MCV has reported that Atari is about to re-emerge at the forefront of the games industry. About time too!
If you are quick enough to monitor the games industry, as it continues on the worrying cycle of ‘big company swallows little company’, you may be aware of the journey that Atari has taken to get where it is today.
Following a wildly complicated and somewhat tempestuous time in the mid eighties to early nineties, the company ended up being sold to Hasbro following the impressive failure of its last chance system, the frankly awful Jaguar. Hasbro was then swallowed up by Infogrames earlier this year.
The MCV report indicates that Infogrames is planning to really make the most of the cult status afforded to Atari, which is said to be a particular favourite of chairman Bruno Bonnell. It comes down to money and a branding decision. Infogrames is not as widely recognised by the public as it deserves to be. The company is massive but is scarcely known in the US and does not have the market recognition it warrants. Atari, in contrast, is recognised by almost everyone. Even your mum.
Atari as a brand name is a funny old thing. The company dominated the home console market in the first boom in videogaming in the late seventies and early eighties with its Video Computer System, later renamed the 2600.
This teak-fronted monolith is still warmly remembered by every twenty-something gamer, and has been instrumental in the brand surviving to this day.
It is said that some high level Infogrames staff are opposed to what would effectively be a dilution of the Infogrames brand. To make the brand as recognisable as Atari would be massively expensive, if not impossible.
If you are quick enough to monitor the games industry, as it continues on the worrying cycle of ‘big company swallows little company’, you may be aware of the journey that Atari has taken to get where it is today.
Following a wildly complicated and somewhat tempestuous time in the mid eighties to early nineties, the company ended up being sold to Hasbro following the impressive failure of its last chance system, the frankly awful Jaguar. Hasbro was then swallowed up by Infogrames earlier this year.
The MCV report indicates that Infogrames is planning to really make the most of the cult status afforded to Atari, which is said to be a particular favourite of chairman Bruno Bonnell. It comes down to money and a branding decision. Infogrames is not as widely recognised by the public as it deserves to be. The company is massive but is scarcely known in the US and does not have the market recognition it warrants. Atari, in contrast, is recognised by almost everyone. Even your mum.
Atari as a brand name is a funny old thing. The company dominated the home console market in the first boom in videogaming in the late seventies and early eighties with its Video Computer System, later renamed the 2600.
This teak-fronted monolith is still warmly remembered by every twenty-something gamer, and has been instrumental in the brand surviving to this day.
It is said that some high level Infogrames staff are opposed to what would effectively be a dilution of the Infogrames brand. To make the brand as recognisable as Atari would be massively expensive, if not impossible.
Companies:
Atari
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