The Atari brand is 50 years old today
The Atari brand celebrates its 50th anniversary today.
Although the current company that owns the Atari brand name has only done so since 2001, the original Atari Inc was founded on June 27, 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney.
The company was named after a move in the Japanese board game Go. In the game, ‘atari’ means a player’s stones are in danger of being taken by their opponent.
Bushnell and Dabney had previously released Computer Space, the first ever commercial arcade video game, in 1971. The following year the pair set up Atari and hired design engineer Al Alcorn, who then designed Pong, the first commercially successful video game.
Atari was also responsible for the Atari VCS (later renamed the Atari 2600), a groundbreaking console that brought video games into many households for the first time.
Such was the VCS’s success that the market became saturated with games, many of which were poor quality. This, combined with some major Atari-published disasters like ET and Pac-Man, meant the VCS was mainly responsible for the North American video game ‘crash’ of 1983.
Although the games industry in North America would ultimately recover from the crash, Atari would never fully do so, and while it would continue to release more games and systems, none would ever reach the heady heights of the VCS.
The Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar enjoyed modest to low levels of success. The Atari ST home computer fared better, but was outsold by its main rival, the Commodore Amiga.
The Atari brand has been acquired numerous times over the years. Since its inception in 1972, different elements of Atari’s home computer, console and arcade divisions, as well as its IP, have been owned by a variety of companies.
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