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The Godfather of Modern Game Systems
The Atari 2600, originally called the Atari VCS, is the godfather of modern videogame systems, and helped spawn a multi-billion dollar industry. Atari sold over thirty million of the consoles, and together with other companies sold hundreds of millions of games. Cartridges for the system were produced across three decades, and there are still new games being produced today. But it almost didn't happen.
in the early 1970’s, video arcade games gained commercial success for the first time. The Ame -
Launch And Success
The unit was originally priced at US$199, and shipped with two joysticks and a Combat cartridge (eight additional games were available at launch and sold separately) 150,000 units were sold -
Atari gets Sold.
In 1976, Nolan Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million. The sale was no doubt aided by the success of Pong. By 1980, sales of Atari home video systems had reached $415 million. -
Sold Again
Despite the introduction of the new Atari computer, Warner had a reversal of fortune with Atari with losses totaling $533 million in 1983. In 1984, Warner Communications unloaded Atari to Jack Tramiel, ex-CEO of Commodore . Jack Tramiel released the somewhat successful Atari St home computer and sales topped $25 million in 1986. -
Clones and reissues
he console and its old and new games are very popular with collectors because of its significant impact on video game and consumer electronics history and also due to its nostalgic value for many people, along with a number of games that are still considered highly playable. In addition, modern Atari 2600 clones remain on the market. One example is the Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Game, manufactured by Jakks Pacific, which emulates the 2600 console, and includes converted versions of 10 games into -
Nintendo Lawsuit
In 1992, Atari lost an anti-trust lawsuit against Nintendo . That same year, Atari released the Jaguar video game system as competition to Nintendo. Jaguar was an impressive game system, however, it was twice as expensive as Nintendo. -
The Fall of Atari
Atari was reaching the end of its legacy as a company. In 1994, Sega game systems invested $40 million in Atari in exchange for all patent rights . In 1996, the new Atari Interactive division failed to revive the company which was taken over by JTS, a maker of computer disk drives that same year. Two years later in 1998, JTS sold Atari assets as intellectual property scraps. All copyrights, trademarks, and patents were sold to Hasbro Interactive for $5 million.
