FACT! #17

In 1983, after achieving quite a bit of success in Japan with their Famicom, Nintendo wanted to release their system in the United States. They approached Atari, whom they previously had a negative experience with in licensing Donkey Kong. Because of this, Atari initially refused to distribute the Famicom in the US.

Any hopes they had in getting Atari to distribute the Famicom were absolutely dashed when the video market crashed in the same year. Atari felt the gaming industry was virtually done for and opted against releasing the Famicom as they viewed it as being a money pit.

Long story short, Nintendo opted to release the system themselves in the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System. 60,000,000+ units sold later, the NES proved to be a wildly successful system and Atari completely missed out on their opportunity to get a piece of the pie.