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.
The Year 1999 is a PAL cartridge from Rainbow Vision (Suntek), model SS-008, sold in Australia. It is not an original game: emulator databases identify it as Ultravision's shooter Condor Attack under a new name, like several other…
Play ▸Thunderground is a 1983 Atari 2600 cartridge from Sega, programmed by Jeff Lorenz. You drive a digging vehicle called a core capsule through the earth, tunnelling towards six enemy bases while two tanks hunt you through the passages…
Play ▸Time Pilot is Coleco's 1983 Atari 2600 version of Konami's arcade shooter, licensed from Konami. You fly a "Timeship" through five periods of aviation history, from wooden biplanes in 1910 to flying saucers in 2001, and in each…
Play ▸Tomarc the Barbarian is an action game for the Atari 2600 from Xonox, the video game label of the K-tel company. You guide the barbarian Tomarc through a series of caves to rescue Senta, who is held in…
Play ▸Track & Field is Atari's 1984 Atari 2600 version of Konami's 1983 arcade hit. It was programmed at General Computer Corporation (GCC) by Seth Lipkin, Jacques Hugon and Allen Wells. You compete in six athletics events, from the…
Play ▸Treasure Island is a little-known PAL cartridge for the Atari 2600, sold under the Suntek label with the model number SS-026. It is not an original title: it is the same game that the company Home Vision released…
Play ▸Trick Shot is a pool and billiards game for the Atari 2600, designed by Dennis Koble and released by Imagic in April 1982. It was one of the new company's first three cartridges, alongside Demon Attack and Star…
Play ▸Survival Island is a 1983 action-adventure by Starpath, programmed by Scott Nelson. It was not sold as a normal cartridge but on cassette tape for the Starpath Supercharger, an add-on that plugged into the Atari 2600's cartridge slot,…
Play ▸
