(Paris) The French video game group Atari, a pioneer in the sector, has announced the takeover of the American Nightdive Studios, a leader in “retrogaming”, for 23 million dollars.
Nightdive buys back the rights to older games that are no longer in the marketplace, updates them to make them compatible with modern platforms, and offers them for sale on platforms like Steam.
With the Nightdive portfolio, Atari will enrich its catalog which includes more than 200 games, including cult titles like Asteroids, Missile Command, pong Or RollerCoaster Tycoon.
The transaction will be partly in cash and partly in new Arcade shares. The share of the young CEO of Atari, Wade Rosen, is thus reduced to 27.7% while the founders of Nightdive hold 7.9% of Atari.
Initially an American group, which became world famous with the release of pong in 1972 then from its console in 1975, Atari had become French in 2003 when it was acquired by Infogrames.
Retrogaming is on the rise among players, including the youngest, who are enthusiastic about titles born in the 70s and 80s on arcade terminals or cathode-ray televisions.
CD-ROMs or cartridges of these games over forty years old are snapped up on second-hand sites, as are old consoles or now cathode-ray televisions, whose sales jumped 50% on Le Bon Coin in the first quarter. , with a rise in prices, Le Bon Coin told AFP.