Activision releases the Pressure Cooker cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system. A fast-paced video game version of the fast food industry, Pressure Cooker turns players into short-order cooks with very little time to accurately build burgers to order.
After a six-month loss totaling over $200,000,000, Texas Instruments puts its computer division out of its misery immediately, ending all manufacturing and support for the TI 99/4a home computer. Prices on the remaining stock of TI computers drop well below the $100 mark, and the company lays off thousands of employees; third-party software and peripheral vendors such as Milton Bradley take a hit by the end of the year as a result. Company executives describe TI’s losses in 1983 so far as the worst that the company has ever suffered.
The first video game company to produce only software without a hardware platform of its own, Activision is heavily dependent on the Atari 2600 – and Atari’s falling fortunes bring Activision down with it. After third quarter losses of $4,000,000, a quarter of Activision’s workforce is laid off; Activision CEO Jim Levy cautiously predicts better results in 1984.
Atari’s arcade game Pole Position II, originated by Japanese manufacturer Namco, is released in the United States. A sequel to the hit racing game Pole Position, this game adds new tracks and improved graphics.
Activision releases the Space Shuttle cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system, an attempt to do a realistic flight simulator on limited hardware. Many of the console’s option switches – normally used to toggle difficulty levels, color or black & white graphics, and so on – are used for in-game functions instead.
Hobbled by the recent half-billion-dollar losses of its Atari division, Warner Communications finds itself vulnerable to a potential hostile takeover by Australian publisher Rupert Murdoch, who isn’t shy about his plan to acquire a controlling interest in Warner’s very slowly recovering stock. To stave off Murdoch’s takeover attempt, a 19% stake in Warner is traded for 43% of Chris-Craft Industries’ broadcasting division, BHC Communications. This transaction later has unforseen consequences, including BHC’s near-successful 1989 attempt to block the Time Warner merger, and the creation of the short-lived PTEN television network, a failed 1990s venture whose main claim to fame will be the science fiction series Babylon 5.
The video game division of #1 toy maker Mattel closes its doors immediately after the parent company announces that it lost well over $300,000,000 over the course of 1983, with all of thoses losses occurring within its video game business. The remaining stock of Mattel’s Intellivision video game system and its software are liquidated, and the entire electronics division is laid off. The popularity of its Masters Of The Universe toys and perennial favorites such as Hot Wheels and Barbie are barely enough to keep the entire company out of bankruptcy court.
Activision releases the Pitfall II: Lost Caverns cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system, adding new adventures to Pitfall Harry’s resume and wowing players with sophisticated polyphonic music from a console infamous for its buzzes, bleeps and bloops. (The secret: the cartridge contains its own special audio chip.)
Konami introduces the arcade game Circus Charlie in the United States. Patterned after the Olympic-themed Track & Field, Circus Charlie is a “multi-event” game based on circus tricks.
Like many other companies tied into the video game business – whose profits seem to be in an endless downward spiral – North American Phillips (formerly Magnavox) closes down production of Odyssey2 hardware and software, and reassigns staff programmers to other products, including Phillips’ stand-alone word processor, VideoWriter, though few of the company’s former game designers remain with that project for long.
Mixing video highway hypnosis and a strangely hummable theme song, Japanese video game Tube Panic, from the makers of Crazy Climber and Moon Cresta, first appears in American arcades. Players have to fight motion sickness to keep blasting away at bad guys. The game achieves minor cult status but fails to become a smash hit at a time when arcade manufacturers desperately need one.
Konami introduces the arcade game Time Pilot ’84 in the United States, dragging the popular Time Pilot style of game play two years into the future. (In many respects, it’s the same game with a new graphics set.)
The American wing of Japanese arcade game manufacturer Taito introduces the coin-op racing game Buggy Challenge on the American arcade market.
Atari releases the arcade game Return Of The Jedi in the United States, completing its own coin-op Star Wars trilogy and allowing players to participate in the thrill of helping Ewoks snag Imperial speeder bikes out of mid-air.
Just in time for Halloween, Activision releases the Ghostbusters cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system, based on the hit movie of the same name.
Coleco Industries formally announces the complete discontinuation of its Adam computer and the Colecovision home video game console, after revealing a $55,000,000 loss for 1984, a loss incurred largely by the market failure of Adam; only the hugely popular Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, another Coleco product, keep the company from losing any more money. Coleco’s remaining game and computer stock is sold to closeout retail chain Odd Lot, and the video game market crash claims another victim.
Atari releases the arcade game Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the United States, giving players the chance to hate pixellated snakes from a safe distance.
More about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in Phosphor Dot Fossils
Konami introduces the arcade game Rush’n Attack in the United States, while the same game – with no changes to its hand-to-hand military fighting action – is released elsewhere as Green Beret.
The Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation releases a new version of the perennial favorite educational computer game The Oregon Trail for the Apple II computer. Now featuring more action-based sequences than purely textual interactions, this version of The Oregon Trail is the most recognizable iteration of the game, which will be ported to numerous other computer systems.
Nintendo releases Wrecking Crew for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Possibly the most obscure NES game to feature Mario, this is one of very few Mario games to continue the idea – established in Donkey Kong – that Mario is a construction worker rather than a plumber with super powers.
Nintendo releases the Donkey Kong 3 cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System, based on the company’s own 1983 arcade game.
Nintendo releases The Legend Of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, having already released a version early in 1986 in Japan. Rolled out with a major advertising campaign, Zelda revitalizes and redefines the video adventure game genre, as well as players’ expectation of electronically-moderated role-playing games, and spawns one of Nintendo’s most profitable major tentpole franchises.
Having weathered the storm of the 1983 video game industry crash longer than most, Coleco Industries, maker of the early ’80s Colecovision video game system, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time of the filing, Coleco is America’s sixth largest toy company, but the video game industry isn’t its downfall. Overproduction of the company’s Cabbage Patch Kids toys has proven to be fatal, with two straight years of annual losses exceeding $100,000,000. The remains of Coleco are eventually bought up by rival toymaker Hasbro.
Nintendo launches a portable video game system with interchangeably cartrdiges, the Game Boy, in North America. Though many industry insiders predict a short life for the handheld game thanks to its ability to quickly drain its batteries and its black & white LCD display, the game included with each Game Boy – the incredibly popular puzzle game Tetris – becomes a selling point in itself. With a price tag of around $100, the entire million-unit allotment of Game Boys shipped to American stores sells out in under two months.
Nintendo releases the Dr. Mario cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System, giving everyone’s favorite Mushroom Kingdom plumper a medical degree and pitting him against viruses and germs, Tetris-style.
One of Atari’s most innovative games of the 1990s is released for the Atari 7800 home video game system. Ninja Golf is a game parodying both the glut of current sports simulations and martial arts fighting games – at the same time. Players take a swing at the ball, and then a swing at their throwing-star-hurling enemies. Despite its cheeky humor and innovative play, Ninja Golf doesn’t make much noise at retail – it’s stealthy, like a ninja.
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Capcom releases the arcade video game 
Midway Games releases the arcade game