In 1977, Video Pinball appeared as another Atari coin-op to standalone home console translation by bringing the game Breakout to home players. Offered first in the late 1970's Atari standard wood grain (Model C-300), Atari sought to bypass the impending doom of the pong/dedicated machines by having this console break the usual multi-pong theme. Bumper controllers on the sides or a dial on the front were used to control the games depending on the game selected. There were three game types - Pinball, Basketball, and Breakout.

The Breakout screen

This unit allowed 7 games (4 pinball variations, 1 basketball, 2 breakout variations), and interestingly enough used a micro-controller and a small ammount of ram rather than the "pong on a chip" IC's used in the slew of pong machines Atari had been releasing.

The second release of the Video Pinball system

Unfortunately for Atari, 1977 also happened to be the year known for the death of the "dedicated" consoles, as the Fairchild Video Entertainment system had been released the year before. Known as the first programmable cartridge based console, it caused the "pong" market to collapse as the many pong knockoff manufacturers saw "the end" coming. Subsequently, they dumped their merchandise at clearance prices in an effort to get out with at least some money - unknowingly sparking what is known as the "first great video game crash". Atari could not escape this vortex (further hit by the release of 5 more dedicated consoles that year and it's own programmable console), even by trying a "Hey look, I'm differen't - I play Breakout and Pinball!" marketing ploy. They did however, release a cheaper all white model (Model C-380) that year as well.