atari 2600
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Atari is releasing a new cartridge for its 46-year-old 2600 console
Atari’s releasing another collectible 2600 cartridge as part of the company’s XP series. The game is called Save Mary and actually dates back to the 1980s when Atari’s console reigned supreme.
Atari’s 2600+ is a miniature console that plays 2600 and 7800 game carts
Atari is teaming up with Plaion on a new retro home console after finally taking a mulligan on its last one. The Atari 2600+ pays homage to the original Atari 2600, which delighted children of the disco era starting in 1977, although this remake is based on the four-switch model from 1980. It plays both Atari 2600 and 7800 games. However, most buyers will want to track down physical cartridges as the retro system, which requires them to play, is only bundled with a collection of 10 titles that lacks system standouts like Pac-Man, Frogger, Space Invaders and Pitfall!
'Mr. Run and Jump' will be the first official cartridge for the Atari 2600 since 1990
Atari just announced a brand-new physical cartridge for the 2600 console. ‘Mr. Run and Jump’ is a 2D platformer that’s taken plenty of design cues from recent indie games like ‘Celeste’ and will also arrive as a modern version for new consoles like the PS5. The 2600 cartridge is available to preorder on July 31st for $60.
'Pong' is now half a century old
Exactly 50 years ago today, Atari released Pong.
Lego celebrates 50 years of Atari with an elaborate 2600 set
Slide open the front panel to reveal a pop-up gaming room scene.
![[UNVERIFIED CONTENT] Atari 2600 VCS console, close up of inserted cartridge and central switches. Space Invaders game is inserted. Difficulty switches visible. Narrow depth of field. Dust visible.](https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/YOS6aaj2wynuI26U7tgVlQ--~B/Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQ2ODtweW9mZj0wO3c9ODMyO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-images/2020-04/8f3ed930-8a57-11ea-9eff-3f7b8dfa6da0.cf.jpg)
Uber AI plays any Atari 2600 game with 'superhuman' skill
A new approach has led to AI that can play many Atari 2600 games better than any human.
Finished Atari VCS design pays homage to its 2600 roots
Now that the Atari VCS team has once again delayed its retro console to give it more powerful innards, it's ready to show what that redesign looks like. The developers have unveiled what they say is the "production-ready" system design, and it pays even more of an ode to the Atari 2600 than before. The main body now floats above the base like the 2600 did, and addresses multiple "practical considerations" in the process. To start, two of the USB ports are now front-facing -- it's much easier to plug in a controller or keyboard.
Atari pioneer Steve Bristow passes away
Steve Bristow, who Nolan Bushnell called one of the world's most powerful gaming pioneers, has died, according to Atari historian Marty Goldberg. Bristow was an early Atari employee who helped birth the Atari 2600 (originally called the Atari Video computer System, or VCS) back in 1977. The pioneering home console was one of the first to use a microprocessor and game cartridges, and sold over 10 million copies by 1982. Bristow also headed Atari's coin-op arcade division during its heyday and helped develop classic games like Tank and Breakout. If you enjoyed the original games or remakes, why not hoist a drink to the man who built them (and his magnificent muttonchops)?
Landfill copy of Atari's Centipede donated to university
University of North Dakota's Special Collections department now houses a cartridge of the Atari 2600 game Centipede, dug up from a landfill in New Mexico last year. Assistant professor of history Bill Caraher participated in the dig and threw down $60 to buy the cartridge on eBay. "While I usually would not condone purchasing archaeological artifacts of any kind, these artifacts are somewhat different because they represent our very recent past," Caraher told the AP. "When I saw that the Smithsonian had received a game and several other major cultural institutions as well, I had to acquire one for UND to commemorate the university's participation in this unusual excavation." The Centipede cartridge marks an important moment in video game history – the crash of the industry in 1983. That year, Atari reportedly dumped truckloads of unsold copies of ET, Asteroids, Missile Command, Centipede and other games in the New Mexico landfill, and in 2014 a documentary team set about excavating the old, dirty games. Microsoft helped finance the excavation and the documentary Atari: Game Over, which explores the 1983 crash and subsequent landfill dig. Atari: Game Over premiered on Xbox in November. Once on eBay, the games sold individually for $50 to $1,500. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, picked up a copy of ET last year for its video game history collection. The University of North Dakota plans to invite people who participated in the excavation to a showing of Atari: Game Over in the spring, for a discussion of archaeology, media and video games as artifacts.
The top tech gifts of holidays past
Remember the mad rush to secure a Teddy Ruxpin under the tree? Or how about how badly you begged your parents for the Nintendo DS as a year-end treat? As we head into another hectic, yet hopeful holiday season, we look back at some of the geeky gadgets and technological toys that stormed the charts (and stole young hearts) over the years.
Video: If Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was released today
We've seen variations on this sort of thing before, but this mocked-up glimpse at our industry's terrifying future is more plausible than most. Something Awful founder Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka proposes what Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 might play like if it was released today in the video above. The slick pay-to-play hooks clash fantastically with Pac-Man's terrible audiovisual presentation on the 2600, and some of the features parodied here are already an unfortunate reality in modern games. Maybe it's for the best if this one stays buried in a New Mexico landfill. [Video: Rich Kyanka]
ET and other exhumed Atari games hit eBay
Want to buy some literal garbage? An eBay seller is auctioning off a collection of Atari 2600 cartridges recovered from a recent excavation of a New Mexico landfill, including several crushed copies of the infamous dud ET. An excavation team headed out to Alamogordo, New Mexico, earlier this year in the hopes of discovering the truth behind a reported landfill stuffed with video games and consoles in the months leading up to the video game industry crash of 1983. The venture yielded many shrinkwrapped copies of ET, among other decades-old merchandise abandoned by Atari. A documentary film covering the dig, Atari: Game Over, will launch exclusively for Xbox consoles later this month. Bidding starts at $50 for the unearthed games, which vary in condition but are otherwise remarkably well-preserved, considering they've been sitting in a landfill for more than three decades. Many ET cartridges are already going for hundreds of dollars, but if you're looking to snag a stinky piece of history for yourself, you might be able to pick up a cheap copy of Asteroids, Centipede, Defender or Swordquest EarthWorld. [Image: tbhs575]
Atari 'E.T.' cartridges unearthed in landfill go up for auction on eBay
Normally we'd advise you to avoid terrible games, but here's one you might want to get your (gloved) hands on. E.T., the game that killed Atari and was famously unearthed in April at a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, is now up for auction. To remind you, the existence of the ditched cartridges had been an Atari urban legend until a Microsoft-sponsored dig project proved the rumors true. Alamogordo's Tularosa Basin Historical Society, which arranged the excavation and owns the cartridges, put 99 of them up on eBay, each with a certificate of authenticity.
Engadget Podcast 395 - 5.2.14
Urban legend confirmed. Atari did dump a pile of its E.T. game cartridges into a landfill in New Mexico and it's thanks to Microsoft's recent documentary efforts that we've gotten some closure. This leads your hosts to ponder the situation that led up to the cast off games and what it meant for Atari at the time. Inevitably, Terrence recalls his own Atari experiences as a youth, sitting down with a second-hand console and blasting away the hours with Yars Revenge. Ben is perfectly fine to sit back and listen -- he was a Nintendo kid, after all. But soon enough, he sets his gaming-honed gray matter in motion and delivers a cogent explanation about mobile privacy rights. It's all packed into this one episode, so head on down to the streaming links and feed your brain with the Engadget Podcast. It's delicious! Hosts: Terrence O'Brien, Ben Gilbert Producer: Jon Turi Hear the podcast:
E.T. unearthed: The dig for legendary Atari cartridges in pictures
Yesterday marked the climax of a decades-long story that surrounded one of the most poorly received video games in history. A Microsoft-backed documentary crew took to a landfill in the desert town of Alamogordo, New Mexico, in an attempt to prove that Atari had in fact buried thousands of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial cartridges there. It appears they succeeded.
Microsoft digs up E.T. carcass-- er, cartridge at landfill
Xbox Entertainment Studios and Lightbox Entertainment's documentary on the excavation of a New Mexico landfill where supposedly thousands of copies of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 won't be completed for some time yet, but if you want to know how the search went, well, the above image should tell you all you need to know. Yup, they found E.T. - or at least one copy of the game. Xbox spokesperson Larry Hryb, AKA Major Nelson, tweeted pictures showing the cartridge, as well as other Atari 2600 games still in shrink wrap, from the landfill. Dude. Spoiler warning next time! [Image: Larry Hryb]
Perfect Ten: My favorite MMO April Fools' pranks of all time
There are two types of people on April 1st: those who are annoyed and indifferent to the tomfoolery going on all around them, and those who gleefully embrace the zany antics and baldfaced lies. For the record, I am of the latter crowd. I love April Fools' Day and the humor and creativity that it inspires. While this day is by no means contained to our neck of the woods, MMOs have a long-running streak of trying to pull the wool over our eyes. I think a good goof has to have several qualities to make it truly memorable. It needs to be original. It needs to be actually amusing, whether or not you "fell for it." And it needs to tweak our expectations and understanding of how MMOs work. Sometimes there are even important ideas that emerge from these jokes that could, indeed, make these titles better. So let's go through my favorite MMO April Fools pranks of all time, as catalogued by yours truly!
Documentary's excavation of supposed Atari E.T. graveyard still being negotiated
Fuel Industries' planned excavation and documentation of a New Mexico landfill which would, in theory, unearth a burial of E.T. cartridges for the Atari 2600, is currently in negotiations for a dig permit. The Alamogordo Daily News reports that the New Mexico Environment Department has rejected Fuel Industries' waste excavation proposal, saying that it was too "generic" as well as lacking in site-specific details. Those details aren't just bureaucratic red tape, either. According to the Daily News, the NMED called for further testing of the Alamogordo landfill in 2004, when studies showed increased chemical levels at the site. Twenty-two "compounds of concern" were noted at the time. Imagine cracking open the soil of a landfill to hunt down a video game graveyard only to have noxious fumes and chemicals poison you, like you'd opened up a pharoah's tomb and suffered the mummy's curse. It's unclear how the delay will impact the development of Fuel Industries' documentary, which was planned to air on Xbox this year. The NMED stated that their findings were sent to Fuel Industries on February 27, but as of March 17, they had not seen a revised proposal. [Image: Atari]
Internet Archive uploads retro games to play online for free
The Internet Archive has launched a beta version of the Console Living Room, a new initiative that makes hundreds of classic video games available for free, in-browser play. Part of the Internet Archive's preservation-focused Historical Software Collection, the Console Living Room uses the JSMESS emulator to reproduce games for the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, the Magnavox Odyssey 2, the Colecovision, and the Bally Astrocade. The collection features many cartridges that defined the golden age of gaming, including Atari 2600 classics like Yars' Revenge, H.E.R.O. and River Raid. The Colecovision sees its share of representation with standouts like BC's Quest for Tires and a prototype port of the arcade hit Burgertime, while history buffs can judge for themselves if the Odyssey 2's K.C. Munchkin rightfully earned a 1982 lawsuit over its similarities to Pac-Man.
Atari 2600 excavation documentary exclusive to Xbox in 2014
An upcoming documentary focused on the video game industry crash of 1983 and the subsequent burial of thousands of unsold Atari cartridges will launch exclusively on Xbox in 2014, Microsoft announced this week. Canadian film production company Fuel Industries plans to head up an excavation of a New Mexico landfill for the documentary, aiming to uncover a derelict batch of Atari hardware and software that the company crushed and encased in concrete more than 30 years ago. The landfill reportedly entombs unsold copies of infamous Atari-licensed releases like E.T. and Pac-Man, among other critically-panned games that led to Atari's closure and sale to Commodore International in 1984. Fuel Entertainment's film will be the first in a series of Xbox-exclusive documentaries launching in 2014 through Microsoft's new media company Lightbox. Microsoft has enlisted the help of producers Simon Chinn (Searching for Sugar Man, Man on Wire) and Jonathan Chinn (FX's 30 Days and PBS's American High) to handle series production. X-Men 2 writer Zak Penn will direct the Atari documentary, which begins shooting in January.
