Atari confirmed to have buried hundreds of video games in New Mexico
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This morning one of the greatest urban myths in the history of video games was confirmed: Atari buried, more than three decades ago, aconsiderable amount of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial cartridgesin Alamogordo County, New Mexico.
The discovery was made by aconsortium of companies, Fuel Entertainment, Xbox Entertainment Studios and LightBox Entertainment, who receivedpermission to excavate the sanitary landfillwhere it was suspected that thecartridges since 1983. This within the framework of thedocumentary that Microsoftwill launch exclusively for itsXbox One console
Precisely, one of the mainXbox executives Larry Hryb, gave the world premiere throughyour Twitter accountUrban legend CONFIRMED", was the message posted by Hryb -better known asMajor Nelson- along with a photograph of one of the expedition leaders, holding one of therecovered cartridges
Nearly200 locals and game enthusiasts, gathered at the site to watch the work of theexcavating machineswho removed the garbage and brought to light the cartridges -which according to theAP reportsare estimated at"hundreds" of units
The images allow us to see thatThe cartridges have been preservedand that some of themThey still retain their packaging. The presence of other games such asCentipede
"I'm nervous about all the people here," said Zak Penn, director of the Xbox documentary, who led the dig. "Everyone came to see something and they've obviously gotten it," he toldPolygon
Joe Lewandowski, organizer of the excavation, said yesterday that they would begin the search in arelatively small depositinside the huge landfill, where original rumors claimed that thenumber of copies of E.T.. could reachmillions of cartridges
InJuly 1983Atari andthe film director and producerSteven Spielbergsigned an agreement to create avideo game based on the blockbuster film "E.T. The Extraterrestrial"The company's rush to get it to market before the holiday season resulted in apoor quality gameOf the five million copies produced, the title sold barely a million and a half.
In September 1983,The New York Times and other newspapersreported that14 truckswho moved a huge amount of unsold Atari productsfrom a factory in El Pasoto the landfill in Alamogordo.
This fact represented theend of an eraWith Atari's business in shambles - thanks to a series of failures, including E.T. and a shoddy conversion of Pac-Man - and thedeclining public interestOn home consoles, 1983 was a bleak year for the video game industry. What is known as the "crash" of the video game industry was largely due to theAtari collapse; and the failure of E.T. turned out to be the company's last and most costly mistake.
With information fromAtomixPolygonIGN
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