Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What was the first game on the Atari?
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and video game console and home computer development company which operated between 1972 and 1984. During its years of operation, it developed and produced over 350 arcade, console, and computer games for its own systems, and almost 100 ports of games for home computers such as the Commodore 64. Atari began its operations by developing and producing some of the first arcade video games; the first commercial arcade video game, Computer Space, was released in November 1971 by Atari founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering.[1] The game in part marked the end of the early history of video games and the start of the rise of the commercial video game industry. After its founding in 1972, Atari released Pong, believed to be the third arcade video game after Computer Space and a clone game and the first commercially successful arcade video game machine,[2] and thereafter produced numerous arcade games, including video games and pinball machines.
F-1 is a racing arcade game developed by Namco and distributed by Atari Inc., originally released in 1976.
This game is the first and only electromechanical projection game released by Atari. It also was the first game licensed from Namco by Atari, a practice that would increase by the early 1980s.
Anticipation for "E.T." was high in 1982, and it was a sought-after Christmas gift. In early December 1982, "The New York Times" reported that video games based on successful movies, specifically "E.T.", would become "an increasingly profitable source" for video game development. At first, retailers ordered more supplies than what was expected to be sold, but Atari received an increasing number of order cancellations as new competitors entered the market, an event the company had not anticipated. John Hubner and William Kistner of "InfoWorld" attribute the cancellations to changes Atari initiated in its relationship to distributors. On November 1, 1982, Atari informed them that their contracts were canceled and that exclusive deals would be established with select distributors. Hubner and Kistner believed the action prompted retailers to cancel orders, which Atari had not properly tracked.
"Star Raiders" was Atari's killer app, akin to VisiCalc for the Apple II in its ability to persuade customers to buy the computer. "Antic" in 1986 stated that "it was the first program that showed all of the Atari computer's audio and visual capabilities. It was just a game, yes, but it revolutionized the idea of what a personal computer could be made to do."
Although not the first trackball game (the first was "Soccer" by Taito in 1973), "Atari Football" was the game that is credited with popularizing the trackball. Considered physically exhausting to play, "Atari Football" involves spinning the trackball as fast as possible to win the game. Just 90 seconds of play could result in sore palms, and longer could cause blisters. Nevertheless, "Atari Football" was as popular as "Space Invaders" during the 1978 football season, but its popularity waned later on. "Atari Football" is sometimes credited as one of the first games to accurately emulate sports. Twenty-five cents (or one American quarter) would allow 90 seconds of playtime, while adding more quarters would allow longer play. It was also the first non-racing video game with vertical scrolling.
Miller joined Atari, Inc. in February 1977 and was one of the first four Atari 2600 game designers. His 2600 titles include "Surround", "Hunt & Score", "Hangman" and "Basketball". With others, he co-authored the operating system for the Atari 400/800 computers in late 1978 and early 1979. His last game for Atari, "Basketball", was one of the first ROM games for the Atari computers. Miller did not work on any Atari 2600 cartridges during his last year with Atari.
Star Ship is a first-person space combat simulator video game programmed by Bob Whitehead and published by Atari, Inc. for its Video Computer System (later known as the Atari 2600). The game was one of the nine launch titles offered when the Atari 2600 launched on September 11, 1977. Based on the Atari arcade game "Starship 1", it was the first space-related game developed for the Atari VCS. The re-branded Sears TeleGames version is titled Outer Space.
The same year that the Paddle Games were released, Atari released a TV game of their own which they called the Atari Flashback Console. The device was designed and produced by Atari consultant Curt Vendel through his engineering firm Legacy Engineering. With only a 10-week development window, what they produced looked like a minute version of the Atari 7800 console originally released in 1984, 20 years prior. The two controllers were small as well, having a joystick and two red buttons on each side. Twenty titles were built into the system. Unlike most plug-and-plays, the Flashback was not powered by batteries, but an (included) AC adaptor instead. The Flashback did fairly well in sales. Since the games were all recreated on hardware more closely resembling the Nintendo Entertainment System than the 7800, some of the aspects of certain games concerning the sound, graphics, or gameplay were either changed or omitted.
This is a list of games for the Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800 video game console, totaling more than 59 games. It was a video game console released by Atari Corporation in January 1986. A test market release had occurred two years earlier under Atari Inc. The 7800 was designed to replace Atari Inc.'s unsuccessful Atari 5200 and later to re-establish Atari Corp.'s market supremacy against Nintendo and Sega. With this system, Atari Inc. addressed all the shortcomings of the Atari 5200: it had simple digital joysticks; it was almost fully backward-compatible with the Atari 2600; and it was affordable (originally priced at US$140).
In 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., forming Time Warner. In 1993, Time Warner bought a controlling interest in Atari Games and made it a subsidiary of its Time Warner Interactive division. While Atari Games maintained its identity under the new ownership, its consumer division Tengen, on the other hand, had been removed from the map in favor of the Time Warner Interactive label. In mid-1994 Atari Games, Tengen, and Time Warner Interactive Group were all consolidated as Time Warner Interactive. In April 1996, after an unsuccessful bid by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari Games was sold to WMS Industries (owners of the Williams, and Bally/Midway arcade brands). When Hasbro Interactive bought the remains of Atari Corporation, the console manufacturer, and resurrected the Atari name in the home software arena starting in late 1998, Atari Games was renamed Midway Games West by parent company Midway Games to avoid confusing two Atari brands shortly after the release of "San Francisco Rush 2049" in late 1999. Midway left the arcade market to concentrate on home systems in 2001, ending at the same time Atari Games' influence in the arcade industry. Midway Games West produced games for home systems, but was disbanded by Midway in early 2003 after a slump in game sales, ending the existence of Atari Games.
In 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded a small engineering company, Syzygy Engineering, that designed and built "Computer Space", the world's first commercially available arcade video game, for Nutting Associates. On June 27, 1972, the two incorporated Atari, Inc. and soon hired Al Alcorn as their first design engineer. Bushnell asked Alcorn to produce an arcade version of the Magnavox Odyssey's Tennis game, which would be named Pong. While Bushnell incorporated Atari in June 1972, Syzygy Company was never formally incorporated. Before Atari's incorporation, Bushnell considered various terms from the game Go, eventually choosing "atari", referencing a position in the game when a group of stones is imminently in danger of being taken by one's opponent. Atari was incorporated in the state of California on June 27, 1972.
In 1973, Atari secretly spawned a competitor called Kee Games, headed by Nolan's next door neighbor Joe Keenan, to circumvent pinball distributors' insistence on exclusive distribution deals; both Atari and Kee could market virtually the same game to different distributors, each getting an "exclusive" deal. Joe Keenan's management of the subsidiary led to him being promoted president of Atari that same year.
"Lunar Lander" proved moderately commercially successful, selling 4,830 cabinets. "Cash Box" noted in September 1979 that the machines were very popular with customers. It was Atari's first vector graphics game and the first multiple-perspective video game with the inclusion of the up-close view of the lander. Atari developed a two-player version of the game, but only two prototypes were ever made as it did not enter production. The two-player version was cancelled as "Lunar Lander"s popularity was soon overtaken by Atari's "Asteroids" (November 1979), which used the same vector graphics engine and which had initially been based on "Lunar Lander"s code. Atari ceased production early on "Lunar Lander" in favor of shipping "Asteroids" games in "Lunar Lander" cabinets; the first 300 "Asteroids" games were released with "Lunar Lander" artwork on the side. The Atari "Lunar Lander" was the most popular version to date of the "Lunar Lander" concept, surpassing the prior "Moonlander" and text-based games, and most later versions of the concept are implicitly or explicitly based on the Atari version.
Atari VCS (code named Ataribox) is an upcoming home video game console produced by Atari, SA. The system was first revealed in June 2017 and pre-orders began on May 30, 2018. While its physical design is intended to pay homage to the Atari 2600, the new Atari VCS is expected to play modern games and streaming entertainment via a Linux-based operating system that will allow users to download and install other compatible games onto it. The system shares a name with Atari, Inc.'s 1977 Video Computer System, usually shortened to VCS, which was renamed to the Atari 2600 in late 1982.
Atari's top-selling titles have been the "Dragon Ball" games based on the popular anime license from Toei Animation in Japan. These include the "" series of games for next-generation console systems and the "" series of games for the Game Boy Advance. These games have topped the best-seller charts for numerous console platforms since the release of Atari's first "Dragon Ball Z" game, "" in 2002, which was the first "Dragon Ball" game to be made by an American company, Webfoot Technologies, and is one of the best-selling Game Boy Advance games of all time (#16). The best selling Budokai series is developed in Japan by Dimps and includes "", "" and ""). Atari is also releasing "" and its sequel, "" which is a separate series from the Budokai series. Following the success of the Budokai and Legacy of Goku series, Atari has released numerous other Dragon Ball titles including "", "", "", "", "" and "Super Dragon Ball Z".
Surround is a video game programmed by Alan Miller and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari Video Computer System (later known as the Atari 2600). It was one of the nine Atari VCS launch titles released in September 1977. "Surround" is an unofficial port of the arcade game "Blockade", released the previous year by Gremlin. As such, it is the first home console version of the game that would become widely known across many platforms as "Snake". As with other early Atari games, it was licensed to Sears, which released it under the name "Chase".
As the first action-adventure video game and first console fantasy game, "Adventure" established its namesake genre on video game consoles. In addition to being the first graphical adventure game on the Atari 2600 console, it is the first video game to contain a widely known Easter egg, and the first to allow a player to use multiple, portable, on-screen items while exploring an open-ended environment, making it one of the first examples, even as small and primitive as it is, of an open world game. The game has been voted the best Atari 2600 game in numerous polls, and has been noted as a significant step in the advancement of home video games. "GamePro" ranked it as the 28th most important video game of all time in 2007. In 2010, "1UP.com" listed it as one of the most important games ever made in its "The Essential 50" feature. "Entertainment Weekly" named "Adventure" as one of the top 10 games for the Atari 2600.
In 1975 Atari released Home Pong, its first of several Pong-based dedicated video game consoles, and in 1977 released its first home video game console, the Atari Video Computer System (later renamed the Atari 2600). From that point onward Atari developed both arcade games and console games, and in 1979 added games for their first home computers, the Atari 400 and 800. Atari produced a second home video game console in 1982, the Atari 5200, and four more home computer versions. Beginning in Summer 1981, Atari published the Atari Program Exchange, a quarterly mail-order catalog of software written for Atari computers by external developers which Atari then distributed to customers. In May 1983, Atari started the Atarisoft division, which produced ports of games by Atari and others for non-Atari home computers. In July 1984, as a result of falling sales due to the video game crash of 1983, Atari, Inc. was split apart by Warner Communications; the arcade division continued as a subsidiary of Warner under the name Atari Games, while the console and computer games divisions were sold off as Atari Corporation.[5]
The first products from the Games Group were unique action games like "Ballblazer" in 1984, and "Rescue on Fractalus!". Beta versions of both games were leaked to pirate bulletin boards exactly one week after Atari had received unprotected copies for a marketing review, and were in wide circulation months before the original release date. In 1984, they were released for the Atari 5200 under the Lucasfilm Games label. Versions for home computers were not released until 1985, by publisher Epyx. Lucasfilm's next two games were "Koronis Rift" and "The Eidolon". Their first games were only developed by Lucasfilm, and a publisher would distribute the games. Atari published their games for Atari systems, Activision and Epyx would do their computer publishing. "Maniac Mansion" was the first game to be published and developed by Lucasfilm Games.
The Atari Jaguar is a 64-bit home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and designed by Flare Technology, released in North America first on November 23, . It was the sixth programmable console developed under the Atari brand. The following list contains all of the games released for the Jaguar.
In December 1987, Atari became a licensee of Nintendo and gained the rights to make video games for the NES. The license terms strictly controlled Atari's access to the console technology. To sell a video game, Atari was required to give the game to Nintendo, and Nintendo would place the game on cartridges equipped with 10NES and resell them to Atari. The license also contained an exclusivity term that prohibited licensees from creating adaptations of such games for other consoles for a period of two years following the first sale.
In 1985, after the video game crash, and after previously having been sold to Warner Communications, Atari had been split into two corporate entities: Atari Corporation, which took over the home computer and console hardware business; and Atari Games, which retained the arcade game business. Namco America acquired a controlling interest in Atari Games for $10 million, against the advice of their accountants at Price Waterhouse. Disagreement over how to run the Atari Games subsidiary led to a falling out between Nakamura and Nakajima. Nakamura considered Atari to be a competitor. Back in Japan, Namco still held distribution rights for Atari's games, and Nakamura refused to sell them to other arcades. Nakamura also resented sharing ownership of Atari Games with Warner. Nakajima grew increasingly frustrated with his boss, and in 1987 the two arrived at a means to part ways: Namco would sell part of its interest in Atari Games to Nakajima and the Atari Games employees, and the rest back to Warner. Nakajima resigned from Namco to head Atari Games.
The Cosmos was created by Atari Inc. engineers Allan Alcorn, Harry Jenkins and Roger Hector. Work on the Cosmos began in 1978. Atari Inc. purchased most of the rights to holographic items so that they could make this system. The Cosmos was to have nine released games, but all of the game logic was included the Cosmos itself – the cartridges only contained the holographic images and a notch to identify what game it was. This technically made the Cosmos a dedicated console, but Atari Inc. didn't publicize this fact.
An Atari 2600 homebrew (short for "Atari 2600 homebrew game", where "homebrew" is synonymous with "hobbyist-developed") is a video game designed for the Atari 2600 by an independent developer following the discontinuation of the console in 1992. The first 2600 homebrew was written in 1995, and since then over 100 titles have been released. There is an active community of Atari 2600 developers—the largest among classic video game homebrew communities.
Atari cancelled their line of home computers, their Atari Portfolio, the Stacy laptop, and their handheld Atari Lynx when they released the Jaguar. It was an all or nothing gamble that ran the company into the ground. The Jaguar had three processors and no C libraries to help developers cope with it. Atari was ineffective at courting third parties and many of their first party games were poorly received. While games like Tempest 2000, Rayman, and Alien vs Predator showed what the console was capable of, the vast majority of releases underwhelmed. Many of the Jaguar's games used mainly the slowest (but most familiar) of the console's processors, resulting in titles that could easily have been released on the SNES or Genesis.
"Softline" in 1982 called "Star Raiders" "quite a game ... stands repeat play well and remains quite difficult". In 1983 the magazine's readers named it "The Most Popular Atari Program Ever", with 65% more weighted votes than second-place "Jawbreaker", and in 1984 they named the game the most popular Atari program of all time. "The Addison-Wesley Book of Atari Software 1984" gave it an overall A rating, praising the realistic graphics and sound. The book concluded that "the game is simply great" and that despite imitations, ""Star Raiders" remains the classic". "Antic" in 1986 stated that "it was the first program that showed all of the Atari computer's audio and visual capabilities. It was just a game, yes, but it revolutionized the idea of what a personal computer could be made to do."