Videogame Console Wars: Atari Blows the Big Deal
Let`s start with a little history of Atari before we get to the deal that would have changed the face of gaming history. The deal that never was.
In 1961 a MIT student named Steve Russell creates the first interactive computer game, Spacewar. In 1962 Nolan Bushnell enters engineering school at the University of Utah. Steve Russell Spacewar game shows up on school mainframes across the country. Russell programmed Spaceship shooter with Sun with gravity. Other students add star backgroun, etc. to the game.
In 1964 Nolan Bushnell stills as an Engineer student at University of Utah sees Spacewar. He works the summer as a manager at Amusement park. He gets the idea for video arcade games.
Nolan Bushnell
In 1965 Ralph Baer begins researching interactive television games at Sanders Associates. Then in 1968 Ralph Baer takes out patent on the 1st video game for Sanders Company.
Ralph Baer
In 1970 Magnavox licenses Ralph Baer’s television game from Sanders Associates. Nolan Bushnell starts work at Ampex where he meets Ted Dabney. Bushnell begins work on an arcade version of Spacewar called Computer Space.
By March of 1971 Bushnell quits Ampex alone with Ted Dabney and brings his Spacewar like game to Netting Ass. Nutting Associates Purchases Computer Space from Nolan Bushnell and hires him to help manufacture it.
Nutting begins shipping 500 units of Computer Space, the first arcade video game machine and the first video game failure. .
1972 Magnavox begins demonstrating Odyssey in Private showings. Bushnell attends a demonstration of the console on May 24, in Burlingame, California. Bushnell Leaves Nutting and starts Syzygy with partner Ted Dabney. Finding that the name Syzygy is already taken by a roofimg company, they rename their company Atari. (june 27th) Atari engineer Al Alcorn creates Pong.
Magnavox releases Odyssey and Magnavox sues Atari on grounds that Pong infringes on Ralph Baer's patents. (Some books say Nolan Bushnell decides to settle out of court others that the judge found for Magnavox) The outcome is that videogame companies have to pay royalty to Magnavox/Sanders. (in 10 years they take in $100 million. They keep this fact from Ralph Baer)
Atari’s Trademark on Pong does not come in quickly enough to stop copycat Pong games. 25 competing companies using the name take giant profits. Atari only get 10% on 90,000 Pong unit market. Dabney panics and sells out to Bushnell.
1973 Atari`s Gran Track racing game comes out. Bushnell forms exclusive contracts with distributors but then forms Kee Games (headed by Joe Keenan) to sell to the distributors locked out by exclusive contract. Autonomous company but bringing out same games under other names. Atari makes a big deal out of bad mouthing Kee Games as pirates and blackguards. When Tank becomes giant hit for Kee Games Atari distributors want to change contract. Kee “merged” with Atari.
Bob Brown pushes for home Pong system. Unit has only one game but is color and lower price. In 1975 Atari Creates prototypical Home Pong unit and sells idea to Sears Roebuck.
In 1976 Bushnell sells Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million. Stays on as Chairman, Joe Keenan is president. The market is down so he can`t go public to raise money. The money saves Atari from the fate of other gaming companies in the first gaming market crash.
Corporate stuffed suites block Bushnell from taking an active part in Research & Development (how major dumb it that?). Bushnell uses a young programmer (Steve Jobs) as a spy to keep him in the loop with R & D.
1977 Atari releases the Video Computer System, also known as the 26oo. B/W / Color switch, Handicap switch, 27 variation games switch, joystick controllers. Rotating colors when not in use avoid TV burn in.
Warners Communications want to take Atari into the computer market. Have no respect for Videogames and not aware of what is happening in computers. Bushnell is opposed to such a move because of his inside information about Apple Computer from his old corporate spy, Steve Jobs.
In 1978 Bushnell is forced out of Atari and buys the rights to Pizza Time Theatre (Chuck E. Cheese). Ray Kassar becomes the CEO of Atari.
In 1979 Atari game designer Warren Robinett introduces concept of "Easter Eggs" to video games by hiding a room with his name in it in a 26oo game called Adventure.
Warren Robinett
1980 Atari releases Space Invaders for the Video Computer System. The practice of selling home versions of arcade hits is started. After Ray Kassar refuses to give programmers/game designers credit or profit sharing calling them no more important to the company than workers on the assembly line. Renegade programmers flee Atari and create Activision, the first third-party game publisher. Ray Kassar holds a grudge, Atari sues Actionvision every 6 months in a vendetta that lasts as long as Kassar`s time as CEO at Atari.
1983 Nintendo is all ready to sign a deal with Atari to bring out their Famicom (NES) through Atari. A deal that would have propped up a company that was in real trouble at the time (nobody outside the company knew about the ill health of the once mighty gaming giant).
A booth jockey at Winter CES puts Donkey Kong on as a display for the New Coleco Adam Computer. Ray Kassar sees it and goes ballistic. Atari held the computer license for Donkey Kong while Coleco had the home console license. Kassar gets rabid with Nintendo and Coleco, starts foaming at the mouth and threating legal action against everybody. The papers on the Famicom deal with Atari never get signed.
Right after Winter CES Warner Communications announces that Atari sales have not met predictions, Warner stock drops 32 percent. Atari CEO Ray Kassar has just sold 5,000 shares of Warner Communications stock 23 minutes before the announcements of record losses at Atari. Atari announces that they will be developing software for other consoles (The death song of all gaming hardware companies) Atari eliminates 600 jobs sends Sunnyvale production to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Nintendo decides that they do not need Atari and decides to go it alone.
James Morgan, Philip Morris executive who claimed that cigarettes are no more addictive than Gummy Bears, becomes CEO of Atari and so messes up the company in his one year that Atari never get on their feet again.
1984 Warner Communications sells Atari Corporation to Commodore Computers founder Jack Tamiel but retains the arcade division as Atari Games.
If Kasser was not such an ass about Donkey Kong at the Winter CES then Atari would still be with us today and maybe would even make it to the days of Blade Runner and all those Atari signs in the future street scenes. The whole face of videogame would have been different. The Japanese would have had a lesser roll. Nintendo would not have taken over and Atari would not have tried to sue Nintendo for $160 million for taking over 80% of the gaming market. (Another sad chapter in the downward spiral of the once great Atari)
In 1961 a MIT student named Steve Russell creates the first interactive computer game, Spacewar. In 1962 Nolan Bushnell enters engineering school at the University of Utah. Steve Russell Spacewar game shows up on school mainframes across the country. Russell programmed Spaceship shooter with Sun with gravity. Other students add star backgroun, etc. to the game.
In 1964 Nolan Bushnell stills as an Engineer student at University of Utah sees Spacewar. He works the summer as a manager at Amusement park. He gets the idea for video arcade games.
Nolan Bushnell
In 1965 Ralph Baer begins researching interactive television games at Sanders Associates. Then in 1968 Ralph Baer takes out patent on the 1st video game for Sanders Company.
Ralph Baer
In 1970 Magnavox licenses Ralph Baer’s television game from Sanders Associates. Nolan Bushnell starts work at Ampex where he meets Ted Dabney. Bushnell begins work on an arcade version of Spacewar called Computer Space.
By March of 1971 Bushnell quits Ampex alone with Ted Dabney and brings his Spacewar like game to Netting Ass. Nutting Associates Purchases Computer Space from Nolan Bushnell and hires him to help manufacture it.
Nutting begins shipping 500 units of Computer Space, the first arcade video game machine and the first video game failure. .
1972 Magnavox begins demonstrating Odyssey in Private showings. Bushnell attends a demonstration of the console on May 24, in Burlingame, California. Bushnell Leaves Nutting and starts Syzygy with partner Ted Dabney. Finding that the name Syzygy is already taken by a roofimg company, they rename their company Atari. (june 27th) Atari engineer Al Alcorn creates Pong.
Magnavox releases Odyssey and Magnavox sues Atari on grounds that Pong infringes on Ralph Baer's patents. (Some books say Nolan Bushnell decides to settle out of court others that the judge found for Magnavox) The outcome is that videogame companies have to pay royalty to Magnavox/Sanders. (in 10 years they take in $100 million. They keep this fact from Ralph Baer)
Atari’s Trademark on Pong does not come in quickly enough to stop copycat Pong games. 25 competing companies using the name take giant profits. Atari only get 10% on 90,000 Pong unit market. Dabney panics and sells out to Bushnell.
1973 Atari`s Gran Track racing game comes out. Bushnell forms exclusive contracts with distributors but then forms Kee Games (headed by Joe Keenan) to sell to the distributors locked out by exclusive contract. Autonomous company but bringing out same games under other names. Atari makes a big deal out of bad mouthing Kee Games as pirates and blackguards. When Tank becomes giant hit for Kee Games Atari distributors want to change contract. Kee “merged” with Atari.
Bob Brown pushes for home Pong system. Unit has only one game but is color and lower price. In 1975 Atari Creates prototypical Home Pong unit and sells idea to Sears Roebuck.
In 1976 Bushnell sells Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million. Stays on as Chairman, Joe Keenan is president. The market is down so he can`t go public to raise money. The money saves Atari from the fate of other gaming companies in the first gaming market crash.
Corporate stuffed suites block Bushnell from taking an active part in Research & Development (how major dumb it that?). Bushnell uses a young programmer (Steve Jobs) as a spy to keep him in the loop with R & D.
1977 Atari releases the Video Computer System, also known as the 26oo. B/W / Color switch, Handicap switch, 27 variation games switch, joystick controllers. Rotating colors when not in use avoid TV burn in.
Warners Communications want to take Atari into the computer market. Have no respect for Videogames and not aware of what is happening in computers. Bushnell is opposed to such a move because of his inside information about Apple Computer from his old corporate spy, Steve Jobs.
In 1978 Bushnell is forced out of Atari and buys the rights to Pizza Time Theatre (Chuck E. Cheese). Ray Kassar becomes the CEO of Atari.
In 1979 Atari game designer Warren Robinett introduces concept of "Easter Eggs" to video games by hiding a room with his name in it in a 26oo game called Adventure.
Warren Robinett
1980 Atari releases Space Invaders for the Video Computer System. The practice of selling home versions of arcade hits is started. After Ray Kassar refuses to give programmers/game designers credit or profit sharing calling them no more important to the company than workers on the assembly line. Renegade programmers flee Atari and create Activision, the first third-party game publisher. Ray Kassar holds a grudge, Atari sues Actionvision every 6 months in a vendetta that lasts as long as Kassar`s time as CEO at Atari.
1983 Nintendo is all ready to sign a deal with Atari to bring out their Famicom (NES) through Atari. A deal that would have propped up a company that was in real trouble at the time (nobody outside the company knew about the ill health of the once mighty gaming giant).
A booth jockey at Winter CES puts Donkey Kong on as a display for the New Coleco Adam Computer. Ray Kassar sees it and goes ballistic. Atari held the computer license for Donkey Kong while Coleco had the home console license. Kassar gets rabid with Nintendo and Coleco, starts foaming at the mouth and threating legal action against everybody. The papers on the Famicom deal with Atari never get signed.
Right after Winter CES Warner Communications announces that Atari sales have not met predictions, Warner stock drops 32 percent. Atari CEO Ray Kassar has just sold 5,000 shares of Warner Communications stock 23 minutes before the announcements of record losses at Atari. Atari announces that they will be developing software for other consoles (The death song of all gaming hardware companies) Atari eliminates 600 jobs sends Sunnyvale production to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Nintendo decides that they do not need Atari and decides to go it alone.
James Morgan, Philip Morris executive who claimed that cigarettes are no more addictive than Gummy Bears, becomes CEO of Atari and so messes up the company in his one year that Atari never get on their feet again.
1984 Warner Communications sells Atari Corporation to Commodore Computers founder Jack Tamiel but retains the arcade division as Atari Games.
If Kasser was not such an ass about Donkey Kong at the Winter CES then Atari would still be with us today and maybe would even make it to the days of Blade Runner and all those Atari signs in the future street scenes. The whole face of videogame would have been different. The Japanese would have had a lesser roll. Nintendo would not have taken over and Atari would not have tried to sue Nintendo for $160 million for taking over 80% of the gaming market. (Another sad chapter in the downward spiral of the once great Atari)
posted by Larry Loc @ 10:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home