Atari, Atari Games and Atarisoft.

[Adam Huemer]

Does anybody know what is the difference between these, were they different companies or just different labels?

 

Atari is the one who released e.g. VCS 2600 games.

 

Atari Games is the arcade machine publisher.

 

Atarisoft converted arcade machines for C64, VIC20, TI99/4A etc.

 

Any information?

[Rhindle The Red]

Once upon a time, there was one company, Atari. Inc.

 

They made arcade games and home video games for their systems, the 2600, 5200 and their home computers, the 800, 400, etc.

 

Around 1982/83 they came to the realization that everyone else (Coleco, Mattel, etc.) was making money not only producing for their own systems, but also for Atari's. They also realized they had one of the largest collections of titles under their belt and decided to start producing for other systems.

 

Atarisoft was the realization of this decision. Any games that Atari made for other people systems (ColecoVision, Intellivision, Commodore, etc.) carried the Atarisoft name. This was not a separate company, just a different label.

 

After the crash of '84 Atari, Inc.'s owner Warner Communications, sold off half of the company to the Tramiel family. This half consisted of all home-based products, essentially everything except the arcade stuff. This new Atari was known as Atari Corp.

 

The arcade portion of the old Atari, Inc. became Atari Games Corp., still owned by Warner. Warner eventually sold to Namco, who got Atari Games Corp. back into the home market through a new label of it's own, Tengen.

 

After a while, Namco sold Atari Games Corp. back to Warners (now TimeWarner) and the Tengen division was rechristened TimeWarner Interactive, the label Atari Games Corp titles such as Primal Rage generally carried.

 

TimeWarner eventually sold Atari Games Corp. again, this time to Midway. Midway kept the company going as an independant arcade division, releasing home games under their own Midway label.

 

Meanwhile, Atari Corp. attempted to reinvent itself as a computer company, eschewing the video game market. Although successful for a while, Atari Corp. eventually got back into video games with the 7800, Lynx and Jaguar. In the 90's, Atari Corp. got itself a new label in the form of Atari Interactive, intended for releasing games for the PC. The only title to see release under this label (while owned by Atari Corp.) was Tempest 2000.

 

But nothing helped and Atari Corp. was reversed merged into JTS Corp., a disk drive maker (if I remember correctly) and essentially shut down as a game producing company. It's assets were eventually sold to Hasbro Interactive, the game arm of Hasbro Inc., the world's second largest toy company (behind Mattel). They revived the Atari Interactive label (this time as an actual division of Hasbro Interactive) for PC and console games for the PSX, Dreamcast and even the game.com.

 

Meanwhile, a dispute arose between Hasbro Interactive (the successors to Atari Corp.) and Midway (the successors to Atari Games Corp.) over the ownership of pre-split arcade titles. To settle the dispute, new contracts were written up settling all issues and Midway renamed Atari Games, calling it Midway Games West. They eventually shut down all arcade operations. Midway currently hold rights to all post-split arcade titles from Atari Games Corp. (such as Gauntlet,the Rush series of racing games, and others).

 

Hasbro Interactive didn't do too well in the long run, however, and sold the Hasbro Interactive division to Infogrames, a french game company. Infogrames renamed the division Infogrames Interactive and currently hold the rights to all Atari Corp. properties.

 

So all the Atari companies are:

 

• Atari, Inc. - original company

• Atari Corp. - home product, post-split

• Atari Games Corp. - arcade product, post-split

• Atari Interactive - subsidiary of Hasbro Interactive then Infogrames Interactive, releasing PC and console games.

 

Labels that are not actual companies and/or subsidiaries:

 

• Atarisoft - used by Atari Inc. on non-Atari machine titles

• Tengen - used by Atari Games Corp. (while owned by Namco) on home video titles

• TimeWarner Interactive - used by Atari Games Corp. (while owned by TimeWarner) on home video titles

• Atari Interactive - used by Atari Corp. on PC game product.

 

It's getting late and I'm tired. Can anyone think of anything else or correct anything?

 

[ 08-24-2001: Message edited by: Rhindle The Red ]

[Rhindle The Red]

Forgot one.

 

In the 70's when Atari dominated the arcade market, they created another company called Kee Games, which existed solely to release Atari games under new names to make it seem like there was more competition than there was.

 

They even considered releasing a Kee Games version of the 2600, but didn't.

[Adam Huemer]

WOW, you rule!

 

Many thanks for the huge bunch of information, I knew about several companies, now you got order into my chaos.

 

I wish I had something to give you in return.

http://www.lemon64.com http://pirates.emucamp.com

[mos6507]

>>

Meanwhile, a dispute arose between Hasbro Interactive (the successors to Atari Corp.) and Midway (the successors to Atari Games Corp.) over the ownership of pre-split arcade titles. To settle the dispute, new contracts were written up settling all issues and Midway renamed Atari Games, calling it Midway Games West. They eventually shut down all arcade operations. Midway currently hold rights to all post-split arcade titles from Atari Games Corp. (such as Gauntlet,the Rush series of racing games, and others).

<<

 

I never heard of this dispute. This implies that it was a big part of why Midway shut down the Atari label, although I think the overall status of the arcade industry had more to do with it (hence the shutting down of Midway's arcade division itself).

 

When Atari released Atari Arcade Hits for the PC, this could have clashed with Midway who had been releasing Atari coinop emulations on the consoles. AAH being eventually ported to the Dreamcast--clearly edging into Midway territory.

 

So I'm assuming Hasbro-->Infogrames got the rights tied up?

[Ze_ro]

Wow, nice wrap-up on this subject... looks like you hit on all the bases! Good job!

 

quote

The arcade portion of the old Atari, Inc. became Atari Games Corp., still owned by Warner.  Warner eventually sold to Namco, who got Atari Games Corp. back into the home market through a new label of it's own, Tengen.[/QB]

 

Aha! So

this

is how Tengen came into the picture! I never understood why Tengen was making games for the Lynx when the games were actually stuff owned by Atari!

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rhindle The Red:

They even considered releasing a Kee Games version of the 2600, but didn't.

---

 

Check it out! I thought these were hilarious myself

 

 

(Stolen from AtariHQ)

 

--Zero