From Atari.com’s historical archives: “It all began in 1972 with Atari creator Nolan Bushnell’s dream of creating electronic games which would harness a television set or rastor display as a playing field. Nolan took advantage of his amusement park background and experience with electronics and created what would grow to be Atari. In the very beginning, Atari started out with arcade machines such as PONG and Computer Space. Many of the most popular hits in the arcade bore the Atari Fuji logo, such as Asteroids, Missile Command, Pole Position, and Lunar Lander, and home entertainment was no different. PONG by Atari was the most popular home video unit of the time. Soon Nolan realized that Atari must bring a versatile gaming console to market, which could play an entire line of cartridge-based games.” The rest is, as we say, history.
Atari lost out in the console wars long ago, but they maintain a modest reputation in the gaming world thanks to their software. Behind titles such as Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Unreal Tournament 2004, Atari’s new games are played on everything from the Xbox 360 to the Wii. Sure they’ve fallen far from their glory days, but these new print ads remind us of the company’s contribution to the gaming industry. No matter how realistic new technology becomes, we must always remember how it started.