Atarisoft

Atarisoft was a brand name used by Atari, Inc in 1983 and 1984 to market video games the company published for home systems made by competitors.[1] Each platform had a specific color attributed by Atarisoft for its game packages. For example, video games sold for the Commodore 64 came up in green packages, games for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A in yellow, games for the IBM PC in blue, and so on.

Typical example of Atarisoft packaging. The predominantly red cover of Centipede corresponds to the Apple II format.

Atarisoft was so successful during the Christmas 1983 shopping season that the company released games for the discontinued 99/4A.[1] By 1984 a rumor stated that Atari planned to discontinue hardware and only sell software.[2] Despite being in existence for less than two years, Atarisoft had a huge video game library with dozens of game versions being released for various home computers and consoles. Almost all of the Atarisoft titles were produced by third-party software companies, as Atari only developed for their own systems.

The Atarisoft label did not bear Atari's recognizable "Fuji" logo nor the official logos of the games, rather, the game names were written in a different typeface.

The Atarisoft label as utilized by Atari Inc. was discontinued shortly after Warner Communications sold Atari Inc's consumer division to Jack Tramiel in 1984. Many additional titles were in production at the time. Most of these went unreleased although a few were eventually released by other companies. Some titles originally planned for cartridge release such as the C64 Mario Bros. were released on disk instead for cost reasons. Other titles such as the IBM port of Stargate were completed, but never published; they were leaked to BBSes.

The new Atari Corporation initially used the Atarisoft brand as well. Several Atari 8-bit family titles (both game and non-game) were published by Atari UK and Atari France using the Atarisoft label in 1985. Atari did not use the Atarisoft label again after 1985.

Cross-Platform Games

Released

These were published during 1983–84. Most were released by Atari, Inc., but some of these were released by Atari, Corp. later in 1984.

Unreleased

Promoted, partially developed, or fully completed games, but Atari did not publish them.

Releases by Atari UK
Atarisoft-branded "Paint" / "The Pay-Off" floppy disk supplied as part of "Software Pack" in computer bundle.

All released in 1985.

  • Chess (Atari 8-bit)
  • Eastern Front (1941) (Atari 8-bit)
  • European Countries and Capitals (Atari 8-bit)
  • An Invitation to Programming (Atari 8-bit)
  • The Lone Raider (Atari 8-bit)
  • Software Pack (The Home Filing Manager and The Pay-Off / Paint) (Atari 8-bit)

Releases by Atari France

All released in 1985.

  • Cameléon (Atari 8-bit)
  • Énigme du triangle (Atari 8-bit)
  • Nostradamus (Atari 8-bit)
  • Promoteur (Atari 8-bit)

References
  1. Mace, Scott (1984-04-09). "Atarisoft vs. Commodore". InfoWorld. p. 50. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  2. Anderson, John J. (March 1984). "Atari". Creative Computing. p. 51. Retrieved February 6, 2015.
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