• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

ET found in landfill [Xbox troll = ban]

Have they confirmed the stock was encased in concrete too?

I can understand why maybe it would of been considered a myth - as by the time Atari did dump the cartridges, people had sort of gotten over Video games till Nintendo came along and jump-started the market back to life about 5 years later. So it was more like a sad little footnote nobody cared to detail, least of all Atari who just wanted to try and put the past behind them.
 

Zee-Row

Banned
How can this shit get rained on and whatever stuff mother nature threw on this site and still be in the shape its in? I'm calling bullshit.
 

Phediuk

Member
I heard the landfill was filled in with concrete though.

And aside from that those cartridges are in near-pristine condition.

Calling bullshit until proven otherwise.
 

Jagsrock

Banned
Holy fuck balls.
You-press-down-to-jump-600x328.jpg
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I was alive. I don't remember it.

(Born 1983)

I was born in 1970 and Had a C64 around hat time, and I don't remember it. Although the Atari wasn't that huge in the UK, we were on home computers around then (Amiga was only two years off)
 

jelly

Member
Neat, it was true. Suspected nobody could be arsed to dig it up rather than an urban myth but cool nonetheless.
 

leadbelly

Banned
This is cool, but I'll really believe when thousands of ET carts are found in the landfill.

Well, it would be interesting to know exactly how many Atari games they found in general, If the first cartridge they found just happened to be ET, well that is quite a coincidence.
 
This was an urban legend? I thought it was just a fact, I mean, they had a product they couldn't sell and there was no money/reason to store them, so they threw them away. It's not some kind of crazy, unheard of occurrence.

Whether it's real or not, I can't imagine a documentary about digging through garbage in a desert to be very interesting. Calling this "history" in any capacity is a massive overstatement.
 

Lace

Member
Its cool that they found it but it seems a little morbid digging up a "grave site". At least the gif potential is high. Any bomba will be photo shopped in.
 
I honestly don't know whether to be surprised a lot of people considered this a myth, or surprised at myself for taking it all at face value from jump street.

I mean, I wasn't alive in 1982-83, and could only go on read histories of the industry. Atari's crazy overconfidence in E.T.'s performance, its reception, and the fallout. So fascinating. No real written rules or regulations (that I am aware of), so everyone was winging it.

Imagine if Microsoft had said produce more copies of Titanfall than there are Xbox One systems in existence. The responses they'd get.
 

Darknight

Member
Since when was this a "myth"? I always saw this as a truth?

But still, pretty cool and funny to find the carts there. They should build some museum on top of the site lol.
 

ironcreed

Banned
I heard the landfill was filled in with concrete though.

And aside from that those cartridges are in near-pristine condition.

Calling bullshit until proven otherwise.

How dare you try to diminish the importance of this historical archaeological discovery.

In all seriousness, if they were buried well enough, some of them would probably be pretty well preserved. This is quite neat. Especially for those of us who were around and owned a 2600.
 
This is a photo of the rumoured site that was in Stephen L Kent's excellent 'The First Quarter'.

20130122_111023_atari_300.jpg


Microsoft is involved. If it was Sony the same joke could be made about PlayStation move controllers and sharpshooters. Which are actually much more likely to wind up in a landfill.

Haven't you heard? Move is coming back like flares now Morpheus has awakened.
 
Top Bottom