1976 in video gaming

List of years in video gaming (table)
... 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 ... 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 ... 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 ...
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Events

• October – Warner Communications acquires Atari from Nolan Bushnell for $28 million USD. Bushnell stays on as chairman.
• 3.5 million video games are sold, earning the retail video game industry $242 million in revenue.

Business

• New companies: Apple Computer, Data East

Notable releases

Games

• January – Sega releases Heavyweight Champ, the first video game to feature hand-to-hand fighting. It uses controls that simulate throwing actual punches.
• February – Sega releases Road Race, a racing video game that introduces pseudo-3D, forward-scrolling, third-person graphics.
• April – Taito releases Speed Race Twin, a sequel to Speed Race that allows simultaneous two-player competitive dual-screen gameplay and uses colour graphics.
• April – Atari releases Breakout, whose prototype was designed by Apple Computer cofounders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, to video arcades.
• August – Sega releases Man T.T., also known as Moto-Cross, an early motorbike racing game, using a pseudo-3D, forward-scrolling, third-person perspective, similar to Road Race. It also introduces haptic feedback, causing the handlebars to vibrate during collisions. Sega-Gremlin re-brands it as Fonz.
• October – Atari releases Night Driver, a first-person perspective racing video game.
• October – Gremlin releases Blockade, the first of what become known as snake games.
• Exidy releases Death Race, a racing game based on the film Death Race 2000, to video arcades. The game sparks a public outcry over violence in video games, and is banned in many areas.
• While working at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, Don Woods discovers and expands Will Crowther's Adventure. Later in the year, James Gillogly ports Woods's version of the interactive fiction title from Fortran to the C programming language for Unix-based computers.

Hardware

• August – Fairchild Semiconductor releases the Video Entertainment System (later known as the VES or Channel F), the first video game console to use a microprocessor and cartridges.
• Coleco releases the Telstar, a console clone of Pong based on General Instrument's AY-3-8500 microchip.
• Radofin releases the 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System video game console in Europe.