Breakout [SRAI]

Play free reimagined classic video arcade games of the past from Sonic Radiation

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

About

Breakout is a 1976 action video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades. In Japan, it was released by Namco. Designed by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow, the game was prototyped using discrete logic chips by Steve Wozniak, with assistance from Steve Jobs. In Breakout, eight rows of bricks line the upper portion of the screen. Players control a paddle at the bottom and must bounce a ball upward to destroy the bricks. The concept was inspired by Atari’s own Pong (1972) and predated by Ramtek’s Clean Sweep (1974). The original arcade cabinet used a monochrome display with a translucent colored overlay. The game was a major commercial success, ranking among the top five highest-grossing arcade titles of 1976 in both the U.S. and Japan, and among the top three in 1977. A color-enhanced port was released for the Atari 2600 in 1978. An arcade sequel, Super Breakout, followed later that year, adding features such as multiple simultaneous balls. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs later founded Apple Computer Company (along with Ronald Wayne). The influential Apple II computer, designed primarily by Wozniak, incorporated several technical elements inspired by the hardware of Breakout.