Topic: Acclaim Files Bankruptcy

[Bill Aurion]

That said, I think I do remember a game of some type being advertised on Tombstone pizzas...Though I can't recall what it could be or if I'm just making this up in my head...

[joeamis]

I know Atari has changed hands many times, and is now Infrogrames, anyone should know that.  That doesn't change the fact that Atari basically started the videogame industry.  And even to this day they put out great games under their new ownership.  But I guess only developers count now, publishers shouldn't exist.  

KDR: present performance is not all that matters.  For one thing, for your horse analogy, there's many stories of return to glory, after many years of being gone.  Watch Sea Biscuit for one example.  And in videogames, just because a developer or publisher isn't currently doing phenomenal doesn't mean they deserve to be "put in the meat grinder".  They are capable of doing better in the future.  By your logic, some countries should've been destroyed when they weren't doing well, or people.  Are we only supposed to give the upper class a fighting chance in the world?  Should we actively enforce the survival of the fittest ourselves?  Or rather let nature take it's course.  You know that you could compare Nintendo to Eidos' former glory, Nintendo has fallen an equal amount of what they once were, as Eidos has.  But your biased opinion rules above any such comparison.

[KDR_11k]

Atari didn't change ownership to Infogrames, they died, long ago. Infogrames bought the trademark and changed their own name to Atari. There is NO connection between the old Atari and the current Atari (IIRC this is actually the fourth company using the Atari name). Infogrames didn't start the videogame market.

joe: Nintendo doesn't produce absolutely horrible, buggy pieces of crap yet. Once they do I'm willing to bet even the former Nintendo fanboys will want to see them dead. Eidos might redeem themselves, yes, but they better do it soon. You can't harp on past events forever. Eidos needs to rise again, if they fail they should just die. So far I don't see any attempts at Eidos to make that comeback (as opposed to Midway, who made that anouncement and apparently kept their promise).

[ruby_onix]

AFAIK, Atari was started by Nolan Bushnell, but he eventually borrowed a lot of money from Time-Warner to help make the Atari 2600 as big as it was, so they got control over the company.

Bushnell was a nerd and a dirty hippie (oooo... I'm gonna get it for saying that ^_^), so he didn't get along with the suits at Time Warner (but will I get it for saying that?). After Bushnell said that the 2600 needed to be dropped by Atari, and replaced with something more modern and powerful and expensive, the suits thought he had lost his mind, so they had him replaced. Time Warner milked the 2600 until the videogame industry collapsed.

Then Time Warner split Atari into "Atari" (the hardware maker), and "Atari Games". And sold the hardware division to the Tramiel family.

Time Warner decided to completely change Atari's image, so they renamed them "Tengen" and started making NES games. Then they sent a lawyer into the patent office, saying they needed the specs for the NES's security chip, because Nintendo was suing them for breaking the lockout (which they weren't). Then using Nintendo's own blueprints, they broke Nintendo's lockout and made pirate games, and got sued by Nintendo. They said, "See, we told you so. Nintendo's suing us. Just like we said." Nobody fell for it.

The Tramiels tried to make the "Jaguar" console and the handheld "Lynx", but both were basically failures, and the Tramiel's hardware-making Atari went out of business. (Where are they now, I wonder?) I personally thought it would've been cool for Microsoft to buy the Atari-hardware rights before making the XBox. "Microsoft Presents: The Atari XBox!" But, they didn't. Ah well.

Atari Games eventually got picked up by Midway, who made that Wayne Gretzky hockey game for the N64, and probably a bunch of other stuff, but eventually gave up on sticking the "Atari" name onto things.

Infogrames bought what was left of Atari Games in order to get some of their rights and licences, and evenutally said "Hey, what they heck, we're allowed to do it." and changed their name to "Atari".

[KDR_11k]

Note that Nolan Bushnell is now the CEO of Infogrames/Atari.

[nitsu niflheim]

AS glad as I am that Acclaim is going bye bye, we all know that another company will just take it's place.  My bet is Eidos.

[Infernal Monkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
That said, I think I do remember a game of some type being advertised on Tombstone pizzas...Though I can't recall what it could be or if I'm just making this up in my head...

Shadowman. They slapped stickers advertising it all over tombstones and wondered why people got angry.

[joeamis]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Atari didn't change ownership to Infogrames, they died, long ago. Infogrames bought the trademark and changed their own name to Atari. There is NO connection between the old Atari and the current Atari (IIRC this is actually the fourth company using the Atari name).

joe: Nintendo doesn't produce absolutely horrible, buggy pieces of crap yet.

My point was that Infogrames now holds the rights to just about all the old Atari games.

And the point about Nintendo falling as much as Eidos I meant financially and commercially.  You said present performance is all that matters, and just because a company was good ten years ago (which is stretching it a bit) doesn't mean they don't deserve to be put in the meat grinder now.  Many Nintendo fans have said the same thing, alot of them who owned former systems and have now switched.  And theres the whole thing about them posting losses for the first time in their history.  As for Eidos needing to step up to the plate now, sure, but they're still putting out quality games today.  Sure they're publishing them and not developing them, but they never were a big time developer, they've always been on the publishing side of business since they started.

[Deguello]

"And the point about Nintendo falling as much as Eidos I meant financially "


Hahahahahahahaha!  I know you are wrong there.

[joeamis]

You cut my quote short, I said "financially and commercially."  Meaning the two combined.  I wasn't clear I guess and I can see why people would find fault with the financial remark.  However if you add in the commercial variable, I think they have posted some huge losses.

As far as financials they made profit of over 10 billion in just over a decade, and then posted losses right after that happened (in the companys long history), I think that's quite a big jump in financials.  Further impacted by the fact that the company had 95% of market share for portable systems and still posted losses...

"The company forecasts a first-half current loss of 7.0 billion yen, compared with a 25 billion yen profit estimated earlier."

"its first interim loss since going public in 1962."

7 billion yen= 63,584,981.99 USD and 25 billion yen= 227,087,387.38 USD.  So that equals a loss of (add the two figures together and...) $290,672,369.37 million dollars.

Round that figure and you have losses of $291 million dollars, which is more than a quarter of a billion dollars.

Then theres the commercial variable, the fact how the majority of consumers see them today, and the difference in the sales of their home consoles, going down more and more each generation.  The nes sold over 60 million at a time when the industry was small, the snes sold over 49 million, N64 sold over 32 million, and now the Cube is at about 15 million and will be lucky if it can reach 25 million.