Atari 2600 - The Magic of the Swapable Game Cartridges

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Atari 2600s became a subcategory of toys in the sort of American consumer psyche. The magic to this and why these became so popular as toys is the swappable game cartridges. So if you buy an Atari 2600, you're not just buying a toy for this year or this birthday or this holiday,. You're buying toys for the next several years to come.

You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn’t they buy the Seattle Mariners at some point? We thought we knew it too. And then we started researching and were blown away.

The lovable Disney-like Nintendo that we know today is a 130 year-old a playing card company (i.e. gambling), forged in the shadowy world of the Yakuza and shaped by a four-generation cycle of bitter family betrayal. And its unlikely transformation into a global multi-billion dollar media monopoly was led by an iron-fisted patriarch who — amazingly — never played a video game in his life! Get ready for one of our favorite stories Acquired has ever told — we couldn’t make this one up if we tried!

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