But it may not all be bad.
Atari. For many gamers, it’s on off brand company that produces vast arrays of games for their systems, like XBox and PS3. But to people my age and older, it was their first real video game system. I was 4 and had an Atari 7800. I had a vast array of games from Ms. Pac Man, Joust and that craptacular ET game. But with the rise of Nintendo, Atari lost their hold in the industry. Their last grasp at the console market was in the mid 90s with their Jaguar system. Since then, they went the way of Sega and became a software producer, creating games based off properties like Ghostbusters and Godzilla. Unfortunately, business hasn’t been kind, and today, the US branch of Atari has filed for bankruptcy.
In a move to sever their ties with their French parent company, Atari S.A. Infogamer Entertainment, who bought Atari in the early 2000′s have been hemorrhaging money with the company for a long time. Atari’s US branch hopes that with filing the bankruptcy claim, that they can break away from Atari S.A>/Infogamer and start over. They will be selling off assets to get back on their feet, so you might see games like Joust come back through different companies.
Sign of the times. While Atari has kinda been gone for a long time, it’s still a sight to see when the grandfather of game consoles might see it’s last light of day.
