dennis is a computer game published by Visions Software in 1984 for the Acorn Electron and BBC Micro. Both the controls and screen layout are the same as in Atari's 1977 Stunt Cycle arcade game. Daredevil Dennis: The Sequel was published by Visions Software for the Commodore 64, but was still simply called Daredevil Dennis on the cover.
Hard Drivin' is a driving simulation video game developed by Atari Games in 1989. It invites players to test drive a sports car on courses that emphasize stunts and speed. The game features one of the first 3D polygon driving environments via a simulator cabinet with a force feedback steering wheel and a custom rendering architecture. According to the in-game credit screen,
The Video Pinball brand is a series of first-generation single-player dedicated home video game consoles manufactured, released and marketed by Atari, Inc. starting in 1977. Bumper controllers on the sides or a dial on the front are used to control the games depending on the game selected. There are three game types in the first model of the Video Pinball series: Pinball, Basketball, and Breakout.
The TV Scoreboard is a Pong-like dedicated home video game console manufactured in Hong Kong from 1976 through the early '80s and made by Tandy. Distribution was handled exclusively by RadioShack.
Enduro Racer (エンデューロレーサー) is an arcade racing game from Sega. It was released in 1986 with two arcade cabinet versions, a stand-up cabinet with handlebars and a full-sized dirt bike cabinet. It is often seen as a dirt racing version of Hang-On, as it uses a similar engine and PCB. The game was later released for the Master System in 1987, the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 in 1988, and the Amstrad CPC and Atari ST in 1989.
Magnavox Odyssey is the general brand name of Magnavox's complete line of home video game consoles released from 1972 through 1978. The line includes the original Magnavox Odyssey console, the Magnavox Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles, and the Magnavox Odyssey 2 ROM cartridge-based video game console released in 1978. Philips Odyssey is the brand name that includes the Philips Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles.
Realsports Volleyball is a volleyball video game written by Bob Polaro and Jim Huether for the Atari 2600 and published by Atari, Inc. in 1982. Polaro also programmed the Atari 2600 port of Defender.
Quattro is a series of video game compilations released in the 1990s. They consisted of games developed by Codemasters. The NES versions were released as multicarts and were published by Camerica without a license by Nintendo.
