Few people know it, but one of the pioneer video game industry companies is French. It is, of course, Atari. Founded in the early 1970s, Atari became French at the beginning of the second millennium when Infogrames bought it.

For almost 20 years, Atari dominated part of the video game market with its arcade terminals, game consoles, and video games.

Atari: A History of over 50 years

Atari is a video game and game console company originating on the other side of the Atlantic, in California, USA. The company was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, who began creating their first video games. The first released was Computer Space, loosely based on the game Spacewar! In the wake of this, the two developers marketed two anthology arcade games: Pong and Space Race.

Soon, Warner Communications took over the company and renamed it Atari Games. The company grew and started to release its video games, but also its game consoles. It was finally in 2001 that the company Infogrames Entertainment acquired Atari. The famous video game brand thus became French.

The Atari 2600: the game console of a whole generation

In 1977, thanks to its success, Atari released its first game console. It was the Atari 2600, also known as the Atari VCS. This console, delivered with two joysticks, is the third second-generation console to be released worldwide.

In France, the Atari console was released in 1981. It is simply the second game console to be marketed in the French territory, after the Videopac from Philips. Its success was immediate: it allowed players to play more than 900 different titles and many arcade games, which were, at the time, only available in Japan or the United States. Nearly 40 million copies were sold worldwide.

In 1982, the Atari 5200 was produced. It is a more powerful version of the Atari 2600. However, it was only marketed in the United States to compete with Japanese products.

Atari video games

Atari is mainly known for its video games. Indeed, the video games produced by the brand revolutionized the history of video games and arcade games. Today, many of Atari's video games are considered true classics in the history of video games.

There are several "shoot ‘em up" games, such as Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command or Star Wars. There are also many simulation games, such as Battlezone, Grand Trak 10, Lunar Lander, and Tempest. Atari is also known for Pong, commonly considered the first video game in history, and Breakout, the very first brick-breaking game in history.

Atari also allows you to play games produced by other brands. Many Japanese companies developed their first games for the Atari 2600, such as Space Invaders or Blocker, also known as Arkanoid.

Where to find Atari video games?

Despite their quality, Atari video games did not find many buyers in Europe. That's why you can find more Atari games in the United States or Japan, two countries that adopted video games more quickly.