‘Pong’ is now half a century old
Those are modest sales numbers by 2022 standards, but the success of Pong and Home Pong gave Atari the resources and expertise needed to create the Atari 2600. The second-generation console went on to sell more than 30 million units before the end of 2004. All things considered, pretty good for a project that was only meant to be a training exercise for designer Allan Alcorn, who was 24 at the time and had no prior video game experience. And if not for Pong, Nintendo would not exist, and a young Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak may have not gone on to create Apple.
Happy birthday, Pong, and thank you for inspiring countless sequels and knockoffs, as well as the careers of an entire generation of video game designers.
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