What Events Happened In 1992?

• Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida August 22nd

• McDonalds opens first McDonalds in Beijing China

• Euro Disney opens in France

• Bill Clinton becomes U.S. president

• The largest shopping mall in the US, Minnesota’s Mall of America is constructed spanning 78 acres

• The Summer Olympics are held in Barcelona, Spain

• Rioting breaks out in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four white police officers accused of beating black motorist Rodney King.

• Prince Charles and Princess Diana separate

• Space Shuttle Endeavour successful maiden voyage

• PrimeTime Amusements is founded by David Goldfarb in Orlando, Florida as a student at the University of Central Florida.

Popular Films: Aladdin, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Batman Returns, Lethal Weapon 3, A Few Good Men, Sister Act, The Bodyguard, Wayne’s World, Basic Instinct, Unforgiven, Honey, I Blew Up The Kid, Reservoir Dogs

Popular Television: Law & Order, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Rugrats, The Jerry Springer Show, The Ren & Stimpy Show, L.A. Law, Matlock, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Married… with Children, Star Trek: The Next Generation

The U.S. arm of Atari, the iconic video game company that created “Pong,” filed for bankruptcy on Monday

But Atari will live on. The move is aimed at breaking the American branch away from its unprofitable French parent company. Atari U.S. is looking to “secure independent capital for future growth, primarily in the areas of digital and mobile games,” the company said in a written statement.

Over the next three to four months, Atari U.S. will seek buyers for some of its assets, including the Atari logo and the company’s games catalog. Atari as a whole owns or manages more than 200 games and franchises.

The gaming landscape has changed dramatically since Atari was founded in 1972. Atari scored hits with groundbreaking gaming consoles and classic titles like “Pong,” “Centipede” and “Asteroid,” but later lost its dominance to rivals like Nintendo. The brand has bounced around through several different owners. France’s Infogrames Entertainment acquired a stake in Atari in 2000, then bought out the company in 2008 and changed its name to Atari S.A.

Some fun facts on the Atari 2600:

• The Atari 2600 is responsible for game cartridges: The Atari 2600 expanded on the concept of selling games on individual ROM cartridges, which had been introduced by the now virtually-unknown Fairchild Channel F.
• The Atari 2600 is responsible for DLC: Well, almost.  The ill-fated Sega Dreamcast was the first console to actually offer downloadable add-ons or enhancements for disc-based games, but theGameline cartridge was the first example of digital distribution of games, allowing Atari 2600 users to download games like Stargunner, Bank Heist and Alien via a phone line.
• The Atari 2600 is responsible for movie tie-ins: Raiders of the Lost Ark was the world’s first movie tie-in video game in 1981, and the terrible E.T. tie-in was one of the precursors of the 1983 video game crash.  Remember where it all started to go wrong if you ever get a chance to sit down withPeter Jackson’s King Kong: The Game.
• Atari 2600 games can be worth thousands: If you owned one of the 30 million Atari 2600 consoles that were made and sold and you still happen to have some of your old cartridges sitting in a box in the attic, go and take a look through them and do some research – you might have a digital downpayment on your mortgage. The ultra-rare Air Raid for the Atari 2600 is worth over $30,000 to collectors – only 13 copies are known to exist worldwide.

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