The Atari 2600 (1977)

Video games are the only medium that one can have a deep discussion about the hardware.  Film historians may go in depth about film quality and formats, but you will rarely see two casual moviegoers discussing DVD vs Laserdisc.  Literature even less so;  you'll never see two people debating over which is better, quill and ink or printing press.  But video games are different because they inhabit the hardware they are played on.  The console becomes part of the gaming experience.  Back in the 90's, there was a debate between the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and TurboGrafx16.  These days it is between the Xbox 360, Wii, and Playstation 3.
And so I would like to write my first analysis of a console with Atari's Video Computer System, more commonly known as the 2600 (named after its serial number).  Here is a video game in its purest form.  No pretenses, no preconceptions, and no real predecessor.  Released in 1977, it was not the first game console as believed by many, that was the Magnavox Odyssey (1972) which was a total failure on all accounts.  Atari must have taken the Odyssey's flaws into account and tried to remedy them for its own system.
The Atari used interchangeable cartridges for its games, a completely new idea in gaming.  At that point, most games were played in the arcade, with each cabinet holding only one game.  The 2600 separated the hardware and the software, allowing many games to be owned and played on one system.  The controllers feature only one joystick and one button, and were detachable from the system.  Its design is classic:  power and option switches on the front, top-loading cartridge slot, wood grain on the front.  The system was an immediate success.  The rest of its history would be read as a rise to glory, followed by destruction by its own hubris.
Early titles were mainly ports of arcade games to the system (although very well-made ones).  Games like Asteroids, Pong (renamed Video Olympics and featuring a number of Pong variations), and Space Invaders are all examples of the Atari's ability to accurately simulate the games of the arcade.  This trend would continue with the excellent later titles such as Centipede, Frogger, and Ms. Pac Man.  The relationship between Atari and third party developers is one that would be unheard of today:  Atari bought the property to the arcade titles, and then had one of their own programmers translate it to the 2600.
Atari made their own games as well.  They were the first to realize that having a console at home meant that they could make games that could be completed.  The earliest example of this is Adventure, which I have written about previously.  Later titles to follow in this trend would be Raiders of the Lost Ark, and yes, the dreaded ET the Extra Terrestrial (more on that later).  With Atari handling all of the major releases, things were going well for the 2600.  It was at the height of its popularity that it started to show some major flaws, that would lead to its downfall.
The first mistake Atari made was in not allowing its programmers the dignity of credit for their work.  Creative designers could sneak their initials or names into the games via Easter eggs, such as Howard Scott Warshaw and Warren Robinett.  The majority of them were unsatisfied though, so in 1980 there was a major exodus of Atari's most talented programmers, who went on to form the massively successful Activision.  There was nothing Atari could do about Activision games being sold for its system; it featured no lockout chip to differentiate between licensed and unlicensed games.  Anyone could make 2600 games, and everyone who could, did.
There became a flood of games on the system, most of them being completely terrible.  But surely Atari was able to maintain the same level of quality in their own games to keep itself from sinking?  With only the most inexperienced programmers left, even the first-party releases suffered.  There are two main games which are blamed for the death of Atari, the first of which was Pac-Man.  Atari really screwed the pooch with that one.  They arranged for there to be more games made than there were existing Ataris, and paid the programmer by each game made, not sold.  It was still the best selling Atari game, technically, but the disgustingly low quality of the game caused many returns and refunds, making it a major flop.
The second of the terrible games was the infamous ET.  Made by Howard Scott Warshaw, an actually talented programmer, it should have been a great game.  The problem was, Atari wanted the game completed within a six-week time frame, giving Warshaw barely enough time to squeeze out what was a very buggy and half-realized game.  The released product should very well have been only a prototype.  ET was, like Pac-Man, an initial success, but angry players returned the games, making it another bomb.  Urban legend states that Atari took the leftover carts of ET and buried them in a landfill in a New Mexico desert.  With more product being made on the market than sold, Atari went bankrupt, and the whole video game market crashed in 1983.
Years later, now that the smoke has all cleared and we can look at the system in full clarity, we can appreciate it for what it truly was:  an ambitious, yet failed, experiment in home video game technology.  Why was it a failure?  It still had a vast library of first-rate titles, many of which still hold up to this day as marvelous fun and entertainment, and is looked upon with fond nostalgia.  Its failure was entirely on the part of the company that produced it, but on the bright side, future game consoles would learn from the experience, the first of which being a brave grey box produced by Nintendo.