Atari may hit reset button again
'Substantial doubt' about ability to remain afloat
Atari is in financial trouble again — or more accurately, the company that spun the Atari brand from the company that bought Atari from the company that merged with the owner of Atari who bought Atari from a split of the original Atari is hurting.
Approximately 23 years of steadfast brand necromancy has kept the Atari name from fading, yet no corporate voodoo appears to be able to keep the company from serious decay. Once famed as an arcade, game console and home computer pioneer, the Atari name has mostly stood for doom and gloom since the video game crash of 1983.
Last week Atari CEO David Pierce resigned after serving in the post for just over one year while the company announced it would completely withdraw from the game publishing business. Atari has sold its development studios, as well as the license to its Test Drive series to parent company Infogrames in exchange for $5m in advance royalties.
Yesterday, Atari's second quarter results rolled in with the company reporting a net loss of $7.7m, on net revenue of $13.3m (compared to $28.6m revenue in the same quarter last year).
The financial trouble "raises substantial doubt" about their ability to continue the business, said Atari in a Securities and Exchange Commission report filed yesterday. Atari plans to lay off 20 per cent of its total workforce, primarily in "general" and administrative positions.
The company said it is currently looking for financing and ways to improve its financial position such as partnerships and further licensing of its intellectual property.
The Atari brand has a confusing history of buyouts and mergers, passing through more hands than perhaps even staphylococcus. Read about where its been over yonder. Needless to say, it's not the same company that made your Atari 2600.
Sad news. But, hey, any readers want to split the rights to Marble Madness while the going is cheap? ®
COMMENTS
C64 paris hilton simulator
How do you manage to slow the C64 sim down to real time ?
All crap
The only personal computer that there has ever been is the Commodore C-64. I am writing this on one as we speak, and I run all modern software on it, such as Blitz-64, Centipede, and Race. I have seen these new Atari machines and the Amiga - and I just cannot see the world of 16 bit catching on. It simply provides no useful extra capability. As for those green screen XTs - what a joke.
I also have a Paris Hilton simulator on mine.
atari vs amiga
even more amazing that a tongue-in-cheek comment can kick off the rivalry again after 20 years!
Anon: get a SOH...have a read of the register.. it's 'joke alerts' will have you spotting them in no time. In practice you might be able to detect them without an alert....
ST and Amiga
Both were amazing for the day, certainly far better than the equivalent macintosh. Very sad that Atari have bit the dust, but we can all hope that Apple only take a few more years to go the same way
Sad
I work at Atari for 8 years in the 80s-90s until they went under then. It was sad to see it happen then and even more sad now. I wish they could have pulled through somehow. I'd probably still be there today if they had really kept going.
