@NighTrekr

But are they really.. the "real" Atari? ;)

room88

@NighTrekr: BURN! Nice... ;)

LionheartAce

To be fair, the "real" Atari isn't doing much with the name these days.

NighTrekr

This name makes more sense, anyway.

Yuki

@badasscat: Which is exactly why I placed "real" in quotes ;)

NighTrekr

Work that all the people can become happy?

Aargh my braaaaaaaaaain

BURNS.

Antihippy

I just pictured Nolan Bushnell's face blown up on background of every pachinko machine.

Buy 50 balls, 1 free slice of Pizza!

everybest

@captain_dl: Nope, it comes from the Chinese board game 'go'. It describes a certain strategy which is probably very easy to explain if you know anything about the game, which I do not so I will not even attempt an explanation.

CheechWizz

Wasn't the 'real' Atari accidentally buried in a New Mexico landfill?

CheechWizz

Correct me if I am wrong (like I doubted it wouldn't happen) but wasn't Atari a made up word when the original company was formed to give the company a Japanese sounding moniker?

captain_dl

There is no "real" Atari anymore anyway.

And you know, this is a pachinko system. It's not really the same industry. Lots of companies have duplicate names in different industries. Trademarks only exist for specific purposes, and I doubt Infogrames owns a trademark on Atari for pachinko systems.

badasscat

@room88: Exactly what my concerns are at this point. How much nestolgic feel will this new system give us? I understand it's gotta be new and with a twist. But Mario was able to generate new games with the same characters, what would "Atari Inc." give us?

Beatboxtaun

The REAL Atari was shuttered by Midway in 2003 and all its employees were laid off. I think some of them might be working at Raw Thrills. As an aside, I do kinda like the pachinko Atari's logo.

supercrap

Hey, at least there´s an Atari that´s making money :D...

Daisuash

@supercrap: Depending on your perspective, that wasn't the real Atari either. Atari Games, which was later sold to Midway, hasn't been part of Atari Inc. or Atari Corp., the home console division, since 1984. They had no affiliation other than using the same name.

They do have a shared history going way back, but it's kind of like saying Verizon is the "real AT&T". They may have been part of the real AT&T at one point, but not for many years and they're not more the real AT&T now than a lot of other companies that also have a history and were spun off/bought/sold - including the company actually calling itself AT&T these days.

The company we all probably really think of as Atari died in 1996, when it was sold to JTS and ceased all hardware production. But you could also say it died in 1984 with the sale to Jack Tramiel (who ran the company into the ground), or even that it died in 1976 with the sale to Warner Communications, at which point Nolan Bushnell became basically a figurehead. It's all a matter of perspective.

badasscat

Atari isn't a terribly difficult concept to explain.

Putting the opposition in atari means that you're on the verge of capturing a stone, or group of stones, since they only have one liberty left. Liberties are the spaces beside a stone. If the opposition makes sure you have no liberties in an area of the board then a group is captured and territory is gained.

Think of it as like you're cornering off or surrounding a unit in a strategy game. You're kind of placing your opponent in atari since you can beat the ever living snot out of the opponent.

[en.wikipedia.org]

It shows two ways a player can put an opponent in atari. the bottom part of the example they show means that no matter what the player playing the white stones can do, black pretty much has that territory surrounded since white only has one liberty in their group of stones.

Llydis

@Llydis: Well, if it came from Go, it's been pretty well established in the Japanese language since then. I've heard many uses of "Atari!" meaning "Correct" or "You got it!" or something...

bobtheduck

On the subject of pachinko's, their so huge in japan that a pachinko Aruse maker bought SNK for no other reasons then to use their logo on their pachinko machines. The founder of SNK left and made Playmore then bought most of the rights back to incorporate into real games and changed their moniker to SNK playmore.

kingmanic

I always heard that "Atari" meant something like "I have you now"...

UltraMagnus