Space Race (video game)
Development of "Space Race" began soon after the founding of Atari in Summer 1972 under the name "Asteroid". Co-founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney had the initial idea for the game while developing the 1971 "Computer Space", the first arcade video game, but felt the more complicated "Computer Space" was a better first game. After leaving Nutting Associates and founding Atari in May 1972, Bushnell spent a few days designing "Asteroid", but soon had to drop the project to focus on running the company. After the release of "Pong", Atari's first game, development resumed on the title in Spring 1973. Dabney has claimed credit for the game's final design, though "Pong" designer Allan Alcorn has stated that he and Bushnell may have been involved as well. "Asteroid", codenamed VP-2, was designed to be a racing game that would be simple to create to fulfill an earlier contract with Bally Midway; Atari had initially offered "Pong" during its development to fulfill the contract, but had been rejected. The company was also interested in producing a very different game from their previous success, as they felt that innovative design was what would separate them from their competitors, which they saw as flooding the market with "Pong" clones rather than making new video games.
Atari, Inc. (Atari, SA subsidiary)
Another popular series by Atari has been the Godzilla Series, based on the nuclear monster originally created by Toho. Pipeworks developed and created all three of the console titles, although handheld titles were developed separately. The series started with "" for the Nintendo GameCube which was released on October 11, 2002 to much success before it was ported to the Microsoft Xbox a year later. It was followed by a sequel, "" for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox, on November 16, 2004. Despite "Save the Earth"s relative commercial failure, "" was released for the PS2 and Wii, on November 20, 2007 and December 5, 2007 respectively. "Unleashed" was accompanied by "" for the Nintendo DS, which was released on November 20, 2007. There is speculation as to the series' future, although current belief is that Atari has lost the rights to Godzilla.