This week, there’s been yet another addition to the influx of new throwback consoles. But is it one we actually want?
Atari launched the crowdfunding campaign for its new console (the Atari VCS) with a goal of $100,000, and blew it out the water, having currently raised about 2000% of that- over $2.3 million.
But is it worth forking out two to three hundred dollars just because its new? Just what exactly would I be buying?
I never had an Atari growing up, but I’m sure plenty of you have and share the same amount of happy gaming memories on it that I had on my NES. But here’s the thing; nostalgia aside, we’re talking about an Atari, here. Games like Pong and Asteroid can be emulated with the same processing power as your front porch’s filthy utility rug.
The biggest problem I have with this is that if you’re only looking to play Atari games, you can already do that. If you haven’t already, you could take $9.99 with you over to Steam and pick up the Atari vault to get 100 games with leaderboards, and online + local multiplayer. Otherwise, as a console, the only way that this one could distinguish itself from other ones is with non-Atari products. Atari cites its ability to stream video, run social media and play music as a buying point. But today you’d be hard pressed to find a console that doesn't do that. The Atari VCS is a Linux based console (Ouya, anybody?) that likely runs off of old-generation AMD hardware. If I could take that $200-300 and buy a next-gen console, then, why wouldn’t I? Well, because I’m cheap. But for the rest of us, it seems this nostalgia predator is cheaper.
