134-485: BASIC Programming is an Atari Video Computer System (later called the Atari 2600 ) cartridge that teaches simple computer programming using a dialect of BASIC . Written by Warren Robinett and released by Atari, Inc. in 1979, this BASIC interpreter is one of a few non-game cartridges for the console. The Atari VCS's RAM size of 128 bytes restricts the possibilities for writing programs. The BASIC Programming display
268-476: A $ 425 million loss reported in the second quarter. By mid-1984, software development for the 2600 had essentially stopped except that of Atari and Activision. Warner, wary of supporting its failing Atari division, started looking for buyers in 1984. Warner sold most of the assets of Atari's counsumer electronics and home computer divisions to Jack Tramiel , the founder of Commodore International , in July 1984 in
402-412: A Pac-Man telephone. There were more than 500 Pac-Man related products. 7-Eleven sold Pac-Man themed merchandise at its stores since the game's initial popularity in the 1980s. This has included collectible Slurpee and Big Gulp cups. In 2023, 7-Eleven included Pac-Man in its Spring 2023 marketing material including at Speedway and Stripes banner locations, and sold more merchandise around
536-517: A mainframe computer . Therefore, development of a console had cost at least $ 100,000 (equivalent to about $ 566,000 in 2023) plus time to complete, but the final product only had about a three-month shelf life until becoming outdated by competition. By 1974, Atari had acquired Cyan Engineering , a Grass Valley electronics company founded by Steve Mayer and Larry Emmons, both former colleagues of Bushnell and Dabney from Ampex , who helped to develop new ideas for Atari's arcade games. Even prior to
670-617: A 1986 interview he said that this was only half-true, and that the Pac-Man character was also based on him rounding out and simplifying the Japanese character "kuchi" ( 口 ), meaning "mouth". The four ghosts were made to be cute, colorful and appealing, using bright, pastel colors and expressive blue eyes. Iwatani had used this idea before in Cutie Q , which features similar ghost-like characters, and decided to incorporate it into Pac-Man . He
804-690: A 2600, though companies like Epoch had distributed the 2600 in Japan previously. The 2800 was released a short time after Nintendo 's Family Computer (which became the dominant console in Japan), and it did not gain a significant share of the market. Sears previously released the 2800 in the US during late 1982 as the Sears Video Arcade II, which came packaged with two controllers and Space Invaders . Around 30 specially branded games were released for
938-500: A 50 Hz format, is limited to 8 colors, each with only a single brightness level. The first VCS bundle has two types of controllers: a joystick (part number CX10) and pair of rotary paddle controllers (CX30). Driving controllers, which are similar to paddle controllers but can be continuously rotated, shipped with the Indy 500 launch game. After less than a year, the CX10 joystick
1072-601: A November 1983 article in InfoWorld magazine. An August 1984 InfoWorld magazine article says more than 15 million Atari 2600 machines were sold by 1982. A March 1983 article in IEEE Spectrum magazine has about 3 million VCS sales in 1981, about 5.5 million in 1982, as well as a total of over 12 million VCS systems and an estimated 120 million cartridges sold. In Europe, the Atari VCS sold 125,000 units in
1206-464: A Pac-Man-like character is the main villain. In the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World , the titular character makes reference to the original Japanese name. The 2018 film Relaxer uses Pac-Man as a strong plot element in the story of a 1999 couch-bound man who attempts to beat the game (and encounters the famous Level 256 glitch) before the year 2000 problem occurs. Various attempts for
1340-555: A bonus game, alongside the arcade versions of Dig Dug and Galaga . In 2014, Pac-Man was included in the compilation title Pac-Man Museum for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, alongside several other Pac-Man games. The NES version is one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition . Upon its North American debut at AMOA 1980, the game initially received a mild response. Play Meter magazine previewed
1474-488: A certain amount of time, blue-colored ghosts flash white before turning back into their normal forms. Eating a certain number of dots in a level causes a bonus item—usually a fruit—to appear underneath the center box; the item can be eaten for bonus points. To the sides of the maze are two "warp tunnels", which allow Pac-Man and the ghosts to travel to the opposite side of the screen. Ghosts become slower when entering and exiting these tunnels. The game increases in difficulty as
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#17327981955761608-531: A circular "Cross Ring" that attached to the d-pad to restrict it to four-directional movement. In 2001, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for various Japanese mobile phones , being one of the company's first mobile game releases. The Famicom version of the game was re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Famicom Mini series, released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of
1742-474: A creature that protected children from monsters by devouring them. Frank Fogleman, the co-founder of Gremlin Industries , believes that the maze-chase gameplay of Pac-Man was inspired by Sega 's Head On (1979), a similar arcade game that was popular in Japan. Iwatani has often claimed that the character of Pac-Man was designed after the shape of a pizza with a missing slice while he was at lunch; in
1876-552: A deal valued at $ 240 million , though Warner retained Atari's arcade business. Tramiel was a proponent of personal computers , and halted all new 2600 game development soon after the sale. The North American video game market did not recover until about 1986, after Nintendo 's 1985 launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America. Atari Corporation released a redesigned model of
2010-443: A game console, and offered to discuss it further at Cyan's facilities after the show. Over two days, MOS and Cyan engineers sketched out a 6502-based console design by Meyer and Milner's specifications. Financial models showed that even at $ 25 , the 6502 would be too expensive, and Peddle offered them a planned 6507 microprocessor , a cost-reduced version of the 6502, and MOS's RIOT chip for input/output . Cyan and MOS negotiated
2144-404: A hit single, " Pac-Man Fever ", by Buckner & Garcia . The character of Pac-Man has become the official mascot of Bandai Namco Entertainment . The game remains one of the highest-grossing and best-selling games, generating more than $ 14 billion in revenue (as of 2016 ) and 43 million units in sales combined, and has an enduring commercial and cultural legacy, commonly listed as one of
2278-525: A home console. Atari sold 1.25 million Space Invaders cartridges and over 1 million VCS systems in 1980, nearly doubling the install base to over 2 million, and then an estimated 3.1 million VCS systems in 1981. By 1982, 10 million consoles had been sold in the United States, while its best-selling game was Pac-Man at over 8 million copies sold by 1990. Pac-Man propelled worldwide Atari VCS sales to 12 million units during 1982, according to
2412-486: A landfill in the New Mexico desert, later labeled the Atari video game burial . Long considered an urban legend that claimed the burial contained millions of unsold cartridges, the site was excavated in 2014, confirming reports from former Atari executives that only about 700,000 cartridges had actually been buried. Atari reported a $ 536 million loss for 1983 as a whole, and continued to lose money into 1984, with
2546-531: A living room environment". Landrum recommended it include four to five dedicated games in addition to the cartridges, but this was dropped in the final designs. The cartridge design was done by James Asher and Douglas Hardy. Hardy had been an engineer for Fairchild and helped in the initial design of the Channel F cartridges, but he quit to join Atari in 1976. The interior of the cartridge that Asher and Hardy designed
2680-406: A more complicated strategy to zero in on him, and Pokey ("Clyde") alternates between chasing him and running away. (The ghosts' Japanese names are おいかけ, chase ; まちぶせ, ambush ; きまぐれ, fickle ; and おとぼけ, playing dumb , respectively.) To break up the tension of constantly being pursued, humorous intermissions between Pac-Man and Blinky were added. The sound effects were among the last things added to
2814-675: A native controller. Third-party controllers include Wico's Command Control joystick. Later, the CX42 Remote Control Joysticks, similar in appearance but using wireless technology, were released, together with a receiver whose wires could be inserted in the controller jacks. Atari introduced the CX50 Keyboard Controller in June 1978 along with two games that require it: Codebreaker and Hunt & Score . The similar, but simpler, CX23 Kid's Controller
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#17327981955762948-435: A non-violent, cheerful video game that appealed mostly to women, as he believed that attracting women and couples into arcades would potentially make them appear to be much more family friendly in tone. Iwatani began thinking of things that women liked to do in their time; he decided to center his game around eating, basing this on women liking to eat desserts and other sweets. His game was initially called Pakkuman , based on
3082-580: A result. These include Taxman (1981) and Snack Attack (1982) for the Apple II, Jawbreaker (1981) for the Atari 8-bit computers, Scarfman (1981) for the TRS-80, and K.C. Munchkin! (1981) for the Odyssey². Namco produced several other maze games, including Rally-X (1980), Dig Dug (1982), Exvania (1992), and Tinkle Pit (1994). Atari sued Philips for creating K.C. Munchkin in
3216-514: A similar style of between-level intermissions in 1979. Pac-Man was a turning point for the arcade video game industry, which had previously been dominated by space shoot 'em ups since Space Invaders (1978). Pac-Man popularized a genre of "character-led" action games , leading to a wave of character action games involving player characters in 1981, such as Nintendo 's prototypical platform game Donkey Kong , Konami 's Frogger and Universal Entertainment 's Lady Bug . Pac-Man
3350-442: A small video game development group within the company and ordered them to study several NEC -produced microcomputers to potentially create games with. One of the first people assigned to this division was a 24-year-old employee named Toru Iwatani . He created Namco's first video game Gee Bee in 1978, which while unsuccessful helped the company gain a stronger foothold in the quickly-growing video game industry. He assisted in
3484-399: A techno album which consists mostly of samples from the game. The character appears in the music video for Bloodhound Gang 's " Mope ", released in 2000. Here, the character is portrayed as a cocaine addict. On July 20, 2020, Gorillaz and Schoolboy Q , released a track entitled " Pac-Man " as a part of Gorillaz' Song Machine series to commemorate the game's 40th anniversary , with
3618-469: A total of 2.5 million copies sold as of 2008. More than one million copies of the group's Pac-Man Fever album (1982) were sold. In 1982, "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of " Taxman " by the Beatles as "Pac-Man". It was eventually released in 2017 as part of Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic . In 1992, Aphex Twin (with the name Power-Pill) released Pac-Man ,
3752-619: A total of more than $ 12 billion in revenue. Pac-Man was awarded "Best Commercial Arcade Game" at the 1982 Arcade Awards . Pac-Man also won the Video Software Dealers Association 's VSDA Award for Best Videogame. In 2001, Pac-Man was voted the greatest video game of all time by a Dixons poll in the UK. The Killer List of Videogames listed Pac-Man as the most popular game of all time. The list aggregator site Playthatgame currently ranks Pac-Man as
3886-627: A version for the Nintendo Famicom in 1984 as one of the console's first third-party titles, as well as a port for the MSX computer. The Famicom version was later released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Tengen , a subsidiary of Atari Games . Tengen produced an unlicensed version of the game in a black cartridge shell, released during a time when Tengen and Nintendo were in disagreements over
4020-573: Is a hidden extra in the arcade game Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - Class of 1981 (2001). A similar cabinet was released in 2005 that featured Pac-Man as the centerpiece. Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1993) and Pac-Man World 2 (2002) have Pac-Man as an unlockable extra. Alongside the Xbox 360 remake Pac-Man Championship Edition , it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 as part of Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions . The 2010 Wii game Pac-Man Party and its 2011 3DS remake include Pac-Man as
4154-649: Is commonly referred to by fans as the "Vader" model, due to its resemblance to the Star Wars character of the same name. Atari continued its OEM relationship with Sears under the latter's Tele-Games brand, which started in 1975 with the original Pong . This is unrelated to the company Telegames , which later produced 2600 cartridges. Sears released several models of the VCS as the Sears Video Arcade series starting in 1977. The final Sears-specific model
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4288-428: Is divided into six regions: Input is given through two Atari keypad controllers, which came with special overlays to show how to type the different commands and letters. Programs are restricted to 64 characters in size and normally 9 lines of code, limiting the programs that can be written (users can disable all windows except Program and keep selecting "New Line" until 11 lines of code are present). VCS BASIC supports
4422-720: Is named for a cosmetic resemblance to the character, in the mathematical study of the Mandelbrot set . The game's popularity has led to "Pac-Man" being adopted as a nickname, such as by boxer Manny Pacquiao and the American football player Adam Jones . In 2012, the Pac-Man was inducted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. This addition was part of an initial selection (Wave 1) of fourteen video games . On August 21, 2016, in
4556-510: Is the best-selling arcade game of all time, with total estimated earnings ranging from 10 billion coins and $ 3.5 billion ($ 7.7 billion adjusted for inflation) to $ 6 billion ( $ 19 billion adjusted for inflation) in arcades. Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man also topped the US RePlay cocktail arcade cabinet charts for 23 months, from February 1982 through 1983 up until February 1984 . The Atari 2600 version of
4690-432: The 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony , during a video which showcases Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics , a small segment shows Pac-Man and the ghosts racing and eating dots on a running track . A wide variety of Pac-Man merchandise have been marketed with the character's image. By 1982, Midway had about 95-105 licensees selling Pac-Man merchandise, including major companies, such as AT&T selling
4824-491: The Atari 5200 implementation a "splendidly reproduced" version of the arcade game, noting a difference in maze layouts for the television screen. It considered the Atari 2600 version to have "much weaker graphics", but to still be one of the best games for that console. In both cases the reviewer felt that the joystick controls were harder to use than those of the arcade machine, and that "attempts to make quick turns are often frustrated". Guinness World Records has awarded
4958-696: The Atari 8-bit computer version sold 42,359 copies in 1986 and 1990, Thunder Mountain's 1986 budget release for home computers received a Diamond certification from the Software Publishers Association in 1989 for selling over 500,000 copies, and mobile phone ports have sold over 30 million paid downloads as of 2010 . II Computing also listed the Atarisoft port tenth on the magazine's list of top Apple II games as of late 1985, based on sales and market-share data. As of 2016 , all versions of Pac-Man are estimated to have grossed
5092-663: 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
5226-741: The Game Link Cable peripheral. A version for the Game Gear was released a year later, which likewise enabled support for multiplayer. In celebration of the game's 20th anniversary in 1999, Namco re-released the Game Boy version for the Game Boy Color , bundled with Pac-Attack and titled Pac-Man: Special Color Edition . The same year, Namco and SNK co-published a port for the Neo Geo Pocket Color , which came with
5360-555: The Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008 , awarded in 2010. In 2009, Guinness World Records listed Pac-Man as the most recognizable video game character in the United States, recognized by 94% of the population, above Mario who was recognized by 93% of the population. In 2015, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Pac-Man to its World Video Game Hall of Fame . The Pac-Man character and game series became an icon of video game culture during
5494-503: The Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 as part of its Arcade Archives series, marking the first two Namco games to be included as part of the series. Pac-Man is included in many Namco compilations , including Namco Museum Vol. 1 (1995), Namco Museum 64 (1999), Namco Museum Battle Collection (2005), Namco Museum DS (2007), Namco Museum Essentials (2009), and Namco Museum Megamix (2010). In 1996, it
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5628-551: The Pac-Man series eight records in Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008 , including "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game". On June 3, 2010, at the NLGD Festival of Games, the game's creator, Toru Iwatani, officially received the certificate from Guinness World Records for Pac-Man having had the most "coin-operated arcade machines" installed worldwide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in
5762-428: The call stack , and the state of the game environment. The top bezel of the console originally had six switches: power, TV type selection (color or black-and-white), game selection, left and right player difficulty, and game reset. The difficulty switches were moved to the back of the bezel in later versions of the console. The back bezel also included the controller ports, TV output, and power input. The Atari 2600
5896-408: The greatest video games of all time . Pac-Man is an action maze chase video game; the player controls the eponymous character through an enclosed maze. The objective of the game is to eat all of the dots placed in the maze while avoiding four colored ghosts—Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (cyan), and Clyde (orange)—who pursue Pac-Man. When Pac-Man eats all of the dots, the player advances to
6030-480: The "P" in Puck Man to an "F". Masaya Nakamura chose to rename it to Pac-Man , as he felt it was closer to the game's original Japanese title of Pakkuman . In Europe, the game was released under both titles. After Puck Man was ruled out but before Pac-Man was decided upon, early American promotional material used the name Snapper . When Namco presented Pac-Man and Rally-X to potential distributors at
6164-438: The #53rd top game of all-time & game of the year. Pac-Man is considered by many to be one of the most influential video games of all time. The game established the maze chase game genre, was the first video game to make use of power-ups , and the individual ghosts have deterministic artificial intelligence (AI) that reacts to player actions. Pac-Man is considered one of the first video games to have demonstrated
6298-509: The 1980 AMOA tradeshow in November, executives believed that Rally-X would be the best-selling game of that year. According to Play Meter magazine, both Pac-Man and Rally-X received mild attention at the show. Namco had initially approached Atari to distribute Pac-Man , but Atari refused the offer. Midway Manufacturing subsequently agreed to distribute both Pac-Man and Rally-X in North America, announcing their acquisition of
6432-470: The 1980s . The game has inspired various real-life recreations, involving real people or robots. One event called Pac-Manhattan set a Guinness World Record for "Largest Pac-Man Game" in 2004. The business term " Pac-Man defense " in mergers and acquisitions refers to a hostile takeover target that attempts to reverse the situation and instead acquire its attempted acquirer, a reference to Pac-Man ' s energizers. The "Pac-Man renormalization "
6566-471: The 2600 in 1986, supported by an ad campaign touting a price of "under 50 bucks". With a large library of cartridges and a low price point, the 2600 continued to sell into the late 1980s. Atari released the last batch of games in 1989–90 including Secret Quest and Fatal Run . By 1986, over 20 million Atari VCS units had been sold worldwide. The final Atari-licensed release is the PAL-only version of
6700-461: The 2600 was supported with new games and television commercials promoting "The fun is back!". Atari released several minor stylistic variations: the "large rainbow" (shown), "short rainbow", and an all-black version sold only in Ireland. Later European versions include a joypad. The Atari 2700 was a version of the 2600 with wireless controllers. The CX2000, with integrated joystick controllers,
6834-512: The 2600. Mattel used the M Network brand name for its cartridges. Third-party games accounted for half of VCS game sales by 1982. In addition to third-party game development, Atari also received the first major threat to its hardware dominance from the ColecoVision. Coleco had a license from Nintendo to develop a version of the arcade game Donkey Kong (1981), which was bundled with every ColecoVision console. Coleco gained about 17% of
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#17327981955766968-413: The 2800. Designed by engineer Joe Tilly, the 2800 has four controller ports instead of the two of the 2600. The controllers are an all-in one design using a combination of an 8-direction digital joystick and a 270-degree paddle , designed by John Amber. The 2800's case design departed from the 2600, using a wedge shape with non-protruding switches. The case style is the basis for the Atari 7800 , which
7102-542: The 6507 and RIOT chips at $ 12 a pair. MOS also introduced Cyan to Microcomputer Associates , who had separately developed debugging software and hardware for MOS, and had developed the JOLT Computer for testing the 6502, which Peddle suggested would be useful for Atari and Cyan to use while developing their system. Milner was able to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a programmable console by implementing Tank , an arcade game by Atari's subsidiary Kee Games , on
7236-459: The 6507, the TIA, and other components, so the programmers creatively optimized their games to maximize the console. The console lacks a framebuffer and requires games to instruct the system to generate graphics in synchronization with the electron gun in the cathode-ray tube (CRT) as it scans across rows on the screen. The programmers found ways to " race the beam " to perform other functions while
7370-535: The Extra-Terrestrial , a game programmed in about six weeks. Atari produced an estimated four million cartridges, but the game was poorly reviewed, and only about 1.5 million units were sold. Warner Communications issued revised earnings guidance in December 1982 to its shareholders, having expected a 50% year-to-year growth but now only expecting 10–15% due to declining sales at Atari. Coupled with
7504-660: The Famicom; this version was released in North America and Europe under the Classic NES Series label. Namco Networks released Pac-Man for BREW mobile devices in 2005. The arcade original was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service in 2006, featuring achievements and online leaderboards. In 2009 a version for iOS devices was published; this release was rebranded as Pac-Man + Tournaments in 2013, featuring new mazes and leaderboards. The NES version
7638-558: The Ghostly Adventures aired on Disney XD from June 15, 2013 to May 25, 2015. The original Pac-Man game plays a key role in the plot of Ernest Cline 's video game-themed science fiction novel Ready Player One . The Buckner & Garcia song " Pac-Man Fever " (1981) went to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and received a Gold certification for more than 1 million records sold by 1982, and
7772-471: The JOLT. As part of the deal, Atari wanted a second source of the chipset. Peddle and Paivinen suggested Synertek whose co-founder, Bob Schreiner, was a friend of Peddle. In October 1975, Atari informed the market that it was moving forward with MOS. The Motorola sales team had already told its management that the Atari deal was finalized, and Motorola management was livid. They announced a lawsuit against MOS
7906-559: The Japanese character for mouth, kuchi ( Japanese : 口 ). The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. The original Japanese title of Puck Man was derived from the Japanese phrase paku paku taberu , which refers to gobbling something up; the title was changed to Pac-Man for the North American release. Pac-Man was a widespread critical and commercial success, leading to several sequels, merchandise, and two television series, as well as
8040-471: The Japanese onomatopoeia term "paku paku taberu", referencing the mouth movement of opening and closing in succession. The game that later became Pac-Man began development in early 1979 and took a year and five months to complete, the longest for a video game up to that point. Iwatani enlisted the help of nine other Namco employees to assist in production, including composer Toshio Kai, programmer Shigeo Funaki, and hardware engineer Shigeichi Ishimura. Care
8174-406: The US by 1982. Pac-Man related merchandise products included bumper stickers , jewellery , accessories (such as a $ 20,000 Ms. Pac-Man choker with 14 karat gold), bicycles , breakfast cereals , popsicles , t-shirts , toys and pasta. Lego released an exclusive set of a PAC-MAN arcade machine for their Lego Icons line. A Lego version of PAC-MAN, Clyde, and Blinky are featured on
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#17327981955768308-401: The US, before it caught on upon release there. Some arcades purchased entire rows of Pac-Man cabinets. It became a nationwide success. Upon release in 1980, it was earning about $ 8.1 million per week in the United States. Within one year, more than 100,000 arcade units had been sold which grossed more than $ 1 billion in quarters . It overtook Atari 's Asteroids (1979) as
8442-548: The United Kingdom during 1980, and 450,000 in West Germany by 1984. In France, where the VCS released in 1982, the system sold 600,000 units by 1989. The console was distributed by Epoch Co. in Japan in 1979 under the name "Cassette TV Game", but did not sell as well as Epoch's own Cassette Vision system in 1981. In 1982, Atari launched its second programmable console, the Atari 5200 . To standardize naming,
8576-472: 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
8710-503: The VCS was made in Sunnyvale during 1977, using thick polystyrene plastic for the casing as to give the impression of weight from what was mostly an empty shell inside. The initial Sunnyvale batch had also included potential mounts for an internal speaker system on the casing, though the speakers were found to be too expensive to include and instead sound was routed through the TIA to the connected television. All six console switches on
8844-660: The VCS was renamed to the "Atari 2600 Video Computer System", or "Atari 2600", derived from the manufacture part number CX2600. By 1982, the 2600 cost Atari about $ 40 to make and was sold for an average of $ 125 (equivalent to $ 390 in 2023). The company spent $ 4 .50 to $ 6 to manufacture each cartridge, plus $ 1 to $ 2 for advertising, wholesaling for $ 18.95 (equivalent to $ 60 in 2023). Activision , formed by Crane, Whitehead, and Miller in 1979, started developing third-party VCS games using their knowledge of VCS design and programming tricks, and began releasing games in 1980. Kaboom! (1981) and Pitfall! (1982) are among
8978-439: The VCS would render the console obsolete. However, the board stayed committed to the VCS and ignored Bushnell's advice, leading to his departure from Atari in 1979. Atari sold about 600,000 VCS systems in 1979, bringing the installed base to a little over 1.3 million. Atari obtained a license from Taito to develop a VCS conversion of its 1978 arcade hit Space Invaders . This is the first officially licensed arcade conversion for
9112-432: The annual Game Machine charts, dethroning Space Invaders (1978) which had topped the annual charts for two years in a row and leading to a shift in the Japanese market away from space shooters towards action games featuring comical characters. Pac-Man was Japan's fourth highest-grossing arcade game of 1981. In North America, Midway had limited expectations prior to release, initially manufacturing 5,000 units for
9246-469: The arcade game KLAX in 1990. After more than 14 years on the market, 2600 production ended in 1992, along with the Atari 7800 and Atari 8-bit computers . In Europe, last stocks of the 2600 were sold until Summer/Fall of 1995. The Atari 2600's CPU is the MOS Technology 6507 , a version of the 6502 , running at 1.19 MHz in the 2600. Though their internal silicon was identical, the 6507
9380-525: The basis for the Magnavox Odyssey . In mid-1976, Fairchild announced the Channel F, planned for release later that year, beating Atari to the market. By October 1976, Warner and Atari agreed to the purchase of Atari for $ 28 million . Warner provided an estimated $ 120 million which was enough to fast-track Stella. By 1977, development had advanced enough to brand it the "Atari Video Computer System" (VCS) and start developing games. The unit
9514-578: The best-selling arcade game in the country, and surpassed the film Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) with more than $ 1 billion in revenue. Pac-Man was the United States' highest-grossing arcade game of 1981 , and second highest game of 1982 . By 1982, it was estimated to have had 30 million active players across the United States. The game's success was partly driven by its popularity among female audiences, becoming "the first commercial videogame to involve large numbers of women as players" according to Midway's Stan Jarocki, with Pac-Man being
9648-553: The black areas around the screen to extend the game code's processing time. Regional releases of the Atari 2600 use modified TIA chips for each region's television formats, which require games to be developed and published separately for each region. All modes are 160 pixels wide. NTSC mode provides 192 visible lines per screen, drawn at 60 Hz , with 16 colors, each at 8 levels of brightness. PAL mode provides more vertical scanlines, with 228 visible lines per screen, but drawn at 50 Hz and only 13 colors. SECAM mode, also
9782-470: The case Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp. , leading to Munchkin being pulled from store shelves under court order. No major competitors emerged to challenge Pac-Man in the maze subgenre. Pac-Man inspired 3D variants of the concept, such as Monster Maze (1982), Spectre (1982), and early first-person shooters such as MIDI Maze (1987; which had similar character designs). John Romero credited Pac-Man as
9916-439: The code to the screen on the part of the programmer was labeled " racing the beam "; the actual game logic runs when the television beam is outside of the visible area of the screen. Early games for the system use the same visuals for pairs of scan lines, giving a lower vertical resolution, to allow more time for the next row of graphics to be prepared. Later games, such as Pitfall! , change the visuals for each scan line or extend
10050-486: The delay in shipping the units and consumers' unfamiliarity with a swappable-cartridge console that is not dedicated to only one game. In 1978, Atari sold only 550,000 of the 800,000 systems manufactured. This required further financial support from Warner to cover losses. Bushnell pushed the Warner Board of Directors to start working on "Stella 2", as he grew concerned that rising competition and aging tech specs of
10184-571: The electron gun scans outside of the visible screen. Alongside the electronics development, Bushnell brought in Gene Landrum, a consultant who had just prior consulted for Fairchild Camera and Instrument for its upcoming Channel F , to determine the consumer requirements for the console. In his final report, Landrum suggested a living room aesthetic, with a wood grain finish, and the cartridges must be "idiot proof, child proof and effective in resisting potential static [electricity] problems in
10318-565: The favorite coin-op game among female gamers through 1982. Among the nine arcade games covered by How to Win Video Games (1982), Pac-Man was the only one with females accounting for a majority of players. The number of arcade units sold had tripled to 400,000 by 1982, receiving an estimated total of between seven billion coins and $ 6 billion. In a 1983 interview, Nakamura said that though he did expect Pac-Man to be successful, "I never thought it would be this big." Pac-Man
10452-498: The flickering effect of the ghosts. However, it was a commercial success, selling over seven million copies. Atari released versions for the Intellivision , VIC-20 , Commodore 64 , Apple II , IBM PC compatibles , TI-99/4A , ZX Spectrum , and the Atari 8-bit computers . A port for the Atari 5200 was released in 1983, a version that is considered as a significant improvement over the Atari 2600 version. Namco released
10586-518: The following keywords: Unlike most BASIC implementations of the time: Special variable names: The language supports 26 unsigned integer variables A to Z. VCS BASIC supports integers from 0 to 99. Math operations wrap, so 99+1 becomes 0, 99+2 becomes 1, etc. The following example of a Pong game is provided. Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as
10720-442: The four corners of the maze are large flashing "energizers" or "power pellets". When Pac-Man eats one, the ghosts turn blue with a dizzied expression and reverse direction. Pac-Man can eat blue ghosts for bonus points; when a ghost is eaten, its eyes make their way back to the center box in the maze, where the ghost "regenerates" and resumes its normal activity. Eating multiple blue ghosts in succession increases their point value. After
10854-438: The front and replacing the previous all lowercase font for the switch labels to fully capitalized wording. Otherwise, these four-switch consoles look nearly identical to the earlier six-switch models. In 1982, to coincide with the release of the Atari 5200, Atari rebranded the console as the "Atari 2600", a name first used on a version of the four-switch model without woodgrain, giving it an all-black appearance. This all-black model
10988-428: The front panel. Production of the unit was moved to Taiwan in 1978, where a less thick internal metal shielding was used and thinner plastic was used for the casing, reducing the system's weight. These two versions are commonly referred to as "Heavy Sixers" and "Light Sixers" respectively, referencing the six front switches. In 1980, the difficulty switches were moved to the back of the console, leaving four switches on
11122-411: The game and called it "a cute game which appears to grow on players, something which cute games are not prone to do," saying that there's "more to the game than at first appears" but criticized the sound as a drawback, saying it is "good for awhile, then becomes annoying." Upon release, the game exceeded expectations with wide critical and commercial success. When it was first released in Japan, Pac-Man
11256-421: The game as well as rebranding some of its products after the ghosts. This included its house blend coffee (Clyde's Coffee Blend), two Slurpee flavors (Blinky's Cherry & Inky's Blueberry Raz), and a special limited time only cappuccino flavor (Pinky's Strawberry White Chocolate Cappuccino), the latter of which came out pink to match the ghost. Pac-Man themed merchandise sales had exceeded $ 1 billion in
11390-599: The game sold over 8 million copies, making it the console's best-selling title . In addition, Coleco 's tabletop mini-arcade unit sold over 1.5 million units in 1982, the Pac-Man Nelsonic Game Watch sold more than 500,000 units the same year, the Family Computer (Famicom) version and its 2004 Game Boy Advance re-release sold a combined 598,000 copies in Japan, the Atari 5200 version sold 35,011 cartridges between 1986 and 1988,
11524-401: The game that had the biggest influence on his career; Wolfenstein 3D includes a Pac-Man level from a first-person perspective. Many post- Pac-Man titles include power-ups that briefly turn the tables on the enemy. The game's artificial intelligence inspired programmers who later worked for companies like Bethesda . Reviewing home console versions in 1982, Games magazine called
11658-425: The game was done in June, followed by a nationwide release in July. Eyeing the game's success in Japan, Namco initialized plans to bring the game to the international market, particularly the United States. Before showing the game to distributors, Namco America made a number of changes, such as altering the names of the ghosts. Another was the game's title, as executives at Namco were worried that vandals would change
11792-561: The game, created by Toshio Kai. In a design session, Iwatani noisily ate fruit and made gurgling noises to describe to Kai how he wanted the eating effect to sound. Upon completion, the game was titled Puck Man , based on the working title and the titular character's distinct hockey puck-like shape. Location testing for Puck Man began on May 22, 1980, in Shibuya, Tokyo. Non-gamers responded well to it, finding it easy to learn, while arcade regulars were not impressed. A private showing for
11926-527: The ghosts be red and thus indistinguishable from one another. Iwatani believed that the ghosts should be different colors, and he received unanimous support from his colleagues for this idea. The ghosts were programmed to have their own distinct personalities, so as to keep the game from becoming too boring or impossibly difficult to play. Each ghost's name gives a hint to its strategy for tracking down Pac-Man: Shadow ("Blinky") always chases Pac-Man, Speedy ("Pinky") tries to get ahead of him, Bashful ("Inky") uses
12060-445: The ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points. Game development began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports. Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he rounded out
12194-446: The hardware market in 1982 compared to Atari's 58%. With third parties competing for market share, Atari worked to maintain dominance in the market by acquiring licenses for popular arcade games and other properties to make games from. Pac-Man has numerous technical and aesthetic flaws, but nevertheless more than 7 million copies were sold. Heading into the 1982 holiday shopping season, Atari had placed high sales expectations on E.T.
12328-606: The latter's stance on quality control for its consoles; this version was re-released by Namco as an official title in 1993, featuring a new cartridge label and box. The Famicom version was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1990 as a budget title for the Disk Writer kiosks in retail stores. The same year, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for the Game Boy , which allowed for two-player co-operative play via
12462-522: The licensing model that continues to be used by console manufacturers for game development. Activision's success led to the establishment of other third-party VCS game developers following Activision's model in the early 1980s, including U.S. Games , Telesys , Games by Apollo , Data Age , Zimag , Mystique , and CommaVid . The founding of Imagic included ex-Atari programmers. Mattel and Coleco, each already producing its own more advanced console, created simplified versions of their existing games for
12596-422: The manufacturing rights on November 22 and releasing them in December. Pac-Man was ported to several home video game systems and personal computers; the most infamous of these is the 1982 Atari 2600 conversion , designed by Tod Frye and published by Atari, Inc. This version of the game was widely criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the arcade version and for its peculiar design choices, most notably
12730-462: The most successful with at least one and four million copies sold, respectively. In 1980, Atari attempted to block the sale of the Activision cartridges, accusing the four of intellectual property infringement. The two companies settled out of court, with Activision agreeing to pay Atari a licensing fee for their games. This made Activision the first third-party video game developer and established
12864-463: The music video depicting the band's frontman, 2-D , playing a Gorillaz-themed Pac-Man arcade game. The Pac-Man character appears in the film Pixels (2015), with Denis Akiyama playing series creator Toru Iwatani. Iwatani makes a cameo at the beginning of the film as an arcade technician. Pac-Man is referenced and makes an appearance in the 2017 film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and
12998-448: 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. Atari, Inc. was founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1972. Its first major product
13132-573: The next level. Levels are indicated by fruit icons at the bottom of the screen. In between levels are short cutscenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky in humorous, comical situations. If Pac-Man is caught by a ghost, he loses a life; the game ends when all lives are lost. Each of the four ghosts has its own unique artificial intelligence (A.I.), or "personality": Blinky gives direct chase to Pac-Man; Pinky and Inky try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man, usually by cornering him; and Clyde switches between chasing Pac-Man and fleeing from him. Placed near
13266-430: The next week. By December 1975, Atari hired Joe Decuir , a recent graduate from University of California, Berkeley who had been doing his own testing on the 6502. Decuir began debugging the first prototype designed by Mayer and Milner, which gained the codename "Stella" after the brand of Decuir's bicycle. This prototype included a breadboard -level design of the graphics interface to build upon. A second prototype
13400-477: The only other major producer of home consoles at the time. Atari engineers recognized, however, the limitation of custom logic integrated onto the circuit board, permanently confining the whole console to only one game. The increasing competition increased the risk, as Atari had found with past arcade games and again with dedicated home consoles. Both platforms are built from integrating discrete electro-mechanical components into circuits, rather than programmed as on
13534-431: The oversaturated home game market, Atari's weakened position led investors to start pulling funds out of video games, beginning a cascade of disastrous effects known as the video game crash of 1983 . Many of the third-party developers formed prior to 1983 were closed, and Mattel and Coleco left the video game market by 1985. In September 1983, Atari sent 14 truckloads of unsold Atari 2600 cartridges and other equipment to
13668-544: The player progresses: the ghosts become faster, and the energizers' effect decreases in duration, eventually disappearing entirely. An integer overflow causes the 256th level to load improperly, rendering it impossible to complete. This is known as a kill screen . After acquiring the struggling Japanese division of Atari in 1974, video game developer Namco began producing its own video games in-house, as opposed to licensing them from other developers and distributing them in Japan. Company president Masaya Nakamura created
13802-422: The potential of characters in the medium ; its title character was the first original gaming mascot , it increased the appeal of video games with female audiences , and it was gaming's first broad licensing success. It is often cited as the first game with cutscenes (in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and Blinky chasing each other), though actually Space Invaders Part II employed
13936-527: The production of two sequels, Bomb Bee and Cutie Q , both released in 1979. The Japanese video game industry had surged in popularity with games such as Space Invaders and Breakout , which led to the market being flooded with similar titles from other manufacturers in an attempt to cash in on the success. Iwatani felt that arcade games only appealed to men for their crude graphics and violence, and that arcades in general were seen as seedy environments. For his next project, Iwatani chose to create
14070-471: 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,
14204-402: The release of the home version of Pong , Cyan's engineers, led by Mayer and Ron Milner, had envisioned a home console powered by new programmable microprocessors capable of playing Atari's current arcade offerings. The programmable microprocessors would make a console's design significantly simpler and more powerful than any dedicated single-game unit. However, the cost $ 100–300 of such chips
14338-477: The same colors as the players; and a 1-pixel ball , which shares the background color. The 1-bit sprites all can be controlled to stretch to 1, 2, 4, or 8 pixels. The system was designed without a frame buffer to avoid the cost of the associated RAM . The background and sprites apply to a single scan line , and as the display is output to the television, the program can change colors, sprite positions, and background settings. The careful timing required to sync
14472-451: The scale it needed, and began considering a sale to a larger firm by early 1976. Atari was introduced to Warner Communications , which saw the potential for the growing video game industry to help offset declining profits from its film and music divisions. Negotiations took place during 1976, during which Atari cleared itself of liabilities, including settling a patent infringement lawsuit with Magnavox over Ralph H. Baer 's patents that were
14606-420: 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
14740-534: The television's antenna. Atari developed the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) chip in the VCS to handle the graphics and conversion to a television signal. It provides a single-color, 20-bit background register that covers the left half of the screen (each bit represents 4 adjacent pixels) and is either repeated or reflected on the right side. There are 5 single-color sprites : two 8-pixel wide players ; two 1 bit missiles , which share
14874-475: The time; this technological accomplishment allowed Iwatani to greatly enhance his game with bright pastel colors, which he felt would help attract players. The idea for energizers was a concept Iwatani borrowed from Popeye the Sailor , a cartoon character that temporarily acquires superhuman strength after eating a can of spinach; it is believed that Iwatani was partly inspired by a Japanese children's story about
15008-459: The top of the machine, with a minifigure playing a miniature version of the machine. The Pac-Man animated television series produced by Hanna–Barbera aired on ABC from 1982 to 1983. It was the highest-rated Saturday morning cartoon show in the US during late 1982. A computer-generated animated series produced by Bandai Namco Games , 41 Entertainment , Arad Productions , OLM Digital and Sprite Animation Studios titled Pac-Man and
15142-595: The video game, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy . The game, the character, and the ghosts all appear in the film Wreck-It Ralph , as well as the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet . In Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale , Kirito and his friends beat a virtual reality game called PAC-Man 2026 , which is loosely based on Pac-Man 256 . In the Japanese tokusatsu film Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Riders ,
15276-444: Was Pong , released in 1972, the first successful coin-operated video game . While Atari continued to develop new arcade games in following years, Pong gave rise to a number of competitors to the growing arcade game market. The competition along with other missteps by Atari led to financial problems in 1974, though recovering by the end of the year. By 1975, Atari had released a Pong home console , competing against Magnavox ,
15410-524: Was a redesign based on human factor analysis by Henry Dreyfuss Associates . Pac-Man Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and released by Namco for arcades . In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man , who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "Power Pellets" causes
15544-532: Was cheaper than the 6502 because its package included fewer memory-address pins—13 instead of 16. The designers of the Atari 2600 selected an inexpensive cartridge interface that has one fewer address pins than the 13 allowed by the 6507, further reducing the already limited addressable memory from 8 KB (2 = 8,192) to 4 KB (2 = 4,096). This was believed to be sufficient as Combat was only 2 KB. Later games circumvented this limitation with bank switching . The console has 128 bytes of RAM for scratch space,
15678-405: Was completed by March 1976 with the help of Jay Miner , who created a chip called the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) to send graphics and audio to a television. The second prototype included a TIA, a 6507, and a ROM cartridge slot and adapter. As the TIA's design was refined, Al Alcorn brought in Atari's game developers to provide input on features. There are significant limitations in
15812-513: Was complicated by the use of cartridges. The Atari VCS was launched in September 1977 at $ 199 (equivalent to about $ 1,000 in 2023), with two joysticks and a Combat cartridge; eight additional games were sold separately. Most of the launch games were based on arcade games developed by Atari or its subsidiary Kee Games : for example, Combat was based on Kee's Tank (1974) and Atari's Jet Fighter (1975). Atari sold between 350,000 and 400,000 Atari VCS units during 1977, attributed to
15946-404: Was designed to be compatible with the cathode-ray tube television sets produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which commonly lack auxiliary video inputs to receive audio and video from another device. Therefore, to connect to a TV, the console generates a radio frequency signal compatible with the regional television standards ( NTSC , PAL , or SECAM ), using a special switch box to act as
16080-516: Was far outside the range that their market would tolerate. Atari had opened negotiations to use Motorola's new 6800 in future systems. In September 1975, MOS Technology debuted the 6502 microprocessor for $ 25 at the Wescon trade show in San Francisco. Mayer and Milner attended, and met with the leader of the team that created the chip, Chuck Peddle . They proposed using the 6502 in
16214-403: Was initially only a modest success; Namco's own Galaxian (1979) had quickly outdone the game in popularity because its predominately male player base was familiar with its shooting gameplay as opposed to Pac-Man ' s cute characters and maze-chase theme. Pac-Man eventually became very successful in Japan, where it went on to be Japan's highest-grossing arcade game of 1980 according to
16348-484: Was inspired by the television series Casper the Friendly Ghost and the manga Obake no Q-Taro . Ghosts were chosen as the game's main antagonists because they were used as villainous characters in animation. The idea for the fruit bonuses was based on graphics displayed on slot machines, which often use symbols such as cherries and bells. Originally, Namco president Masaya Nakamura had requested that all of
16482-422: 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
16616-452: Was one of the first popular non-shooting action games, defining key elements of the genre such as "parallel visual processing" which requires simultaneously keeping track of multiple entities, including the player's location, the enemies, and the energizers. Maze games became popular on home computers after the release of Pac-Man . Some of them appeared before official ports and garnered more attention from consumers, and sometimes lawyers, as
16750-432: 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
16884-640: Was re-released for arcades as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 , alongside Dig Dug , Rally-X and special "Arrangement" remakes of all three titles. Microsoft included Pac-Man in Microsoft Return of Arcade (1995) as a way to help attract video game companies to its Windows 95 operating system. Namco released the game in the third volume of Namco History in Japan in 1998. The 2001 Game Boy Advance compilation Pac-Man Collection compiles Pac-Man , Pac-Mania , Pac-Attack and Pac-Man Arrangement onto one cartridge. Pac-Man
17018-478: Was redesigned for the 7800 by Barney Huang. The cost-reduced 1986 model, sometimes referred to as the "2600 Jr.", has a smaller form factor with an Atari 7800 -like appearance. It was advertised as a budget gaming system (under $ 50 ) with the ability to run a large collection of games. Released after the video game crash of 1983, and after the North American launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System ,
17152-650: Was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007. A Roku version was released in 2011, alongside a port of the Game Boy release for the 3DS Virtual Console . Pac-Man was one of four titles released under the Arcade Game Series brand, which was published for the Xbox One , PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016. In 2021, according to Nintendo Direct , it was announced that Hamster Corporation would release Pac-Man , along with Xevious , for
17286-539: Was released later for a series of games aimed at a younger audience. The CX22 Trak-Ball controller was announced in January 1983 and is compatible with the Atari 8-bit computers. There were two attempts to turn the Atari 2600 into a keyboard-equipped home computer : Atari's never-released CX3000 "Graduate" keyboard, and the CompuMate keyboard by Spectravideo which was released in 1983. The initial production of
17420-525: Was replaced with the CX40 model designed by James C. Asher. Because the Atari joystick port and CX40 joystick became industry standards, 2600 joysticks and some other peripherals work with later systems, including the MSX , Commodore 64 , Amiga , Atari 8-bit computers , and Atari ST . The CX40 joystick can be used with the Master System and Sega Genesis , but does not provide all the buttons of
17554-642: Was showcased on June 4, 1977, at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show with plans for retail release in October. The announcement was purportedly delayed to wait out the terms of the Magnavox patent lawsuit settlement, which would have given Magnavox all technical information on any of Atari's products announced between June 1, 1976, and June 1, 1977. However, Atari encountered production problems during its first batch, and its testing
17688-443: Was sufficiently different to avoid patent conflicts, but the exterior components were directly influenced by the Channel F to help work around the static electricity concerns. Atari was still recovering from its 1974 financial woes and needed additional capital to fully enter the home console market, though Bushnell was wary of being beholden to outside financial sources.> Atari obtained smaller investments through 1975, but not at
17822-409: Was taken to make the game appeal to a "non-violent" audience, particularly women, with its usage of simple gameplay and cute, attractive character designs. When the game was being developed, Namco was underway with designing Galaxian , which used a then-revolutionary RGB color display, allowing sprites to use several colors at once instead of using colored strips of cellophane that was commonplace at
17956-481: Was the Video Arcade II, released during the fall of 1982. Sears released versions of Atari's games with Tele-Games branding, usually with different titles. Three games were produced by Atari for Sears as exclusive releases: Steeplechase , Stellar Track , and Submarine Commander . The Atari 2800 is the Japanese version of the 2600 released in October 1983. It is the first Japan-specific release of
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