Atari Slowly Making A Comeback To The World Of Gaming
Say the word Atari to just about any person who’s played video games in their life and they’ll instantly know what you’re talking about. Atari had the first home game systems of their kind and are synonymous around the World when it comes to gaming.
With the likes of Nintendo, Sony, and eventually Microsoft, they just couldn’t keep up in the market and primarily stuck to developing games. That was until five years ago when they stopped developing their own games and focused on publishing and distribution. The change didn’t stick for long however.
“Jim Wilson, CEO of Atari, wanted to take Atari back to its casual-gaming roots and recognized the best way to do so was to embrace the social and mobile change in the gaming landscape. He said there are new business models in gaming and the company finally is ready to take advantage of them.”
“What we’re doing is we’re going out to the best and the brightest of the developers in the mobile business,” he said. “We’re looking at different ways to reinterpret or reinvent our classic franchises in ways that people are playing games today in the business model that people are playing today.”
A great decision that was. The company really took advantage of mobile platforms and to date, their greatest hits game for iOS has been downloaded over 3.5 Million times and was recently added to the Android Market.
They’ve also launched other games such as Asteroids: Gunner and Breakout: Boost which have done good as well. People can expect 10 to 15 new titles this year.
“If we stay true to the original brand ideas and we work with some of the best talent in the industry and we listen to our consumers, I think we have a very good opportunity to make a big statement and bring Atari to a new stage,” he (Jim Wilson) said. “We have an opportunity to bring back a powerful brand that consumers know and love.”
What was your favorite Atari game back in the day?
