E.T. Atari cartridges finally found in New Mexico desert

Originally published on April 26, 2014 on Pixelitis.net.

What was often scoffed at as an urban legend has been finally revealed as truth: excavators have uncovered the infamous E.T. Atari cartridge landfill in a desert in Almagordo, New Mexico.

The dig was organized by Canadian entertainment company Fuel Industries and Xbox Entertainment Studios in order to film a documentary about the 1983 burial of purportedly millions of unsold Atari cartridges. The excavation was officially approved by the Alamogordo City Commission last year and started today.

Xbox’s Major Nelson, along with other onlookers have tweeted out pictures of the excavation team holding these cartridges. Some of these are reportedly shrink-wrapped, complete-in-box copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which is often considered one of the biggest commercial failures in the history of gaming.

While there’s currently no word on just how many they’ve found so far, bystander Drew Sapolnick has informed us that “there’s a lot more.”

Also in attendance at the dig site is E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial game designer Howard Scott Warshaw and documentary director Zak Penn.

History in the making, people. The burial site serves as the quintessential cap of the North American videogame crash of 1983, which resulted in a terrible fiscal year for Atari Inc. and led to their sell-off.