The story of Atari's transition from the forefront of the gaming industry to the Atari of today began in 1972. Atari Inc started out as an arcade and engineering firm founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was initially involved in the early stages of the industry and also dabbled in pinball machines.
While trying to find a distributor for a new arcade game named Pong, they met some resistance from the major arcade machine companies of the time. They decided to take a chance, and came up with a plan to produce and distribute Pong themselves. The gamble soon paid off, and Atari Inc. found itself at the fore-front of the a video game craze that was sweeping the world.
By 1975 Atari Inc. had revolutionized gaming with the introduction of the home version of Pong, thus entering the consumer electronics market. Around this time, they caught the eye of an eager young media executive at Warner Communications. The two had struck a deal by 1976, and Atari Inc. was bought out right by the communications giant. It was now the first major force to reckon with in a what was still a young industry.
Immediately establishing itself with the Atari VCS or Video Computer System (later renamed Atari 2600), Atari was able to expand into consumer electronics research and home computers. By 1982 they had grown to make up about 65% of Warner's annual profit.
Things did not continue to go so well for Atari in the next year. The market was showing signs of problems and by 1984 the market crisis had climaxed. Atari was to take the blunt of the hit because they carried such a large portion of the market. With their main breadwinner defeated, Warner Communications had no choice except to start breaking Atari up. They sold Jack Tramiel (ex-Comador founder) its consumer division and eventually sold the arcade division to Namco.
Jack merged Atari's consumer properties with Tramiel Technologies, a small company of his own. The result became Atari Corporation. They soon sold off a bunch of Atari's back stock at considerably slashed prices, then emerged into the personal computer industry. The companies main seller throughout the early 90s, was the Atari ST.
They also dabbled in video games along the way, releasing the Atari 7800 and finally the Atari Lynx, a color hand held.
By 1994 Atari released the Jaguar, but soon Sony took the video game world by storm with the release of the original PlayStation. Within the next couple of years, Tramiel decided to close things down and take advantage of a merger offer with JTS. Atari Corporation soon decided to leave the console market because the industry was now dominated by gaming giants like Sony and Nintendo. Eventually the shareholders approved a process in which Atari Corporation could reverse merged with JTS. It would become a division within JTS corporation. This was a very slow period for Atari which only consisted of one desk at JTS. Their work included Atari's first web site, support for the fledgling Jaguar system, and trying to move back stock.
JTS started selling off some Atari patents and continued releasing Atari branded products, but at the same time JTS had its share of troubles and financial problems, mostly due to its lack of success in the hard drive market. JTS finally sold off the Atari properties to Hasbro and the new owners put Atari in their interactive division, naming it Atari Interactive. They updated the logo and released a series of 3-D remakes of vintage Atari games. In 2000 the Internet bubble burst and Hasbro sold the Atari properties and name to Infrogrames, a French game publisher. The new company became Infrogrames Interactive and was ran by their founder Bruno Bonnell, who had bought several game companies from the early 90' through the next two decades. Naming the company Infrogrames North America, they decided to focus on the Atari name and properties. Trying to use the name to recapture some of the former Atari glory, they finally settled on the name Atari Inc.
After selling off acquired properties during the mid 2000s, Blue Bay ended up taking controlling interest of Infrogrames and Bonell was forced out after board members pushed for Atari Inc to become a publishing firm only.
Will Atari ever reclaim its former glory or are we bound to an endless cycle of continuous ownership and name changes for another twenty years? Regardless there will always be a place in pop culture and in our hearts and memories for the Atari we knew and loved.
- Written by Wesley Lee
