Looking Back at Atari's 50 Years as an Icon of the Future

It is a half-century since Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and his team of innovators launched the groundbreaking video game company in Sunnyvale, Cal. in June 1972.

Originally conceived as a company to build arcade cabinet games, Bushnell quickly identified the potential of home consoles, the category that dominates the video game industry today.

According to consumer data company Statistica, the video game industry today rakes in $95.45 billion in revenue in the U.S. The most popular consoles are Sony's Playstation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One, while Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony lead the way in game revenue.

Atari isn't the dominant player it once was, but the company has launched the Atari VSS entertainment system console to reestablish its presence in the market it created.

In addition to the seminal tennis game, Pong, Atari followed that with a string of hit game titles that include the Steve Wozniak-developed Breakout, Lunar Lander, Asteroids, Missile Command, Battlezone, Red Baron, Centipede, Tempest, Dig Dug, Star Wars, and Crystal Castles.

Atari's early home console efforts were systems that were dedicated to a single game, such as Pong or Combat. But the company got the idea of having replaceable game cartridges from the Fairchild Semiconductor Channel F console, designed by pioneering Black engineer Gerald A. Lawson.

Related:Researchers Study an Impenetrable Vintage Atari Game Algorithm

The classic Atari 2600 Video Computer System of 1977 popularized removable cartridges that let players change games.

Consider the company's impressive chronology:

Which Atari titles over the years were your favorites? This is a comprehensive roundup, though surely we would all put them in a different order ourselves.