It can not be understated how important Atari is. Not just in videogame consoles, but in computers as well. Shame that it's a shell of what it once was.

Atari

I'm wearing an Atari shirt. Nobody at my school knew why.

Congrats Atari! You were one of the Old Sages that started it all! ^_^

It's sad that the little blurb for Atari's 40th Anniversary is as much about Nintendo as Atari... for no apparent reason. Anyway, I started out on the Atari 2600 and I still play it occasionally. I've got dozens of games for the 2600 and it's easily one of my favorite consoles, so many good memories. That being said, I'll never understand why indie developers can find success with games like Castle Crashers, Super Meat Boy, Plants vs. Zombies, etc... while Atari loses millions developing second rate, big-budget titles. You would think that Atari would return to their roots and lead the way in the mobile and tablet markets as well as XBLA and PSN.

Uh... yeah, sure! Totally a reference...

ATARI!!

We owe them a debt of gratitude for they are the ones who popularized home console gaming. There were others who came before and after but until the NES, Atari was the undisputing king.

For me Atari was my brother's console. Mine was the far superior Coleco-vision.

I'm not referring to anything!

I thought Sages were old people who had a purpose or did something great, that is why I called the Atari one of the Old Sages[of Gaming].

My first ever game console was the Atari 7800!

And this X-mas it'll be 25 years that I've had it, and it still works like a charm.  In the same time, I've gone through 5 NES's... 4 originals (only 1 still works) plus one top loader.  And my cousin still has his original 2600 with the wood panel finish.

They don't make game consoles like they used to lol.

True, I should ammend that because all my systems in the 90's (SNES, Genesis, N64, Dreamcast) all work great to this day.  I had a disc-read problem with my Gamecube and had to send it into Nintendo, same with the Wii, and my 360 RROD'd like so many others.  But the NES was really the only Nintendo system that was a little iffy when it came to quality because of the poorly designed cartridge connectors on the original model.