Atari created the demand for gaming at home with the release of the 2600 in 1977. Then Sega and Nintendo fought for control over the console market. But then Sony stepped in with a record breaking console. Although there was no catching Sony this generation, an American company was set to take center stage and shake things up in the sixth generation of home gaming consoles.

Atari created the demand for gaming at home with the release of the 2600 in 1977. But as quickly as it came, the bubble had burst in just a few short years, and Atari as we knew it was dead. The video game market had crumbled. But just when the United States was ready to give up on gaming at home, a pair of Japanese companies were poised to resurrect the industry. And the competition between them created ripples still being felt today. Nintendo and Sega duked it out with the NES and Master System, followed by the SNES and the Genesis. But nothing could prepare them for the new contender about to arrive, and change the world of console.

Video games are $100 billion a year industry. Games are everywhere, from Xbox to PlayStation, Nintendo to mobiles, and of course personal computers.

Pretty much everyone has experienced a video game at some point in their lives, but it wasn’t that long ago that the idea of playing games in your home was a far-out concept yet to be conceived.

In this video, we’re going to talk about the console that started it all. Not just the idea of bringing video games into the home, but also one that introduced the world to the idea of personal computing at home. We’re going to talk about Atari, and specifically the 2600; a piece of equipment that not only gave birth to the video game industry as we know it but also sparked a technical revolution still being felt today. Long before the console war between Microsoft and Sony was the console war between Nintendo and Sega. But not so long before that, there was no such thing as a console war. There was only one console. There was only Atari.