After a long wait, Atari is back in the hardware business. Atari CEO Fred Chesnais has confirmed recently that the new console, Ataribox, has been in the process of development for a couple of years, lending credibility to rumours that have been circulating for quite some time. There is very little information on the Ataribox itself, and it lends fertile ground for speculation on just what it will represent to the gaming community. Atari is, of course, famous for its old school consoles which revolutionised gaming in the late 20th century, latest of them being Atari Jaguar, which debuted way back in 1993. The Atari 2600 that came before it was the main hit at the time, with classic games such as Pac-Man and Asteroids that can still be played with equal enjoyment.
After the popularity had come the crash, as Atari sold only 250,000 Atari Jaguars, it was replaced by other competitors, and soon Playstation and Xbox hit their prime and kept it going for years. In 2013, Atari filed bankruptcy, and afterwards slowly rose up again, but mainly through the creation of online casino games.
Now we are about to witness whether their luck will change or not. Ataribox remains a mystery in multiple ways. First of all, we still don’t know what type of games will be featured. Will it be focused on platformers? Will they only copy the old model with Pac-Man-like straightforward and entertaining gameplay? Or will the impetus be on fighting for the throne against Playstation and Xbox? All we know in this regard is that Ataribox will be running “PC technology.”
It has been in the making for a couple of years; it’s reasonable to expect that a lot of work was put into place in making sure that the visuals are satisfactory for the current day and age. Atari was always more focused on making sure that the games are highly addictive and pleasurable, rather than making weak gameplay with stunning visuals. Still, in today's day and age, we all expect both of these aspects to be satisfactory to a higher degree.
There are also some plausible rumours that Ataribox will try the NES Classic model, which would mean that the fundamental objective would be a resurgence of classic games and new ones built with the same gameplay experience in mind. This idea wouldn’t be entirely awful, especially since other consoles provide very little entertainment in this regard. It would very likely be a hit with the new generation of gamers which didn’t go through the classic games phase and were pushed in the next-gen graphics from the get-go.
On top of the lack of information, there is a lot of guesswork concerning the release date. It is very likely that Ataribox will come out before Christmas, mainly due to the marketing value of that period of the year but we’ll have to wait for an official announcement on that one. That’s all the info we have about Ataribox at the moment. Hopefully, we’ll get a new sneak-peak soon. When fresh information hits the streets, we'll be sure to let you know about it!
After the popularity had come the crash, as Atari sold only 250,000 Atari Jaguars, it was replaced by other competitors, and soon Playstation and Xbox hit their prime and kept it going for years. In 2013, Atari filed bankruptcy, and afterwards slowly rose up again, but mainly through the creation of online casino games.
Now we are about to witness whether their luck will change or not. Ataribox remains a mystery in multiple ways. First of all, we still don’t know what type of games will be featured. Will it be focused on platformers? Will they only copy the old model with Pac-Man-like straightforward and entertaining gameplay? Or will the impetus be on fighting for the throne against Playstation and Xbox? All we know in this regard is that Ataribox will be running “PC technology.”
It has been in the making for a couple of years; it’s reasonable to expect that a lot of work was put into place in making sure that the visuals are satisfactory for the current day and age. Atari was always more focused on making sure that the games are highly addictive and pleasurable, rather than making weak gameplay with stunning visuals. Still, in today's day and age, we all expect both of these aspects to be satisfactory to a higher degree.
There are also some plausible rumours that Ataribox will try the NES Classic model, which would mean that the fundamental objective would be a resurgence of classic games and new ones built with the same gameplay experience in mind. This idea wouldn’t be entirely awful, especially since other consoles provide very little entertainment in this regard. It would very likely be a hit with the new generation of gamers which didn’t go through the classic games phase and were pushed in the next-gen graphics from the get-go.
On top of the lack of information, there is a lot of guesswork concerning the release date. It is very likely that Ataribox will come out before Christmas, mainly due to the marketing value of that period of the year but we’ll have to wait for an official announcement on that one. That’s all the info we have about Ataribox at the moment. Hopefully, we’ll get a new sneak-peak soon. When fresh information hits the streets, we'll be sure to let you know about it!
