Microsoft digs up lost copies of Atari 2600 game ET

Long-lost copies of the game ET for the Atari 2600 have been found in a search launched by Microsoft. The cartridges were found at a garbage dump in New Mexico. There are rumored to be millions of copies.

The discovery of the ET cartridges was the first reported by an employee of Microsoft’s Xbox team on Twitter. Digging up copies of the Atari 2600 game has confirmed a persistent 31-year-old rumor. Atari reportedly dumped millions of copies of the game in the garbage dump near Almagordo, New Mexico. Despite the find, the number of dumped cartridges has yet to be confirmed.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that it would launch a search for the long-lost ET cartridges. To this end, the company works together with the companies Fuel and Lightbox, which specialize in excavations. The search is part of a documentary about the video game industry.

The game ET for the Atari 2600 came out in 1983, around the time the movie of the same name was released by Steven Spielberg. The game was said to have taken less than six weeks to put together and flopped shortly after release. Although approximately 1.5 million copies were sold, Atari was left with millions of cartridges and is said to have suffered a loss of half a billion dollars on the project.

The flopping of the game ET is believed to be one of the causes of the video game recession of the 1980s. Beginning in 1983, console game sales in North America crashed, probably due to a plethora of poor quality games. Several companies subsequently went bankrupt, almost leading to the demise of the console industry.