Those are some revisionist alternative facts right there.

The 1983 sales numbers were closer to $100m down from $3bn the year before. Warner Bros made a $280m loss that quarter due to their ownership of Atari, the biggest in the companies’ history.

And yet Atari kept churning out cartridges expecting the market to double when all indicators said it was not (so said Nolan Bushnell). They made 6bn ET Cartridges (which got bulldozed) and made more Pac-Man carts than they had users. Inventory rose, prices were slashed and nobody brought them. ET was a pile of crap.

Ray Kassar, VP of Warner tried to find a desperate way out after Atari lost $300m that year. Thus they set up a meeting with Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln. Arakawa chose to let a competitor fall in a hole than play his hand and the rest is history.

Source: Game Over by David Sheff, C7 ‘Reversal of Fortune’. Pub 1993 in the UK.

I’d thoroughly recommend reading it. Its a great book. https://www.amazon.com/Game-Over-Nintendo-Conquered-World-ebook/dp/B0060AY98I/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15HVP4YX1XEM6&keywords=Game+Over+by+David+Sheff&qid=1675256917&sprefix=game+over+by+david+shef%2Caps%2C172&sr=8-1