This week, Atari noted the 40th anniversary of Pong, which was officially released on November 29th, 1972. For many people, Pong was their first introduction to video games. The idea of a person manipulating a simple light image up and down on a TV screen to hit a constantly moving light was almost magical for that time period.
This weekend only, Atari is holding a contest on its official Facebook page to celebrate Pong"s 40th birthday. The grand prize is what you see above this post. It"s an Xbox 360 case made to look like the classic Atari 2600 console. It also comes with an attached LCD screen to make the Xbox 360 a little bit more portable. You have until Sunday to enter the contest.
This isn"t the first time we have seen a cool case mod this year that used the Atari 2600 console as an inspiration. In September, Microsoft and Atari worked with PC maker Hard Drives Northwest to create a limited amount of Atari 2600 cases that had modern PC hardware placed inside.
Atari also announced the launch of Pong World this week, a new and free game for iOS devices. Not only is it the first all new Pong game made especially for smartphones and tablets, it also was created by a team that won Atari"s Pong Indie Developer Challenge. The team, ZGames, collected $50,000 from Atari for their efforts.
As far as the game itself, Atari says, "... players choose one of many Pong paddles and battle against opponents on various themed boards, experiencing the game in either classic mode or all-new gameplay modes including Blitz and Hotseat"
Source: Atari Facebook page | Image via Atari