Microsoft Will Try To Solve One Of The Biggest Mysteries In Video Game History

According to the lore, Atari released a game based on "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial" in the early 80s that was so incredibly terrible that the company was stuck with millions of unsellable copies. So many in fact that the company supposedly got rid of them by dumping truckloads of cartridges into a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Today, Microsoft's Xbox division announced an original documentary series that will focus on the "extraordinary events and characters that have given rise to the digital age" and in the first episode, the Xbox film team will document an excavation of the supposed site of the E.T. cartridges. It will also explore how the urban legend fits into the rise and fall of Atari as a whole.

Shooting for the series begins in January and it will stream exclusively on Xbox One and Xbox 360 later in 2014.