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Console generation 2 · 1977–1980
Atari 2600 won it, outselling Intellivision by 26.2 million units — 700% more hardware. Across all 2 machines the generation sold 33.8 million units. No Game of the Year award in this database was handed out before 1990, so this generation sits entirely outside the award record.
This generation ran to 1980, and the earliest Game of the Year award we can source anywhere is from 1990. The zero is the edge of the record, not a statement about these machines — the awards of that era were printed in magazines that were never transcribed. Why so little survives from before 2000 →
| Console | Maker | Released | Units | GOTY awards on it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atari 2600 | Atari | 1977 | 30.00M | 0 |
| Intellivision | Mattel | 1980 | 3.75M | 0 |
A game that shipped on three machines of this generation is counted for all three, because the question is how much award-winning software each box could play — not which console had it exclusively.
Updated 2 October 2026 · Source: the Meta Awards database, where every award row cites where it was published.