Pong Was Never Intended For Public Release
 

Raise your hand if you have ever played a game of Pong. Well, that first gaming experience almost didn't happen, because Pong was initially designed and developed to be a training exercise and not for public consumption. In fact, there was no such contract and Bushnell just wanted to give Alcorn something very easy to develop as Alcorn had no experience with video game design and development, though he did have a background in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2014/07/...ublic_release/