Atari Inc. was an American video game and computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari is often credited with bringing arcade games to the home market. Bushnell and Dabney wanted to create coin-operated games, so they joined Nutting Associates to manufacture their products. Bushnell and Dabney created an arcade game called Computer Space, but this game did not do very well. After the failure of their space-themed arcade game, Bushnell and Dabney decided to create a separate venture called Syzygy Game Company. They both provide an initial $250 USD as starting funds. They made sure that Nutting would put a "Syzygy Engineering" label on each of the duo's games to reflect their work on the products.
Bushnell wanted to work outside of Nutting and started looking for other manufacturers to work with. He approached a pinball game manufacturer, who was interested in funding more arcade games made by the two. The company was Bally Manufacturing, they would work with Bushnell and Dabney if the pair would cut ties with Nutting. That's when the duo quit Nutting and established offices for Syzygy. Bally offered them $4,000 USD a month for six months to create some new arcade games. Bushnell was looking for more employees with that money and hired Allan Alcorn. Allan Alcorn was an engineer and computer scientist that just graduated from college the year before in 1971. Bushnell and Dabney wanted Alcorn to create a new arcade game. In 1972, Bushnell saw demonstrations of a new home video game console called the Magnavox Odyssey. The Odyssey was a very primitive game console that only featured games that had very few variations between them. One of the games on the Odyssey was a game called Tennis. Bushnell had an idea to create an arcade version of this game. Alcorn under the direction of Bushnell and Dabney started working on the arcade version of Tennis, eventually changing the name from Tennis to Pong.
Bushnell and Dabney went to make Syzygy public but found that there was already a company by that name. They needed a new name and settled on the name Atari. Atari officially became a company on June 27, 1972. Bushnell and Dabney wanted to license Pong to Bally, but Bally had no clue what to do with the game. They decided to make some test units to show Bally how successful the game could be. They reported the numbers on Pong to Bally to try and get the company to accept their game. Immediately after, the pair realized that they needed to expand on this game. They told Bally that they would create another game for them, only if the company rejected Pong. Bally agreed to Atari's offer. After Atari officially finished Pong, they went to Bally to release the game. Before Bushnell and Dabney could go to Balley to make a deal, Nutting and a few other game manufacturers shut down. Seeing this, The pair decided to release the game on their own, without Bally's help. Atari was now officially known as a coin-op, design, and production company. In 1973, Dabney felt like he was being pushed aside by Bushnell. That same year, Dabney discovered that Bushnell had patented his video circuit concept without giving him any credit. This was the final straw and finally, in March 1973, Dabney sold his portion of Atari Inc. for $250,000 USD.
Atari became well known in the arcades but didn't become well known in the home video game space until the launch of the Atari VCS in September of 1977 for $199 USD. In 1975, one of Atari's subsidiaries, Cyan Engineering began work on a new type of home video game system. up to that point most home video game systems were Pong consoles. These "game" consoles either only played Pong or played Pong among "other games" (other games being variations of Pong). The Atari VCS was going to be different because of the fact that it was going to be able to play the four existing Atari games (Not just Pong like the prior mentioned Pong consoles). Atari promised four games, but with the launch of the Atari VCS, there were actually nine launch titles. The launch titles were Blackjack, Air-Sea Battle, indy 500, Basic Math/ Fun with Numbers, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, Video Olympics, and Combat (Combat being the initial pack-in title for the VCS until it was later changed to Pac-Man). Bushnell knew the VCS could be a success but would cost the company a bunch of money. With this, Bushnell looked for investors and in 1976, he sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million USD.
After the sale of Atari to Warner Communications, Bushnell began having disagreements with company management over their decisions. This ultimately led to one of Atari's subsidiaries (Kee Games) getting disbanded in 1978 and later that year Bushnell was fired by CEO Manny Gerard. Later, Bushnell would come out and talk about getting fired by Warner Communications, saying he didn't get fired but instead suggested that he decided to leave the company because of arguments with Warner Communications. Bushnell claimed it was a mutual decision for him to leave the company.
In 1982, the Atari VCS was rebranded as the 2600 with the launch of the 5200. After the success of the VCS/ 2600, Atari began working on its successor called the 5200. this was teased to be the most powerful home console yet. The Atari 5200 launched in November of 1982 for $269 USD. The 5200 was a huge failure for Atari because of its lack of backward compatibility with the 2600, its small library of games, and its horrendous controller. Because the hardware of the 5200 was substantially less powerful than arcade hardware, porting arcade games became a huge challenge. Pac-Man being a huge success in the arcade, had a poor outing on the 5200. the 5200 version of Pac-Man was terrible because of the lack of quality graphics and the poor performance when multiple ghosts were on screen at once. This became a problem with the 5200 because of its lack of ROM space available for games.
Even though the failure of the 5200, it still sold 1 million units. up to the release of the 5200, Atari became a household name by selling plenty of 2600s and computers. During this time Atari was one of Warner's most profitable companies and was the fastest-growing company in the US up to that point. Sadly, Atari was never able to repeat it's the success it had with the VCS/ 2600.
Because of the lack of quality games and the outpour of too many home video game consoles trying to rival the likes of Atari, Noth America was faced with the video game crash of 1983 with Atari at the helm. With the crash, Warner lost more than $500 million and their stock went from $60 to $20. Later that year the new CEO of Warner, James J Morgan had to try and fix the downfalls of Atari. He came up with the idea to go through with a huge restructuring of the company creating the New Atari Company (NATCO for short). Atari then got split into two different companies, Atari Corporation (consumer electronics and home computer divisions) and Atari Games (Arcade division). Atari Games was still owned by Warner but was sold to Namco in 1985.
Because of the North American Video Game Crash of 1983, video games were looked at as a dying fad. this was rectified by the likes of Nintendo. around this time, Nintendo a Japanese company was little known to North American consumers but would soon make it big in the west. In Japan, Nintendo's Family Computer (or Famicom for short) was a big success and Nintendo wanted to bring a version of the Famicom to oversea markets. Nintendo wanted to partner with Atari to release the Famicom in the States but ultimately decided against that idea because of Atari's newfound failures. Nintendo wanted to revive the video game market in the west and decided to tackle something popular in the States, home computers. They wanted to redesign the Famicom for the States and make it look more like a computer. the design was going to have a built-in keyboard, wireless controllers, cartridge deck add-on, and even a light gun. it was going to be marketed as the Advance Video System and the prototype was shown off at CES in 1985.
Nintendo wanted to do things right so as to not fail and decided that the futuristic-looking AVS was going to be too expensive to produce and had to quickly come up with a new idea. This new idea became the Nintendo Entertainment System (known as the NES or simply the Nintendo). The NES was released later that year to many praises. Instead of redesigning the Famicom to look like a home computer, Nintendo decided to make it look like something else that western consumers loved, a VCR. Nintendo's NES was so popular it single-handedly fixed the mess that Atari and the likes had created in 1983.
Even with Nintendo's massive success in the West, Atari wasn't all forgotten. In 1986, Atari launched two new video game consoles known as the 2600Jr. and the 7800. Atari saw some of its former glory with these two systems making them $25 million USD in profits that year. In 1989, Atari released the handheld video game console called the Atari Lynx, which gained major traction and fanfare. Atari wasn't able to keep up with the demands of the Lynx because of a shortage of parts. In 1993, Atari released the Jaguar, poised to be the next generation of home gaming because of the inclusion of 64-bit graphics. The Jaguar having 64-bit graphics didn't help and the video game console sold poorly. This was Atari's last attempt at making a video game console and the last video game console to be produced by an American company until the Microsoft Xbox in 2001. In 1996, a large number of successful lawsuits caused Atari to have millions of dollars but without and video game console to sell, Atari had nowhere to go. In April of that year, Nollan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari) tried to make a bid to take back the company but was unsuccessful and the company was sold to WMS Industries (owners of Bally, Williams, and Midway arcade brands). In November of 1999, Atari Game Corporation was renamed to Midway Games West Inc. In March of 1998, the Atari name and assets were sold to Hasbro for $5 million USD. This primarily included the brand and Intellectual Property.
In the early 2000s, Atari did a few things here or there but wasn't even as big as they were back in the 70s and 80s. In the late 90s, Infogrames took over Hasbro Interactive and Changed the name of Atari Games to Atari SA. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Atari SA published a bunch of mediocre games for the current game consoles during those years. Outside of publishing games, Atari tried to reinvent itself in modern times by releasing new remakes of old Atari games like Centipede and Black Widow calling them Recharged (updated graphics, very similar gameplay). In 2021 a new "video game" system was released by Atari Inc called the Atari VCS (sounds familiar?) The new Atari VCS was released to backers (mostly video game enthusiasts). This new device was more or less a micro-console with a design that emulated the original Atari VCS and mini consoles like the Nintendo Classic Mini and the PlayStation Classic. The Atari VCS had a wireless controller and wireless joystick, and it had a digital storefront to download games that relied heavily on capturing the nostalgia of the once-great Atari. The New Atari VCS can be closely compared to something like the Steam Machines released by Valve. Ultimately, Atari is all but gone as a brand. In 2022, Atari celebrated 50 years of ups and downs.
Bushnell and Dabney went to make Syzygy public but found that there was already a company by that name. They needed a new name and settled on the name Atari. Atari officially became a company on June 27, 1972. Bushnell and Dabney wanted to license Pong to Bally, but Bally had no clue what to do with the game. They decided to make some test units to show Bally how successful the game could be. They reported the numbers on Pong to Bally to try and get the company to accept their game. Immediately after, the pair realized that they needed to expand on this game. They told Bally that they would create another game for them, only if the company rejected Pong. Bally agreed to Atari's offer. After Atari officially finished Pong, they went to Bally to release the game. Before Bushnell and Dabney could go to Balley to make a deal, Nutting and a few other game manufacturers shut down. Seeing this, The pair decided to release the game on their own, without Bally's help. Atari was now officially known as a coin-op, design, and production company. In 1973, Dabney felt like he was being pushed aside by Bushnell. That same year, Dabney discovered that Bushnell had patented his video circuit concept without giving him any credit. This was the final straw and finally, in March 1973, Dabney sold his portion of Atari Inc. for $250,000 USD.
Atari became well known in the arcades but didn't become well known in the home video game space until the launch of the Atari VCS in September of 1977 for $199 USD. In 1975, one of Atari's subsidiaries, Cyan Engineering began work on a new type of home video game system. up to that point most home video game systems were Pong consoles. These "game" consoles either only played Pong or played Pong among "other games" (other games being variations of Pong). The Atari VCS was going to be different because of the fact that it was going to be able to play the four existing Atari games (Not just Pong like the prior mentioned Pong consoles). Atari promised four games, but with the launch of the Atari VCS, there were actually nine launch titles. The launch titles were Blackjack, Air-Sea Battle, indy 500, Basic Math/ Fun with Numbers, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, Video Olympics, and Combat (Combat being the initial pack-in title for the VCS until it was later changed to Pac-Man). Bushnell knew the VCS could be a success but would cost the company a bunch of money. With this, Bushnell looked for investors and in 1976, he sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million USD.
After the sale of Atari to Warner Communications, Bushnell began having disagreements with company management over their decisions. This ultimately led to one of Atari's subsidiaries (Kee Games) getting disbanded in 1978 and later that year Bushnell was fired by CEO Manny Gerard. Later, Bushnell would come out and talk about getting fired by Warner Communications, saying he didn't get fired but instead suggested that he decided to leave the company because of arguments with Warner Communications. Bushnell claimed it was a mutual decision for him to leave the company.
In 1982, the Atari VCS was rebranded as the 2600 with the launch of the 5200. After the success of the VCS/ 2600, Atari began working on its successor called the 5200. this was teased to be the most powerful home console yet. The Atari 5200 launched in November of 1982 for $269 USD. The 5200 was a huge failure for Atari because of its lack of backward compatibility with the 2600, its small library of games, and its horrendous controller. Because the hardware of the 5200 was substantially less powerful than arcade hardware, porting arcade games became a huge challenge. Pac-Man being a huge success in the arcade, had a poor outing on the 5200. the 5200 version of Pac-Man was terrible because of the lack of quality graphics and the poor performance when multiple ghosts were on screen at once. This became a problem with the 5200 because of its lack of ROM space available for games.
Even though the failure of the 5200, it still sold 1 million units. up to the release of the 5200, Atari became a household name by selling plenty of 2600s and computers. During this time Atari was one of Warner's most profitable companies and was the fastest-growing company in the US up to that point. Sadly, Atari was never able to repeat it's the success it had with the VCS/ 2600.
Because of the lack of quality games and the outpour of too many home video game consoles trying to rival the likes of Atari, Noth America was faced with the video game crash of 1983 with Atari at the helm. With the crash, Warner lost more than $500 million and their stock went from $60 to $20. Later that year the new CEO of Warner, James J Morgan had to try and fix the downfalls of Atari. He came up with the idea to go through with a huge restructuring of the company creating the New Atari Company (NATCO for short). Atari then got split into two different companies, Atari Corporation (consumer electronics and home computer divisions) and Atari Games (Arcade division). Atari Games was still owned by Warner but was sold to Namco in 1985.
Because of the North American Video Game Crash of 1983, video games were looked at as a dying fad. this was rectified by the likes of Nintendo. around this time, Nintendo a Japanese company was little known to North American consumers but would soon make it big in the west. In Japan, Nintendo's Family Computer (or Famicom for short) was a big success and Nintendo wanted to bring a version of the Famicom to oversea markets. Nintendo wanted to partner with Atari to release the Famicom in the States but ultimately decided against that idea because of Atari's newfound failures. Nintendo wanted to revive the video game market in the west and decided to tackle something popular in the States, home computers. They wanted to redesign the Famicom for the States and make it look more like a computer. the design was going to have a built-in keyboard, wireless controllers, cartridge deck add-on, and even a light gun. it was going to be marketed as the Advance Video System and the prototype was shown off at CES in 1985.
Nintendo wanted to do things right so as to not fail and decided that the futuristic-looking AVS was going to be too expensive to produce and had to quickly come up with a new idea. This new idea became the Nintendo Entertainment System (known as the NES or simply the Nintendo). The NES was released later that year to many praises. Instead of redesigning the Famicom to look like a home computer, Nintendo decided to make it look like something else that western consumers loved, a VCR. Nintendo's NES was so popular it single-handedly fixed the mess that Atari and the likes had created in 1983.
Even with Nintendo's massive success in the West, Atari wasn't all forgotten. In 1986, Atari launched two new video game consoles known as the 2600Jr. and the 7800. Atari saw some of its former glory with these two systems making them $25 million USD in profits that year. In 1989, Atari released the handheld video game console called the Atari Lynx, which gained major traction and fanfare. Atari wasn't able to keep up with the demands of the Lynx because of a shortage of parts. In 1993, Atari released the Jaguar, poised to be the next generation of home gaming because of the inclusion of 64-bit graphics. The Jaguar having 64-bit graphics didn't help and the video game console sold poorly. This was Atari's last attempt at making a video game console and the last video game console to be produced by an American company until the Microsoft Xbox in 2001. In 1996, a large number of successful lawsuits caused Atari to have millions of dollars but without and video game console to sell, Atari had nowhere to go. In April of that year, Nollan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari) tried to make a bid to take back the company but was unsuccessful and the company was sold to WMS Industries (owners of Bally, Williams, and Midway arcade brands). In November of 1999, Atari Game Corporation was renamed to Midway Games West Inc. In March of 1998, the Atari name and assets were sold to Hasbro for $5 million USD. This primarily included the brand and Intellectual Property.
In the early 2000s, Atari did a few things here or there but wasn't even as big as they were back in the 70s and 80s. In the late 90s, Infogrames took over Hasbro Interactive and Changed the name of Atari Games to Atari SA. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Atari SA published a bunch of mediocre games for the current game consoles during those years. Outside of publishing games, Atari tried to reinvent itself in modern times by releasing new remakes of old Atari games like Centipede and Black Widow calling them Recharged (updated graphics, very similar gameplay). In 2021 a new "video game" system was released by Atari Inc called the Atari VCS (sounds familiar?) The new Atari VCS was released to backers (mostly video game enthusiasts). This new device was more or less a micro-console with a design that emulated the original Atari VCS and mini consoles like the Nintendo Classic Mini and the PlayStation Classic. The Atari VCS had a wireless controller and wireless joystick, and it had a digital storefront to download games that relied heavily on capturing the nostalgia of the once-great Atari. The New Atari VCS can be closely compared to something like the Steam Machines released by Valve. Ultimately, Atari is all but gone as a brand. In 2022, Atari celebrated 50 years of ups and downs.
This was a look back at the rise and fall of the once-great video game publisher and console manufacturer Atari, most notably known for bringing video games to the home market with the success of the Atari VCS/ 2600. Even though Atari pretty much died out in the late 80s, and early 90s, many companies tried to bring back the video game elder by getting the right to the name Atari, but ultimately Atari was only able to stay on top for a short amount of time before their downfall and unsuccessful comeback.
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