During the early days of the home gaming industry, Atari released several different consoles with ports of their popular arcade titles to go along with them. And in this infant industry they played a big part creating as they went along, no console was more popular than their initial cartridge-based system The Atari 2600 (first called the Atari Video Computer System or VCS, and later renamed after its serial number). With sales catapulted by the success of their first "killer app" cartridge Space Invaders (a licensed game), and further aided by arcade ports like Asteroids, as well as Atari original home titles like Yar's Revenge, the 2600 was the system to beat for several years in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
Much has been said about the legendary Atari 2600 and its historical significance and importance to the video game industry. And in fact, in a future blog post, I may take a deep dive and give my own thoughts and opinions on it as well. But for this third installment in "The New Atari" series, I'd like to jump ahead in time and discuss the more recent, surprising announcement of Atari's new iteration of the system The Atari 2600+.
Years ago, I began following developments in the retrogaming world, along with collecting and playing the games themselves. The announcement of the Atari VCS (2021) was of course a big surprise, since it was the first new console the company had released in decades. Of course, that hybrid system (part modern, part retro) was introduced over several years, being that it was a crowdfunded effort initially called the Atari Box that had many starts and stops before it eventually became available. Conversely, I found out about the Atari 2600+ directly from Atari, as I'm sure countless others did as well, via an Email announcing the product and its definitive release date. So, needless to say, the sudden out-of-the-blue news about a new cartridge-based home system in late 2023 came as an even bigger surprise. And from the videos I watched from others in the retrogaming community, it appears that absolute surprise (if not shock) was the reaction across the board.
* The Atari 2600+ home gaming console does have some modern touches, most notably an HDMI connection (as opposed to the RF connection of Atari's classic consoles), plus the ability to choose between standard and 16x9 aspect ratio, and the ability to receive firmware updates. But overall, it's mostly designed around and marketed towards the retrogaming audience. That is, it is aimed squarely at people who played Atari 2600 games in their youth. In line with that nostalgia-based approach, the unit is a slightly smaller in size replica of their pioneering system (four switch model) which plays most original Atari 2600-compatible cartridges, including both those from Atari and third-party developers, while having the added advantage of also being compatible with Atari 7800 titles. And Atari's new line of recreated joystick and paddle controllers look and feel like their original counterparts from back in the day. Additionally, the unit is compatible with original controllers that work with the Atari 2600.
I see this surprise retro console release as another positive step for the newly reemerging company. Like Atari's acquisition of AtariAge, this new cartridge-based console binds the company closer to the audience who made their games such a success in the first place, while hopefully luring some modern gamers in as well due to the curiosity factor. And I'm sure many folks are even now torn between buying this or a used classic Atari console, while completist collectors will undoubtedly want both. Whatever the case, it appears the unit has created a lot of discussion and attracted even more attention to Atari, their classic systems, and retrogaming in general. And I say this due to the ever-increasing number of articles, videos and YouTube channels that now focus on, and celebrate, these subjects. I for one was very excited, given that this new product in a sense reintroduces Atari's most classic console onto the market over 40 years after its initial release. And the company's gradual reemergence onto the scene with new systems, controllers and cartridges is feeling more and more like a true renaissance, bringing with it good memories of gaming from back in the day. ** It also makes me wonder what Atari has in store for us retrogamers next.
* Technically speaking, the way the new Atari 2600+ displays the games is different from the way Atari's classic system did. The Atari 2600+ loads the read-only memory (ROM) on the cartridge to internal memory, then uses emulation, producing the same result (albeit taking a few seconds to load the game).
** As I was getting ready to publish this blog post, another Email arrived from Atari which once again surprised and delighted me. The company has announced the upcoming Winter 2024 release of the Atari 7800+, which is (you guessed it) an updated version of the classic Atari 7800 console. So soon everyone can "get their pixel fix like it's 1986". I'm sure I'll be writing about this system as well.
