Release date: 1984

1984 was the year the Atari 2600 boom ran out. Strong games still appeared: Activision’s H.E.R.O. and David Crane’s Pitfall II: Lost Caverns came out in March, and arcade conversions such as Crystal Castles, Millipede, Parker Brothers’ Star Wars: The Arcade Game and Sega’s Spy Hunter kept arriving. On 21 May Atari announced the 7800, a new console that could also play 2600 cartridges.
Then, on 2 July, Warner sold Atari’s consumer business to Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore, and he halted 2600 game development soon after. By the middle of the year only Atari and Activision were still making 2600 games. Several projects from this year were never finished or never sold, and this page holds a number of them, including Garfield, Dune, Tempest, Sinistar and Peek-A-Boo, a game for young children made with the psychologist Lee Salk. Rare small-label cartridges such as River Patrol and Color Bar Generator are here too.
Cosmic Commuter is filed under 1984, but its release is usually dated to 1985.
Play the 1984 games and prototypes below in your browser.