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Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YDRjtmAiNpo5mK5N3d7QwZ
2026-10-13 16:47:19 +02:00

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title, tags, years, params
title tags years params
Atari Football
american football
sport
1978
image specs screenshots machines company oc_id source
/media/museum/software/arcade_atari-football_s0.png
label value
year of release 1978
label value
companies Atari
label value
type game
label value
media arcade cabinet
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systems Arcade
label value
number of players 2 players (versus)
label value
staff Mike Albaugh, Steve Bristow, Ed Logg, Lyle Rains, Dave Stubbens
title subtitle text image
with overlays showing the different tactics available /media/museum/software/arcade_atari-football_s0.png
title subtitle text image
/media/museum/software/arcade_atari-football_s1.png
title subtitle text image
/media/museum/software/arcade_atari-football_s2.png
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/media/museum/software/arcade_atari-football_s3.png
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/media/museum/software/arcade_atari-football_s4.png
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Maintenance manual /media/museum/software/arcade_atari-football_maintenance-manual.jpg
title subtitle text image
/media/museum/software/arcade_atari-football_cab_1.jpg
/museum/misc-arcade-video-games
/companies/misc 335
url date
https://web.archive.org/web/20230127045632/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/software_detail.asp?id=335 2023-01-27

Atari football is considered the first real sport simulation video game, with its 7 seven players on each team, detailed playfield graphics, 4 offensive tactics and 4 defensive tactics.

Before that, sports games meant pong-type video games such as tennis, hockey or football. But let's face it, there were mainly pong spin-offs, not real efforts to simulate sport rules.

Of course there was also Football for the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972; but if the effort was laudable, the system technical limitations prevented the game from being a real simulation.

Apart from that, Atari Football is also the first video game to use a trackball as the controller. A 4 players version was even released in 1979, with 4 trackballs!