Who is Wade Rosen, and how does he control Atari?
Atari is owned by Atari SA, a listed company, and the shareholder with the most say in it is Wade Rosen, an American investor who joined the board as chairman in April 2020 and became chief executive in April 2021.
Rosen holds his shares through a holding company called IRATA LLC. On September 17, 2026 Atari converted 12.6 million euros of loans from IRATA and other private lenders into equity, issuing 489,289 new shares at 24.00 euros each. After that conversion IRATA held 48.8% of the share capital and 49.1% of the voting rights.
That is not outright ownership. It is close enough to control a company whose remaining shares sit in public float, and Rosen is also Atari's largest creditor: even after the conversion, loans from IRATA stand at roughly 51 million euros in principal.
So the short answer to who owns Atari now is that one American investor holds just under half the stock, lends the company most of its money, and runs it day to day. No family, no publisher and no platform holder sits above him.
Is Atari still in business in 2026?
Yes, and this is the healthiest Atari has looked in a long time. For the financial year that ended March 31, 2026, the group reported revenue of 56.0 million euros, roughly $65 million, up 66% and the highest in more than a decade. It was the third straight year of growth.
Gross margin reached 32.5 million euros, or 73% of revenue. Current operating income came in at a positive 0.9 million euros, against a loss the year before.
"This year marks another major growth year for Atari, despite a challenging industry," Wade Rosen said in the results statement of August 3, 2026.
The picture below the operating line is messier. Once the Swedish publisher Thunderful is consolidated, the group posted a net loss of about $5.5 million for the year, with Thunderful alone losing $8.8 million at the operating level. Strip Thunderful out and Atari's own business made net income of $0.1 million. That is a thin profit, but it is a profit, and this is a company whose North American arm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013.
How the Atari name changed hands five times
Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari in Sunnyvale, California on June 27, 1972. Warner Communications bought it in 1976 for about $28 million, paid in cash and debentures.
After the video game crash of 1983, Warner broke the company apart. In 1984 it handed the consumer division to Jack Tramiel, who had just walked out of Commodore, for $240 million in promissory notes rather than cash. Tramiel renamed his half Atari Corporation and spent a decade shipping computers, the Lynx handheld and finally the Jaguar.
In 1996 Atari Corporation merged with JTS Inc., a hard drive maker, which parked one of the best known names in gaming inside a disk drive company. JTS sold the name and the assets to Hasbro Interactive in 1998 for $5 million, the cheapest the brand has ever gone.
Infogrames Entertainment bought Hasbro Interactive in 2001, took the Atari name with it, and in 2009 renamed the whole French parent company Atari SA. That is the company answering to the name today, five owners later.
Is Atari still a French company?
Not since the summer of 2026. Atari SA spent seventeen years as a French listed company, the direct descendant of Infogrames, and then it moved out.
The move was a cross-border conversion rather than a sale: Atari SA became a Luxembourg company, effective July 6, 2026. Atari said the change was meant to match a group that had grown well past France, and it left the business and the listing alone. The shares still trade on Euronext Growth Paris under the ticker ALATA, with no new securities issued and no exchange of shares.
The share count changed separately. Atari completed a reverse stock split on May 5, 2026, turning 200 old shares with a par value of 0.01 euros into one new share with a par value of 2.00 euros. Shareholders who voted against the Luxembourg move at the meeting of May 27, 2026 were offered 24.00 euros a share to sell out, and holders of about 0.4% of the capital took the offer.
What Atari sells today, and what the hardware costs
Two things, mostly: an old catalog and modern-retro hardware. Games revenue rose 67.7% to 46.1 million euros in the year to March 2026, helped by new digital and physical releases, platform deals and steady work on a library that reaches back past the crash of 1983.
Hardware revenue grew 83% to 7.3 million euros, and that line rests on the Plus consoles. The Atari 2600+ arrived in November 2023, a smaller replica of the original machine with an HDMI output and a working cartridge slot. The Atari 7800+ followed, announced with the German publisher Plaion in August 2024 at $129.99, and it reads both 2600 and 7800 cartridges. A PAC-MAN Edition and an Intellivision Sprint have since joined the line.
Where to find one today: the Plus consoles are current products rather than collectibles, so the $129.99 list price is the number to beat and there is no reason to pay a premium for a used one. The cartridges are the part worth hunting, and a specialist retro shop such as Stone Age Gamer grades and tests what it sells, which a marketplace listing with one blurry photo does not.
Why Atari bought Intellivision, Nightdive and Crossy Road
Rosen's Atari has spent the 2020s buying the people who preserve old games rather than the people who chase new ones. Nightdive Studios, which rebuilds classics such as System Shock and Quake for modern hardware, Digital Eclipse, the studio behind Atari's anniversary compilations, and Implicit Conversions are all Atari subsidiaries now.
On May 23, 2024 Atari bought the Intellivision brand and the rights to more than 200 games. "This was a very rare opportunity to unite former competitors and bring together fans of Atari, Intellivision and the golden age of gaming," Rosen said in the announcement. A console rivalry that started in 1979 ended with one company holding both logos.
The buying did not stop there. Atari lifted its stake in Thunderful to 97% and took the publisher off the Nasdaq First North market in February 2026, and after the fiscal year closed it paid an initial $29.3 million for Hipster Whale, the Australian studio behind Crossy Road. That last one is a working mobile developer, not a museum piece, which says something about where Rosen wants the catalog money to go.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the CEO of Atari?
Wade Rosen has been chief executive of Atari SA since April 2021 and chairman of its board since April 2020. His holding company, IRATA LLC, held 48.8% of Atari's share capital and 49.1% of the voting rights after the capital increase of September 17, 2026, which makes him the boss and the largest shareholder at the same time.
Is Atari still making consoles in 2026?
Atari sells cartridge-compatible reissues rather than new platforms. The Atari 2600+ launched in November 2023 and the Atari 7800+ was announced with Plaion in August 2024 at $129.99, and that hardware line lifted Atari's hardware revenue 83% to 7.3 million euros in the year to March 2026. Atari is not building anything meant to compete with PlayStation or Xbox.
How much was the Atari brand sold for?
The lowest price the Atari name ever fetched was $5 million, paid by Hasbro Interactive in 1998 when the hard drive maker JTS Inc. sold off the assets of Atari Corporation. Warner Communications had paid about $28 million for the original Atari in 1976, and Jack Tramiel took the consumer division off Warner's hands in 1984 for $240 million in promissory notes.