Atari 2800/7800: A Visual Compendium

Atari established the home video game industry, and its name immediately became synonymous with 8-bit adventure. The Atari 2600 system was the first piece of gaming equipment to dominate the world's collective living room, offering the most iconic titles of all time, like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Defender, Joust, Pitfall and many, many more. But the gaming giant fell just as swiftly, due to a full-scale video game crash in 1983. Even after this catastrophe, Atari soldiered on, and just one year later, produced the powerful 7800 console — a machine that should have returned Atari to its former glory, had everything gone according to plan...

Atari 2600/7800: A Visual Compendium showcases the very best pixel art, cover art and product design on each system. Spread over 528 pages, it features over 200 classic games, with articles on third-party developers, interviews with key industry figures and features on cover art, prototypes and even "homebrew" releases.

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At its height, Atari’s name became synonymous with video gaming in the same way that Nintendo’s would a few years later, but the company – and the industry – fell just as swiftly, thanks to the infamous North American video game crash of 1983. Even when faced with this catastrophic event, Atari soldiered on and, the following year, produced the powerful 7800 console – a machine that could easily have returned the firm to its former glory, had its launch in 1984 gone to plan.

This book aims to cover the highs and lows of what was a truly tumultuous period in video game history, an era which laid down the foundations for what has today become one of the world’s most popular forms of entertainment.

Atari 2600/7800: a visual compendium aims to showcase the very best pixel art, cover art and product design on each system. Spread over 528 pages, it features over 200 classic games, with articles on the leading third-party developers, interviews with key figures in the industry and features on subjects such as cover art, prototypes and homebrew releases.