Considered the great-granddaddy of video game consoles, the Atari 2600 (originally the Atari VCS) was the first to significantly penetrate the home market. The system got off to a slow start upon its release in 1977, but its popularity soared with the release of faithful arcade translations like Space Invaders and Asteroids. By the beginning of the 80's, the 2600 was a legitimate phenomenon, making Atari one of the most recognized brand names in the world. The system offered several practical innovations, including removable cartridges, detachable controllers, different types of controllers, and the ability to select game "variations" from a single cartridge. Although many technically-superior consoles were released during the 80's, the Atari 2600 remained in production in one form or another long after most of its competitors had folded, all the way up until 1991.
 

Colecovision made a huge splash in 1982, thanks to its superior arcade-quality graphics and a killer pack-in: the insanely popular Donkey Kong. The system offered a wide variety of other arcade hits, although most were second-tier titles like Venture, Time Pilot, Ladybug, and Pepper II. Constantly pushing the envelope, Coleco released a series of hardware "expansion modules", including a rollerball (trak-ball controller), a steering wheel (with pedals), and an Atari 2600 adapter (which resulted in a major lawsuit). The Colecovision proved quite popular initially, but then Coleco overextended themselves and released an ill-fated home computer version of the Colecovision called the Adam. This poorly constructed system was both a commercial and technical failure, with a large number of units returned defective. The Adam fiasco, combined with the video game crash of '83 would spell the end of Coleco's video game business.