CompuServe Thread

#Atari — The Truth

11 messages in this thread
#62707From: Ethan SolomitaAug 21, 1989 4:18 PM
This is the TRUTH about Atari Corp. (Note that there is NO Atari Games corp listed on any stock exchange in this country). Early in June, the stock went from appr. 6 to its current range of about 8-9.5. With today's drop in the market, at around 3:30 ATC stock was at 8.75 A comparison of Atari's sales to Commodore's sales shows CBM consistently sells over 2 times as much (in dollars) as Atari. This sprint, Atari sold 88.8 million dollars compared to CBM's 210.2 million. Profit was 3.3 million vs. CBM's 12.4 million. From Summer 88 through Sprint 89 net income is 2.5 million vs. 72.4 million. My info lists a 97 million loss this Winter (i.e. Christmas) for Atari, but that is too extreme and I believe it should be 9.7, which is the basis for my 2.5 million net income. Although we all know that CBM has posted its first losing quarter in a while, Atari didn't do very well either. They had their loss last quarter, but this summer's quarter the only had a net income of $327,000 i.e. atari barely made a profit, VERY marginal. All the news that's fit to print! — Ethan
#62723From: ICD, Inc.Aug 21, 1989 8:28 PM
Atari Games is, I believe, still a division of Warner Communications. And Tengen is a division of them. And neither bare any relation other than name and history to Atari Corp. Craig
#62841From: Mike BerroAug 22, 1989 11:44 AM
Tengen is a division of Atari Corp. —Mike
#62726From: Rob SalmonAug 21, 1989 8:43 PM
Ethan, Atari really did lose that money, writing down their investment in Federated Electronics, a chain of stores in southern California that reportedly sold more Amigas than Ataris. Subsequently, Atari sur…er, sued the former owners of Federated charging "We were swindled." Atari lost the suit. The LA Times used to give the Tramiels lots of coverage in the Warner/Atari days. Always lively reading when I lived there….should have saved the clippings. The LA Times, well used to Hollywood goings-on, considered the Tramiels a class scam unmatched at the time. Rob
#62759From: John SteidlAug 21, 1989 11:19 PM
Ethan, If you really want to compare the health of two companies, it generally pays to look at more than just sales and earnings. Get hold of a 10K and check out the balance sheet and cash flow as well. John
#62788From: Don Curtis/SYSOPAug 22, 1989 1:02 AM
Ethan, Atari Games is a totaly separate company, and part of Warner Bros. (or it was last time I saw anything about it). Don
#63273From: Lyle RainsAug 25, 1989 8:03 PM
As has been noted in other replies, Atari Games is not listed on any stock exchanges because it is a not publicly traded. It is operated as a joint venture of Warner Communications, and a Japanese company, Namco, Ltd. (with key employees having a small piece of the pie. Tengen is a wholy owned subsidiary of Atari Games. We are not related to Tramiel and the current Atari Corp except historically and by the lawsuit we currently have with them. We (Atari Games) are the current name of the old, original coin-op games division of the old Atari Inc. We have a lot of oldtimers from that division (I am a veteran of 15+ years, and there are several with more tenure than that). We like to think of ourselves as the ORIGINAL and REAL Atari (Pong, Breakout, Asteroids, Centipede, etc.), and the name confusion is a constant headache. Lyle Rains, Atari Games
#63362From: Steve PietrowiczAug 26, 1989 10:18 AM
Lyle, Thanks for clearing that up. Is the 94% drop related to the computer side or the video side? Steve
#63376From: ICD, Inc.Aug 26, 1989 1:10 PM
Ah, then Tengen IS Atari Games, not Atari Corp. I thought so. Craig
#63526From: JAMES D. WILLIAMSAug 27, 1989 9:57 PM
I spent last night (and lotsa $$) playing the new coin-op racing simulator that you (Atari) put out… the 3d effect and steering feedback were incredible. It strongly reminded me of the Alan Hastings videos done with Videoscape-3D. I was Most Impressed. –Eet–
#63558From: Lyle RainsAug 28, 1989 1:31 AM
Yain't seen nuthin' yet ( 8-D ) ! We were showing a new technology at Siggraph which does tens of thousands of Garaud-shaded, texture mapped polygons in real time ( Sho Graphics, a who;y owned subsid. of Atari Games ). It will take a while, but you WILL be seeing that technology in games within a year or so. It'll make Hard Drivin' (our current simulator) look pretty primative!