List of Atari, Inc. games
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and video game console and home computer development company which operated between 1972 and 1984. During its years of operation, it developed and produced over 350 arcade, console, and computer games for its own systems, and almost 100 ports of games for home computers such as the Commodore 64. Atari began its operations by developing and producing some of the first arcade video games; the first commercial arcade video game, "Computer Space", was released in November 1971 by Atari founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering. The game in part marked the end of the early history of video games and the start of the rise of the commercial video game industry. After its founding in 1972, Atari released "Pong", believed to be the third arcade video game after "Computer Space" and a clone game and the first commercially successful arcade video game machine, and thereafter produced numerous arcade games, including video games and pinball machines.
Sports game
In 1975, Universal Research Laboratories (URL) released an early four-player multiple-sports game, "Video Action", which featured several different sporting minigames, including "Pong"-style variants of tennis, hockey, and association football, as well as an early volleyball game and a unique four-court tennis game. "Video Action" was also an early example of cooperative gameplay, as each sport could be played in teams of two. That same year, Nintendo released "EVR-Race", an early horse racing simulation game with support for up to six players. In 1976, Sega released an early combat sport game, "Heavyweight Champ", based on boxing and now considered the first fighting game. In 1978 Atari released "Atari Football", which is considered to be the first video game to accurately emulate American football; it also popularized the use of the trackball, having been inspired by an earlier Taito soccer game that used a trackball. Taito also released an early bowling game in 1978, "Top Bowler", followed by an early baseball game in 1979, "Ball Park".