The fall and further fall of Atari via its horrible E.T. game, based on the Steven Spielberg film of the same name, can finally be watched on Xbox Live. Atari: Game Over chronicles the development of E.T. for the Atari 2600 and the decline of the publisher after its launch. It can be viewed on either Xbox One or Xbox 360 via the Xbox Video app by those with a Gold membership.

The documentary will also seek to answer the myth as to whether tons of E.T. cartridges were actually buried in the New Mexico Desert following its massive failure (spoiler: they were). Director Zak Penn stated that, “A documentary is a search for the story whereas I’m used to trying to preserve the story I’ve created.”

Interviews with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and E.T. programmer/designer Howard Scott Warshaw are also included and you’ll have a front row seat to what became the big video game crash of the 1980s.

Xbox Entertainment Studios may have shut down with several key projects discontinued – which included Halo: The TV Series and Humans – but some shows managed to survive the purge. One of those is Halo: Nightfall which will debut alongside Halo: The Master Chief Collection when it releases on November 11th worldwide. The other is Atari: Game Over, a documentary centred on the downfall of Atari releasing on November 20th through Xbox Live.

Of course it’s not just about Atari but about E.T., the most infamous bad game in the history of bad games. E.T. performed so badly that it brought Atari down with it – in fact, it was so bad that thousands of copies of the game had to be buried in a landfill in New Mexico because customers simply wanted nothing to do with it.

The documentary actually sees the crew heading to New Mexico to find said landfill and you can even hear from designer Howard Scott Warshaw about its overall impact on the industry. Check it out in the coming weeks.

(Source)