And the Phoenix rises from the ashes...

Laughing Boy

] LOS ANGELES (Reuters) Franco-American video gme
] publisher Infogrames, in an effort to increase its
] profile with consumers by reaching back into gaming
] history, said Wednesday it is changing its name to Atari.
]
] To mark the new Atari and the new ticker symbol ATAR,
] Chief Executive Bruno Bonnell is set to open the Nasdaq
] on Wednesday.
]
] Infogrames/Atari shares have been on a run of late,
] rising more than 130% on the Nasdaq since April 18, when
] the company said it had completed work on Enter the
] Matrix, the hotly anticipated video game companion to the
] forthcoming Warner Bros. film The Matrix Reloaded.
]
] The Atari name is the most storied in video gaming,
] dating back to the early 1970s, when Nolan Bushnell and a
] team of engineers at Atari created "Pong," the arcade
] video game that was so popular machines sometimes jammed
] up because they were overflowing with quarters.
]
] Over the years, Atari went through many incarnations, and
] at one point operated as a subsidiary of what was then
] called Warner Communications and is now known as AOL Time
] Warner.
]
] It ceased to be a stand-alone company in 1996, when it
] was acquired by JTS, and in early 1998 JTS sold the Atari
] rights and assets to toymaker Hasbro.
]
] Infogrames, founded in France in 1983, acquired the
] rights to the Atari brand in early 2001 when it bought
] Hasbro Interactive. In October 2001 the company
] relaunched the brand and began using it as a games
] publishing label...

'Matrix' game company changes name to Atari