It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames)[b] and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and blockchain".

On the other hand, Atari's post-1984 arcade titles are the property of Warner Bros. Games since receiving the assets following Midway's bankruptcy in 2009.

The word atari means "to hit a target" in Japanese; in Go, it indicates a situation where a player will be able to capture one or more stones of the opponent in the next move.

Opperman designed the logo intending for the silhouette to look like the letter A as in Atari and for its three "prongs" to resemble players and the midline of the "court" in the company's first hit game, Pong.

Bushnell asked Alcorn to produce an arcade version of the Magnavox Odyssey's Tennis game,[22] which would be named Pong.

[23] In 1973, Atari secretly spawned a competitor called Kee Games, headed by Nolan's next-door neighbor Joe Keenan, to circumvent pinball distributors' insistence on exclusive distribution deals; both Atari and Kee could market nearly the same game to different distributors, each getting an "exclusive" deal.

Joe Keenan's management of the subsidiary led to his appointment as president of Atari when Kee was absorbed into the company in 1974.

The introductory price of $199 (equivalent to $1,066 in 2023) included a console, two joysticks, a pair of paddles, and the Combat game cartridge.

The original team estimated the 2600 had a lifespan of about three years; it then set forth to build the most powerful machine possible within that time frame.

Mid-way into their effort the home computer revolution took off, leading to the addition of a keyboard and features to produce the Atari 800 and its smaller sibling, the 400.

The ported version of Pac-Man for Atari 2600 omitted many of the visual features of the original to compensate for the lack of ROM space and the hardware struggled when multiple ghosts appeared on the screen creating a flickering effect.

[26] Under Warner and Atari's chairman and CEO, Raymond Kassar, the company achieved its greatest success, selling millions of 2600s and computers.

Faced with fierce competition and price wars in the game console and home computer markets, Atari was never able to duplicate the success of the 2600.

Negotiating until close to midnight on July 1, 1984, Jack Tramiel completed the asset purchase for $240 million in promissory notes and stocks.

In 1987, Atari acquired the Federated Group for $67.3 million, securing shelf space in over 60 stores in California, Arizona, Texas and Kansas[28] at a time when major American electronics outlets were reluctant to carry Atari-branded computers, and two-thirds of Atari's PC production was sold in Europe.

The company continued to experiment with parallel computing aiming at B2B customers and graphic designers, but the transputer line failed to achieve commercial success.

A shortage of parts kept the system from being released nationwide for the 1989 Christmas season, and the Lynx lost market share to Nintendo's Game Boy, which, despite only having a black and white display, was cheaper, had better battery life and had much higher availability.

The companies exchanged a number of lawsuits in the late 1980s related to disputes over the rights to Tetris and Tengen's circumvention of Nintendo's lockout chip, which prevented third parties from creating unauthorized games.

The suit finally reached a settlement in 1994, with Atari Games paying Nintendo cash damages and the use of several patent licenses.

[49] The brand name changed hands again in December 2000 when French software publisher Infogrames took over Hasbro Interactive.

Other Infogrames games under the Atari name included V-Rally 3, Neverwinter Nights, Stuntman and Enter the Matrix.

[65] As of March 31, 2011, the board of directors consisted of Frank Dangeard, Jim Wilson, Tom Virden, Gene Davis and Alexandra Fichelson.

[68] On June 22, 2014, Atari announced a new corporate strategy that would include a focus on "new audiences", specifically "LGBT, social casinos, real-money gambling, and YouTube".

[71] In mid July 2017 an Atari press release confirmed the existence of the aforementioned new hardware, referred to as the "Ataribox".

Connectivity options were revealed, including HDMI, USB (x4), and SD card – the console was said to support both classic and current games.

It runs a Linux operating system, with full access to the underlying OS, but it has a custom interface designed for the TV.

Atari urged the backers to give feedback on the system so that the company could make changes to improve the product on its official launch.

This would mark the return of the Atari brand in the arcade space after 25 years, when San Francisco Rush 2049 was released.