137-626: 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
274-413: 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 the delay in shipping the units and consumers' unfamiliarity with
411-474: 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
548-516: 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$ 566,000 in 2023) plus time to complete, but the final product only had about a three-month shelf life until becoming outdated by competition.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
685-688: 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
822-516: 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 was replaced with
959-465: A bear that mumbled/echoed a child's words back to him/her. In the late 1980s, Axlon managed the development of two new games for the Atari 2600, most likely as part of a marketing attempt to revive sales of the system, already more than a decade old. This included Motorodeo, a monster truck -themed games that was one of the last games developed for the Atari 2600 system, being released in 1990. The company
1096-504: A board meeting with Warner near the end of the year, reiterated this position. Bushnell recommended that funds be used in R&;D for developing a new, technologically superior console, as he feared rising competition would make the aging tech specs of the VCS obsolete. Bushnell's concerns never materialized as a combination of Kassar's marketing and the popularity of Taito 's Space Invaders at
1233-607: A buyer. Warner Communications , looking to boost their own failing media properties, agreed to acquire Atari for $ 28 million , with Bushnell personally receiving US$ 15 million , in November 1976. Warner provided a large investment into the Atari VCS to allow it to be completed early the next year and released in September 1977. The first year of Atari VCS sales were modest and limited by Atari's own supply. While many of initial games were arcade conversions of Atari arcade games,
1370-417: A company that develops a portable large-scale VR system for enterprises to train e.g., security forces. Nolan is on the advisory board of Anti-AgingGames.com and was a co-founder of the company, featuring online memory, concentration, and focus games for healthy people over 35. BrainRush is a company that uses video game technology in educational software where he is Founder, CEO and chairman. The company
1507-551: 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
SECTION 10
#17327799487121644-511: A degree with personal computers , using similar component and system design, including standardization with main computer chip architecture. Consoles remain as fixed systems, lacking the customization options that personal computer components have, and most consoles include customized components to maximize space and reduce power consumption to provide the best performance for game playing, while lowering costs with reduced storage and memory configurations. Home video game consoles typically can play
1781-466: A few months later, with Kassar being named as Atari's CEO by mid-1979. In 1977, while at Atari, Bushnell purchased Pizza Time Theatre back from Warner Communications. It had been created by Bushnell, originally as a place where kids could go and eat pizza and play video games , which would therefore function as a distribution channel for Atari games. Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre also had animatronic animals that played music as entertainment. It
1918-522: A film and turned these offers down, he accepted an offer made by Paramount Pictures in June 2008 with a script by Craig Sherman and Brian Hecker, with Leonardo DiCaprio envisioned to star as Bushnell. While news of the film was quiet over the next ten years, in March 2018, film financing company Vision Tree was working to start an initial coin offering for cryptocurrency to raise up to US$ 40 million for
2055-622: 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
2192-590: A game similar to Chicago Coin 's Speedway , which at the time was the biggest-selling electro-mechanical game at his arcade. After Bushnell attended a Burlingame, California demonstration of the Magnavox Odyssey , he gave the task of making the Magnavox tennis game into a coin-op version to Alcorn as a test project. He told Alcorn that he was making the game for General Electric, in order to motivate him, but in actuality he planned to simply dispose of
2329-482: 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
2466-409: A later statement to Kotaku , Bushnell cautioned that "exploring these kinds of issues through a finite, 40-year-old prism [does not offer] a productive reflection of our company", and referred to feedback from his former employees. Kotaku spoke to a dozen female former Atari employees, some whom had already spoken out on social media. All who agreed that while the company's 1970s and 1980s workplace
2603-429: A multitude of games, offered either as game cartridges (or ROM cartridges), on optical media like CD-ROM or DVD, or obtained by digital distribution . Early consoles, also considered dedicated consoles, had games that were fixed in the electronic circuitry of the hardware. Some facets may be controlled by switching external controls on the console but the games could not be changed themselves. Most home consoles require
2740-501: A separate game controller, and may support multiple controllers for multiplayer games. Some console games can only be played with special, unconventional game controllers, such as light guns for rail shooters and guitar controllers for music games . Some consoles also possess the ability to connect and interface with a particular handheld game system, which certain games can leverage to provide alternate control schemes, second screen gameplay elements, exclusive unlockable content or
2877-522: A series of home video game consoles begins in a generation and lasts to another generation, it is listed in the generation the series began. This list does not claim to be complete. This list does not include other types of video game consoles such as handheld game consoles , which are usually of lower computational power than home consoles due to their smaller size; microconsoles , which are usually low-cost Android-based devices that rely on downloading; retro style consoles ; or dedicated consoles past
SECTION 20
#17327799487123014-502: A single dedicated game, such as home Pong consoles. Documented consoles of this generation can be found at list of first generation home video game consoles . 128-bit (SIMD) 128-bit (SIMD) 128-bit extensions Nolan Bushnell Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into
3151-470: 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 the VCS would render the console obsolete. However,
3288-510: A television screen or computer monitor, and to an external power source, to play video games on using one or more video game controllers . This differs from a handheld game console which will have a built-in screen, controller buttons/features, and a power supply like a battery or battery pack. Earlier home consoles were typically built from a selection of standard and highly customized integrated computer chips, packaged onto circuit boards and cases. Over time, home console design has converged to
3425-479: 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 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
3562-582: A test in Spanish language vocabulary learning with over 2200 teachers and 80,000 students across the country and got an increase in learning speed of between 8–10 times traditional learning. BrainRush rolled out the full platform in the fall of 2013. On March 6, 2019, Nolan was appointed CEO and Chairman of publicly traded company Global Gaming Technologies Corp. Bushnell was featured in the documentary film Something Ventured about venture capital development, as well as Atari: Game Over , which documented
3699-470: A third Southern California restaurant and one in Mountain View, California . All the restaurants have since closed. On April 19, 2010, Atari SA , the owner of the Atari brand and its home legacy since 2001, announced that Nolan Bushnell would join the company's board of directors. It marked his de facto return to Atari after more than 30 years. Bushnell is also one of the founders of Modal VR,
3836-638: 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 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,
3973-480: A touchscreen interface bar-top/arcade system that would also provide internet access, phone calls, and online networked tournaments; and a digital jukebox, capable of storing thousands of songs and downloading new releases. By late 1997 the company was facing financial troubles and was planning to withdraw the units it had released in the field and relaunch the line with improvements to the credit card swipe system and internet connections. The company died shortly before
4110-447: A toxic work environment at Atari for women that became the foundation for the then-future video game industry, based on several documented interviews and accounts of Atari at the time of the 1970s and 1980s; a notable example was of Bushnell holding board meetings in a hot tub and invited female secretaries to join them. Wu and others asserted that while Bushnell had done much for the industry, recognizing him with this type of award during
4247-464: A wholly owned subsidiary of Tele Atlas . While many of the ideas eventually led to current-day innovations, most of Catalyst's companies eventually failed due to a lack of underlying technology available in the 1980s to sustain these high-tech innovations. For example, Catalyst's companies included CinemaVision, which attempted to develop high-definition television. Cumma attempted to distribute video games using special vending machines that would write
Atari 2600 - Misplaced Pages Continue
4384-623: 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 the VCS was made in Sunnyvale during 1977, using thick polystyrene plastic for
4521-598: 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
4658-506: Is known that Bushnell had always wanted to work for Walt Disney, but was continually turned down for employment when he was first starting out after graduation; Chuck E. Cheese was his homage to Disney and the technology developed there. In 1981 Bushnell turned over day-to-day food operations of Chuck E. Cheese's to a newly hired restaurant executive and focused on Catalyst Technologies . Through 1981 and 1982, Bushnell concentrated on PTT subsidiaries Sente Technologies and Kadabrascope. Sente
4795-408: Is right, specifically with regards to how people should be treated in the workplace. And if that means an award is the price I have to pay personally so the whole industry may be more aware and sensitive to these issues, I applaud that, too. If my personal actions or the actions of anyone who ever worked with me offended or caused pain to anyone at our companies, then I apologize without reservation. In
4932-648: Is using video game technology in educational software. He is credited with Bushnell's Law , an aphorism about games that are "easy to learn and difficult to master" being rewarding. Bushnell was born in 1943 in Clearfield, Utah , in a middle-class family who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . He attended Davis High School in the nearby town of Kaysville, Utah . Bushnell enrolled at Utah State University in 1961 to study engineering and then later business. In 1964, he transferred to
5069-699: The Atari 5200 . To standardize naming, 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
5206-644: The University of Utah College of Engineering , where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering . He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity . He was one of many computer science students of the 1960s who played the historic Spacewar! game on DEC mainframe computers. He married his first wife, Paula Rochelle Nielson, in 1966 and had two daughters; in 1969, they moved to California. They divorced in 1975, just prior to Warner Communication's purchase of Atari. Around
5343-823: The Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Nations Restaurant News "Innovator of the Year" award, and was named one of Newsweek ' s "50 Men Who Changed America". He has started more than 20 companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry . He is on the board of Anti-Aging Games. In 2012, he founded an educational software company called Brainrush, that
5480-428: 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
5617-415: The dot-com bubble burst with its prototype machines still in development in 1997. Before BrainRush, Bushnell's most recent company was uWink , a company that evolved out of an early project called In10City (pronounced 'Intensity') which was a concept of an entertainment complex and dining experience. uWink was started by Bushnell and his business adviser Loni Reeder, who also designed the original logo for
Atari 2600 - Misplaced Pages Continue
5754-466: 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
5891-459: 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,
6028-511: 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
6165-412: 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
6302-505: 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 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
6439-646: 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 a native controller. Third-party controllers include Wico's Command Control joystick. Later,
6576-578: 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 was released later for a series of games aimed at
6713-459: The Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza brand by 1993. Today over 560 locations of this restaurant are in business. Bushnell founded Catalyst Technologies , one of the earliest business incubators . The Catalyst Group companies numbered in the double digits and included Androbot , Etak , Cumma, and Axlon. Axlon launched many consumer and consumer electronic products successfully, most notably AG Bear ,
6850-531: 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
6987-557: 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 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,
SECTION 50
#17327799487127124-399: The ability to transfer certain game data. The first commercial video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey , developed by a team led by Ralph H. Baer and released commercially in 1972. It was shortly followed by the release of the home version of Pong by Atari Inc. in 1975 based on the arcade game. A number of clones of both systems rushed to fill the nascent home console market and
7261-428: The arcade drove Atari VCS sales. Both Warner Communications and Bushnell commonly recognized he was no longer a good leader for the company, removing him as CEO and Chairman in early 1979. Warner offered Bushnell the opportunity to stay as a director and creative consultant, but Bushnell refused. Before leaving, Bushnell negotiated the rights to Pizza Time Theatre from Atari for $ 500,000 . Keenan replaced Bushnell but left
7398-465: 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
7535-440: 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
7672-426: The arcade game market and creation of Atari. There had been debate between whether Bushnell or Ralph H. Baer , who is credited with creating the first home video game console, should be considered the father of video games, which had led to some bad blood between the two inventors. However, the industry recognized that Baer should be considered the father of home video gaming, while Bushnell is credited with innovating
7809-640: The arcade game. At the British Academy Video Games Awards on March 10, 2009, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded the Academy Fellowship to Bushnell in recognition of his outstanding achievement as a founding father of the video games industry. Since 2008, there has been interest to a biographical film about Bushnell's life. While Bushnell had been approached by others to make such
7946-476: 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. Atari, Inc.
8083-410: The beginnings of what became Pixar . During this time Bushnell was using large loans on his Pizza Time stock to fund Catalyst. By the end of 1983, Chuck E. Cheese was having serious financial problems. President and long-time friend Joe Keenan resigned that fall. Nolan tried to step back in, blaming the money problems on over-expansion, too much tweaking of the formula and saturation in local markets by
8220-576: The best-selling console to date with over 155 million units sold. Microsoft, fearing that the PlayStation 2 was threatening the competitive edge of the personal computer, entered the console space with its Xbox line in 2001. Internet connectivity had become commonplace by the mid-2000s, and nearly all home consoles supported digital distribution and online service offerings by the 2010s. With Sony and Microsoft's dominance in hardware capabilities, most other major manufacturers have since dropped out of
8357-551: 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
SECTION 60
#17327799487128494-510: 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 a home console. Atari sold 1.25 million Space Invaders cartridges and over 1 million VCS systems in 1980, nearly doubling
8631-403: 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 the front panel. Production of the unit
8768-437: 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
8905-570: The company and founded Activision , becoming the first third-party developer. Activision's success led to a rush of new developers creating games without any publishing controls for these systems. The market became flooded with games, and combined with the rising popularity of the personal computer and the economic recession of the early 1980s, led to the video game crash of 1983 in the U.S. market. Nintendo , which had released its Family Computer console in Japan that year, took several cautionary steps to limit game production to only licensed games, and
9042-453: The company financially stable, Atari entered the consumer electronics market, with its home Pong consoles first released in 1975. Atari continued to make variants of its existing arcade games for dedicated home consoles until 1977. During this period, former Atari employees Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had approached Bushnell about investing in their home computer system, the Apple I , that
9179-435: The company. The company has gone through several failed iterations including a touch-screen kiosk design, a company to run cash and prize awards as part of their uWin concept and also an online Entertainment Systems network. After nearly 7 years and over $ 24 million in investor funding, the touchscreen kiosks/bartop model was closed amid complaints of unpaid prizes and lack of maintaining service agreements with locations to keep
9316-400: 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 a living room environment". Landrum recommended it include four to five dedicated games in addition to the cartridges, but this was dropped in
9453-401: The current leading manufacturers being Sony , Microsoft , and Nintendo , colloquially known as the "Big 3." Past console manufacturers have included Atari , Fairchild , Mattel , Coleco , Sega , NEC , 3DO , Fujitsu and SNK . A home video game console is a predesigned piece of electronic hardware that is meant to be placed at a fixed location at one's home, connected to a display like
9590-422: The current video game industry. Kotaku observed that the percentage of females in the video game industry has declined since 1991 to as low as 15% as of 2016, which is difficult to attribute, but suggested may be tied to a portion of women that would not be able to withstand the type of workplace of the 1980s Atari. In an editorial , Dean Takahashi suggested the current environment within the video game industry
9727-511: The dominant console type of the era, though not all consoles of those eras are of the same type. Some eras are referred to based on how many bits a major console could process. The "128-bit era" ( sixth generation ) was the final era in which this practice was widespread. This list only counts the first iteration of each console's hardware, because several systems have had slim, enhanced or other hardware revisions, but they are not individually listed here. The list also includes unreleased systems. If
9864-463: The end of 1977, he married Nancy Nino, with whom he had six children. He also used his profit from selling Atari to Warner to purchase the former mansion of coffee magnate James Folger in Woodside, California . Although he was a Latter-day Saint in his youth, by the time of his first divorce he had forgone the teachings often being called a "lapsed Mormon". He said that he stopped practicing
10001-580: The end of the year. By 1975, Atari had released a Pong home console , competing against Magnavox , 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
10138-591: The failure of the restaurants was the placement of the restaurants. The Woodland Hills location was on the second floor of a suburban shopping mall and the Hollywood location practically hidden with minimal visibility on a higher level of a shopping center complex. The first Bistro opened in Woodland Hills, California on October 16, 2006. A second in Hollywood was established, and in 2008 the company opened
10275-558: The faith after he got into a debate over the interpretation of the Bible with a professor at the University of Utah's Institute of Religion while in college. Bushnell worked at Lagoon Amusement Park for many years while attending college. He was made manager of the games department two seasons after starting. While working there, he became familiar with arcade electro-mechanical games , watching customers play and helping to maintain
10412-745: The film, which was set to be produced by DiCaprio's studio Appian Way Productions , Vision Tree, and Avery Productions. In January 2018, the Advisory Committee of the Game Developers Choice Awards announced that Bushnell would receive the Pioneer Award at the March ceremony at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), crediting his role at Atari. That day, several people through social media, including Brianna Wu , claimed Bushnell fostered
10549-479: 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 was sufficiently different to avoid patent conflicts, but the exterior components were directly influenced by the Channel F to help work around
10686-470: The first Pizza Time Theatre in San Jose in 1977 as a means for Atari to stock its arcade games. As Atari faced more competition in both arcade and home consoles from 1975 onward, Bushnell recognized that the costs in developing both types of systems with only limited shelf life were too high, and directed Atari's engineers at Cyan Engineering towards a programmable home console. This console eventually
10823-399: The first generation, which have games built in and do not use any form of physical media. Consoles have been redesigned from time to time to improve their market appeal. Redesigned models are not listed on their own. The list omits the more than 900 home video game consoles known to have been released in the first generation of video game consoles , those that were generally game consoles for
10960-440: The game onto discs on demand. ByVideo developed an early online shopping experience using kiosks and Laser Discs that allowed shoppers to virtually purchase products that would then be delivered later. After a failed bid to purchase Atari Games in 1996, the company which carried on Atari's arcade legacy, Nolan Bushnell became senior consultant to the small game developer Aristo International after it bought Borta, Inc., where he
11097-438: The game well, and decided that his next game would be licensed to a bigger manufacturer. Bushnell also knew that the next game they developed would need to be simpler and not require users to read instructions on the cabinet, since their target audience would likely be drunken bar patrons. In 1972, Bushnell and Dabney set off on their own, and learned that the name "Syzygy" was in use; Bushnell has said at different times that it
11234-403: The game. Alcorn incorporated many of his own improvements into the game design, such as the ball speeding up the longer the game went on, and Pong was born. Pong proved to be very popular; Atari released a large number of Pong -based arcade video games over the next few years as the mainstay of the company. After the release of Pong , Bushnell and Dabney had a falling-out: Dabney felt he
11371-552: The hardware business, but maintain a presence in the game development and licensing space. Nintendo remains the only competitor having taken a blue ocean strategy by offering more original console concepts such as motion sensing in the Wii and the hybrid design of the Nintendo Switch . Within the home video game console market, the leading consoles have often been grouped into generations, consoles that were major competitors in
11508-445: 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.
11645-403: The industrial engineering department at the U of U. For several summers, he built his own advertising company, Campus Company, which produced blotters for four universities and sold advertising space around a calendar of events. He also sold copies of Encyclopedia Americana . After graduating, Bushnell had moved to California from Utah with the hopes of being hired by Disney , but the company
11782-805: 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 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
11919-481: The intention of producing a Spacewar clone known as Computer Space . Dabney built the prototype and Bushnell shopped it around, looking for a manufacturer. They made an agreement with Nutting Associates , a maker of coin-op trivia and shooting games, that produced a fiberglass cabinet for the unit that included a coin-slot mechanism. Computer Space was a commercial failure, though sales exceeded $ 3 million. Bushnell felt that Nutting Associates had not marketed
12056-414: The issue with the committee. Some stated that those who accused Bushnell of sexism did not take into consideration the culture of the time, and there was a clear and distinct difference between the sexualized occurrences at Atari in the 1970s, and the real harassment and threats faced by women in the current #MeToo movement. The situation has led to discussion of how the Atari workplace may have influenced
12193-430: The kiosk/bartop units in working condition. The latest iteration (announced in 2005) is a new interactive entertainment restaurant called the uWink Media Bistro, whose concept builds off his Chuck E. Cheese venture and previous 1988–1989 venture Bots Inc., which developed similar systems of customer-side point-of-sale touch-screen terminals in addition to autonomous pizza delivery robots for Little Caesars Pizza . The plan
12330-518: 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
12467-566: The machinery while learning how it worked, developing his understanding of how the game business operates. He was also interested in the Midway arcade games , where theme park customers would have to use skill and luck to ultimately achieve the goal and win the prize. He liked the concept of getting people curious about the game and from there getting them to pay the fee in order to play. While in college, he worked for several employers, including Litton Guidance and Control Systems , Hadley Ltd, and
12604-610: The management team. He resigned in February 1984, when the board of directors rejected his proposed changes, and Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater (now named after its famous rat mascot) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March of 1984. ShowBiz Pizza Place , a competing Pizza/Arcade family restaurant, then purchased Pizza Time Theatre in May 1985 and assumed its debt. The newly formed company, ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc., operated restaurants under both brands before unifying all locations under
12741-588: 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 was showcased on June 4, 1977, at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show with plans for retail release in October. The announcement
12878-460: The marketplace. There have been nine generations of consoles since the 1970s, with a new generation appearing about every five years. There are more than 1000 home video game consoles known to exist, the vast majority of which were released during the first generation: only 103 home video game consoles were released between the second and current generation, 15 were canceled. This list is divided into console generations which are named based on
13015-461: 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
13152-468: The notion of " bits " as a major selling point for consumers. The consumer adoption of optical discs with larger storage capacity in the mid-1995 led many console manufactures to move away from cartridges to CD-ROMs and later to DVDs and other formats, with Sony's PlayStation line introducing even more features that gave it an advantage in the market; the PlayStation 2 , released in 2000, remains
13289-472: The ongoing #MeToo movement was sending the wrong message. Wu stated, "Nolan Bushnell deserves to be honored, but this is not the right time for it. It's easy to draw a line between the culture he created at Atari and the structural sexism women in tech face today." The hashtag "#NotNolan" was shared by those with similar complaints about the GDC's choice. The following day, the Advisory Committee reconsidered
13426-429: 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
13563-450: 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 the basis for the Magnavox Odyssey . In mid-1976, Fairchild announced the Channel F, planned for release later that year, beating Atari to
13700-414: 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
13837-401: 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
13974-476: 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
14111-448: The second wave of games in 1983 were more abstract and difficult to promote. Warner placed Ray Kassar , a former vice president of Burlington Industries , to help with Atari's marketing. Kassar created successful advertising and marketing throughout 1978, positioning the Atari VCS for a larger sales period at the end of the year. However, Bushnell had concerns on Kassar's plans and feared they had produced too many units to be sold, and at
14248-443: The selection of Bushnell for the award and announced the Pioneer Award would not be awarded, and instead it would be used that year to "honor the pioneering and unheard voices of the past". GDC further stated that they believed their selections "should reflect the values of today's game industry". Bushnell released a statement agreeing with the committee's decision: I applaud the GDC for ensuring that their institution reflects what
14385-549: 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 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
14522-438: 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 the scale it needed, and began considering a sale to a larger firm by early 1976. Atari was introduced to Warner Communications , which saw
14659-400: 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
14796-539: 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 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
14933-490: The system, most consoles since support the use of swappable game media, either through game cartridges , optical discs , or through digital distribution to internal storage. There have been numerous home video game consoles since the first commercial unit, the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Historically these consoles have been grouped into generations lasting each about six years based on common technical specifications. As of 2024, there have been nine console generations, with
15070-450: 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
15207-557: The unearthing of the Atari video game burial . He was also featured in animated TV show Code Monkeys in Episode 3 of Season 1. For the 50th anniversary of Atari, Bushnell was interviewed by then-current Atari CEO Wade Rosen for the Atari 50 video game where he discussed his history with the company and its relevance in the modern era. Bushnell is considered to be the "father of electronic gaming" due to his contributions in establishing
15344-508: The video game industry suffered a small recession in 1977 due to this. The Fairchild Channel F , released in 1976, was the first console to use game cartridges , which was then used by the Atari VCS and several other consoles of the second generation and led to a second boom in the video game industry in the United States and around the globe. During this time, Atari Inc. had been sold to Warner Communications , and several programmers left
15481-425: 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 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
15618-404: Was a redesign based on human factor analysis by Henry Dreyfuss Associates . Home video game console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television , and an external power source as to play video games . While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few games fixed into the electronic circuits of
15755-434: Was a reentry into the coin-operated game business. Arcade cabinets would have a proprietary system with a cartridge slot so operators could refresh their games without having to buy whole new cabinets. Kadabrascope was an early attempt at computer assisted animation. In 1983 as the restaurants started to lose money, Sente, though profitable, was sold to Bally for $ 3.9 million and Kadabrascope was sold to Lucasfilm which became
15892-575: Was able to introduce it, rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985 into the U.S. market. The NES helped to revive the console market and gave Nintendo dominance during the late 1980s. Sega took advantage of the newfound U.S. growth to market its Sega Genesis against the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 1990s in the so-called "console wars" and emphasized
16029-532: Was being pushed to the side by Bushnell, while Bushnell felt Dabney was holding back the company from larger financial success. Bushnell purchased Dabney's share of Atari for $ 250,000 in 1973. To get more arcade games to market and bypass exclusivity limitations that coin-op game distributors had set, Bushnell discreetly had his neighbor Joe Keenan establish Kee Games in 1973 to manufacture near-copies of Atari's games. Even with Kee's output, Atari had difficulty meeting demand for arcade games, and by 1974 Atari
16166-485: Was built from borrowed parts from Atari and with technical support from Atari employees. They initially offered the design to Bushnell and Atari, but Bushnell wanted Atari to focus on arcade and home consoles. Later in 1975, Jobs offered Bushnell a chance for one-third equity stake in their budding company Apple Inc. , for $ 50,000 ; Bushnell remarked in hindsight, "I was so smart, I said no. It's kind of fun to think about that, when I'm not crying." Bushnell also established
16303-480: Was chairman. Aristo's CEO and chairman was Mouli Cohen . In association with Aristo, Bushnell spearheaded TeamNet, a line of multiplayer-only arcade machines targeted towards adults, which allowed teams of up to four players to compete either locally or remotely via internet. Aristo was later renamed PlayNet. Borta Inc. Developed video games that included versions of Urban Strike and Jungle Strike along with online Sports Games. Aristo developed two main products:
16440-526: 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,
16577-404: 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
16714-402: Was facing financial hardships in part due to the competition in the arcade game market. Bushnell opted to merge Kee Games into Atari in September 1974 just ahead of the release of Tank , a wholly original arcade game from Kee. Tank was an arcade success and helped bolster Atari's finances. Keenan became president of Atari and managed its operations while Bushnell retained his CEO role. With
16851-589: 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 a game console, and offered to discuss it further at Cyan's facilities after
16988-503: Was for guests to order their food and drinks using screens at each table, on which they may also play games with each other and watch movie trailers and short videos. The multiplayer network type video games that allowed table to table interaction or even with table group play never materialized. Guests often spotted the OSX based machine being constantly re-booted in order to play much simpler casual video games. Another factor that possibly led to
17125-420: Was founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1972. Its first major product 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
17262-565: Was in use by a candle company owned by a Mendocino hippie commune and by a roofing company. They instead incorporated under the name Atari , a reference to a check-like position in the game Go (which Bushnell has called his "favorite game of all time" ). They rented their first office on Scott Boulevard in Sunnyvale, California , contracted with Bally Manufacturing to create a driving game , and hired their second employee, engineer Allan Alcorn . Bushnell originally wanted to develop
17399-477: Was influenced by the broader Sexual Revolution , the allegations made against Bushnell were exaggerated or false, and that the culture was one that they all freely participated in. Some of the more notable female employees of Atari spoke further of the situation at the company and Bushnell during the 1970s: The women interviewed by Kotaku generally considered the attack and decision related to Bushnell's award as unfair, and expressed anger at those that had raised
17536-461: Was largely sold to Hasbro . Etak, founded in 1984, was the first company to digitize the maps of the world, as part of the first commercial automotive navigation system ; the maps ultimately provided the backbone for Google Maps , mapquest.com , and other navigation systems; it was sold to Rupert Murdoch in the 1980s. In May 2000 the company, headquartered in Menlo Park, California , became
17673-410: 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 the front and replacing
17810-474: Was not in the routine practice of hiring fresh college graduates. Instead, Bushnell got a job as an electrical engineer with Ampex . At Ampex, he met fellow employee Ted Dabney and found they had common interests. Bushnell shared his ideas of creating pizza parlors filled with electronic games with Dabney, and took Dabney to the computing labs at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to show him Spacewar . In 1969, Bushnell and Dabney formed Syzygy with
17947-466: 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
18084-474: 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 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
18221-476: 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 ,
18358-404: Was released in 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System or Atari VCS and later known as the Atari 2600. However, before Atari had completed its design, the Fairchild Channel F , the first home console to use game cartridges , was released in November 1976. Bushnell realized they needed to speed up the Atari VCS's development. After initially considering become a public company , he instead sought
18495-534: 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
18632-500: 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
18769-535: Was venture capital funded in 2012. It is based on the idea that many curriculum lessons can be turned into mini-games. Developers can take any body of knowledge from English language arts to foreign language, geography, multiplication table or chemistry tables, to parts of the human body and gamify the experience. BrainRush calls their underlying technology "Adaptive Practice." They have also developed an open-authoring system allowing users to quickly create games in different topic areas. Between 2010 and 2012, BrainRush ran
#711288