Slashdot Mirror
Hope Fading at Atari
hisham writes "On the heels of the bad news on SGI's financial health, another former giant of the tech world announces concerns of bankruptcy: 'Bad times got worse at Atari as the company posted a loss and a 35% decline in sales in the important holiday quarter.' The CFO has resigned, and the company released a statement saying 'the uncertainties caused by these conditions raise substantial doubt about [Atari's] ability to continue as a going concern.' An icon of videogame history; if things turn sour, it will be sad to see Atari go (again)."
I've never considered Infogrames to be an icon of anything. Let's face it ... the real Atari died a loooong time ago. From Wikipedia's Atari article:
In March 1998, JTS sold the Atari name and assets to Hasbro Interactive for $5 million--less than a fifth of what Warner Communications had paid 22 years earlier. This transaction primarily involved the brand and intellectual property, which now fell under the Atari Interactive division of Hasbro Interactive. The brand name changed hands again in December 2000, when French software publisher Infogrames took over Hasbro Interactive.
do you go out of business when all you do is license your old games, sell your old console, and license your logo to t-shirt makers? They have got to have like $113 in R&D spent per month, where the hell did the money go?
They quit Atari and founded Activision. Why? Because the new owners were morons, and stiffled their creativity with stupid things like dress code, to say the least.
More info on Activision