Did The Video Game Crash of 1983 Even Really Happen?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

In 1982, the video game market was a booming seemingly-unstoppable multi-billion dollar juggernaut. Then third party game companies saturated the market with similar and clone hardware and low-quality games based on dog food and soda, culminating in Atari’s Shakespearean mistake of releasing a lackluster Pac-Man port and so many copies of a game based on the movie E.T The Extra-Terrestrial they had to bury them in a landfill. Next thing anyone knew there was —

AN ENTIRE VIDEO GAME MARKET CRASH.

BUT ONLY IN CARTRIDGE GAMES.

BUT ONLY IN CARTRIDGES FOR CONSOLES.

BUT ONLY REALLY ONE CONSOLE.

LOCALIZED ENTIRELY IN NORTH AMERICA.

But did it really happen like that?

Lets look at those big numbers again. That $3.2 billion retail figure from 1982, turns out about 80% of that was specifically Atari’s part of the market. By 1984, retail sales were down to about $800 million. Worth noting that 1984 was the year the new owner of Atari, Commodore’s Jack Tramiel…