First of all, the article linked is not the full article:
http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&AD=1&ArticleID=17133 < That's the whole thing. I'm only linking it in a sense of nonobjectiveness towards the facts, as it does not help his case at all and actually throws the fact that he's a money-hungry bastard into the mix.
Anyway I must say Nectarsis hit the nail on the head, much as TRON did in the first post.
You know how there's that old guy who is always rambling about the government/war/world today and how things were different in his day, how he had to walk
15 miles IN THE SNOW, and you sort of just nod your head and say "Mmmhmmm" because he'll lose track of whatever he's saying in about 40 seconds and fall asleep? That's kind of what this article was really created for.
This is just conjecture here, but if I were to put numbers to it, I would say about 75% of today's generation know that Atari made games before they became a publisher, 50% have actually willingly played old Atari games, 25% have played on their parent's actual hardware consoles, 15% know that Nolan Bushnell created Atari, 5% know that without looking in Wikipedia.
No one really gives a shit about what this man thinks, it's all just fanservice for the elderly. Videogames haven't evolved to a point where they're RADICALLY different from an Atari game, but they've evolved to the point where Bushnell can't keep up, knows he can't keep up and doesn't really want to keep up.
Bushnell's big stance is "social gaming"? On that page there's a great point made in the comments that even in these "blow them up" shooters, it's still ENTIRELY social with teamchat, etc...what about MMOs? Never even mentioned those, have you, Bushnell?
In the end, the world will continue to ignore him, and contrary to his belief, it will keep spinning on and on, and he will be left with nothing but a faded legacy and the glow of a Pong machine's monitor to shine on his deathbed.
And then Duke Nukem Forever should be out!
EDIT: The Duke Nukem comment was meant as both an indicator of the passage of time and as a stab at 3DRealms' miserable failure, not in the sense of "I was just pulling your leg, I like Nolan Bushnell!". Because everything I said in this thread was true and I HATE Nolan Bushnell, for nearly killing gaming and for his bullshit comments. Gaming god my ass.