Atari has announced its Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration interactive experience with over 100 playable games, six new titles, and more. There are videos documenting the company’s 50-year existence featuring interviews with early designers and engineers as well as founder Nolan Bushnell and CEO Wade Rosen. Archival images, special source material, and behind-the-scenes content spanning five unique Interactive Timelines are also included.
“Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration takes players on an interactive journey through 50 years of video games, including a specially-curated list of more than 100 playable classics and six entirely new titles from the award-winning team at Digital Eclipse
At the heart of The Anniversary Celebration are Interactive Timelines, which combine trivia, all-new interviews with the original developers and industry leaders, and playable games into one singular experience.
Play extremely rare titles from the Atari Jaguar and Lynx platforms, 8-bit computers, and 7800, 5200, and 2600 consoles.“
Atari has had many incarnations since its debut in 1972. From Pong to its first consoles, then home PCs, arcade games, and more, it has been continually reinventing itself throughout the decades. In its current form, it describes itself as a business that includes “video games, consumer hardware, licensing, and blockchain.”
The Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is available for Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC for $39.99.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →I was kinda all in until a part of the core business was listed as blockchain.
In its current form, it describes itself as a business that includes “video games, consumer hardware, licensing, and blockchain.” ?
Anyone remember Pitfall Harry?
Yeah, I felt it important to make sure to get that bit in there from their about page. Much like EA and Activision, it's not the company I grew up with.
I'm more NES generation, I recall a lot of Ataris out there and playing on them, but by the time I was old enough to know what was what, NES was out and it was definitely a big step ahead of the Atari. I couldn't tell you any of the differences between the various hardware models of Ataris... but I can recall almost every single Nintendo, Sega, 3DO, Playstation, Xbox, TurboGrafx, and, of course, Infinium.
I only really feel nostalgic about Nintendo, and to some degree Sega (I never owned one, but friends did and it was still a part of the culture). By the time Sony and MS came to the scene I was too old to feel any attachment to them.
I started gaming during 3rd-gen, on a 2nd-gen system, the Atari 2600. My mom had the 6-switch version of the console. It was the NES that really started my lifelong journey with video games though. By the time the 2000s rolled around I had switched to PC as my main gaming platform of choice, but I've still been a part of every console generation thus far (and my favorite gen so far has been 4th-gen). Although I am hoping I won't end up having to buy a PS5 cuz all those exclusive games will hopefully end up on PC. I have no use for Microsoft consoles these days cuz those Microsoft games come to PC. Anyways, wow Atari been around this long huh? But as Peter mentioned, a lot of these companies are NOT even remotely close to the ones we grew up with.
Apple got it's start at Atari, among other stories so-weird-it-has-to-be-true.
Started out on an Atari 2600 myself, but it was the Sears version if I remember right. Had a lot of fun with that back in the day. Not sure I'd spend the cash on something like the game mentioned though as I've noticed the memories sometimes outweigh the actual game play.
I'm a full-on Atari nerd. First time I saw one was a Pong console at my grandparent's house that was hooked up to a B+W TV in the early 70s. At one point my dad knew someone who had the 6-switch VCS (pre-2600) and I got it along with some games, extra controllers, and even some controller stick replacements. There was a thing with that model where if you flipped certain switches during power up it would let you into a dev mode for some game cartridges. The dev modes could grant some cheats or give access to different game levels. I remember Defender, Superman, Space Invaders, and maybe Pacman having this. I think I ended up with 2 to 3 dozen games and eventually sold it all for money towards my computer.
On that note, the computer, as listed in my bio was an Atari 400. It had a 6502 CPU with the GTIA GPU. This was an advanced combo for the day with processing power, colors, and resolution. After that I didn't pay attention to their consoles so much, many came after and crushed them until the Jaguar came out but by then NES and others really started to dominate but I did want a Colecovision back in the day but didn't do it.
During t78-83 home PCs became extremely competitive as well and Atari's 8-bits (many different models and I know a lot about them) mainly traded blows with Commodore (Vic 20/C64 and C128) but there were many other systems during this era. I knew quite a few people with other things (Apple, Texas Instruments, ZX Spectrum, and more that I can't remember now) but Atari mainly duked it out with Commodore.
The next Atari phase was with the STs and in turn for Commodore, the Amigas, and in IMO the Amiga won. I wanted a 1040 ST but couldn't afford it and years later when MS-DOS gaming was gaining traction I still knew other people with the Amigas and was very impressed with how the platform had aged. During this time the Jaguar came out (y wife still has one with the box) as did The Falcon (it's what John Connor used to hack the ATM in T2-a very advanced handheld for the time). It wasn't long after this when Atari would undergo even more changes, stopping making home hardware altogether but still making arcade machines and publishing games. At one point it got a government contract and had to disappear from the consumer market per the contract. That was the ending of that phase until it returned in similar forms later on (sans hardware still) and then it disappeared again only to resurface in its current form. There are far more detailed blogs out there but I'm listing most of this from memory. Behind the scenes, during all this, it's been a who's-who of execs and so on that moved from one company to the next and I feel that was what largely led to its multiple demises. After the late 70s to mid-80s, that ship never kept the same course or captain(s) and it really hurt the company.
Edit for above: It wasn't a Falcon in T2 it was one of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Portfolio
All you need to know about current year ATARI:
Yeah, even though I don't have any involvement with them it does make me sad. Just another brand name to use for marketing profits. Meanwhile, I wonder how Radio Shack is doing. Last I heard there were some similar plans for its revival.
It always reminds me of Grundig when a formerly big name is dragged through the mud. Grundig was the biggest European TV manufacturer and its name used to mean quality. The current owners of the brand will slap the name on everything from toasters to the cheapest garbage tier LCD TVs.
I started watching tour de france when there was still a radioshack team.
Remember RadioShack? It’s now a crypto company with wild tweets.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/01/radio-shack-tweets/[/URL]
:(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RadioShack#Post-bankruptcy
Got a 2600 around 9 I think? It was ok except we couldn't afford to buy games, so I only had like 5 games ever and game rental was not a thing back then. Got a C64 about 2-3 years later and the 2600 went bye bye in a garage sale. I bet my Dad was ticked off about that since that was a decent chunk of money for a kid's xmas present, then 2 years later selling it at a garage sale for pennies on the $. The Activision games were memorable (Pitfall, kaboom, river raid), Combat sucked but was the free game. Warlords was ok... 2600 Pac Man was god awful. Last game I got before selling it was Centipede which was ok but sucked with that sucky 2600 joystick (the blister maker).
Atari has been a "in name only" company for 20 years+ now. They keep re-releasing "greatest hits" game collections.