atari inc for information on the atari brand and its history see atari for the current brand name see atari inc atari sa subsidiary atari inc industry video game industry fate closed properties sold successor atari corporation atari games founded july 26 1972 46 years ago founders nolan bushnell ted dabney defunct july1 1984 34 years ago headquarters sunnyvale california united states products pong atari 2600 atari 8bit family atari 5200 parent warner communications atari inc was an american video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by nolan bushnell and ted dabney primarily responsible for the formation of the video arcade and modern video game industries the company was closed and its assets split in 1984 as a direct result of the north american video game crash of 1983 origins in 1966 nolan bushnell saw spacewar for the first time at the university of utah bushnell and dabney both left ampex to pursue this working with nutting associates to manufacture their product dabney developed a method of using video circuitry components to mimic functions of a computer for a much cheaper cost and a smaller space bushnell and dabney used this to develop a variation on spacewar called computer space where the player shot at two orbiting ufos nutting helped to manufacture the fiberglass cabinet while they were developing this they took on duties under nutting to repair pinball machines computer space did not fare well commercially when it was placed in nuttings customary market bars nutting reported they had produced 2300 units but only had sold 750 the original pong upright cabinet bushnell began seeking other partners outside of nutting and approached pinball game manufacturer bally manufacturing who indicated interest in funding future efforts in arcade games by bushnell and dabney if nutting was not involved bushnell and dabney offered to license pong to bally but the company had no idea what to do with the game and did not immediately take the license instead bushnell and dabney opted to create a test unit themselves and see how it was received at a local establishment after talks to release pong through nutting and several other companies broke down bushnell and dabney decided to release pong on their own and atari inc was established as a coinop design and production company around 1973 dabney felt he was being put to the side by bushnell bushnell had left him out of several highlevel meetings assigned him to overseeing the manufacturing process but not the design work and dabney discovered bushnell had patented his video circuit concept without him as an inventor in march 1973 dabney formally left atari selling his portion of the company for us250000 the third version of the atari video computer system sold from 1980 to 1982 in 1973 atari secretly spawned a competitor called kee games headed by bushnells next door neighbor joe keenan to circumvent pinball distributors insistence on exclusive distribution deals both atari and kee could market virtually the same game to different distributors with each getting an exclusive deal though kees relationship to atari was discovered in 1974 joe keenan did such a good job managing the subsidiary that he was promoted to president of atari that same year in 1975 bushnell started an effort to produce a flexible video game console that was capable of playing all four of ataris thencurrent games development took place at an offshoot engineering lab which initially had serious difficulties trying to produce such a machine however in early 1976 the nowfamous mos technology 6502 was released and for the first time the team had a cpu with both the highperformance and lowcost needed to meet their needs the result was the atari 2600 released in october 1977 as the video computer system one of the most successful consoles in history as a subsidiary of warner communications bushnell knew he had another potential hit on his hands but bringing the machine to market would be extremely expensive in 1976 bushnell sold atari to warner communications for 28 million using part of the money to buy the folgers mansion he departed from the division in 1979 the atari 400 was released in 1979 a project to design a successor to the 2600 started as soon as the system shipped the original development team estimated the 2600 had a lifespan of about three years and decided to build the most powerful machine they could given that time frame by the middle of the efforts timeframe the home computer revolution was taking off so the new machines were adapted with the addition of a keyboard and various inputs to produce the atari 800 and its smaller cousin the 400 although a variety of issues made them less attractive than the apple ii for some users the new machines had some level of success when they finally became available in quantity in 1980 while part of warner atari achieved its greatest success selling millions of 2600s and computers at its peak atari accounted for a third of warners annual income and was the fastestgrowing company in the history of the united states at the time although the 2600 had garnered the lions share of the home video game market it experienced its first stiff competition in 1980 from mattels intellivision which featured ads touting its superior graphics capabilities relative to the 2600 still the 2600 remained the industry standardbearer because of its market superiority and because of atari featuring by far the greatest variety of game titles available however atari ran into problems in the early 1980s its home computer video game console and arcade divisions operated independently of one another and rarely cooperated there were so many screaming shouting threatening dialogues its unbelievable that any company in america could conduct itself the way atari conducted itself atari used threats intimidation and bullying its incredible that anything could be accomplished many people left atari there was incredible belittling and humiliation of people well never do business with them again stating that atari has never made a dime in microcomputers john j anderson wrote in early 1984 many of the people i spoke to at atari between 1980 and 1983 had little or no idea what the products they were selling were all about or who if anyone would care in one case we were fed mis and disinformation on a frighteningly regular basis from a highlyplaced someone supposedly in charge of all publicity concerning the computer systems and chilling as the individual happenstance was it seems to have been endemic at atari at the time because of fierce competition and price wars in the game console and home computer markets atari was never able to duplicate the success of the 2600 in 1982 atari released disappointing versions of two very publicized games pacman and et the extraterrestrial causing inventory to rise and prices to fall in 1983 in response to a large number of returned orders from distributors atari buried 700000 unsold game cartridges partly consisting of those same two titles pacman and et in a new mexico desert landfill popular games from thirdparty developers such as activision imagic and parker brothers also hurt atari reducing its share of the cartridgegame market from 75 in 1981 to less than 40 in 1982 in 1983 atari ceo ray kassar was prosecuted for insider trading related to sales of atari stock minutes before the disappointing earnings announcement in december 1982 he settled with the securities and exchange commission for 81875 neither admitting or denying the charges the atari 5200 game console released as a nextgeneration follow up to the 2600 was based on the atari 800 computer but intentionally incompatible with atari 800 software and its sales never met the companys expectations these problems were followed by the video game crash of 1983 which caused losses that totaled more than 500 million warners stock price slid from 60 to 20 and the company began searching for a buyer for atari atari was still the number one console maker in every market except japan nintendo a japanese video game company planned to release its first programmable video game console the famicom later known to the rest of the world as the nes in 1983 looking to sell the console in international markets nintendo offered a licensing deal whereby atari would build and sell the system paying nintendo a royalty the deal was in the works throughout 1983 ray kassar was soon forced to leave atari executives involved in the famicom deal were forced to start over again and the deal failed splitting of properties james j morgan was appointed as kassars replacement on labor day 1983 morgan had less than a year to try to fix the companys problems before he too was gone in july 1984 warner sold the home computing and game console divisions of atari to jack tramiel the recently ousted founder of commodore under the name atari corporation for 240 million in stocks under the new company warner retained the arcade division continuing it under the name atari games and eventually selling it to namco in 1985 warner also sold ataritel to mitsubishi list of hardware products atari video music home pong 1975 atari video music 1976 stunt cycle 1977 video pinball 1978 atari 2600 1977 atari 8bit family 1979 atari 2700 cancelled atari cosmos cancelled atari 5200 1982 arcade games developed by atari inc list of atari inc games video games antiaircraft asteroids asteroids deluxe atari baseball atari basketball atari football atari soccer avalanche battlezone black widow breakout canyon bomber centipede cloak dagger cops n robbers crash n score crystal castles destroyer dominos drag race fire truck firefox flyball food fight goal iv gotcha gran trak 10 gran trak 20 gravitar hiway i robot indy 4 indy 800 jet fighter lemans liberator lunar lander major havoc millipede missile command monte carlo night driver orbit outlaw pinpong pong pong doubles pool shark pursuit quadrapong quantum quiz show qwak rebound red baron return of the jedi shark jaws sky diver sky raider space duel space race sprint 1 sprint 2 sprint 4 sprint 8 star wars starship 1 steeplechase stunt cycle subs super breakout super bug super pong tank tank ii tank 8 tempest tournament table triple hunt tunnel hunt ultra tank video pinball warlords pinball airborne avenger the atarians hercules middle earth road runner space riders superman time 2000 unreleased prototypes akka arrh atari mini golf cannonball cloud 9 firebeast maze invaders missile command 2 runaway sebring solar war wolf pack in media atari ads are featured prominently in the cult movie blade runner and its sequel blade runner 2049 san francisco bay area portal companies portal wikimedia commons has media related to atari history of video games atari inc business is fun by curt vendel marty goldberg 2012 isbn0985597402 the atari history museum atari historical archive site atari times supporting all atari consoles atariagecom atari entry at mobygames atari gaming headquarters atari historical archive site atari on film list of atari products in films the dot eaters comprehensive history of videogames extensive info on atari offerings and history history of atari from 1978 to 1981 a history of syzygy atari atari games atari holdings 