Manny King John
Remember the Atari 2600 game console? Gamers can expect a reboot of it very soon.
The “Ataribox”, officially renamed The Atari VCS, will make its way to retailers in the near future. Atari plans to announce the official pre-order date in April, with the console costing anywhere between $250 and $300. The Atari VCS’ design will take inspiration from the Atari 2600. In addition to the classic wood design, the system includes HDMI, USB and Ethernet ports. Our 70 and 80s babies can enjoy some of their favourite games such as Indy 500, Dig Dug and Asteroids; as well as some new modern titles.
“The device will not only play classic Atari titles, but it will also play modern PC games (of the less intensive variety) thanks to the device’s custom AMD processor with Radeon graphics and a Linux-based OS,” according to The Verge.
We are just as surprised as you are.
The information may come as a shocker since the Atari Corporation released their final console, the Atari Jaguar, in 1993. Subsequently, they became defunct in 1996. However, after recovering from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in 2013 the company decided to reveal this exciting news.
“Every person at Atari and every partner involved with the new platform is just as fanatical about the brand and its heritage as our biggest fans are,” explained Michael Arzt, Atari COO of Connected Devices. “With the Atari VCS name, we know how important it is to get everything completely right and that’s why we briefly paused an imminent launch late last year. It was a difficult decision with the countdown underway, but we weren’t willing to go forward with even one thing out of alignment. We hope that Atari’s fans appreciate our extreme attention to detail and are as excited about the Atari VCS as we are.”
The Atari VCS will operate as a full entertainment system; possibly similar to the PlayStation 4 or Xbox game systems. A prototype of the console and more details are to be revealed at the Game Developers Conference on Mar. 21 in San Fransisco. Stay tuned gamers.
