Atari Flashback Classics Is Due To Launch On The Switch Later This Year

Well what do you know, something from Atari that we don't have to crowdfund for it to be on Switch.

If it only uses a third of the screen, like in that screen shot, then no.

These old ports just keep coming 😜

Joking aside I suspect there'll be a few gems hidden in here but the problem is many of the best Atari games weren't made by Atari and by extension won't be on this. So the likes of Star Wars, Raiders of the lost Ark, Pacman, E.T. any of the many great Activision games such as Pitfall, River Raid, Kaboom and Spider Fighter.

Though we will have Centipede, Millipede and the excellent Combat to look forward to. Me though I'll be sticking to playing these on my 2600, there's something special to me about those old cartridges, weird console switches that affect the game and those old joysticks.

It's sad that what was left of Atari effectively died in the mid 90's but there place in gaming history is assured

@carlos82 yup as the people who almost killed gaming.

E.T phone home

Asteroids and Tempest are 2 of my favourite games. I dare say I'll pick these up.

I might pick these up. Of course the actual cartridges don't cost more than $3 and some cost less than $1 so it's not like building an Atari collection breaks the bank. The hardest part is finding a pos retro TV to hook it up to, that still works!

Neat! I'm very fascinated by Atari 2600 games from a historical perspective. (too young to have played them when they were new)
Some of my favorites include Breakout, Yars' Revenge, Maze Craze, RealSports Volleyball, and Dodge 'Em.

@TheLobster CRT's rarely die and are by far the best picture.

Weren't these volumes released at something like £50 each on the PS4 when digitally released? Good luck with that Atari if you plan to pull that stunt on the Switch.

@carlos82 Bah, who needs that lame old butchered version of Pac-Man when Namco Museum already gives us the real deal?

@Paperboy That's a vertical 3:4 ratio game. It's supposed to look like that.

A clone of Atari 2600 (which was apparently so badass, the package was titled "Rambo" with the according portrait, so it totally counts anyway) was my first own console, so I do have first-hand nostalgia for the period. Favourite game? Perhaps River Raid. Pitfall was technically more awesome, but being the impatient little sucker I was, I forgot that every time I reached a liana over a pond...

Anyway, POWER TO THE FANS. We wanted Virtual Console, we got it! X'D Unless a home variant of Pong comes out, you don't go much more virtual console than this.

All depends on what games are on it

@FragRed Atari: "thanks, dude, but judging by Street Fighter 2 sales, we won't need it"

Is it WB that owns the Midway stuff. Man, I hope they release the Midway Treasures again!

@Firehawke I know, but I just can't stand borders and these are the worst. They'd have to come up with some sort of solution for it before I consider playing a collection like this. I don't care if it's not authentic or whatever

Let's go Missile Command!

Now... how about a Data East and Midway collection?

@FragRed Least they aren't trying to release them individually? You'd probably be looking at another zero added to that number. But then you could skip the likely mass amount of poopy games.

As much as I support retro, the 2600 falls short of my cutoff, unfortunately. I've had some good times with them, sure. But in the end, it's hard for me to go that far back, the 2600 arcade ports never did it for me. I'll have to check the arcade games it does have, though. But if these end up being more than $20 on the Switch, then it'll be a hard pass for me.

Yes yes yes!!! Finally Nintendo and Atari classics together!!! Atari Favorites? Asteroids, Tempest, Space Duel, Centipede, Millipede, Black Widow, Video Pinball, circus Atari, Liberator, Crystal Castles, Missile Command, Air Sea Battle, and many others!!
Only bad thing is why the long wait till December??

@Seanmyster6 Pac-Man will not be on there

@Paperboy I wonder if it can be played in TATE mode...

@GrailUK you are correct Warner Bros the same company that killed the original Atari lol

@Paperboy maybe it supports Tate mode?

@crackafreeze oh man had to respond! Seaquest is one of my all time favorites! Great shooter!

@RusevDay incorrect get your facts straight please

I'm all for more arcade/retro collections coming to the Switch. Be nice to have them physical as well as digital. The Atari 2600 is an historical system but largely a blind spot for me. If it has Atari arcade games on, I'll likely bite. I just earnestly hope we get to see other arcade collections from the likes of Capcom, Konami, Sega, Taito, Cave, Midway et. al.

And wake up NAMCO we want more games for NAMCO MUSEUM be it as DLC or another collection.

Just emulate them for crying out loud.

Spectrum 48k revival please

2600 games have not aged well.

@Paperboy What do you propose they do? 3:4 arcade games obviously require a lot of pillarboxing on a 16:9 display.

@NinjaBadger Many have aged just fine. River Raid for instance remains one of gaming's greatest games.

@Pahvi No game lists have been published. Both volumes on the PS4/XB1 have included plenty of arcade games as well as 2600 games.

And the third volume coming out this summer, which I suspect may be what the Switch is getting, is going to include 50 games. We know 25 of those so far, and only 10 games of the 25 are 2600 games. 8 others are arcade games, with the remaining 7 being from the Atari 5200.

@Atariboy Defending the Atari, shock horror.

For contemporary gamers that didn't grow up with the 2600 and arcade games, Atari can be kind of an acquired taste. Outside of a few standouts like Pitall II: Lost Caverns, Adventure, and Haunted House you're really just playing to try and best your previous high score in most Atari games, which can be a lot of fun if you're into it but may not appeal to everyone. Personally I like Atari a lot and own a Light Sixer model Atari 2600 along with a Harmony Encore cart for it, so I'd definitely be down for an Atari compilation on the Switch if it got a physical release.

Why does it take all the way until December? Just release it right now.

River Raid and Empire Strikes Back were my favorite 2600 games as a kid. Neither I assume will be in these collections.

I've already got an Atari Flashback 8 Gold HD, Atari's Greatest Arcade Hits on Dreamcast, and all 3 Midway Arcade Treasures collections on Xbox, but I would totally pick this up becass none of that is portable.

Yay! I've been hoping for this. Now to wait til December and see if it's sold at a ridiculous price.

When all my friends were getting SNES and Genesis consoles for their birthdays, my parents just kept getting me more Atari 2600 games. So while I do have a very special place in my heart for this era, I'm probably going to pass these up based on price tag. Nostalgia can only hold up a crappy game so much.

And since everyone else is listing their favorite games:
Berzerk, Combat, Defender, Outlaw, Video Pinball, KaBoom!, Missile Command, and yes.... E.T.
Its a VERY bad game, but as a kid, I liked the movie a bunch, so I kept playing and eventually finished it. I'm very glad I did, because when the game became infamously buried in Mexico I was able to confidently say "I've played that game! And yeah, it was pretty bad."

Atari 2600 games got boring after 10 minutes back in 1981. I imagine that's down to about 45 seconds now, so no thanks.

Intellivision FTW. "Once you compare, you'll know."

Garbage games that are a product of their time and have no value today except for perhaps historical value, but purely from a technical (as opposed to artistic) perspective.

Hoping (probably vainly) for features that suit the switch such as touch controls for some games (virtual roller ball, or spinner) and rotating the orientation for vertical use of the screen real estate.

In the end, though, some of these need emulation or a physical set of controls that just never arrive without some serious DIY elbow grease.

Tempest needs a real spinner and so does Blasteroids. Centipede Crystal Castles, Marble Madness, Missile Command and Rampart aren't the same without a trackball (and each should be a different weight and size really). Star Wars Arcade isn't the same without the flight yoke.

It's sad that gamers keep settling for the practical game controllers we do, now, though it's understandable.

Labo is the future, in a way. Once VR transitions to lightweight affordable AR with accurate tracking, you can create any type of cheap controller you want and just track how our hands move with... maybe.

@sillygostly Disagree. Many of these older games are optimized for quarter munching, yes, which is the same problem of micro transactions and loot boxes today as they affect the game play. However, I get just as much enjoyment out of some of these as modern games. Going for a high score on one quarter can be a visceral and exciting experience.

You may value aspects of video games that have been able to thrive with advances in technology but don't mistake your own gaming preferences as some sort of objective form of judgement on all games or gamers.

@Fuz Blasteroids and Xybots. There was a bit of an Atari Renaissance there as arcades started to diminish. I love those games, but miss the original hardware controls. Xybots works okay with shoulder buttons to rotate, but Blasteroids with the spinner was the best. Got so I could complete it on one quarter back when I played it between classes at college.

Virtual Console ain't coming.

What is with all the extreme retro shovelware? Yes, I know these games have their place in history but most of us admit they have almost zero appeal today.
You'll buy it for nostalgia reasons, play it for 5 min and that'll be it.

@GrailUK Warner Bros. only owned Mortal Kombat though, the rest of Midway's other IPs went to companies like THQ which at this point is also facing bankruptcy and is not restructure as a different company.

@masterLEON agreed- there's not much I care for on the 2600 at all. And that is my generation growing up. I would be interested in Atari arcade games, Atari Lynx or other more advanced Atari system games.

Atari suffers from the same problem that has plagued Sega for years:

They have this vast legacy, but only focus on a few evergreen years (the Atari 2600/early arcade years). There are people (myself included) who would love to see the great games that came to the 7800 (Food Fight? Ninja Golf? Mat Mania?), Atari Lynx (Dirty Larry!), Atari Jaguar (Tempest 2000). I wish that they could figure out a workaround for the Atari 7800 licensing issues and release comprehensive anthologies.

Also, they need to stop releasing the Swordquest games! Without the comic, the contest, and the clues, it's a worthless series.

@JJ286 It's already here! The amount of classic retro shizz on the system is bloody amazing already!

It would be comical if Atari does a 2 in 1 cart for Switch owners when Capcom didn’t.

Wait are these 2600 games or the arcade games? The screen shot above looks way to good for it to be 2600. If these are all arcade ports then I am 100% in... if 2600 I will most likely pass. Also Centipede MUST be played with a track ball

It only took a decade but we finally got old Atari games on a modern Nintendo system! Not part of Virtual Console but better this than Hamster charging £6.29 per game...

@Fuz great list only problem is 1/2 those games are owned by Warner Bros. ☹️

There were some great Atari Arcade classics, but were there any good Atari 2600 originals?

The first time I played the Atari 2600 was in 1987, when I already played fantastic games on the C64 and NES - back then there was no reason to own an Atari 2600 so why is there now? Did I miss some fantastic exclusives?

I like some old school classics like Atari, hope they have the good ones.

@Dayton311 a collection of both.

Atari Warlords with joycons would be awesome (preferably the arcade version).

@Fuz Shinobi, great job! I just loved watching that game, but never put the practice in at the arcade. I liked its predecessor, Rolling Thunder and I guess you could tie that back to another fave of mine Elevator Action. I never played any of them all that much, though.

Are we getting trackball and spinner controllers for these games?

Oh man, more 80s nostalgia. Yay...

@GrailUK I know but what I meant is a VC like the official shop channel it was on Wii.

I think coming September Nintendo will announced its Classic banner with the Online Switch pay system and thats about it.

Third parties will do like what they are doing now. Just released collections of retro games on their own.

@Fuz I have played it, and discovered recently through MAME as well. It's good, but a bit nasty to play around kids, so I haven't played that much.

Volume 3's full game list is now available. Previously, only 25 of the 50 titles were known thanks to the PS4's trophy list and the ESRB summary. I've edited the list with the platform source of each game.

13 are arcade games, of which 11 are black & white raster releases from the latter half of the 1970's. And it's the first instance that Atari 5200 games have been included in a commercial compilation.

Adventure II (2600)
Air Raiders (2600)
Aquaventure (2600)
Armor Ambush (2600)
Asteroids (5200)
Astroblast (2600)
Atari Baseball (Arcade)
Atari Basketball (Arcade)
Atari Football (Arcade)
Atari Soccer (Arcade)
Avalanche (Arcade)
Canyon Bomber (Arcade)
Centipede (5200)
Countermeasure (5200)
Dark Cavern (2600)
Destroyer (Arcade)
Dominos (Arcade)
Final Legacy (5200)
Fire Truck / Smokey Joe (Arcade)
Frog Pond (2600)
Frogs and Flies (2600)
Holey Moley (2600)
International Soccer (2600)
Maze Invaders (Arcade)
Micro-gammon (5200)
Millipede (5200)
Miniature Golf (5200)
Missile Command (5200)
Monte Carlo (Arcade)
MotoRodeo (2600)
Pool Shark (Arcade)
Realsports Baseball (5200)
Realsports Basketball (5200)
Realsports Football (5200)
Realsports Tennis (5200)
Realsports Volleyball (5200)
Saboteur (2600)
Sea Battle 2600)
Sky Diver (2600)
Space Attack (2600)
Star Raiders (5200)
Star Strike (2600)
Super Breakout (5200)
Super Bug (Arcade)
Super Challenge Baseball (2600)
Super Challenge Football (2600)
Sword Fight (2600)
Wizard (2600)
Xari Arena (5200)
Yars' Return (2600)

It's the first classic compilation to give a serious look to the first 4 years or so of microprocessor based arcade videogames. The first 4-5 years that Computer Space and Pong pioneered, utilized discrete logic chips. Thus they're un-emulateable since there's no microprocessor running software code to emulate.

But starting with the 1975 Bally Midway release Gun Fight, the microprocessor quickly took over for the final 4 years of the black & white era before color arcade games took their position of dominance in 1980. This era is where the focus of the arcade lineup is.

Sega/Gremlin's Monaco GP from 1979 and 1980's semi-sequel Pro Monaco GP were the last gasp of discrete logic videogames in arcades.