Atari Reveals the New Ataribox Console
Jul. 17, 2017Atari Reveals the New Ataribox Console
Today Atari revealed their new Ataribox console to the gaming audience, marking their first piece of hardware in over 20 years. It is a PC based system that will play old and current games. There is no price or release date yet set for it.
The new Ataribox console will come in 2 versions, a modern black box and a retro wood panel version. Both versions feature an HDMI port, 4 USB ports, and SD card support. Atari pointed out that these ports reflect the console will play current games on modern internal specs. We will have to wait and see just how modern those specs are.
Atari is developing the Ataribox via crowdfunding, monitoring community feedback closely. There is still a lot to be determined here, such as what kind of modern gaming and third party support the console will feature. As it stands now, the first party lineup for Atari consists of their classic lineup which isn’t as sought out for nostalgia as something like the SNES, and modern titles like Roller Coaster Tycoon which are more niche. They will provide more info and status updates as they go, so hopefully it won’t be too long before we find out some more answers.
Atari has been teasing the Ataribox since E3 and now we have our first look at it. Thoughts on the reveal of the new Ataribox? Will there beanother hard choiceto make in console gaming?
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Emergence
Editor at Fextralife. I look for the substantial in gaming and I try to connect video games to the emotions and stories they elicit. I love all things culture and history and have an odd fondness for the planet Jupiter. I think my dogs are pretty awesome too.
The most pertinent question is: will it haveDriv3r?That would bring it over the top for me.
In seriousness, I do like that these plug-‘n’-play versions of old consoles are being made and released by the original companies themselves rather than cheaply loaned out to some less-competent third-party like I’ve seen with most of them (there is one for the Sega Genesis which is apparently not great, which isn’t exactly a shocker). As long as they remain reasonably priced, with good features, good game selections, the games arewell-portedand aren’t released in quantities of like 4 before being discontinued abruptly despite high demands (you dun fucked up there with the NES Mini, Ninty) I’d like to see more of these. (and speaking of Sega, yeah they should jump on this bandwagon too, it’s not like they haven’t shown themselves to be eager to re-release Sonic and other Genesis classics a billion times already, but now they can do so with more interesting packaging – though I’d only really be interested if they actually released some Sega exclusives that weren’t just licensed by them – games like Contra: Hard Corps, Castlevania Bloodlines and so on, like Nintendo has done putting out some of the old Konami and Capcom classics on their portable systems).
As always, it’s about the games. If it comes out sort of like a Steam Machine, we could be on to something here. I still contend that the Switch’s biggest misstep was not having Nvidia Shield built in to let Switch players play PC games.
Been a long time since someone tried to break into the gaming market with a console that wasn’t Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, or PC. Also been a long time since Atari tried bringing itself back into the spotlight.
A New Challenger Comes!
… for a given value of new, at any rate.
