Breakout (video game) Breakout (video game) Breakout is an arcade game developed and published by Atari, Inc., released on May 13, 1976. It was conceptualized by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow, influenced by the 1972 Atari arcade game "Pong", and built by Steve Wozniak aided by Steve Jobs. "Breakout" was the basis and inspiration for certain aspects of the Apple II personal computer. The game was ported to the Atari 2600 and was followed by a 1978 sequel, "Super Breakout", which four years later became the pack-in game for the Atari 5200 console. "Breakout" spawned an entire genre of "Breakout" clones, and the
Atari, Inc. the game "Go", Bushnell shared with Dabney his gaming-pizza parlor idea, and had taken him to the computer lab at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to see the games on those systems. They jointly developed the concept of using a standalone computer system with a monitor and attaching a coin slot to it to play games on. Bushnell and Dabney worked with Nutting Associates to manufacture their product. Dabney developed a method of using video circuitry components to mimic functions of a computer for a much cheaper cost and a smaller space. Bushnell and Dabney used this to develop a variation