Atari Inc.

Atari Inc. was an American video game and home computer company primarily headquarted in Sunnyvale, California. The company was founded by Nolan Bushnell and Teb Dabney in 1972, and was shut down in 1984 after filling bankruptcy. It was the successor company of Syzygy Engineering, who developed Computer Space before evolving into Atari.

Consoles

 * 1) Atari 2600
 * 2) Atari 5200 SuperSystem
 * 3) Atari 7800 ProSystem
 * 4) mh:crappygames:Atari XEGS
 * 5) Atari Lynx
 * 6) Atari Jaguar
 * 7) Atari Flashback
 * 8) Atari VCS

Notable games

 * 1) Computer Space (1971; as Syzygy Engineering)
 * 2) Pong (1972)
 * 3) Asteroids (1979)
 * 4) Missile Command (1981)
 * 5) Centipede (1981)
 * 6) Tempest (1981)
 * 7) Millipede (1982)
 * 8) Food Fight (1983)

Why Atari Inc. Rocked

 * 1) They are one of the pioneers of video gaming thanks to the release of the iconic Computer Space and Pong. Without Atari, video games wouldn't have become popular like it is today.
 * 2) Their games were mostly consisted of simple, yet enjoyable and innovative gameplay.
 * 3) They are also one of the leading pioneer of arcade gaming industry as well.
 * 4) They created the Atari VCS home video game system (renamed to Atari 2600 in late 1982) in 1977, the console that influenced many other consoles in the future with the use of replaceable cartridges for games.
 * 5) They've also made great computers, like the Atari 8-bit family and the Atari ST.

Why Atari Games Rocked

 * 1) Even after the 1983 video game crash, they still continued to manufacture awesome arcade games and units.
 * 2) The unlicensed NES port of Tetris (Using Tengen brand name) was very good.
 * 3) Like Bandai, they had a great relationship with Namco, localizing their games to Western markets in the 1980s.

The Only Bad Quality

 * 1) They infamously poorly marketed their Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man and their mh:crappygames:E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial game, both released in 1982, producing way more copies of those games than those that were actually sold during their production. They also released a console that received really negative reception that same year, named the mh:crappygames:Atari 5200. These practices ruined the reputation of Atari Inc. as a whole, and became causes of the mh:crappygames:North American video game crash, as well as the company filling bankruptcy in 1984. This ultimately lead to Nintendo and Sega replacing Atari as the dominant video game companies in the following years to come, and eventually Sony and Microsoft.
 * 2) * To add insult to injury, Atari already had a successor to the 2600 in development way back in 1976, but the company's new owner at the time, Warner Communications, decided to instead turn it into the Atari 400/800 series of microcomputers, thinking video-gaming would just be a fad. (The 5200 was still based on the architecture of the 400/800, but by 1982, it was severely outdated.)

Trivia

 * Despite its good qualities, after the mess it made in the wake of the 1983 video game crash, Atari has been "revived" and killed several times and relegated into a hollow shell of its former glory. See for Atari's page on Crappy Games Wiki for more.