The enigma of Atari (U.K.) Ltd's company name

[Tickled_Pink]

Just had a look at Companies House in London for references to Atari. There are a few companies trading under the name 'Atari' (e.g. Atari Limited).

 

Of course, there's also an Atari United Kingdom Limited. Date of incorporation was 21/05/1987 - so that name is just a week past 17 years old. But what was really interesting was the previous names. Gives a bit of history to the name, but it still leaves a few questions unanswered - maybe someone here can fill in the gaps.

 

It doesn't look as though this actually is the same as Atari (U.K.) Ltd. The original holder of this name seemed to be a company called Prize Computers Ltd. The name was then taken up by Ocean Software before being used by Infogrames. So for some reason, Ocean opted not to buy the Atari (U.K.) name - perhaps because most people might misinterpret the (U.K.) as meaning that the new Atari United Kingdom company was a subsidiary of an overseas company, which of course it now is again.

 

Just found it interesting ...

[AEX]

Interesting little topic!

 

Before Atari was purchased by Tramiel Technology, Atari UK was "Atari International (UK) Inc".

 

As for Prize Computers, that could have been a holding company set up to register the name Atari UK Ltd for TTL after the sale (?).

 

Ocean was purchased by Infogrames, and I can only assume they registered the name on Infogrames behalf in the UK, as the name change to Atari had already been decided as long ago as 2000.

 

Karl