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Atari Video Pinball CC Image – Wikipedia – Arosio Stefano

Developer: Atari

Release Date: 1978

Origin: U.S.A.

Initial Price: $69.95 USD

CPU: Custom Atari chipsets (C011500-11 / C011512-05)

In-Built Games: 7

Back in 1978 Atari decided that there simply were not enough dedicated games consoles on the market. So continuing their trend of trying to bring the arcade experience home with their Atari Stunt Cycle, in 1978 Atari wanted to give gamers the pinball experience at home, without the need for a large Pinball table taking up half the living room. So here we are taking a look at another somewhat obscure console.

Atari Video Pinball – 1978

As far as looks go there were two different variations of the Atari Video Pinball dedicated console. There is the wood grain effect console and there is also a white plastic version. Sears also had their own version of the wood grain model, but with the Sears logo instead of the Atari one.

The wood grain model had two buttons on the side of the console that I am sure you can guess are the pinball flipper controls. As well as this there is a paddle controller on the right hand side of the console. You also have a large button that is used to serve the ball in the games as well as various buttons to select games and settings. There are also pictures on the actual console showing the games that can be played. In all I think this is quite a classy looking video game console.

The white plastic version was released a little later and while it is not ugly it lost a lot of the charm that the wood grain effect console had. If you put the two together side by side it looks a heck of a lot cheaper. It had all the same buttons, again in the same places as the wood grain model did, but they got rid of the little pictures of the game. I assume that this was to save a few bucks in production. It does not look bad, but once you see the wood grain version I would bet that you will want that version in your game console collection.

As far as the games go, the Atari Video Pinball was pretty stacked with games to play. In all you had seven games to play. You had four pinball games, two of which used the bumpers on the side of the console and two that used the paddle. You also had Basketball, Breakout and Breakaway and all three of these used the paddle. So there is a really good fun selection of games for you to play.

At the time this was released, the insides of the console were actually far more advanced than a regular Pong clone system. One cool feature is that it has the ability to save your pinball score. The Atari Video Pinball console can run off batteries or a power supply.

One cool thing for collectors is that the white plastic version of Atari Video Pinball can be found pretty cheaply, but you will have to pay a little more if you want to get the wood grain version. Still, if you just want to experience the actual games then it's worth while picking up the white version.

In 1980 there was a version of Atari Video Pinball released for the Atari 2600. This version used the joystick to control everything which I know sounds like a nightmare, but it kind of worked. With how crazy Atari were with their add-ons I am surprised they never made a pinball controller for the Atari 2600. Pinball was huge back in the late 70s and early 80s and there were other pinball games on the 2600, so I am sure it would have sold fairly well.