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Infogrames Officially Changes Name To Atari
According to this story from Reuters via Yahoo News, Infogrames is now officially changing its name to Atari worldwide. The French publisher originally picked up the home rights to the Atari name after buying Hasbro Interactive in 2001, and had recently been rebranding much of its line-up (even PC RPGs) with the Atari logo alongside the Infogrames one. Lovable French ruffian and Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell will open the Nasdaq stock exchange on Wednesday morning to herald the new ATAR stock ticker symbol for the company.
- Founded by Nolan Bushnell (1972).
- Sold to Warner Communications (predecessor of AOL-Time-Warner) 1975.
- Warner splits Atari into Home and Arcade divisions. Jack Trammiel, founder (forcibly retired) of Commodore buys Home division, forms Atari Computer Corp. (1984)
- Arcade division gets renamed Atari Games, then Atari/Tengen, then Time Warner Interactive, then gets sold to Williams/WMS, which sells it to Midway, which renames it Midway Games West! (Dates and veracity dubious!)
- Atari Computer Corp merges with disk drive maker JTS (1996)
- JTS/Atari sells its "Atari assets" to Hasbro Interactive (1998).
- Hasbro Interactive absorbed by Infogrammes Entertainment SA as part of malicious French conspiracy. Renamed Infogrammes Interactive. (2001)
- Infogrammes Entertainment renames its North American acquistions "Atari". (2003)
- Chuck E Cheese buys Infogrammes Entertainment SA, renames it "Freedom Software" (2004).
In researching this timeline, I made a truely mind-boggling discovery: Atari was briefly in the engineering/scientific/graphics workstation business!Well, the Infogrames armadillo was cool and all, but that "Fuji" logo is simply one of the most beautiful pieces of graphic design ever.
EVER.