Who cares? This thing called Atari is really just Infogrames with a borrowed name. And Infogrames is really just GT Interactive. So it's more like "company currently in possession of borrowed and reborrowed name declares bankruptcy."

As it was pointed out to me a day ago, here are a few more versions of the story:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5090807 (venturebeat.com)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092088 (telegraph.co.uk)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092123 (bloomberg.com)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092327 (guardian.co.uk)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092447 (latimes.com)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092764 (lohud.com)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092889 (bbc.co.uk)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093489 (cnn.com)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5094529 (wsj.com)

This covers the convoluted history pretty well: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/01/todays-atari-bankruptc...

> "People, once upon a time, would use 'Atari' in place of the term video games,"

I'm a little young for Atari, but a decade or so later, when I was a kid, we would use "Nintendo" or "Mario" as synonyms for "video games".

"Hey want to play Mario?" "Sure, what game?" "Double Dragon/Zelda/Excite Bike/etc" Was a common conversation among my friends circa 1988 or so.

This is the best of Atari: http://www.atariage.com/ http://www.atari.org/

Atari Force go! http://www.atariage.com/comics/index.html

I still have a working Atari 2600 system and some carts.

Too bad the Atari company is but a name for Infogrames and is nothing like the original Atari.

I wished they would re-issue the 2600 console and games.

I think there was an Atari "Joystick" available a couple of years ago that included an emulator with lots of 2600 games.

There's been a couple generations of the Atari Flashback console. From the second generation onward, they were replicas of the actual hardware. You could solder in a cartridge port and play your original games.

I did not know that. Thanks! (Heading to ebay to score one).

wow, didnt know they were in trouble - they had http://atari.com/arcade (which i thought was cool).

They are not.

Atari US ( real Atari ) is doing a legal maneuver to get rid of the parent company Atari France ( that in reality is just infogrames thinking using Atari name will help them somehow )

This would seem to be a pretty important point missed completely by the article. Do you know a better article we could read?

This article is a bit better.

http://www.dailytech.com/Atari+Files+for+Bankruptcy+Looks+to...

Having worked for a company which publisher was Atari and having Atari cancelled all other games in development with the excuse of going just mobile... I can't say I am surprised :)

This reddit comment also explains:

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/16zlo7/atari_fil...

While Marketplace missed this they do seem to be in pretty serious trouble.