Space Invaders For the Atari 2600

I don't recall if we got our first Atari 2600 the first year they were available for Christmas in 1977. For some reason the game system wasn't the hit they had planned that year, and many of the consoles they had produced in Sunnyvale, California, went unsold. The 1980 release of Space Invaders quadrupled Atari game sales, and is acknowledged as the first hit application in history. I'm guessing that's about when we got it. Space Invaders was created by Tomohiro Nishikado, and his inspiration is said either to be a dream he had where Japanese children waiting for Santa Claus were attacked by aliens, or the Atari game Breakout. Perhaps both entered into his creation. After considering using humans as the enemy, Nishikado considered shooting them immoral, and inspired by both War of the Worlds and Star Wars, decided to make the invaders alien. 

By the end of 1982, four billion quarters had been put into Space Invader arcade games worldwide. The Atari version of the game was the first time an arcade game had been officially licensed for a video game console.

Atari 2600 Space Invaders