Nolan Bushnell companies to approach to buy Atari. Meanwhile, Steve Ross, CEO of Warner Communications, noticed that his children were hovering around video game cabinets at Walt Disney World. Warner Communications was contacted about Atari by one of its investors to discuss purchasing the company. For $28 million, Warner Communications (now WarnerMedia) bought Atari, bringing the capital they needed for the VCS launch, which took place in August 1977. In November 1978, Bushnell was forced out of the company after a dispute with Warner over its future direction, notably on the lifespan of the Atari 2600 and their closed software strategy, which
Bushnell Corporation Bushnell Corporation Bushnell Corporation is an American firm specializing in sporting optics and outdoor products. It is based in Overland Park, Kansas and is a subsidiary of Vista Outdoor. Bushnell's products include binoculars, telescopes, spotting scopes, riflescopes, red dot sights, GPS devices, laser rangefinders, game cameras, night-vision and other optical equipment. The company was founded in 1948 by David P. Bushnell, when he returned to California from his honeymoon in Japan with two crates of binoculars and sold them by mail order. Bushnell made precision binoculars affordable to middle-class Americans for the first time through a strategy of importing from