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1980 saw the release of a number of games with influential concepts, including Pac-Man, Battlezone, Crazy Climber, Mystery House, Missile Command, Phoenix, Rally-X, Space Panic, Stratovox, Zork, Adventure, and Olympic Decathlon. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, while the best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch. The Atari VCS (later called the Atari 2600) also grew in popularity with a port of Space Invaders and support from new third-party developer Activision.
Financial performance
- The arcade video game market in the US generates $2.81 billion in revenue ($ adjusted for inflation).
- Home video games sell ( adjusted for inflation) in the United States, with the Atari VCS leading the market with a 44% share.
Highest-grossing arcade games
The following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games worldwide in 1980.
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center"
! Rank
! Title
! Gross revenue
! Inflation
! Cabinet sales
! Developer
! Distributor(s)
! Genre
! class="unsortable" |
|-
| 1
| Pac-Man
| $1,000,000,000
|
| 100,000
| Namco
| Namco / Midway
| Maze
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2
| Asteroids
| $700,000,000
|
| 70,000
| Atari, Inc.
| Atari, Inc.
| Shoot 'em up
|
|-
|Galaxian
|
|
|
| Namco
| Namco / Midway
| Shoot 'em up
|
|}
Japan and United States
In Japan and the United States, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1980.
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center"
! rowspan="2" | Rank
! colspan="5" | Japan (Game Machine)
! colspan="4" | United States
|-
! Title
! #1
! #2
! #3
! Points
! Cash Box
! Play Meter
! RePlay
! Cabinet sales
|-
| 1
| Pac-Man
| 62
| 46
| 17
|
| colspan="3" | Asteroids
| < 60,000
|-
| 3
| Crazy Climber
| 14
| 19
| 30
|
|
| colspan="2" | Space Invaders
| <
|-
| 4
| Moon Cresta
| 3
| 24
| 15
|
|
|
| Missile Command
|
|-
| 5
| Monaco GP
| 11
| 4
| 11
|
|
|
| Rip Off
|
|-
| 6
| Rally-X
| 1
| 6
| 3
|
| rowspan="7"
| rowspan="7"
| rowspan="7"
| rowspan="7"
|-
| 7
| Heiankyo Alien (Digger)
| 1
| 4
| 4
|
|-
| 8
| Pitch In
| 0
| 1
| 5
|
|-
| 9
| Super Speed Race
| 0
| 2
| 2
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | 10
| Sasuke vs. Commander
| 0
| 0
| 5
|
|-
| Space Invaders
| 0
| 1
| 3
|
|-
| Missile Command
| 0
| 2
| 1
|
|}
Best-selling home video games
The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1980.
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center"
! Rank
! Title
! Platform
! Developer
! Publisher
! Release year
! Genre
! Sales
! class="unsortable" |
|-
| 1
| Space Invaders
| Atari VCS
| Taito
| Atari, Inc.
| 1980
| Shoot 'em up
| 1,318,655
|
|-
| 2
| Breakout
| Atari VCS
| colspan="2" | Atari, Inc.
| 1978
| Action
| 256,265
| rowspan="8" |
|-
|2
|Atari Video Computer System (VCS)
|Atari, Inc.
|Console
|Second
|1,250,000
|
|-
|3
|TRS-80
|Tandy Corporation
|Computer
|8-bit
|290,000
|
|-
|4
|Intellivision
|Mattel
|Console
|Second
|200,000
|
|-
|5
|Atari 400 / Atari 800
|Atari, Inc.
|Computer
|8-bit
|200,000
|
|-
|9
|North Star Horizon
|North Star Computers
|Computer
|8-bit
|8,200
|
Business
- New companies: Broderbund, Bug-Byte, HAL Laboratory, Human Engineered Software, Mindscape, On-Line Systems, Sirius, Sir-Tech.
- Mattel creates the original five-programmer Intellivision game design team, later nicknamed the Blue Sky Rangers in 1982 in a TV Guide interview.
Notable releases
thumb|[[Game & Watch]]
Games
;Arcade
- May 22 – Namco releases Pac-Man (originally Puckman in Japan). It becomes the highest-grossing game of all time. It has the first gaming mascot character, established the maze chase genre, opened gaming to female audiences, introduced power-ups, and told a story through cutscenes.
- May – Stratovox from Sun Electronics is the first game with voice synthesis.
- July – Atari, Inc. releases the cold-war-inspired Missile Command.
- October – Nichibutsu releases the vertically scrolling Crazy Climber, the first video game with a climbing mechanic and an objective of climbing to the top of the level.
- November 12 – Stern Electronics releases Berzerk, with designer Alan McNeil's signature on the monitor glass of each cabinet.
- November – Namco releases Rally-X, the first game with a bonus round. It also features multi-directional scrolling.
- November – Universal releases Space Panic, the first game with platforms and ladders. The term platform game was still several years in the future.
- November – Atari, Inc. releases first-person 3D tank shooter Battlezone.
- Cinematronics releases Star Castle. In 1982 the Atari 2600 port ends up as Yars' Revenge.
- Midway's Wizard of Wor is released, allowing two players to fight simultaneously in monster-filled mazes.
- The multi-stage Phoenix sports one of the first video-game bosses: a purple alien in a mothership.
;Console
- Atari, Inc.'s port of Space Invaders becomes the killer app for the VCS and the first console title to sell a million copies.
- The first batch of games from Activision, all for the Atari VCS, hits stores: Dragster, Fishing Derby, Boxing, Bridge, and Checkers.
;Computer
- December – Infocom releases its first game, Zork (later called Zork I), which begins the Zork series.
- The mainframe game Rogue is written by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold, eventually spawning a crowded genre of Roguelike games.
- Edu-Ware releases The Prisoner for the Apple II, loosely based upon the 1960s TV series of the same name.
- Strategic Simulations releases its first game: Computer Bismarck for the TRS-80.
- Microsoft publishes Olympic Decathlon for the TRS-80, a track and field video game which precedes Konami's Track & Field and The Activision Decathlon by three years.
- On-Line Systems publishes its first title, the graphic adventure Mystery House for the Apple II.
;Handheld
- Nintendo releases the Game & Watch series of LCD handheld electronic games by Gunpei Yokoi.
Hardware
;Arcade
- December – Data East releases the DECO Cassette System, the first standardized arcade platform, for which many games are developed.
;Console
- Mattel releases the Intellivision home video game console.
- PPZ Ameprod releases the Ameprod TVG-10 dedicated home video game console in Poland.
- The BSS 01 dedicated home video game console is released only in Germany.
;Computer
- The Sinclair ZX80 and Acorn Atom are the first home computers to play games in the UK.
- Tandy releases the first version of the Tandy Color Computer.
See also
- 1980 in games