Topic: Will Atari Ever Come To The VC?

Y'know, I remember when we thought that the release of C64 on VC would bump the weekly VC releases to 2...and similar hopes were held for the VC Arcade (especially since that released same day as firmware 4.0). Isn't it sad how Nintendo has reduced us to EXPECTING failure on their part?

Well, this is not directed solely at the 2600, the 7800, and Jaguar could come to, they were released after the NES, even if a large percent of Jaguar games did suck. But Atari could still put them on for curiosity's sake.

As a longtime Atari 7800 owner,

I have to say the Atari 7800 is iffy for being a vc system.

The problems are the following:

1.) While the Atari 7800 is great for arcade ports, a lot of them are by other companies outside of Atari. Atari used contractors to port arcade games and Atari publishes them. Activision also ported arcade games from game companies to the Atari 7800 also. The 7800 had arcade ports of games that were by the following arcade publishers outside of Atari: Exidy, Data East/ Irem,Data East/Capcom,Williams, Taito, Nintendo,Namco, SNK, Bally Midway,and Bally Sente back in the day. I mention Data East a 2nd time because Data East actually released Commando in the Arcade, but Capcom has the rights to Commando. Data East released Kung-Fu Master in the Arcade, but Irem developed the game.

2.) The Atari 7800 had it's share of light gun games. That is a problem at this time since no vc games can used the Wii Zapper. The system has 6 light gun games.

3.) The Atari 7800 had its share of Computer game ports. That is problem since Atari used contractors to do the ports with Atari publishing them. Atari published games that were published by Epyx, EA, Cosmi, Brøderbund, Hewson, Accolade, and Lucasfilm Ltd.

4.) The Atari 7800 has completed prototypes, but were developed by a company that nolonger does video games. Sirius and Plutos were side scrolling Shooters.

5.) The Atari 7800 has 14 Homebrew or hacks games releases during it's afterlife at least since the start of 2005. The Atari 7800 also has games that were prototypes, but were released in cartridge for during the After life for the Atari 7800.

The problem is a lot of the hack or Homebrew Atari 7800 games are arcade ports. The Homebrew Arcade ports were arcade games from Namco, Atari, Nittoh, Data East, Two-Bit Score, Bally Midway, Taito and Gottlieb. Beef Drop was a homebrew Arcade port of a Data East game. B*nQ was a homebrew arcade port of a Gottlieb game. A couple of the Companies mentioned no longer exist.

Some of the Hack and Homebrew game releases weren't mentioned by wikipedia. The other issue is if the Authors allow the non arcade and licensed ports on the vc.

6.) Without the Arcade, light gun, Computer, Homebrew/Hack games on the Atari 7800, the amount of Atari 7800 games available would be a slim amount. Most of the good games on the system wouldn't be available outside of Asteroids, Centipede. Space Duel and Asteroids Deluxe and possible Food Fight.

Atari didn't create a lot of game that were by some other company at the time.

I grew up with the NES, and still have a great deal of interest in the 2600. I also own a Colecovision, which is awesome. Disregarding everything pre-NES for being "too primitive" is ridiculous. What matters is if the game is fun or not.

I have a coworker a year younger than me who for some inexplicable reason loves "Centipede" (a game I've always hated, right along with pretty much everything else from that period).

Centipede was also released on the NES. Your logic is void. Plus Centipede is awesome.

Colecovision is as far as I'd ever want to go back, they look decent. I just can't get into the bad Atari 2600 graphics.

They would make decent iPhone or DSi apps for about $1 or $2.
To bad DSi won't alllow porting to DSiWare.
Maybe the iPhone will get something for like $1 or $2 or even free.

They would make decent iPhone or DSi apps for about $1 or $2.
To bad DSi won't alllow porting to DSiWare.
Maybe the iPhone will get something for like $1 or $2 or even free.

@Adamant,

There is no centipede on the Nes. You mistaken Millipede for Centipede.

Millipede was released on the Nes instead. I remembered seeing Millipede in stores during the Nes era for the Nes. Both are great games though for the 2600. Centipede also was great on the Atari 7800 also.

Ah yeah, you're right.
NES Millipede was only released in Japan and America, though, so it's not like it matters much.

I think 7th lutz covered the 7800 quite well. The Jaguar actually does have some games I would like on VC, but they'd have to figure out how to deal with the controller, which could be a HUGE problem for the games that required all the number pad buttons. For that reason alone, I doubt very much it'll ever happen.

Which holds up my basic point that I've never found a single Atari 2600 game I've played from any collection to be fun. I apologize that I have not up to this point MENTIONED these collections, but I'd really rather pretend I'd never wasted my time with them. Good thing it was my DAD'S money wasted, anyway.

That's nice. I'm sure there are people out there who've never found any NES and SNES games to be fun either.

Aliens vs Predator for the Atari Jaguar would be very cool to see. Highly doubt it will ever make an appearance on the Virtual console.

Will Atari ever come to the VC? Not sure, but hopefully yes.

I would rather have them update the current consoles b4 putting in another. And besides my gaming carer started with the NES. I've never been able to get into Atari games.

sigh As much as I hate to admit it, I'm sure you're right. There are plenty of people who don't care about ANY games that came out before they started gaming, and don't even care about the games they loved five years ago. So sad...

I should really see about hooking up the 2600 we have in the house and give it a fair shot. Then I can maybe come back here and further embarrass myself with a report of enjoying some of it!

Please do.
Do you have Adventure and Kaboom available? I've yet to meet anyone who didn't like those two - they pretty much defy criticism.

We should have more around here SOMEWHERE, but here's what I found in an old cartridge storage rack:

Yars' Revenge
Asteroids
Astroblast
Grand Prix
Dragster
Donkey Kong Junior (probably worse than NES version )
Cosmic Ark
Air-Sea Battle
Demon Attack
Berzerk
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (holy crap!)
Combat (my dad's favorite game for the system if I recall correctly)
Freeway
Skiing
Lock 'n' Chase
M.A.D.
Megamania
Missile Command
Pac-Man (oh, no, not on Atari 2600!)
Seaquest
Home Run
Sky Jinks
Spider Fighter
Star Raiders
Street Racer
Swordquest EarthWorld
Vanguard

And Defender is in the console right now. I've got a manual for Adventures of Tron here (played it on Xbox Live Arcade, which is doubtlessly better, but still crap), which strengthens my belief that we've got more games around SOMEWHERE, but our basement is truly horrific mess, so I can't guarantee we'll ever find them.

Now I just need to get permission to hook the darned thing up and see if any of this stuff is actually any good. I wish we DID have Adventure, as it's the only 2600 game I've ever actually WANTED to play. Oh, well.

The 2600 port of Defender is absolutely horrible. Just want to point that out.

As for the other games:
Yars' Revenge - Great
Asteroids - Decent, but doesn't hold a candle to the arcade original
Astroblast - Never played, but supposedly quite good
Grand Prix - Crap
Dragster - Some people like it, I didn't
Donkey Kong Junior (probably worse than NES version ) - Horrid. Coleco had the DK license back in the day, and supposedly produced intentionally bad versions of them for the 2600 and Intellivision to make their own Colecovision seem more impressive. The CV version of this game is great, by the way.
Cosmic Ark - Okay
Air-Sea Battle - Quite good in multiplayer, ass in single player
Demon Attack - Quite good
Berzerk - Excellent
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom - Haven't played the 2600 version of it, but didn't particularly like the other versions I've tried, so this one probably isn't worth much either.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (holy crap!) - Not as bad as dumb Youtube kids want you to think. Decent adventure game, but make sure to read the manual so you know what to do. It's NOT a pick-up-and-play game like most other 2600 games.
Combat (my dad's favorite game for the system if I recall correctly) - Excellent. Note that it's multiplayer only, though.
Freeway - Good in multiplayer, rather pointless in singleplayer
Skiing - Good
Lock 'n' Chase - Decent
M.A.D. - Okay-ish Missile Command clone, but since you have the original, I see no reason to bother with this.
Megamania - Great
Missile Command - Great
Pac-Man (oh, no, not on Atari 2600!) - Yeah, yuck.
Seaquest - For some reason, I can't seem to get too excited about this game. I have no idea why, since it SHOULD logically be quite good. Give it a try and see if you fall for it.
Home Run - Probably the sorriest-ass baseball game in existance.
Sky Jinks - Crap
Spider Fighter - Decent
Star Raiders - Never actually played this, but it's supposedly a worse version of Star Master, which is pretty good. So uh, give it a try, I guess. Can't be that bad.
Street Racer - Rather bland and boring. You've probably played this, or a clone of it, before.
Swordquest EarthWorld - Utter shite, to the point you should be insulted that someone thought an actual human being could possibly enjoy this crap. Fun fact: The sequel (Swordquest Fireworld) is even worse.
Vanguard - Like Defender and DK Junior, this is a good game with a cruddy port. It's playable, though.

@Stuffgamer1

I played most of the 2600 games on your list as a kid in the late1980's-early 1990's, or played them as an adult. Here are my thoughts on the games:

Yars' Revenge-great game
Asteroids - decent arcade port. The Arcade port was a result of what Atari allowed programmers to used for memory at the time. 4k was the amount of memory 2600 games were at the time. It is not as good some of the late arcade ports as a result. The game would've had a chance to be better in 1983 or 1984 if was released as a bank switched 8k game.
Astroblast - fun shooter on the 2600.
Grand Prix- bad game.
Dragster- depends on who you talk to. Not one of my favorite Activision games on the system.
Donkey Kong Junior (probably worse than NES version ) - putrid arcade port. The 2 Donkey Arcade ports are bad on the system. There are a couple reasons for that. Coleco released DK games on the system as 4k ports. There were Coleco rumors on different websites and review websites that Coleco made arcade ports on the 2600 and the Intellivision bad in order to make their Colecovision arcade ports look good.
Cosmic Ark - never played it.
Air-Sea Battle- never played it
Demon Attack - very good shooter
Berzerk- great game.
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom -never owned it or played it.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (holy crap!)- Not as bad as the youtube reviewers and gamers that played it several years after it was release to makeit sound. The game is playable and there are 2600 games are worse than E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. You need the manual like Adamant said in order to make a better game experience. It is not a sit down and play games as a result without reading the instructions.
Combat- Great two player game.
Freeway- much better as a two player game.
Skiing- good game.
Lock 'n' Chase - okay game
M.A.D.- never played it.
Megamania - great game
Missile Command- very good game.
Pac-Man (oh, no, not on Atari 2600!)- terrible arcade port. It is caused by the fact Atari didn't allow the programmer to make the game as a 8k bank switched game as he wanted instead of being a 4k game. On the other hand,, the programmer might not have developed Pac-man as good as it was capable as a 4k game.
Seaquest- never played it
Home Run - worse baseball game of all time. There are better baseball games on the Atari 2600. Home Run was made at a time that Atari 2600 games were 2k in memory and Home Run shouldn't have been attempted as a result. Home Run should've been attempted around the time Space Invaders was released on the Atari 2600 or later at least as a 4k game cartridge.
Sky Jinks- terrible
Spider Fighter - average
Star Raiders- Didn't play it
Street Racer - not that exciting
Swordquest EarthWorld - Terrible game. It was one of the worse games I bought at flea market as a kid.
Vanguard - never played the arcade game. Without playing the Arcade game, It seemed to be a decent shooter at best.
Defender - is a great arcade game, but the arcade port for the 2600 sucks. It's sequel Stargate (aka Defender 2) is much better on the system.

I'd definitely pay 2-300 points for a 2600 game and there are a lot that actually are fun. The 2600 has some good shooters on it, even first-person ones (mostly space fighter games) and several good arcade ports (Super Cobra is not one of these).

Given that arcade lightgun games can be played using a mouse on home computers through emulators, I don't think using the pointer on the VC in a similar fashion is a big problem; it just needs to be coded.

I do think that these games would be better served by a disc compilation than VC presence, so come on Activision and Infogrames (assuming they own the rights to the home console hardware/software and not just the trademarks) let's see some classic Atari!