Atari coming back to the future
Looks like Atari, the company whose video games we grew up playing as children of the 80s, is laying the groundwork for a comeback on mobile phones and social media sites such as Facebook.
The WSJ has a story outlining the California company's plans, which include bringing back its old games to new platforms. Asteroids? Pong? Battlezone? What old Atari game do you wish for your smartphone or tablet?
Personally, I'd like to see Atari adapt these old games to the new gaming hardware options on the market. For instance, why not have the games make use of a smartphone's accelerator or gyroscope? What about finger and swiping gestures? Or how about Atari games using a Kinect? Make me play these old games in a new way!
I got the fever...Pac-Man Fever.
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Was Pong on Atari? Or something even more primitive but equally awesome? My dad had a Pong console he picked up at a yard sale when I was a kid....wonder if he's still got it and if it still works. Those things were indestructible.
Posted by: Liz | June 8, 2011 2:00 PM
In a previous life in the early 1990's I operated the largest Atari dealership in the United States (Toad Computers, based in Severna Park), and at some point I could probably write a book about Atari's evolution between the years 1984 and 1995.
The company has been through several incarnations and is, today, extremely far removed from its roots.
Mostly the company lives on in the form of intellectual property: rights to games and its own iconic trademarks.
But the company has gone through multiple distinct eras: Nolan Bushnell (~1970-1976), Warner Communications (1977-1984), Jack Tramiel, cofounder of Commodore (1985-1995), Jugi Tandon Systems (~1995-1997), Mattel (~1997-1999), and most recently Infogrames (~2000-present).
I've lost track of their most recent moves, but this once great company – where Steve Jobs first built Breakout – has little left to show for its storied history other than a handful of patents and trademarks.
Will be interesting to see how they market their patent portfolio on today's platforms, but I'd expect little of the fun or exuberance to shine through from the company's glory days.
Posted by: Dave Troy | June 9, 2011 12:03 PM
So wrong Dave.
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It all comes full circle for Nolan Bushnell, the man who created Atari almost 40 years ago but later sold it away and subsequently left. Now he's back at the company as a member of the board of directors.
Bushnell founded Atari in 1972 and helped create the video game industry with the Atari 2600 system and games like Pong. He was later ousted by the company when he sold it under financial distress.
Since then, Bushnell's contributions to the video game industry have tapered away but he has never been forgotten. The visionary has been inducted into the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame as well as the Video Game Hall of Fame. He also went on to found Chuck E Cheese
Posted by: James Troy | January 12, 2012 12:17 AM