1983 is by far the largest year in our archive, with around 270 games. Toy makers, film studios, food companies and small firms that vanished within months all put cartridges on the shelves. It was also the year of the video game crash. Atari lost $536 million, and in September it buried unsold stock in a New Mexico landfill. In October it brought the console to Japan as the Atari 2800, where it made little impact.
Plenty of good games still came out. Activision released Dan Kitchen’s first 2600 game, Crackpots, and Parker Brothers brought Konami’s Tutankham and the lightsaber duel Star Wars: Jedi Arena. Atari continued its Swordquest series with Swordquest: Fireworld, and Starpath’s Sword of Saros showed how far the Supercharger could go. At the other end of the scale is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, better known for its controversy than for its gameplay.
Some titles on this page reached shops in early 1984, such as Private Eye and Track & Field, and Xevious is a prototype that was never released.
There is a lot to explore below, and every game plays right in your browser.
Eddy Langfinger, der Museumsdieb ("Eddy Lightfingers, the museum thief") is the German PAL release of the Atari 2600 game A Mysterious Thief, sold by the mail-order company Quelle. You play a burglar raiding a four-storey building against the…
Play ▸Demolition Herby is a 1983 Atari 2600 game from Telesys, a small publisher in Fremont, California, programmed by Don Ruffcorn. You steer Herby, a little green car, around a grid of white lines, painting them red to black…
Play ▸Depth Charge is an unreleased 1983 Atari 2600 submarine game, programmed by Jerry Lawson's company Videosoft for Amiga, the firm that later built the Amiga computer. You look through a periscope at ships sailing across the horizon and…
Play ▸Dice Puzzle is a quiet one-player logic game for the Atari 2600 from 1983. This page runs the European PAL cartridge, which carries the Sancho name (the label of Tang's Electronic Co.) and shows "© Sancho 1983" on…
Play ▸Dice Puzzle is a one-player number puzzle for the Atari 2600, released in North America by Panda. This page runs the American (NTSC) cartridge. The site also has the European PAL release, which AtariAge lists under the Sancho…
Play ▸Donald Duck's Speedboat is an unreleased Atari 2600 game from 1983, programmed by Suki Lee with graphics by Dave Joly. You steer Donald's speedboat through a watery obstacle course as fast as you can. It was cancelled very…
Play ▸Donkey Kong Junior is Coleco's 1983 Atari 2600 version of Nintendo's 1982 arcade sequel to Donkey Kong. This time the roles are reversed: Mario has locked Donkey Kong in a cage, and you play his son, who climbs…
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