Great Hierophant Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 Some time ago, I asked why there were no dates of release for 2600 games on their page and was miffed when I got no response. Yesterday, I decided to begin a listing of games by year, starting with Atari's games. First, I began with a rule of thumb: 1977 - Text # 1978-1980 - Text 1981-1982 - Picture 1982-1984 - Silver and Children's 1987-1990 - Red Second, I looked to the copyright showed on the game's start-up screen. Obviously no game could have been released before the copyright date. Third, I looked to the copyright date on the cartridge label and manual (if any). Fourth, I looked to the relevant Atari catalogues. Here is what I have come up with: 1977 Air-Sea Battle Basic Math/Later Release: Fun With Numbers (1980) Blackjack Combat Indy 500 Star Ship Street Racer Surround Video Olympics 1978 Basketball Breakout Brain Games Codebreaker Flag Capture Football Hangman Home Run Hunt & Score/Later Release: A Game of Concentration (1980) Outlaw Slot Racers Space War 1979 Backgammon Basic Programming Bowling Canyon Bomber Casino Human Cannonball Minature Golf Sky Diver Slot Machine Superman Video Chess 1980 3D Tic-Tac-Toe Adventure Championship Soccer/Later Release: Pele's Soccer (1981) Circus Atari Dodge 'Em Golf Maze Craze Night Driver Space Invaders Video Checkers 1981 Asteroids Defender Haunted House Othello Missile Command Pac-Man Super Breakout Warlords Video Pinball Yars' Revenge 1982 Atari Video Cube/Later Release: Rubik's Cube (1984) Berzerk Centipede Crazy Climber Demons to Diamonds E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Math Gran Prix Ms. Pac-Man Phoenix Raiders of the Lost Ark RealSports Baseball RealSports Football RealSports Volleyball Star Raiders Swordquest: Earthworld Swordquest: Fireworld Vanguard 1983 Alpha Beam with Ernie Battlezone Big Bird's Egg Catch Cookie Monster Munch Dig Dug Galaxian Gravitar Joust Jungle Hunt Kangaroo Krull Mario Bros. Moon Patrol Obelix Oscar's Trash Race Pigs in Space Pole Position Quadrun RealSports Soccer RealSports Tennis Snoopy and the Red Baron Sorcerer's Apprentice Swordquest: Waterworld Taz 1984 Crystal Castles Gremlins Millipede Pengo Stargate/Later Release: Defender II (1987) Track & Field 1985 1986 1987 Jr. Pac-Man Midnight Magic RealSports Boxing Solaris 1988 Crossbow Dark Chambers Desert Falcon Sprintmaster Super Baseball Super Football 1989 Double Dunk Off The Wall Radar Lock Road Runner Secret Quest 1990 Ikari Warriors Motorodeo Sentinel Xenophobe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Hierophant Posted June 25, 2004 Author Share Posted June 25, 2004 Note, this list is for NTSC titles only, drawn from my Unique Atari Games List. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 (edited) Some game screens/cartridges/manuals have one date, but actually came out the next year. I'd love to have a list of real, correct month/year release dates of Atari 2600 games in the USA. This is all I have so far: http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-me...story-1982.html http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-me...story-1983.html Edited May 9, 2007 by Random Terrain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azrael Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Cool list GH - many thanks for the effort. I have been looking for a chronological list for a while - anyone know of a definitive one? I like the comparisons to Atari releases and movies, TV etc on thr RT site, takes ya back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Copyright dates are not the same as release dates. This misleads many gamers. Just to analyze one section: 1981 Asteroids Defender Haunted House Othello Missile Command Pac-Man Super Breakout Warlords Video Pinball Yars' Revenge Defender, Haunted House, Pac-Man, and Yars' Revenge are all 1982 releases. Super Breakout was not released as an Atari label game until 1982, but was sold at Sears for Xmas 81. The most reliable source for release dates is Atari's own catalogs as well as Sears catalogs. Their release dates turned out to be amazingly accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Some game screens/cartridges/manuals have one date, but actually came out the next year. I'd love to have a list of real, correct month/year release dates of Atari 2600 games in the USA. This is all I have so far: http://www.randomterrain.com/a2m/history1982.html http://www.randomterrain.com/a2m/history1983.html Corrections: Pac-man was released in March, not April. I know this for sure because it was released just days before my birthday. The Atari catalog confims this. Defender was released in June, not May. This was one of the few games in which the Sears version wasn't released until about a month after Atari's. The big mystery is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Atari's catalogs claim a November release, but this was the first 2600 game sold at Sears under Atari's own label, which dates it before Earthworld and Realsports Volleyball. My memory has ROTLA hitting the shelves just a couple weeks after Star Raiders in September (replacing Foxbat on the printed release schedule sent to the stores). Wasn't Earthworld also a September release? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Thanks for the corrections. A couple may not be incorrect and just need more explaining on the page or pages. Corrections: Pac-man was released in March, not April. I know this for sure because it was released just days before my birthday. The Atari catalog confirms this. The main reason we bought an Atari 2600 was for Pac-Man and we brought that first Atari 2600 home on March 27, 1982. We had pre-ordered Pac-Man and got it as soon as it hit the store (Woolco in Roanoke, Virginia). The official time-line may be March, but it didn't get to our store until April. I was stuck playing Combat for at least a week until Pac-Man arrived at the store in April. Defender was released in June, not May. This was one of the few games in which the Sears version wasn't released until about a month after Atari's. Unlike Pac-Man, Defender was early. Everything says Defender was supposed to come out in June. I even got a card in the mail from Atari Age telling me that it was coming in June and that I should order it now, but I was glad I didn't because Woolco had it in time for my girlfriend's birthday (May 17). She loved Defender, but didn't have an Atari, so I was very happy that I got Defender early so she could play it on her birthday. We had a small party on the 17th and we played Defender in my bedroom. The game was disappointing, but we still had fun. The big mystery is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Atari's catalogs claim a November release, but this was the first 2600 game sold at Sears under Atari's own label, which dates it before Earthworld and Realsports Volleyball. My memory has ROTLA hitting the shelves just a couple weeks after Star Raiders in September (replacing Foxbat on the printed release schedule sent to the stores). Wasn't Earthworld also a September release? I'm a little fuzzy on the details surrounding Raiders, but I know that I got it when it was new, but not the day it arrived at the store. We moved to Lynchburg, Virginia on November 8, 1982 and if I remember correctly, I did not have Raiders yet. I do remember clearly that I was still learning how to play Raiders when the song, "Africa" by Toto was playing on the radio constantly (the song was big around November 20 and beyond). I got that stupid EarthWorld game when I was still living at the old place and was very, very, very disappointed, so I know for sure that Raiders came after. Thanks again for the help. I'll add notes to the games later tonight so people understand why I put them where I did and make it clear what the official release dates are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap5750 Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 I thought someone went through this a year or so ago? Someone mentioned Asteroids. I have two picture labeled Asteroids that containt different copyright dates...or at least I did....I may have mistakenly given it away. Cap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsukasa Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 .....I even got a card in the mail from Atari Agetelling me that it was coming in June...... Atari Age existed back then?!?!?!?! Man, the forums must have been a pain in the ass..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Hierophant Posted June 29, 2004 Author Share Posted June 29, 2004 The Atari catalogs on AtariAge do not list dates of release for cartridges. I went by the copyright date on the catalog itself. Am I missing something or am I looking at the wrong catalogs? I saw Haunted House and Yar's Revenge in one of Atari's 1981 catalogs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 http://atariage.com/catalog_thumbs.html?CatalogID=32 The release dates are right next to the game's name. I will stand on my assertion that Pac-Man was unleashed in March. I had it on my birthday. Period. Now I did have the Sears version, perhaps that version was released before Atari's? I can believe Defender came out before I saw it, but it must have been an extremely limited release. ROTLA was out before Swordquest. Again, this may have been a Sears thing but it was definitley the first silver label ever sold at Sears. TRIVIA NOTE: The very first item of any kind sold at Sears without being re-labeled was Acivision carts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 I thought someone went through this a year or so ago? A quick search turned up this thread. There's also this thread on Activision release dates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 But we never really settle anything. We need to find the old typewritten release sheets that Atari sent to the stores. I used to take a look at them and wish to hell I'd swiped a copy. I vividly remember that 82 sheet, because the first I heard of a Raiders cart was seeing Foxbat scratched off and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" written in ball point. There's gotta be some old time store owner who saved these. It seems like we might also be discovering a greater difference in dates for Atari and Sears releases than we originally thought. I know that ROTLA came out at Sears before Earthworld, but does that means Raiders was early or Earthworld was late or both? I also remember that Defender didn't arrive at Sears until at least July and Berzerk was late to get to Sears as well. I never bought an Atari game anywhere other than Sears until 1984. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 I will stand on my assertion that Pac-Man was unleashed in March. I had it on my birthday. Period. Now I did have the Sears version, perhaps that version was released before Atari's? I don't doubt that Pac-Man (any version) was in some or even many stores in March, it just wasn't in the stores where I lived until around the first week of April. I never bought an Atari game anywhere other than Sears until 1984. I hardly ever went to Sears because I hated that they had their own versions of the games. The cartridges were ugly, so I stuck with the normal versions. I have no idea when most games reached Sears. We need to find the old typewritten release sheets that Atari sent to the stores. Darn right! I would love to see official documents for most major games released by Atari, Activision, Imagic, and other companies. If you can't get anything from the game companies, there must be a few stores who have old documents lying around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 A quick search turned up this thread. Thanks for saving me the trouble of digging up my own old thread. Sadly I never bothered to update it like I promised. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Hierophant Posted June 30, 2004 Author Share Posted June 30, 2004 You know, I'm not sure a cartridge release date list is particularly meaningful. The first rule of thumb and the catalogs are accurate enough to place Atari games. Perhaps, instead, a list of games by program date would be more accurate to trace the development of Atari software on the 2600? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 It's meaningful because it's part of history. It's like not knowing who won the old Superbowls. If we can't confirm something as simple as when a game hit the stores, how could we possibly figure out development dates? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 You know, I'm not sure a cartridge release date list is particularly meaningful. Dick Clark said something about music being the soundtrack of our lives and I feel the same way about games. Knowing accurate release dates helps me to remember what happened back in the early 1980s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Hierophant Posted June 30, 2004 Author Share Posted June 30, 2004 As this silly board won't allow editing posts, I shall place an updated 1981-83 list. This list incorporates the catalog availability dates after people have told me how accurate they are. 1981 Asteroids Othello Missile Command Warlords Video Pinball 1982 Atari Video Cube/Later Release: Rubik's Cube (1984) Berzerk Crazy Climber Defender Demons to Diamonds E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Haunted House Math Gran Prix Phoenix Pac-Man Raiders of the Lost Ark RealSports Baseball RealSports Football RealSports Volleyball Super Breakout Star Raiders Swordquest: Earthworld Vanguard Yars' Revenge 1983 Alpha Beam with Ernie Battlezone Big Bird's Egg Catch Centipede Cookie Monster Munch Dig Dug Galaxian Gravitar Joust Jungle Hunt Kangaroo Krull Mario Bros. Ms. Pac-Man Moon Patrol Obelix Oscar's Trash Race Pigs in Space Pole Position Quadrun RealSports Soccer RealSports Tennis Snoopy and the Red Baron Sorcerer's Apprentice Swordquest: Fireworld Swordquest: Waterworld Taz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 We're all confident over the years of release, it's the months that cause problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Scottie Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 I will stand on my assertion that Pac-Man was unleashed in March. I had it on my birthday. Period. Now I did have the Sears version, perhaps that version was released before Atari's? I can't be of any help with the date, but I do know it was Sears here in Orlando, Florida that first had Pac-Man in stock. I vividly recall being upset I had to get the ugly Sears label version of the game I had been waiting forever for. Turned out the label was the last thing I should have been upset about... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retroheavy Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Yeah, I'm working on this now 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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