Atari 2600 Breakout released on May 13, 1976. It was conceptualized by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow, influenced by the seminal 1972 Atari arcade game Pong. In Breakout, a layer of bricks lines the top third of the screen and the goal is to destroy them all by repeatedly bouncing a ball off a paddle into them. The arcade game was released in Japan by Namco. An Atari VCS port was released in 1978 which used color graphics instead of a monochrome screen with a colored overlay.
Breakout was a worldwide commercial success in arcades, among the top five highest-grossing arcade video games of 1976 in both the United States and Japan, and then among the top three highest-grossing arcade video games of 1977 in the US and Japan. The sequel, Super Breakout, became the pack-in game for the Atari 5200 console in 1982.
Breakout was an influential game that had an impact on the video game and computer industries. While the concept was predated by Ramtek’s Clean Sweep (1974), Breakout spawned an entire genre of clones. Ten years later the concept found new legs with Taito’s 1986 Arkanoid, which itself spawned dozens of imitators. In Japan, the genre is known as block kuzushi (“block breaker”) games. Breakout was also the basis and inspiration for certain aspects of the Apple II personal computer and Taito’s arcade shoot ’em up game Space Invaders (1978).(source: Wikipedia)
Sears title: Breakaway IV