So what the heck happened? How did the potential for Amity Island-related gameplay completely miss the Atari age? By this time, JAWS-mania had subsided (while released the same year as the notorious flop JAWS: THE REVENGE, the game is unrelated) and Universal Pictures had completely missed their chance at maximizing the impact of a digital version of the shark-hunting classic. It’s odd, then, that the first authorized video game based on the JAWS franchise didn’t occur until 1987, when JAWS (the game) emerged on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Video games were as much a part of American culture as JAWS was, if not even more so. Nolan Bushnell’s PONG had launched in 1972, and quarter-sucking pixel players soon lined the halls of bars, bowling alleys and arcades across the nation. Similarly, the era heralded the explosion of video games. JAWS was, in the ‘70s and into the early ‘80s, as big of a juggernaut as the maneater it depicted. When the first film debuted on television in the fall of 1979, it received a 39.1 share, showing that over 50 million Americans tuned into a film that had already been on the silver screen for more than four years. The original film stayed on screens for over a year, and its first sequel, released in 1978, was the highest-grossing sequel ever made until THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK came along two years later. Since its release on June 20, 1975, JAWS has become an unstoppable force in the realm of shark pop culture.
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