Atari Reiterates Firm's Focus On Retro, Isn't Looking To Compete With Nintendo

I love retro games, and I absolutely love retro collections on Switch.
That being said, there's very very little on Atari 2600 that can keep my interest for more than a minute or two at best.

Atari 50 is presented as more of a history documentary than it is a retro game collection, and I feel like that is the right choice. The games for the 2600 aren't really appealing to modern gamers as much more than historical artifacts.

Even NES games, which many modern gamers may brush off as old and outdated, were orders of magnitude more advanced and interesting than anything the 2600 could do. NES games can still be enjoyed by modern gamers as proper fun games in their own right. And .... it's sad to say, but I really struggle to say the same thing about any 2600 games.
The most impressive Atari game is probably Adventure, as it can keep track of item locations and enemy movements even when they're off-screen. But even a cream-of-the-crop game like this won't really hold anyone's attention for very long any more.

I really like Atari 50 for the way it presents itself as a history lesson, with the playable games acting as a part of the exhibit. This way of presenting them really works at making you appreciate the games way more than you could if it was just a collection of roms in a list.

I can't think of anything else Atari could do in the "retro" space that they haven't already accomplished with Atari 50. Unless they want to make a sequel that goes into the Activision side of things, which might be interesting too.

@EarthboundBenjy Basically what I was thinking. I've got the Atari Flashback console, and once you've played those games, why bother buying another console that can play them?

With so many new games coming out on a regular basis, why should I even bother going back to a 40-50 year-old game that is basically being emulated on new hardware if I already have it on a different system?

I wouldn't mind if Atari makes sequels to those games, or even modern-day remakes, but the original Atari 2600 games being rereleased for the millionth time is just getting old for me.

Yeah love the recharge line of games , Atari don't have to rerelease their old stuff but rather make make sequels or remakes of their original ip.
They have loads of arcade games they could choose from , atari didn't just make 2600 games.

I kinda like the idea of what they have been trying to accomplish. I don’t have any interest in the hardware, but I did buy the collection. I might occasionally pick up a game like Gravitar Recharged or something else if it’s worthwhile. I would love a modern rendition of Paperboy. Klax was a lot of fun too.

I bought the new Mr Run and Jump cartridge for my 2600. Simple graphics, but very fun, and challenging 😀
I grew up with the 2600, so it's fun to be able to buy a brand new (official not homebrew) game for the system, all these decades later.

Just got my 2600+ and now Waiting on my Berserk and Mr Run & Jump games from Amazon and I continue to pick off 2600, 7800 & Jaguar games from AtariAge as well!! Love my Atari collection!
The Atari of today is managed WAY better then the Tramiel family ever could that’s for sure! Picking up Digital Eclipse was HUGE!

@EarthboundBenjy Some of the latter-day Atari 2600 games are pretty good, like Solaris, which could almost be an NES game. You are right though that most won't hold one's attention too long. Some of the best games were ports anyway that have much better versions that you can play today. Why play 2600
Pac-Man when you can play an arcade perfect one? That said, I think Atari has the right mindset. Just do what they do and keep it classic. It seems to be working.

Some of my favorite games on the 2600, came from Activision (back when they were made up from ex Atari programmers), who knew how to program impressive games for the system.

HERO, Beamrider, Enduro, Frostbite, etc, are still fun to play today.
And also the Imagic games (also ex atari programmers) like Demon Attack, Cosmic Ark, Dragon fire, etc, are great fun.

Be great if they could put the 2600 Activision stuff on a Switch compilation. The 2600 Jr. was the first console I owned, before I got a C64.

@Ristar24 I only hope Activision's new owners are much more open to the idea.

Release more Jaguar games. It’s an untapped market.

As long as they keep letting NightDive Studios remaster games from the N64 era of gaming then I am happy.

While endless re-releases of Atari 2600 games would get old after a while, they've got Digital Eclipse and NightDive Studios, both of which have a history of emulating and remastering a wide variety of games from all different developers, publishers, and eras. As long as they're allowed to keep doing what they're doing, there should be plenty of interesting stuff on the way!

Honestly, I can understand why Atari would want to focus a lot of retro stuff, considering that's where most of their notaritiy comes from, but I think if Atari did try to make a push into more proper modern releases I bet they could have some cool stuff

I can’t name a single Atari property. Maybe they should focus on making something relevant.

I’m all for the preservation and updating and I support Atari 100% of the way. That being said the only 2600 game I ever find myself going back to is Enduro. It’s so satisfying to me, especially the sounds of the snow level. And that fog level is 🤌

But yeah if they were to take those 2600 games and give them a new lease on life like a minor graphical bump/remaster or like … some kind of voxel treatment, or some additional features/filters, that would be really cool.

Retro is good but only if done right. Then it will survive the long haul.

@SBandy1
Guess they have a Deal with Disney at the Moment, releasing Dark Forces and Turok 3, both Properties of Disney
So my guess is that we'll get Dark Forces 2 Jedi Knight sooner than later.

I personally really like the System Shock Remake, so thats also Stuff they can do, but tooks clearly more Time.

@Olliemar28 Personally, I want to see the entire Swordquest series get a remake, with the events of the comics retooled into cutscenes within the game.

For me, the most exciting thing about Atari's return to form isn't that they're leveraging their old software. It's that they're producing new games, re-issuing old ones, and creating new accessories for old hardware. They're also investing in companies that are all about game preservation and homebrew development. They're obviously trying to make money, yes, but they're also doing more to keep retro-gaming alive than Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft are.

@Olliemar28 That's just one idea for a game that I have. I'd also love to see a remake of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but actually made well. I could see that game being a 3D platformer, in fact.

By the way, even though it already got a 3D remake, I could see Yars' Revenge being remade into a shoot 'em up similar to Xevious or Gradius, with more enemies and bosses.

That's exactly how I've felt about Atari recently and I'm glad to know that they're focusing on that. It really fits them to serve the retro home console market. From here I would expect them to create new games that have the simplicity of the old games to expand their library.

I bought the new VCS that came out a while ago. I'm not at all surprised it didn't sell well, given its high price and identity crisis. However, I have been enjoying it for a kind of unexpected reason. With the Switch and Playstation e-shops being a never ending fire hose, I barely even look at the indie games because there's just so many. It's an exercise in if you give people too many choices, they end up choosing nothing at all. The VCS has been getting about one game a week. So when I see something new, it's like, "Ooh, what's this?" I've actually been getting back into smaller indie games again because of the VCS.