Rebound (video game)
Development of "Rebound" began in late 1973, as one of several variations they produced in 1974 on the gameplay of the successful "Pong" (1972), Atari's first game and the fourth-ever arcade game. Around the same time, Atari launched Kee Games, a subsidiary meant to produce clone games of Atari's products and act as a competitor in order to expand into more distribution channels in the same region than the industry typically supported. Kee's first game, released in March 1974, was "Spike", a clone of "Rebound", which added a "spike" button to the game that made the paddle jump up and attempt to bounce the ball downwards instead of up. In addition to the base game, Atari sold a conversion kit to convert any Atari two-player "Pong" variant into "Rebound", and in 1977 "Rebound" was included in "Video Olympics" for the Atari 2600, a collection of "Pong" variants.
Atari 2600
Atari was founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney of which their first major product was "Pong" in 1972, one of the first successful arcade games. It transitioned "Pong" into a home console version by 1975, helping to pit Atari against Magnavox, the only other major competitor for home consoles at the time. Bushnell recognized that this approach to home consoles has a drawback in that because it used custom logic burned onto the circuit board, it was limited to only one game and any variants, and would require consumers to buy another console to play a different set of games. Further, while they could continue to take games they had created for arcade machines to home consoles, this development step cost at least and time to complete, and once on the market, had only about a three-month shelf life before being outdated, making this a risky move.