Atari 2600 facts
While investigating facts about Atari 2600, I found out little known, but curios details like:
When Ready Player One was released, there was an easter egg in the book that lead readers to three challenges, including playing a new Richard Garriott game and setting a world record on a game for the Atari 2600. The winner of the challenges was awarded a vintage DeLorean.
The Atari 2600, adjusted for inflation, cost $790 in today's dollars
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 49 of the best facts about Atari 2600 I managed to collect.
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The Atari 2600 was so popular, it was not discontinued until 1992 - years after its own successors, the 5200 and the 7800, died off. Its 15 year official lifespan is the longest of any console.
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'Mangia', an Atari 2600 video game in which a mother force feeds her son with pasta until he explodes. The boy can feed animals with the food, but if the mother sees him do so, she brings out three times as much pasta as punishment. 'Mangia' is among the rarest video games for collectors.
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Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em, a game for the Atari 2600, where the goal is to control two nude women on the street who must catch semen in their mouths that comes from a masturbating man on a rooftop.
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Swordquest, an Atari 2600 game that contained hidden clues players could decipher for a chance of winning jewelry prizes valued at $25,000~ each
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The most popular Atari 2600 game -- Yars' Revenge -- and the least popular -- E.T. the Extra Terrestrial -- were made by the same guy: Howard Scott Warshaw.
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Quaker Oats was a third party developer for the Atari 2600
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In the early 1980s, there was a dial-up game distribution platform, a la Steam, for the Atari 2600 called GameLine
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The highest score ever done in a video game was on a ROM of a cancelled Garfield game for the Atari 2600, the score was 23,418,862,404,272,676,864 points.
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The highest score ever recorded for a video game was 23,418,862,404,272,676,864 in Garfield for the Atari 2600, which was achieved by Tom Duncan in 2008.
Rob Fulop created the Atari 2600 version of Missile Command. It sold 2M copies. Atari rewarded the milestone by giving Fulop a gift certificate for a free turkey. Soon after this happened, Fulop left Atari and co-founded the video game company Imagic. - source
Mystique was a company that produced a number of unlicensed pornographic video games for the Atari 2600
In the 1970s some people were afraid of buying home consoles like the Atari 2600 out of fear they might break their television sets. - source
There was a game for the Atari 2600 that tried to teach programming to kids, it was one of the only non gaming carts for the system.
The Atari 2600 Video Computer System was first released on 9/11/1977 with a launch price of $199 ($823 when adjusted for inflation) the package included the game "Combat" and two controllers, with eight other games available (purchased separately). Approx 350,000 units sold in the first year.
The Atari 2600 was the first system to offer "DLC"
Even Steven Spielberg thought the E.T. video game for the Atari 2600 would be too complicated, and told the programmer to just make a Pac-Man clone instead.
Custer's Revenge, a game for the Atari 2600, where the goal is to rape a Native American woman tied to a pole.
Coleco was sued by Atari in 1982, because of the selling of expansion module for the Colecovision console. This module allowed people to play ATARI 2600 games on Colecovision
