![]() Throughout 1981, Atari ported more arcade hits to the VCS, like Missile Command and Asteroids. Other companies such as Games By Apollo, Parker Bros., Telesys, and Spectravision started to join the fray, and soon more and more VCS titles (of varying quality) appeared on the shelves. Atari wasn't very happy about having to deal with this new competition (as Atari was the sole producer of VCS games prior to Activision's formation), and at the time they didn't realize that this was the beginning of the end of their software dominance. ![]() David "Pitfall" Crane, Larry "Combat" Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead (creators of many Atari sports games) left Atari to form Activision, a company which later developed some of the VCS's best games. The future of Atari looked bright.īut that same year, a group of high-profile Atari programmers, disgruntled over Atari's policy of giving little or no credit to game creators, left the company. Many people bought the VCS just to play Space Invaders at home, as Warner had predicted. Space Invaders for the VCS hit the shelves in January, 1980, and was a huge hit. That is until 1980, when Atari became the first company to port an arcade game to cartridge. Space Invaders VCS Space Invaders Videogames started to become increasingly popular in 1979, but the VCS wasn't exactly breaking any sales records. ![]() Bushnell signed a five-year agreement not to compete with Atari and bought his Pizza Time Theater restaurant (later to become the "Chuck E. That, combined with Warner's decision to start up a computer division which Bushnell did not approve, led Atari's founder to leave the company. Warner began to replace Atari's loose, unstructured (and fun) "hacker" culture by introducing dress codes and time cards. This was partially due to the large numbers of inexpensive handheld electronic games, such as Simon, that were flooding the market.īushnell began to clash with Warner management by 1978. Nine games were available for its launch, and despite the Sears deal, initial sales were disappointing. In October 1977, the VCS was released with a retail price of $200. Atari, in turn, was able to get tremendous exposure for its console since Sears had hundreds of store locations nationwide. Under this continuing arrangement, Sears sold its own version of the VCS called the Sears Video Arcade, and VCS cartridges under its "Tele-Games" label. ![]() Sears Video Arcade ad VCS sales were boosted by the deal Atari had already set up with Sears & Roebuck to distribute its Home Pong units. This meant the VCS was able to play an unlimited number of different games, unlike the limited Pong-style consoles. The actual game was stored on the cartridge's ROM, not in the system itself. The VCS, unlike most other home videogames of the time, had a CPU and enabled users to play different games simply by sticking in another cartridge. Warner expected Stella (now dubbed the Video Computer System, or simply VCS) to be a huge success, since they knew Atari could make lots of money selling software for the new system. Warner wanted Atari to rule the videogame world, so they enthusiastically sunk over $100 million into their new acquisition. Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari) needed capital, so he sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million in October 1976. So, in 1976, Atari frantically started working on project "Stella," a new cartridge-based home videogame system.Īs the project drew nearer to completion, Atari realized that they didn't have the money to finish the project and get it into production. As Pong's popularity started to decline (coupled with the introduction of the Fairchild Channel F, the first system to have programmable "ROM" cartridges), Atari realized that the market for home videogame consoles that could only play one game was fading fast.
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