Word: atari
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...knew a man trying to raise $50,000 for a game called Pong," said Lawrence J. Udell, an inventor and the president of the National Congress of Inventor Organizations. "I said why would people play a game on TV when they could watch TV? Well, Pong became Atari, and he sold out for millions and millions and millions. You, too, with your idea can become independently wealthy. Inventing is the last opportunity an individual has to become a millionaire...
...Americans are mazed out and shot out. They're tired of video games. Atari must compete against movies, novels, TV, anything that makes up America's six hours a day of leisure time. It is criminal in my mind that Atari did not think of a game like Trivial Pursuit first. I don't believe the industry will be a hit again until it rekindles its imaginative resources. If not, it's bye-bye to the industry...
...immediate problem Morgan faces is Atari's financial survival. To achieve that, he has been slashing on all sides. Atari's U.S. payroll has already been reduced from 9,800 people to 3,500; 3,000 manufacturing jobs will be added in Hong Kong and Taiwan this spring. By late next year it will centralize most of its operations in a four-building complex in San Jose, Calif...
Morgan is cutting back on the products Atari manufactures. He simplified its computer line from five proposed models to two and delayed introduction of a series of new Atari telephones. But he is still adding new video games...
...these changes save Atari? Morgan promises that the firm will be profitable in 1984, and next month Atari is expected to announce substantial progress in paring losses. But others are skeptical. Said one former Atari executive: "Morgan is determined to walk through the hurricane, but it is a shrinking company dependent on an industry that is itself declining. We know Morgan can cut, but can he create?" Morgan insists he can. "I don't have fun cutting budgets," he says. "I have fun running a company and dreaming." It is now up to him to see how soon...