All the Video Game Consoles I’ve Ever Owned in Chronological Order, Pt. 1 of 4

Atari (circa 1982-1984)

I was apparently a two to four year-old fixated on playing a game called ‘Juggles House’ on Atari. Similarly vague visual memory permits the intrusion of a large black shape, the integration of stark red branding. To a modern individual Atari is not a ‘console’ but a brand, having been in recent years cannibalized, gutted and made ‘for all intents and purposes’ into a software distributor by a faceless and likely oblivious French corporation called Infogrames. I have probably written numerous ‘news pieces’ regarding Infogrames that include the word ‘TROUBLED’ in the headline.

The proliferation of Atari t-shirts and mainstream misappropriations of the Atari logo feels like a great tragedy, but given that a reasonably qualified person (author indicates herself) prefers to discuss the ‘brand’ rather than the monolithic intrusion of a red-and-black cartridge-devouring ‘console’ is evidence enough that it is far too late to re-associate the brand with anything more noble than ‘cel-shaded’ fighting games based on an anime called Dragon Ball.

Feel like ‘tweens’ of today would enter a Hot Topic store, purchase an Atari t-shirt while saying ‘cool, Atari’, and not ‘look, it’s Atari’s Fuji’. The peaked logo is called a ‘Fuji’, which recalls both Japan’s mountain and the concept of being ‘at a pinnacle’ [regarding Atari’s once largely-uncontested market dominance]. They would probably purchase a Dragon Ball t-shirt in the same Hot Topic visit without ever having heard the original Japanese dialog.

Buying t-shirts at Hot Topic has little to do with my Dad calling me ‘Muffer’ in a sweet voice and encouraging me to play ‘Juggles House’ with what might have been an iceberg-sized red and black ‘controller’ possibly featuring a ‘track ball’ or not.

Wrote an article ~2 years ago concerning the first time in some years that Atari did not fly its ‘Fuji’ at the annual Electronics Entertainment Expo due to financial difficulties.