Founded in 1971 by the legendary Nolan Bushnell, Atari published the phenominally successful arcade title Pong in 1972. In 1976 Warner Brothers acquired Bushnell's share of the outfit for a massive 28 million US dollars. Warner, creating two separate entities, sold the home computer division, Atari Corp., to Commodore founder Jack Tramiel in 1984, retaining right to the Atari Games arcade division.

1985 saw Japanese arcade giant Namco acquire a controlling share in Atari Games, a share that was bought back by Atari Games employees the next year.

In 1993 Warner chose to rebrand it's Atari Games division to Time Warner Interactive. Within three years the company sold its Atari Games division to WMS, owners of Midway and Bally/Midway. In the same year Tramiel's struggling Atari Corp. joined with hard drive manufacturer JTS and, within a year, was closed completely.

One year on, in 1998, JTS sold its Atari Corp. assets to Hasbro for just five million US dollars. Aiming to avoid confusion with the newly resurrected Atari brand, Midway chose to rename Atari Games to Midway Games West.

By 2000 Hasbro Interactive found itself struggling, saved only when French videogame publisher giant Infogrames acquired the company, Atari brand and all.

2001 marked a sad point in Atari's history. Midway, owners of the Atari Games brand, made the decision to step out of the arcade business. As the only arcade manufacturer holding the Atari name, the decision ended Atari's involvement in the arcade industry. Indeed, it marked the end of the Midway and Bally Midway arcade legends.

Two years later, Midway closed its Midway Games West studio. The studio, formerly known as Atari Games, signed the end of Atari's involvement in the home video game industry.

For three months the Atari name ceased to feature on the video game landscape. However, in May 2003 Infogrames announced that its key titles would be published by Atari, Inc., resurrecting the historic brand

The Atari name and famous logo soon became Infogrames' primary publishing outfit, covering everything from triple-A to minor releases. For some years the new Atari enjoyed big hits with titles such as Driver and Dragonball Z, but in 2006 the company's financial reports showed things were far from rosy. In May the company sold the Stuntman property rights to rival THQ, and the following month announced staggering losses of 67 million US dollars. Within weeks Atari sold the licence for Driver and the franchise's developer Reflection to Ubisoft, securing a reported $24m.

Things fared no better into 2007. In April 20% of the workforce was laid off, in July NASDAQ threatened to de-list the company on the stock exchange and in October parent Infogrames axed five of Atari's board members.

In November the Board announced “substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern”, along with news that Dragon Ball Z owner FUNimation wished to terminate its licence with Atari.

Software Highlights from Credited Titles

Atari's first work that SPOnG is aware of is the 1972 title, "Pong" (Arcade).

The company has been involved titles released on the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PC, Power Mac, PSP, DS, GameCube, GBA, N-Gage, PlayStation, Xbox, Arcade, Dreamcast, Nuon, Saturn, Jaguar, SNES, ST, Lynx, C64, Vic-20, Spectrum 48K, Sinclair Spectrum 128K, Amstrad CPC, TI99, Atari 7800, Atari 5200, Atari 400/800/XL/XE, Atari 2600/VCS, Intellivision and Colecovision. Of these, "Sonic Adventure 2" (GameCube), "Rollercoaster Tycoon 3" (PC), "Sonic Mega Collection" (GameCube), "Enter the Matrix" (GameCube), "Driv3r" (PS2) has been a best selling title.

The company is currently involved with the forthcoming 2010 release "N+" (DS).

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