A latecomer to the glut of companies trying to provide software for the Atari 2600 video game system, US Games is closed down by its parent companies, Quaker Oats and Fisher-Price. Barely a year old, and with only 14 titles released, US Games is dubbed “an experiment” – but apparently not an experiment capable of surviving in the rapidly contracting video game market.
Activision releases the Robot Tank cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system, Activision’s answer to Atari’s home verison of Battlezone. As usual, Activision raises the ante with such features as a night vision mode and multiple targets. 
With the video game industry crash taking its toll, and Atari’s financial status in free-fall, CEO Ray Kassar resigns from the company shortly after a disastrous earnings report showing two straight quarters of multi-million dollar losses – the first Warner Communications suffered since the year before it bought Atari and installed Kassar as CEO. Kassar has also drawn fire for accusations that he sold thousands of shares of his Warner stock minutes prior to the fateful December 1982 announcement that heralded the beginning of the industry’s downturn. Kassar is replaced by former Philip Morris marketing VP James Morgan, who has no prior experience in the consumer electronics field; his previous experience has been in tobacco marketing.
Atari releases the arcade video game Crystal Castles, an internally developed game featuring a new character, Bentley the Bear.
In Japan, Nintendo launches the Famicom (Family Computer) home video game system, with a few games available at the product’s launch, all of which are ports of popular Nintendo arcade games. Within months, major technical problems are reported and faulty consoles are returned, and Nintendo discovers that a design flaw is responsible. All Famicom units are recalled and refurbished at the company’s expense. In two years, the console will be launched in North America as the Nintendo Entertainment System, almost single-handedly reviving the video game industry around the world.
Midway releases the arcade video game Pac ‘N’ Pal, licensed from Namco, the Japanese developers behind Pac-Man, of which this game is a loose sequel.
After dismal second-quarter earnings reports lead to weeks of massive sell-offs of Warner Communications and Texas Instruments stock (among many other companies tied into the field of computer and video games), investment firm Prudential-Bache Securities – usually a staunch supporter of tech stocks – kicks the industry crash into high gear with a simple warning: do not buy. Stock prices for video game and computer companies tumble precipitously for the remainder of 1983, driving some of the industry’s longest-lived players out of the business (or out of business altogether). Even relatively stable stocks such as Apple and Coleco take a major hit; computer manufacturers and arcade-only game makers who have made it through the first half of 1983 unscathed find their stock valued at half of what it was worth just weeks before. In many respects this marks the end of the home-grown American video game industry: the next wave of successful products will arrive from Japan, and American software houses will rely on those machines to run their products.
Activision releases The Activision Decathlon for the Atari 2600 home video game, one of several video games themed around the 1984 Olympic Games.
Origin Systems releases the computer role-playing game Ultima III: Exodus for the Apple II home computer, the third game in Richard Garriott’s Ultima series.
IREM releases the arcade video game Tropical Angel, a water skiing game.
Software company Imagic, which started out marketing games for the Atari VCS before branching out into the Intellivision, Colecovision, home computer and even Odyssey² markets, nixes plans to sell public stock in the company. Shortly afterward, 40 of Imagic’s 170 employees are laid off, with every indiciation that more employees will follow as the company tries to stay afloat. Potential investors are told that Imagic’s initial public offering has been delayed until early 1984, but stock in the company is never sold.
In what is perhaps the most tangible event of the entire video game industry crash in 1983, Atari dumps 14 truckloads of unsold game cartridges and other parts in the Alamagordo, New Mexico city dump, with security guards standing by to keep curious onlookers from grabbing any “souvenirs” before concrete is poured over them. The unsold merchandise is stock left over from the closure of Atari’s cartridge assembly plant in El Paso, Texas. Second-quarter earnings report reveal that Atari has lost over $300,000,000 since the beginning of 1983.
Months after his resignation as CEO of Atari, Ray Kassar is hit with charges of insider trading by the Securities & Exchange Commission. At issue, according to the SEC, is the sudden sale of 5,000 shares in Atari’s parent company, Warner Communications, 23 minutes before a statement was issued indicating that Atari would not meet shareholders’ expectations in the fourth quarters of 1982. Other Atari executives are also charged with similar last-minute sell-offs.
Atari, under its Atarisoft imprint, releases the Apple II port of Pac-Man, largely reusing the code of the earlier H.A.L. Labs title Taxman.
Atari, under its Atarisoft imprint, releases the Apple II port of Robotron: 2084.
Atari, under its Atarisoft imprint, releases the Apple II port of Dig Dug.
Electronic Arts releases Will Harvey’s Music Construction Set for the Apple II (versions will follow for other systems, such as the Atari home computers and Commodore 64, but the Apple II version is the first released, with users advised that the software works best with the Mockingboard music and audio peripheral).
Stern Electronics releases the arcade laserdisc video game Cliff Hanger in the United States, utilizing footage culled from Hayao Miyazake’s anime Castle Of Cagliostro.
The third and final game in Epyx’s “Apshai trilogy” is released for various home computer platforms. Gateway To Apshai continues the trend of pushing traditionally turn-based computer RPGs toward real-time action games, a trend that will culminate in the smash success of the unrelated NES game The Legend Of Zelda years later.
Konami introduces the arcade game Track & Field in the United States, a multi-event game built around a summer Olympic theme. Due to the nature of the game’s control scheme, the Track & Field coin-ops take a huge amount of abuse as players pound the action buttons to determine the “intensity” of their on-screen athletes’ movement.
Having claimed from the start that a computer add-on for its Colecovision console would be forthcoming, Coleco delivers on the promise with the first shipments of Adam home computer systems. Compatible with Colecovision games, Adam proves to be an immediate setback to the company due to serious technical problems and product failures, leading to a startling fourth-quarter shortfall at the end of 1983.
Midway releases the arcade video game Jr. Pac-Man, a new Pac-Man sequel which introduces a scrolling element with mazes that are bigger than the screen.
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 Steve Kitchen’s Space Shuttle: A Journey Into Orbit 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.
Mattel Electronics releases the Loco Motion cartridge for the Intellivision home video game system, based on the Konami arcade game of the same name.
Atari releases the arcade video game Major Havoc, featuring multiple stages drawn in colorful vector graphics.
