Perhaps Breakout was heavily influenced, and inspired by Pong. But, Breakout made its own genre which Arkanoid and Electranoid are part of. But still Breakout isn´t Pong, but it has probably derived from that game
And I haven´t said anything bad about the game, or the review.
But it looks like, I am wrong about my assumption, that Breakout isn´t a single player Pong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakout
But still, I would not call it Pong. But since so many early games, can either be said. They derived from Pong, or were the first games in their own genre, then it is very interesting reading about it.