Atari Is Down For the Count.....

[calfranklin]

Williams was bought by Midway which is having its own cash issues right now.

 

 

The only "old school" company with a bright future right now is Activision thanks to Guitar Hero and its 7.1 billion dollar merger.

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

Perhaps WMS (who bought out Bushnells other company, Sente) might surprise everyone and buy into the only active part of atari, along with the non active part that WMS already own and give it a good viking burial

 

Atari (the home products division) hasn't realy done much since tramiel closed down hardware manuf'g in the early 90's and pretty much disappeareed from the US market in the Late 80's...It's going to take more then a miracle for someone to take the Atari properties and do something decent or major with them (the only viable market i see is emulation products capable of doing emulation of more then one system or retro hardware)

 

Curt, is this an opportunity for FB3 to be revived?

[Retro Rogue]

This is an interesting chart as well, it shows Atari's stock performance since 1996:

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=ATAR&t...&q=l&c=

 

..Al

 

 

Which would actually be GT Interactive's stock performance that far back. GI Interactive -> Infogrames NA -> Infogrames Interactive -> Atari Inc.

[Retro Rogue]

Williams was bought by Midway which is having its own cash issues right now.

 

Curt

 

 

Actually it was the other way around. Williams bought Bally/Midway in 1988 and renamed the entire operation (i.e. the umbrella of all its holdings) to WMS Industries Inc. It then off Midway was a separate company in '97 and sold it to the shareholders in '98, maintaining close ties (in a situation similar to Infogrames and Atari Inc.). Why most people usually assume it was the other way around, was because they moved their video game division under Midway in '91 (putting all their video game operations under one name), and transfered all the video game properties under Midway in '96 when they changed Midway's name to Midway Games.

[Gorf]

I was in talks not to long ago with Midway...they aint in no position to buy anything either.

[Albert]

This is an interesting chart as well, it shows Atari's stock performance since 1996:

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=ATAR&t...&q=l&c=

 

..Al

Which would actually be GT Interactive's stock performance that far back. GI Interactive -> Infogrames NA -> Infogrames Interactive -> Atari Inc.

I was wondering about that, thanks.

 

..Al

[Curt Vendel]

Marty - you're correct, I forgot that it was W-M-S

 

Williams-Midway-Sente

 

 

Curt

 

Williams was bought by Midway which is having its own cash issues right now.

 

Curt

 

 

Actually it was the other way around. Williams bought Bally/Midway in 1988 and renamed the entire operation (i.e. the umbrella of all its holdings) to WMS Industries Inc. It then off Midway was a separate company in '97 and sold it to the shareholders in '98, maintaining close ties (in a situation similar to Infogrames and Atari Inc.). Why most people usually assume it was the other way around, was because they moved their video game division under Midway in '91 (putting all their video game operations under one name), and transfered all the video game properties under Midway in '96 when they changed Midway's name to Midway Games.

[Curt Vendel]

Word is now out that Atari's only hope - Alone in the Dark is now on indefinite hold. With no other major software title to keep them afloat in 08' its not likely they will be able to maintain their Nasdaq listing past March 20, 2008. This does not bode well since they can no longer obtain any lines of credit with the exception of Blue-Bay Investments which is now a major shareholder of Infogrames.

 

 

Curt

 

This is an interesting chart as well, it shows Atari's stock performance since 1996:

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=ATAR&t...&q=l&c=

 

..Al

 

 

Which would actually be GT Interactive's stock performance that far back. GI Interactive -> Infogrames NA -> Infogrames Interactive -> Atari Inc.

[Retro Rogue]

I think I finally figured out what's been going on these past few months with Infogrames and what they're doing to Atari.

 

They announced a bond last week and that its been fully subscribed. They're using the proceeds to fully relaunch their own publishing activities.

 

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31816

 

That's why they transfered staff and functionality from Atari inc. back over to them then, as well as the rights to the atari.com web domain. And also why they're letting Atari Inc. rot. Atari fails, they absorb what's left back in to them (probably written in to the terms of the loan they gave Atari this past fall), and work to fully move away from identification with the Atari brand. Focusing on building back up the Infogrames name identity as a publisher.

[mimo]

If this is the case, then Atari does really look to be at the end of the road

[AEX]

I think I finally figured out what's been going on these past few months with Infogrames and what they're doing to Atari.

 

They announced a bond last week and that its been fully subscribed. They're using the proceeds to fully relaunch their own publishing activities.

 

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31816

 

That's why they transfered staff and functionality from Atari inc. back over to them then, as well as the rights to the atari.com web domain. And also why they're letting Atari Inc. rot. Atari fails, they absorb what's left back in to them (probably written in to the terms of the loan they gave Atari this past fall), and work to fully move away from identification with the Atari brand. Focusing on building back up the Infogrames name identity as a publisher.

 

 

If this is the case, then its the most sensible move the board has made to date. Infogrames has to some extent been shielded by the Atari branding, but not by much. I guess they needed to protect the name of their Major brand, unless they were to start again and perhaps buy a name like Commodore or Coleco... (and ruin whats left of their good names as well...)

 

But I would suggest this is the end of the line for Atari Brand once this has been completed. Will the brand ever grace a quality gaming product again

 

Karl

[mos6507]

Will the brand ever grace a quality gaming product again

 

IMHO, the double-caret AtariAge logo as it appears on homebrews has more cachet with me these days than Atari proper.

[Retro Rogue]

Will the brand ever grace a quality gaming product again

 

IMHO, the double-caret AtariAge logo as it appears on homebrews has more cachet with me these days than Atari proper.

 

 

Amen.

[AEX]

Will the brand ever grace a quality gaming product again

 

IMHO, the double-caret AtariAge logo as it appears on homebrews has more cachet with me these days than Atari proper.

 

Absolutely, its great to see homebrew products and indie game devs making things happen these days without the pressure of big business on their backs all the time (some of them are even making a good living from it). Atari Age has been a leading light for Atari homebrews and long may it continue.

 

I'd still like to see the Fuji survive and be used again proudly some day

 

The AA logo reminds of the Citroën logo a little bit... (a popular French car maker).

 

Karl

[Retro Rogue]

Just started a different an official thread for the topic here, since its not really concerning the original article that sparked this thread any more.

[Grampz]

I still don't completely understand why Atari shut down the multiplayer games that they had just purchased. They purchased a community based on what they saw as being a good foundation to build upon, or at least that's what we were told. As an Admin of WPH, once they fired Gregg Baker, whom they bought WPH from, I was IP banned for having more access than some of the Atari Super Moderators, even though I held the same title as they did. This was known about by the guy that hired Baker at Atari. Shortly after that deal, he was gone and no one knew anything about Baker's deal that included me. Anyway, the ban was lifted but by then, they de-Modded all of the WPH volunteer staff and gave no warning or reasoning behind it, nor will they ever. That has led me back to GamerParty (originally founded by Baker) as an Admin. We are looking at getting some multiplayer games back to our community and to give them back what they lost. I believe that Atari may have done me a favor in that aspect. The issues have inspired me to make something of GamerParty, and with the help of a mutual friend, I intend to do just that.

 

Yes, AA and AM were in talks of becoming part of all of that, the problem was the contracts literally called for AA and AM to become the sole properties of Atari and for Albert and I to lose our control of the sites directly and just be on an approval board, so that got nixed very quickly.

 

 

 

Curt

 

However this delisting is must more serious and without a real solution for Atari, their stock is below the $15m valuation mark and they need to keep it above that mark for 10 days straight, not an easy task for a stock that has had a steady and consistent downward trend for nearly 7 years straight. The fact that they shut down their development, killed their online community project and opted not to continue producing hardware and to just literally be nothing more then a distributor is not playing well in their favor.

 

I believe that Infrogames is looking to unload this cash-strapped business but I don't know to whom. By shutting down the development team they have shown that they are no longer interested in doing anything but distribution. I was directly affected when they killed their online community project. Atari had purchased a smaller community named WePlayHere, where I was an Administrator. WPH had 3 multiplayer games, and a wonderful community of people that stood their ground through a lot of bs. Atari purchased this community because they liked the way that the community was ran, and how close people were. After the purchase, there was talk about making one site that would merge the WPH games with the Atari Play games. The AP games were taken off the Internet without warning because Atari lost the digital rights back to Hasbro. Shortly after that, the WPH gaming site was shut down, and the forums were put into archive status. The once vibrant community was thrown into turmoil and members were banned for retaliating against Atari by spamming the forums with "down with Atari" posts and some vulgar language. Former WPH members have a new home on the Net and we are working on rebuilding what we once had.