One of gaming's oldest brands, Atari, has signed a deal with Universal Pictures to develop movies based on 10 of its most recognizable classic games, including Pong, Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command. Atari remains one of the most recognizable companies in the history of video games, even decades after its dominance in the arcade and console space.
Throughout the '70s and '80s, Atari played a formative role in arcade gaming, home consoles, and personal computers. As the nascent industry figured out how to bring the arcade experience home, the Atari 2600's iconic cartridge-based design pioneered gaming in the living room in the late 1970s. It introduced some of the era's most classic games, like Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Adventure, and Yars' Revenge, which are still considered some of the best Atari titles and helped establish genres and design conventions that modern developers still build upon. By today's standards, those games are quite simple, but they could give Atari and Universal plenty of creative freedom to make some compelling films.
Atari CEO Wade Rosen states his plans to make the iconic former console maker into a brand that taps into its rich retro history.
In an...
