Atari Games

Headquarters:

Milpitas, California, United States

1984

2000-01

← Atari, Inc.

Midway Games West →

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Atari Games (or Atari Games Corporation) was a company formed in 1984, after the original Atari, Inc. split into two halves (the other half being Atari Corporation, sold by Warner Communications to Jack Tramiel). Atari Games started life off as the arcade division of Atari Inc., producing a number of top arcade games during the 1980s. One of the conditions of the split requires Atari Games to always include "Games" in its title and logos - Atari Corporation did not have that restriction.

Unlike Atari Corporation, Atari Games was comprised of many former Atari Inc. imployees, and as such continued operating in a similar manner to Atari Inc. In 1985 Namco bought a controlling interest in the company, though in the following year these shares were bought back by Atari Games employees.

Atari Games created a new division, Tengen in 1987 to tap into a home console market, initially publishing NES titles from Namco and Sunsoft as well as Atari Games products. The division was also used to sub-license the Japanese arcade rights and illegitimate Mega Drive rights to Tetris to Sega after Atari Games acquired the arcade rights and illegitimate console rights to the game from Mirrorsoft.

In 1994, Atari Games was bought by Time Warner Inc., becoming a subsidiary of the conglomorate until 29th March 1996 when it was sold to WMS Industries^[1]. Atari Games kept its name and headquarters during this period, although Tengen became Time Warner Interactive (1994) and then Midway Games West (1996).

1998 saw WMS spin-off Midway Games as an independant entity, taking Atari Games and Midway Games West with it. Midway subsequently chose to merge Atari Games into Midway Games West in January 2000 to avoid confusion with Hasbro Interactive, which had at this point acquired the old Atari Corporation rights. This marked the end of the Atari Games brand, and meant the 1999 release of San Francisco Rush 2049 would be the last arcade game to bear the "Atari" name.