Atari Corporation
Background
Atari was an American video game company created in 1976 by Nolan Bushnell (who created Pong in 1971). Atari was owned by Warner Communications until 1985. After several structure changes, the gaming division was bought by Time Warner in 1993, but then sold to Williams in 1996, who reverted the name back to Atari Games. The subsidiary became a part of Midway Games, as the latter spun off in 1998, and it was renamed the same year to Midway Games West to avoid confusion with another Atari brand set up by Hasbro Interactive.
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| 1st Logo (September 11, 1977-January 1, 1992) | 2nd Logo (May 1986-January 1, 1992) | 3rd Logo (1991-1996) |
1st Logo (September 11, 1977-January 1, 1992)
Logo: On a black background, we see the corporate Atari logo with rainbow colors in it. Underneath this, we see "© (year) ATARI INC."
Variant: On some games, the copyright stamp is not seen.
Technique: None.
Music/Sounds: None.
Availability: Seen on all Atari 2600 and 5200 games.
2nd Logo (May 1986-January 1, 1992)
Logo: On a black background, we see the Atari logo like the previous one, but with "ATARI" changing colors and with lines in it. There is no copyright stamp.
Variant: On cartridges of most games, "(C) 1987 Atari Corp." is seen. In the actual games however, "© 1984 ATARI" is seen on the title screen.
Technique: None.
Music/Sounds: None.
Availability: Seen on all Atari 7800 games.
3rd Logo (1991-1996)
Logo: We see the Atari tripod logo arranged in various ways.
Variants:
- On most Atari Jaguar games, the logo is seen in front of a marble rectangle and has "Licensed to" above.
- On Bubsy - Fractured Furry Tales for Jaguar, the blue name with a golden outline is set over the tripod.
- On Raiden for Jaguar, we see the 3D blue logo floating over a brown surface.
- On T-Mek for Sega 32X, the logo is made of stone and has "GAMES" below.
- On Missile Command 3D for Jaguar, we see the rainbow Atari tripod spinning with the Virtuality logo above.
Technique: The dated 3D effects for some variants.
Music/Sounds: None, or the opening theme.
Availability: Mainly seen on games for Atari Jaguar. Also appeared on a few licensed games for other platforms.
