Today's Atari could hardly have less to do with the one that released the VCS.

The company that currently owns the Atari name and trademarks has decided to give owners of the old Atari Video Computer System (aka the Atari 2600) something new to do. Mr. Run and Jump is a new Atari-published platformer that is coming to vintage Atari consoles in cartridge form, complete with a box and instruction manual. Preorders for the cartridge begin on July 31 for $59.99.

of note on why the headline specifies “A company called Atari”, for the unfamiliar. it’s both a bit of snark but also an actual thing because Atari’s history is not unlike the Ship of Theseus:

[…]Today’s Atari has absolutely nothing to do with the company that launched the Atari VCS in 1977, and the brand’s history and ownership defies an easy summary. After the video game crash in 1983, the old Atari was split into two divisions by parent company Warner Communications and sold. Atari Games continued the arcade business, and Atari Corporation controlled home console releases. Atari Corporation took a few unsuccessful stabs at the console market in the late '80s and early '90s with consoles like the Jaguar and the Lynx. It ultimately merged with a now-defunct manufacturer of unreliable hard drives in 1996 before being sold to Hasbro Interactive in 1998. Hasbro was bought by Infogrames Entertainment in 2001, which dropped the “Infogrames” name in favor of “Atari” in 2009. That company’s US operations, already many degrees removed from the original Atari, filed for bankruptcy in 2013. The company that emerged is the one that’s still operating as “Atari” today, and it’s linked to the old company by its name and its trademarks and not much else.

  • Emi@beehaw.orgEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    Reminds me of the “Polaroid Story”

    The company that owns the Polaroid brand and IP, PLR IP Holdings, LLC, was just sold by an ownership group led by the Pohlad family to an ownership group led by the Smolokowski family. The Pohlad family, which owns the Minnesota Twins baseball team, purchased its majority stake in Polaroid back in December 2014 for $70 million.

    Although its iconic instant film and cameras may be out of production now, Polaroid the brand is still alive and well: through licensing agreements, a huge range of Polaroid products are still being sold in over 100,000 retail stores in over 100 countries around the world.