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Space Invaders is a 1980 video game based on Taito's arcade game of the same name for the Atari 2600 (the system was initially released as the Atari Video Computer System. It became known as the Atari 2600 only after the release of the Atari 5200 in 1982). It was developed and released by Atari, Inc. and designed and developed by Rick Maurer. The game is based on the arcade game in which a player operates a laser cannon to shoot at incoming enemies from outer space. Maurer's version has unique graphics and offers some gameplay variations. These include a two-player mode and variations that allow for invisible enemies and moving shields, and for enemies shots to zig zag and potentially hit players.

Prior to working at Atari, Maurer developed games at Fairchild Semiconductor. When joining Atari, he was impressed with the Space Invaders arcade game and began developing it in his own time at the company. The game had little interest from the staff, until Ray Kassar saw how well Space Invaders was doing in arcades, which lead him to get the rights to the game for the Atari 2600 and for Maurer to complete his code.

Space Invaders would one of Atari's biggest hits in 1980, with Electronic Games magazine referring to it as a console seller for the system. It became one of the best-selling games for the Atari 2600. When Maurer was only compensated with a $11,000 bonus for the success of the game, he left the company and never developed another Atari 2600 game.

Space Invaders has the player at war with enemies from outer space. The player uses the joystick to move left and right and hit the red button fire a laser cannon. The goal is to earn as many points as you can by destroying the enemies with a laser cannon and to eliminate as many of them as you can before they reach the bottom of the screen or before you are hit three times but their own laser attacks. The further rows of aliens give the player more points when hit. If you destroy 36 of them, a new set will appear. In a single-player game, a Command Alien ship will periodically move across the top of the screen. It is worth a larger amount of points than the regular enemies.

The Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders alters the gameplay of the arcade Space Invaders. It features 36 invaders instead of 55 and only feature three defnce bunkers instead of four. The game offered various variations on gameplay, such the ability to have moving bunkers, shots that zig-zag, invisible invaders who would only reveal their position when they were hit by the player successfully. The Atari version of Space Invaders also included a co-operative two-player mode that was not present in any form in the arcade game. There are two variations of play in two-player mode, a partnered mode, where each player can move left or right respectively and both can fire the cannon. Another allows for one player to control the cannon and the other to control the movement of their ship.

Space Invaders was released for the Atari 2600 on March 10, 1980. It became a high seller in 1980, earning Atari over $100,000,000. The console version of Space Invaders, along with popular arcade games Asteroids, Missile Command and Battlezone would move Atari's to a growth of $512.7 million for the year. The success of the game lead to Atari rescheduling their entire Atari 2600 line-up from being released during the holiday season to being released throughout the year. The company also began to focus translate as many of arcade hits to the Atari 2600, starting with Missile Command in 1981. An article in the Winter 1981 issue of Electronic Games said that this console release of Space Invaders led to Atari's dominance in the home video game market and that it was the one title that "sold the entire [Atari 2600] system in many cases."

Ken Uston in his book Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games (1982) declared the version of the game as "one of Atari's best cartridges". In How to Win at Video Games (1982), an anonymous reviewer stated that "Of all the available bottom-shooting games that pit you against colorful rows of descending monsters, none can compare with the one and only home version of classic arcade game". In the 1983 Software Encyclopedia from Electronic Games, the game was given an overall rating of a perfect 10, noting high rankings for single-player gaming and gameplay, while only finding the games graphics and sound to be merely good.