Atari Advert - 10th February 1981

It's another advert for the legendary Atari 2600 "Woody" games console, launched four years before in 1977 - when it was known as the Atari VCS - and still doing well in 1981.

The advert shows a nice stack of games cartridges - games systems have always lived or died by the number of titles available - and, in a retro-cool way, some television screens purportedly comparing "all others" to the Atari.

This comparison is perhaps a little unfair, as presumably "all others" could have at least mustered some sort of on-screen display, as opposed to a completely blank screen.

The video chip in the 2600 "Woody" was designed by Jay Miner, who went on to design the (what would become Commodore) Amiga.

This advert appeared shortly after Atari had released its 400 and 800 models in the UK, the entrance of which came with a rumoured $8 million advertising budget as Atari was clearly determined to capture the home market.

Personal Computer World helpfully pointed out that Atari's UK head, Steve Bernard, was a one-time mobile disco DJ^[1].

Both models had been released in the US in 1978, although weren't widely available until late 1979.

The machines were considered good, with excellent games^[2] although they were also considered overpriced.

As a result they didn't sell particularly well, with a reported 50,000 combined units of both models selling by the middle of 1981, with the company having sustained $10 million losses on its sales of $13 million for 1980^[3].