The First XBOX-Exclusive Film is a Documentary About Atari and ‘E.T.: The Video Game’

We’ve been hearing some exciting rumors regarding what will come out of the XBOX Live platform as programmed by Microsoft (like Steven Spielberg being involved with the Halo series). But now we have an official announcement from the company about their first exclusive content: a documentary about Atari’s E.T.: The Video Game. Get your hardhat on, because there’s some major digging to be done when it comes to this game.

Lightbox, a game company founded in 2009, announced a “series of films for XBOX Entertainment Studios about the start of the digital revolution,” with its first release in the series being a documentary about Atari’s commercially ignored E.T. game and the millions of copies that have been buried and then salvaged. The video game crash of 1983 will also be addressed.

The following is from a press release:

The first film in the groundbreaking series investigates the events surrounding the great video game burial of 1983. The Atari Corporation, faced with overwhelmingly negative response to “ET the Video Game,” buried millions of unsold game cartridges in the middle of the night, in the small town of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Drawing on their relationships with outstanding creative talent, each film will be helmed by a different director and will range from an hour to feature length. Zak Penn (X-Men 2, Avengers, Incident At Loch Ness) has signed on to direct the first film.

Yeah, Atari confirmed that they dumped all the unsold inventory from the game in New Mexico back in 1983, but the actual details regarding that event are unknown. Once concrete was poured over that landfill area in the early 80s, anyone interested in searching for the games realized their hopes were useless. This summer saw a curious Canadian company excavate the site (with permission), and it’s likely what they found will be included in the documentary.

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