A Brief History of Sega on the Atari 2600

I’ve looked at several video game companies that published games on the Atari 2600 over the years. Next up is Sega. I wasn’t expecting to see them as a publisher/developer on Atari’s console. I would’ve expected them to do something similar to Nintendo and license their arcade games to other companies.

That isn’t what happened, and we have another interesting chapter in the history of Sega. The company has an interesting history in North America. They had multiple starts and stops throughout the 80s until the Genesis/Mega Drive was released.

Some games were ports of their arcade games, and others were licensed. It is an odd mix of games that you might not expect from an arcade manufacturer. They started out licensing their games to other companies like Parker Brothers and Coleco in 1982 and switched in 1983 to being a publisher themselves. It was a bad time to do this, but they couldn’t have known that.

A Brief Overview of Sega and Gremlin

When I talk about Sega in the late 70s and early 80s, I’m talking about two companies. Sega and Gremlin Industries would merge after the former purchased the latter. This gave Sega some manufacturing facilities in the US and more arcade games to sell. This is also how we ended up with Sega Electronics in 1982. It would be defunct by 1984.

Sega Electronics would port their arcade games to various home consoles and computers. The list includes:

• Apple II
• Commodore 64
• Atari 8-bit computers
• Vic-20
• Atari 2600
• Atari 5200

They also made a lot of arcade games throughout the 70s and early 80s. Initially, Gremlin was making games on their own, then after the merger, they made games as Sega/Gremlin before switching to Sega Electronics. They also acted as a publisher for arcade games. Here is a list of the games that they released and licensed:

• Astro Blaster (1981)
• Blasto (1978)
• Blockade (1976)
• Carnival (1980)
• Championship Baseball (1983)
• CoMotion (1977)
• Congo Bongo (1983)
• Deep Scan (1979)
• Depthcharge (1977)
• Digger (1980)
• Eliminator (1981)
• Fortress (1978)
• Frogger (1981)
• Frogs (1978)
• Gee Bee (1979)
• Head-on (1979)
• Head-on II (1979)
• Hustle (1977)
• Invinco (1979)
• Monaco GP (1979)
• Monster Bash
• Moon Cresta (1980)
• Moto-Cross
• Pengo (1982)
• Pulsar (1981)
• Safari (1978)
• Space Attack
• Space Firebird (1981)
• Space Fury (1981)
• Space Odyssey (1981)
• Space Tactics (1980)
• Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (1983)
• SubRoc 3-D
• Super Moon Cresta (1981)
• Super Space Attack (Europe Only 1979)
• Tac/Scan (1982)
• Turbo (1981)
• Turbo Tag
• Zaxxon (1982)
• Zektor (1982)

I left the unreleased games off of the list. There are a few of them, but I wanted to keep it to the officially released games. I know I’ve missed some, so please let me know.

You might notice a few games from other well-known companies on the list. Sega would publish arcade games for Nintendo, Namco, and Konami. Sega had the infrastructure to do this, while some other Japanese companies were still building a presence in North America.

When Sega pulled the plug on its North American operations, the manufacturing side of things was sold off to Bally/Midway while Sega kept the game library. This was part of a pattern that Sega would fall into. Build a presence in North America, run into trouble, and then retreat from North America.

Bally/Midway would also get the right of first refusal to publish Sega’s arcade games in North America. That is a list for another time, but Bally/Midway would go on to publish some of Sega’s arcade games in the mid-80s. Sega would publish some Bally/Midway games on the home console, like Spy Hunter and Tapper.

The Games

Sega published nine games for the Atari 2600. There were several unreleased games as well. As always, take the unreleased games with a grain of salt, and if I’ve missed any, let me know.

Released Games:

• Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom
• Congo Bongo
• Spy Hunter
• Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
• Sub-Scan
• Tac-Scan
• Tapper
• Thunderground
• Up’n Down

Some lists that I’ve seen have included other games like Frogger. This was a game that Sega published in the arcades but didn’t have the rights to home conversions. The story behind the rights to Frogger is fascinating!

Konami made the game and licensed it to Sega for an arcade release. Parker Brothers got the rights to the Atari 2600 version of Frogger. The game could be the subject of its own video or part of a larger project on the rights to ’70s and ’80s arcade games.

They also sold the rights to some of their games to Coleco. This is why you’ll see games like Zaxxon and Carnival on a Coleco cartridge. You could see this as Sega seeing if there was interest in their games on the home console or them buying time to get a group of developers together to work on ports themselves.

Sega even got the home console rights to arcade games they didn’t make. Tapper was made by Marvin Glass and Associates and published by Midway in the arcades. Initially, it promoted Budweiser, which was later changed to root beer.

There several of the unreleased games were announced at the 1983 Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Many of these games were also mentioned on page 45 in the April 1983 issue of Billboard Magazine. I’m not sure if there are demos for all of these games or not. As always, let me know if I’ve missed one.

Unreleased Games:

• Bear
• Ixion
• Airplane
• Dragonslayer
• 48 Hours
• Friday the 13^th
• Marathon Man
• Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
• Star Trek: In Search of Spock
• War of the Worlds

One Thing I Didn’t Know

There is a little more to the story of Gremlin. This doesn’t have much to do with Sega’s games on the Atari 2600, but I thought it was interesting. There was a sister company to Gremlin called Noval.

This company made a computer called the Noval 760. It didn’t last long, and when Sega bought Gremlin, they also purchased Noval. The computer was discontinued in 1979 after sluggish sales.

It is a cool-looking computer. The Noval 760 isn’t important to the story of Sega in the 1970s and 80s, but I thought it was an interesting footnote. I wonder how many other computers were made during the 1970s.

Arcades in the Mid to Late-80s

Sega would continue to release arcade games throughout the 80s and 90s. These games would form the launch line-ups for Sega’s home consoles. Eventually, they would return to North America.

Their first attempt was with the Master System. They struck a deal with Tonka to distribute the console for them. This wasn’t as successful as Sega had hoped, but they sold enough consoles to show promise.

They took a more active role with the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. They got third-party support, targeted an older market, and had quite a bit of success. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t translate to their future consoles, but that is a story for another time.

Final Thoughts

The 70s and 80s were an interesting time for video games. This small portion of it was particularly fascinating for me. I love Sega and didn’t know much about their time on the Atari 2600.

I’ve read a few books on the history of Sega of America, and this part is usually glossed over in favor of their arcade games. When I came across their cartridges, I was surprised. I didn’t think that they were a publisher on the Atari 2600.

When these games were ported to the Atari, the system was showing it’s age. They would have looked better if they had been on the Intellivision or the ColecoVision. It was also interesting to see the connections between the different video game companies and how they worked together in the early days.

There are a few things I found while researching this that I want to come back to at some point. The story of Frogger is particularly interesting to me. I’m not sure which publisher I’ll cover next, but it will be fun.