wondash

Sad, very sad.
Infogrames Changes Name to Atari

forgotten_dream

In a word... STUPID BITCH ASS MONKEY FUCKERS!!!!!
The name Atari isn't a "status symbol", it is a legend. If I call myself "Hercules", it doesn't make me stronger. That's the single most retarded idea I've ever heard. Leave it to the french-- wait until somebody else has made something great, then step in and try to take credit. I doubt you could find enough balls among them to even manage a good game of Pong.

__________________
"A ouija board just works better if you've made it yourself. It's sortof like how 'Clue' is more interesting when one of you has actually killed someone."

Ganguro

Hi.. did you per chance read the article?
Infogrames has owned Hasbro Interactive for a while now. Hasbro Interactive = Atari. The Atari name holds a lot more "oomph" than the name Infogrames. It's a good business deceision, so don't turn this into some anti-french thing. If you really want to talk about the pinnacle of Atari's greatness you're going to have to go back to the early 80's. Let's not get selective memories and even begin to think that Atari has put out anything than utter crap in lthe last 10 years. There may have been some gems here and there, but mostly all of their products from 1990 on have been junk or rehashes of their classic games. Infogrames has always had a fine tradition of putting out crap.. so this is a natural transition for them.

Cynthetiq

having been an Atari 520ST owner and following the Atari debacle over the decades...

only time will tell how much more crap they will put out....

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wondash

Per request, here's the text from the article:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Franco-American video game publisher Infogrames Inc. (IFGM.O), in an effort to increase its profile with consumers by reaching back into gaming history, on Wednesday said it would change its name to Atari.

To mark the new Atari Inc. and the new ticker symbol 'ATAR' (ATAR.O), Chief Executive Bruno Bonnell is set to open the Nasdaq on Wednesday.

The Atari name is the most storied in video gaming, dating back to the early 1970s, when Nolan Bushnell and a team of engineers at Atari created "Pong," the arcade video game that was so popular machines sometimes jammed up because they were overflowing with quarters.

"What we have decided to do, following a very precise strategy, effectively is to adopt this brand Atari," Bonnell told Reuters. "Clearly we feel like it is the symbol of the global company that we became during the last two years."

Over the years, Atari went through many incarnations, and at one point operated as a subsidiary of what was then called Warner Communications and is now known as AOL Time Warner.

It ceased to be a stand-alone company in 1996, when it was acquired by JTS Corp., and in early 1998 JTS sold the Atari rights and assets to toymaker Hasbro Inc.

Infogrames, founded in France in 1983, acquired the rights to the Atari brand in early 2001 when it bought Hasbro Interactive. In October 2001 the company relaunched the brand and began using it as a games publishing label.

Though its origins are French, Bonnell said 65 percent of the company's business is done in the United States. Last year the company cut 60 percent of its French workforce, and Bonnell said he is dividing time evenly between the two sides.

But in the interim, Bonnell said, the parent company trading on the French bourse will continue to be known as Infogrames Entertainment SA (IFOE.PA), as the process for changing the company's name will take longer there.

Infogrames/Atari shares have been on a run of late, rising more than 130 percent on the Nasdaq since April 18, when the company said it had completed work on "Enter the Matrix," the hotly-anticipated video game companion to the forthcoming Warner Bros. film "The Matrix Reloaded."

Both the game and the movie will be released May 15, and Bonnell has in past said he expects the game could be an international mega-hit, selling millions of units.

On Tuesday Infogrames said it plans to ship 4 million units of the game, across the various gaming platforms, to retailers worldwide. The success of the game is widely seen as the key to the company meeting its sales forecasts.

wondash

LOL!

w3r7y

I donno
Enter the matrix looksh pretty shweet

__________________
"oderint dum metuant"
-Caligura
You say Tomato, I say Fuck you.

juanvaldes

The name is sacred, it should not be taken even if they down own what remains.

NeverBorn

wtf..

forgotten_dream

Yeah I did, and it's not just an anti-french thing, it's an anti trying-to-turn-our-nostalgia-into-profit thing. To me, Atari means Spaced Invaders, Frogger, and Pong. Nintendo means Mario and Zelda-- the Originals! Back when video games were for kids or to feel like a kid, just goof around and have 8-bit fun, instead of an 800-bit bloodfest. And people wonder why kids are so violent. Sheesh. Game companies have taken something fun and relaxing and corrupted it.

__________________
"A ouija board just works better if you've made it yourself. It's sortof like how 'Clue' is more interesting when one of you has actually killed someone."

Magpie0001

Youre blaming violent children on Videogames? C'mon, When I was a kid we were just as vicious if not more than todays young'uns.

Mr.Deflok

I like to stab things

KillerYoda

Oh the humanity...

This just in: Atari surrenders!

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"So you're Chekov, huh? Well, this here's McCoy. Find a Spock, we got us an away team."

forgotten_dream

It's a proven fact, video games were originally used by the military to desensitize troops. Don't you tend to feel a bit more aggressive after a good hard game of Mortal Kombat or Tekken or one of those? I preferred videogames where you didn't have to pay super close attention and have the reflexes of a hummingbird, you could just goof around with friends and have fun.

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"A ouija board just works better if you've made it yourself. It's sortof like how 'Clue' is more interesting when one of you has actually killed someone."

wondash

I was at an EBX today and checked out the box for Enter The Matrix. Sure enough, it has the Atari logo on it!

Recoil

Most AAA titles for Infogrames over the last year have had Atari as the publisher on the title....

(UT2003, UC, Driver, NWN etc....)

Good Decision I suppose. To me, that little armadillo of Infogrames means more than Atari in regards to games....

UT2003 box art pic (released last september)

nebbugvrok

haha, I remember this, about a year and a half ago there was a rumor circulating about that this was going to happen. I believed it with conviction, it seemed so true. infogrames denied it at the time, but this just shows us that they were lying.

hurrah for rumors.

jujueye

It's just corporate branding. get used to it. If you had to make a decision between a brand that everybody knows and one that not everybody knows, you would pick the one that sells the most. Of course, Atari is it. These people want to make money. I know I do.