List of Atari, Inc. games
In 1975 Atari released Home Pong, its first of several "Pong"-based dedicated video game consoles, and in 1977 released its first home video game console, the Atari Video Computer System (later renamed the Atari 2600). From that point onward Atari developed both arcade games and console games, and in 1979 added games for their first home computers, the Atari 400 and 800. Atari produced a second home video game console in 1982, the Atari 5200, and four more home computer versions. Beginning in Summer 1981, Atari published the Atari Program Exchange, a quarterly mail-order catalog of software written for Atari computers by external developers which Atari then distributed to customers. In May 1983, Atari started the Atarisoft division, which produced ports of games by Atari and others for non-Atari home computers. In July 1984, as a result of falling sales due to the video game crash of 1983, Atari, Inc. was split apart by Warner Communications; the arcade division continued as a subsidiary of Warner under the name Atari Games, while the console and computer games divisions were sold off as Atari Corporation.
History of video games
In 1972, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney decided to strike out on their own and incorporated their preexisting partnership as Atari. After seeing a demonstration of the Magnavox Odyssey ahead of its release, Bushnell charged new hire Allan Alcorn to create a version of that system's table tennis game as a practice project to familiarize himself with video game design. Alcorn's version ended up being so fun that Atari decided to release it as "Pong". Available in limited quantities in late 1972, "Pong" began reaching the market in quantity in March 1973, after which it ignited a new craze for ball-and-paddle video games in the coin-operated amusement industry. The success of "Pong" did not result in the displacement of traditional arcade amusements like pinball, but did lay the foundation for a successful video arcade game industry. Roughly 70,000 video games, mostly ball-and-paddle variants, were sold in 1973 by a combination of recent startups like Atari, Ramtek, and Allied Leisure and established Chicago firms like Williams, Chicago Coin, and the Midway subsidiary of Bally Manufacturing.