Atari is a legendary videogame company founded in 1972. It once was a household name in the video game industry and pioneered console gaming. But how have Atari consoles evolved throughout the years? This is the Evolution of Atari! Nothing brings back good old memories
like the Atari consoles. For the first time, people could enjoy their favorite arcade games including brand new ones
from the comfort of their homes. It all started in 1971 when Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney
founded a small company named Syzygy Engineering. These two men became friends when they found out they had common interests in electronic games. Together they created a game called Computer Space, which became the world’s first commercially
available arcade video game. It could be played in a large custom fiberglass cabinet, which Nolan Bushnell designed so as to look futuristic. After discovering that another company
had the same name, they changed their name to Atari. Although Atari is widely recognized as the pioneer of home-video game consoles, Magnavox released the world’s first home
video game console in 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey. In fact, one of their games inspired Atari to produce their first commercially
successful video game. In 1972 Atari developed an iconic
arcade game named Pong. Bushnell and Dabney needed a design engineer and convinced Al Alcorn, whom they already knew
from previous work experience. Although Alcorn was an intelligent
electrical engineer, he had no experience with video games. This was a concern because Bushnell and Dabney
wanted to create a driving game, which they thought might be too complicated for Alcorn’s first game design. However, Bushnell had seen the
Magnavox Odyssey’s Tennis game and thought it would be great if
Alcorn would create a similar game. So that’s what Alcorn did, and the two founders were surprised by the quality of Alcorn’s work. They dropped the idea for a driving game and continued with Alcorn’s design to create Pong. Pong was the first commercially successful video game, and helped to establish the video game industry
along with the Magnavox Odyssey. During the 1975 Christmas season, Atari released a console for the game Pong, called Home Pong. Chips for home consoles had only
recently become available. Initial development cost for a
game on a single LSI chip cost about $50,000, which is equivalent to $325,000 dollars today! Luckily once the chip was further developed
and could be mass-produced it became significantly cheaper. Home Pong became a commercial success and over 150,000 units were sold! Fun Fact Magnavox filed a lawsuit against Atari. They argued that Atari had infringed the
patents of their table tennis game, and demonstrated that Bushnell
had even played the game before releasing Pong. Bushnell later stated According to their lawyer, Atari could have won the lawsuit. However, he estimated that the legal costs would amount to 1.5 million dollars! This exceeded Atari’s funds,
so they decided to settle. Eventually Atari had to pay
1.5 million dollars to Magnavox in eight installments. This video is sponsored by Ivacy VPN. The digital world can be a dangerous place and while you browse the web you have no idea who may be watching you and what their intentions are. Ivacy VPN ensures your anonymity, secures public Wi-Fi networks, and prevents tracking and cyberattacks. But one of the greatest features
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huge 90% discount on the 5 year plan! This means you can get it for just $60, which is only $1 a month! Get your Black Friday deal right now by clicking the link in the description! Due to the success of Home Pong and the Magnavox Odyssey, other competitors also tried to
create home consoles. One of the competitors created
a console called the ‘Channel F’, which became the first video
game to use ROM cartridges, instead of having games built-in. Atari also wanted to create a
home console with ROM cartridges and released the Atari 2600 in 1977. At the launch it was sold for $199, which may not sound like a lot, but today that would be equivalent to $890 dollars! It came with two joystick controllers, two paddle controllers and a game cartridge. Initially it came with the game Combat and later with one of the most famous
games in the world, Pac-Man. However, Pac-Man barely resembled the original and consumers were upset. Atari is thought to have been left with approximately 5 million
unwanted copies of the game. Nowadays kids grow up with the
PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X and might wonder why anyone
could be excited with an Atari console. But at the time these colorful graphics and improved sound were a big deal. Many successful titles were released including Space Invaders The Atari 2600 became a massive success, more than 30 million units were sold. In fact, it was so successful that the name Atari almost became
synonymous with video games in general. Fun Fact Atari implemented a risky pricing strategy for the Atari 2600. They lost money on the consoles, but hoped to earn that money back
by selling games at a premium. The risk paid off, and it revolutionized the pricing strategy for consoles. Both Sony and Microsoft use this strategy today and lose money on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. In 1979, Atari introduced its first 8-bit home computers, the Atari 400 and Atari 800. At that time, Bushnell had already sold Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million dollars and the new CEO of the company was Ray Kassar. Kassar saw an opportunity to make money
in the home computer era, that had just began. He wanted to challenge Apple, who had just launched the Apple II home computer. Multiple games were released
for the 8-bit home computers, including Pacman Home computers weren’t cheap. The Atari 400 was sold for $550 dollars at launch, which would be equivalent to $2,000 dollars today! Oh and the Atari 400 was the cheaper model. The Atari 800 had a price tag of $1,000 dollars, which would be about $3,700 dollars today! In total Atari managed to sell an impressive 4 million units of the 8-bit home computers! In 1982, Atari released their next generation console, the Atari 5200. The CPU and graphics were almost identical to the Atari 8-bit computers. The Atari 5200 had a controller
with an analog joystick, a numeric keypad and Start, Pause and Reset buttons. In total only 69 games were released for the console, while the Atari 2600 has 528 games. Games that players could
enjoy on the Atari 5200 were But then the video game industry
was hit by the video game crash of 1983, also known as the Atari shock in Japan. Revenues of the video game industry
peaked at around $3.2 billion, then fell massively to around
$100 million dollars by 1985! That is a drop of almost 97%! Atari was losing millions of dollars a day, and Warner Communications became
desperate to sell off the division. To make things even worse, Nintendo released the Famicom in 1983. This quickly became a major competitor, mainly due to its incredible games like The Atari 5200 became a failure, only 1 million units were sold, compared to its predecessor’s
sales of over 30 million. Fun Fact Nintendo and Atari discussed the possibility of the two companies working together
to launch the Famicom in North America. Nintendo offered Atari the opportunity to sell
the Famicom under its own brand in exchange for paying
Nintendo a royalty on every console. However, the deal was never signed and Nintendo would eventually take over the reputation that Atari once had in the video game industry. The Atari 7800 was released in 1986 and it was the first console
with backward compatibility. This meant that players could
enjoy almost all Atari 2600 games, which many players had been begging for. Surprisingly the Atari 7800 was released
with a different version for Europe, that even had a different controller. In an effort to prevent the
flood of poor quality games that contributed to the video game crash of 1983, all new games had to be digitally signed by Atari. Some of these games include And players could enjoy a few Nintendo titles like Unlike its predecessor, the Atari 7800 was profitable and 3.8 million units were sold. In 1989, Atari launched the world’s
first handheld game console with a color LCD screen, the Atari Lynx. This console was designed by Epyx but they lacked the financial
means needed to produce it. Epyx had also tried to partner with Sega and Nintendo but both declined. But the partnership with Atari didn’t last long as Epyx declared bankruptcy by the end of the year. The major competitor of the Atari Lynx
was the Nintendo Game Boy, released just a few months earlier. The Game Boy was much cheaper and it had a better battery life. Games released for the Atari Lynx were Atari only managed to sell 3 million units, while Nintendo sold a whopping 118.7
million units of the Game Boy. In 1993 Atari launched the Atari Jaguar. The team that developed
the Atari Jaguar claimed they could make a console superior
to Sega Genesis and SNES. Excited by this claim, Atari contacted them to build the Jaguar console. However, the Atari Jaguar was sold for $250 dollars, while the SNES had a launch price of $200 and the Sega Genesis was sold for even less, namely $190 dollars. And to make things worse only 50 games
were released for the Jaguar in total. That is about 35 times less than all the games that were released for the SNES. Games that owners of the Jaguar could play were Atari made a CD-ROM peripheral named the Jaguar CD. Only 12 CD games were released during its lifetime. In total only 150,000 units of the Jaguar were sold, making it by far the worst selling console
they had ever made. Meanwhile Sega sold 30.7 million units of the Genesis and Nintendo sold 49.1 million units of the SNES. This massive commercial failure led
Atari to leave the console market, at least for a while. In 2004 Atari released the Atari Flashback, a console that resembles
a smaller version of the Atari 7800. It was sold for $45 dollars at launch. It features 20 built-in games, including 15 Atari 2600 and five Atari 7800 games. Approximately 500,000 units
of the Atari Flashback were sold. The Atari Flashback 2 was released in 2005. It was an improved version that had more games. In the United States alone 860,000 units were sold. Atari made many more Flashback units, with the latest version being the Atari Flashback X that was released in 2019. The basic model includes two wired controllers and an impressive 110 games. In 2020 Atari released their latest console, which is the Atari VCS. It has a lot of streaming apps, a streaming service, Atari games, and the console allows users to
download and install other games, including those compatible with Windows 10. The Atari VCS isn’t cheap though as it was sold for $299 dollars at launch
for just the system or $399 dollars with two controllers combined. Fun Fact Atari made their own cryptocurrency named the Atari Token. It’s primary focus is to be integrated
as an in-game currency and offers gamers a means of payment. In 2021 Atari is still active
and has created many games, including Pong Quest, While Atari no longer is the gaming giant it once was, it did pioneer console gaming, and helped to shape the gaming industry. Animations like this require a lot of time and effort so please subscribe! Thank you!
