Atari is a corporate and brand name that has been owned by several entities since 1972. The original Atari was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, and was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles and home computers. The company's products, such as PONG and the Atari 2600, helped define computer entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
The name is currently held by Atari, Inc., a majority owned subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment SA (IESA), encompassing its North American operations. Atari develops, publishes and distributes games for all major video game consoles, as well as for the personal computer, and is currently one of the largest third-party publishers of video games in the United States. (Read on for more information on Atari as a games developer and publisher ...)
Starting their video game career with the highly successful coin operated arcade game PONG, Atari went on to create home video game consoles such as the Atari 2600 (VCS), and a series of eight-bit computers including the Atari 800, and its smaller cousin, the 400. They later took part in the 16 bit computer revolution with the Atari ST, a hand held video game console, the Atari Lynx, and their last console, the 64-bit Atari Jaguar.
In 2004, Atari released a TV game called the Atari Flashback Console, which contained 20 built-in Atari classic games. An updated version of this console was released the following year (the Flashback 2) based on an implementation of the original Atari 2600 on a single chip, allowing the original 2600 games to be run instead of ports as in the first Flashback. In addition, the included joysticks were fully compatible with the original 2600 joysticks and vice-versa.
Major Atari Products
Favourites (IE)
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