Word: atari
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Losses and layoffs at Atari...
...Christmas selling season. When participants gather this week in Chicago for the annual bazaar, however, the hot topic of conversation will not be whether Zaxxon or Keystone Kapers will unseat Centipede as the industry's bestselling videogame. It will be: What's going on at Atari...
...company that pioneered video-games and a year ago still had 80% of that exploding market is getting zapped. Last month another 225 workers were laid off, to add to the 1,700 furloughed earlier this year when some production was moved to overseas plants. Because of Atari's woes, its parent company, Warner Communications, lost $18.9 million during the first three months of 1983, and Warner Chairman Steven Ross, 55, says an even bigger loss is coming in the second quarter. The company's stock, which climbed to 63 last year, is now hovering around...
Last week Ross pushed through a full-scale management shake-up at Atari. Previously separate home-computer and video-game divisions were combined, and three new groups were formed to handle marketing and distribution, product development and manufacturing. Said one former Atari insider: "I'd say it is a desperation move." Atari Chairman Raymond Kassar, 55, survived, but it is unclear how much authority he will have...
Alan Kay, chief scientist of Atari, closed the conference with a vision of the video-game joy stick as a magic wand capable of creating new worlds. The video game, he said, aligned with the computer, was "a new kind of kinetic art," a medium that will allow the user to explore his own imagination. "Games are the most important thing ever invented," he noted, "because they allow us to control and amplify our fantasies...