Pong continues
After much agonizing about the speed of the ball and how fast the spin-dial control moves the paddles, a prototype
is made. The instructions for the world's second arcade videogame are legendarily simple: "AVOID MISSING BALL
FOR HIGH SCORE". The machine is seen as a stepping stone...Bushnell plans to quickly leave PONG behind and
build a "real", more complex game. He goes on a trip to Chicago to try and sell pinball giant Bally on the
PONG concept. In one of PONG - Atari 1972 history's great corporate blunders, they blow him off, totally misreading
the potential of videogames. Undeterred, Bushnell decide to test the waters by installing the prototype in a
local Sunnyvale watering hole. Later that evening Alcorn gets an irate call from the bartender
telling him that the game is broken. When he arrives at the bar
to examine it, he discovers that the machine doesn't work because it's jammed with too many quarters. Bushnell
thus decides Atari will build PONG itself. He rents an abandoned roller skating rink, hires some locals, and
by late 1972 is cranking out big, blue and yellow PONG cabinets. The game is a smash, pulling in $100 a week
in quarters, $75 more than what Bushnell had predicted. Atari sells 8,500 machines in one year, at a time
when 2,000 pinball games is considered a successful run. The PONG cabinets have a production cost of 500
dollars per unit and a sales price of $1,200 each. The game Bushnell considered a quickie knock-off will
carry his company for the next two years.
Competition
Atari's strongest competition comes with rival Kee Games, headed by Joe Keenan. Several key Atari employees
defect to Kee, and in 1974 the company releases Tank, designed by Scott Bristow. Gameplay consists of two
tanks facing off in a maze, while trying to avoid land mines scattered about. The game breaks new technical
ground by incorporating ROM chips to hold graphics memory, enabling it to display more complicated detail
on-screen than the simple blocks of PONG. Tank becomes the biggest hit of 1974
1979 Namco designs the first ever color arcade game with Galaxian (color had previously been replicated with
the use of overlays on the screen, al la Space Invaders). As in Invaders, players control a ship and fire at
lines of aliens across the top of the screen, but this time the enemy is no sitting duck. They actually leave
formation and swoop down the screen after you, dropping bombs all the way. Namco goes on to produce some of
the most popular arcade titles of all time. Numerous Galaxian sequels naturally ensue, including 1983's
Galaga.