November 29 is a momentous day in video game history.
It was on this day in 1972 that the founders of Atari (Nolan Bushnell, Ted Dabney, and Al Alcorn) delivered and installed the very first Pong arcade cabinets. To celebrate the 45th anniversary of this world-changing event, the company currently known as Atari has declared today to be “Pong Day.”
The Atari of 2017 is very different from the Atari of 1972, but both companies are still obsessed with Pong. Today’s Atari has even partnered with a group of engineers and artists to create Table Pong, a coffee table that also doubles as a real-life recreation of the classic arcade game:
Table Pong [is] an oversized Pong game embedded in a stylish coffee table, perfect for the home or arcade. Amazingly, it has no screens or digital software; instead, the game is recreated in three dimensions with motors, rails, pulleys and magnets to perfectly simulate the game’s familiar 2D movements.
Developed as a tribute to Generation X and its most iconic video game, Table Pong lets players experience the Atari Pong game on a whole new dimension that fuses the high-tech mechanical engineering of today with the beloved ‘80s game. The table easily transforms from a true-to-life mechanical game of Pong to a stylish living room accessory that features four USB charging ports, as well as a Bluetooth speaker so you can enjoy your favorite music while you play.
Table Pong will be available sometime in Early 2018, and you can learn more about the project at TablePongProject.com.
If you’d like to further explore the history of Pong, our Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time series includes an essay about the game’s creation, and you can also point your browser at Atari.com to play a few rounds in your browser.
