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Atari Is Jumping on the Crypto Bandwagon (bloomberg.com)
Atari has announced plans to create a company token and potentially develop cryptocurrency-based casino platforms. The company, commonly associated with arcade classics such as Asteroids, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Pong, seems to believe new life can be breathed into the casino industry through cryptocurrency. From a report: "Blockchain technology is poised to take a very important place in our environment and to transform, if not revolutionize, the current economic ecosystem, especially in the areas of the video game industry and online transactions," Atari Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Frederic Chesnais said in the statement. "Our aim is to take strategic positions with a limited cash risk, in order to best create value with the assets and the Atari brand."
Here on Slashdot, could be please not use "crypto" as an abbreviation for cryptocurrency? We lost the war for "hacker", and we may lose the war for "crypto", but can we at least not be idiots in Slashdot headlines?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
By increasing the load on our power plants ten fold as everyone tries to jump in on the latest mining craze?
I wonder how much Bitcoin i can mine when the rom comes out for my Atari 2700
like, super-stable genius
himself couldn't turn a profit on Atlantic City casinos, so surely it would be impossible for Atari geniuses to do it, right?
And yes I know this comment will be moderated down into oblivion for daring to call out the failure in chief (and being slightly off topic). Go ahead, bring it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It's not every day that people are willing to give you millions of dollars in real money in exchange for tokens of fake money.
I'm shouting uselessly into the void, I realize, but I really wish people wouldn't redefine "crypto" to mean "cryptocurrency", rather than "cryptography", which is what it has meant for decades.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Gone full circle...
Wasn't first / one of the first purchase using bitcoins pizza?
All makes sense.
Ultimate history of video games is amazing.
While the name "Atari" may be associated with arcade classics, the company Atari really has no connection whatsoever with that old organization besides the name.
After countless buyouts, takeovers, and bankruptcies I think it would be very difficult to trace any continuity back to the Golden Years.
Please stop it.
There is no Atari anymore.
A more correct headline would be "Company who bought Atari trademark is now getting into crypto-currency". (But, of course, nobody would care about that at all...)
Asteroids and Pong were by Atari.
Pac-Man was by Namco. They actually bailed out Atari by purchasing Atari Japan (and its debts) in the 1970s. Atari might have gone bankrupt before it ever became a household name if not for Namco. They also became part-owner of Atari in the late 1980s when Atari failed and was split, but Pac-Man was developed all on their own in 1980.
Space Invaders was by Taito. Which is now a subsidiary of Square Enix (of Final Fantasy fame).
Atari licensed rights to Pac-Man and Space Invaders to make home console versions, but they weren't involved with the arcade classic versions. This may seem like esoteric nit picking, but misattributions like this are how the public got the misconception that Bill Gates invented the Internet, or Apple invented the smartphone. Let's nip it in the bud.
Anonymous Blockchain Organization announces that you can now gamble with your gambling winnings!
I've wanted to see a way to have older entries expire (or be available as an archive) without compromising integrity, or some way to checkpoint every transaction, so everything after that "snapshot" is synced, and can be validated by just a few signatures, as opposed to having to run through the whole blockchain to complete a transaction.
Especially because Atari was the first console maker to jump on the actual crypto bandwagon, using code signing in the Atari 7800 ProSystem firmware.
Nintendo's competing solution was a pseudorandom number generator called 10NES that ran on a pair of matching microcontrollers, one in the console and one in the game cartridge, not interacting with the game program itself in any way other than to trigger release from reset. True, synchronized PRNGs could be considered a stream cipher, but when viewed as such, the plaintext is a constant stream of zeroes.
To continue being the choice of scammers everywhere. There may be good uses for a blockchain, but this bunch of dofuses aren't going to be the ones who find it.
I'm curious to see whether they actually try (and fail) to do something, or whether they use the hype to get investments and then split with the cash.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
Atari is still in business???
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"Our aim is to take strategic positions with a limited cash risk, in order to best create value with the assets and the Atari brand."
There comes a moment of saturation when stringing together buzzwords will only create parody. That moment is now.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
My dislike for Atari stems from a 'guilt by association' for Infogrames (before they covered themselves in the dead skin of Atari in the early 2000s) acquired Ozisoft whom did not handle the Dreamcast launch in Australia / New Zealand (or the whole console's short life span).
To this day I still have some anger at Atari because of Ozisoft's handling of the Dreamcast.