atari

Atari is an American video game company and brand that played a foundational role in the development of the video game industry. It originated as Atari, Inc., founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in Sunnyvale, California. The company quickly established itself with arcade games and later popularized home gaming through cartridge-based consoles.

Its first major success was Pong, an arcade tennis game released in 1972 that helped ignite the industry. Atari’s early arcade catalog expanded to include titles such as Breakout, Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command. The home console Atari 2600, released in 1977 and also known as the VCS, popularized cartridge-based games and became the dominant platform of its era, complemented by the 8-bit Atari 400/800 computers introduced around 1979.

In 1976 Atari was acquired by Warner Communications and expanded rapidly in the early 1980s. The market downturn of 1983–1984, known as the video game crash, hit the company hard. In 1984 Warner divested the consumer division; Jack Tramiel acquired the home console and computer business and formed Atari Corporation, while the remaining arcade operations continued as Atari Games as a separate entity.

In the following decades the Atari brand and intellectual property passed through several owners. In 2008 Infogrames Entertainment SA, a French publisher, acquired the Atari name and assets and later adopted the Atari branding for the group as Atari SA. Today the brand largely functions as the holder of IP and licensing rights, with releases that have included newer hardware and software tied to the Atari name.

Atari’s legacy lies in popularizing home console gaming, advancing cartridge-based publishing, and shaping the early arcade and computer game markets. Its catalog of classic games remains influential in video game history.

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