Atari has just announced they will be releasing a brand new console, the ‘Ataribox’ and it’s set to make avid fans all nostalgic. It sounds like Atari are doing a similar thing to Nintendo, with the NES and SNES Classics that have and will be released soon. Atari have said they plan to deliver classic games on the Ataribox, as well as current content. We expect to see classics such as Space Invaders, Pong, PacMan and Frogger being made available on the console and I’m assuming they will come pre-installed. As for Atari’s current content, they seem to be pushing the brilliant and also semi-classic, Rollercoaster Tycoon, which was one of my favorite childhood games!

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The Ataribox includes SD card support, a HDMI port and four USB ports, for controllers we assume. There will be two versions of the console, one in wood and one in black/red. If you remember any of the old Atari consoles, you will see a resemblance with the wood look to the classic Atari 2600.

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A newsletter sent to Atari fans states; “Our objective is to create something new, that stays true to our heritage, while appealing to both old and new fans of Atari.” That’s a bold move! The market is dominated by Playstation right now and yes the Nintendo classic re-releases have been popular. Will the Ataribox be as successful? Will the original players from the 80s pick one up so they can play their favourite childhood games? Yeah, they will but I’m not sure they will be able to crack the younger, modern market, as they do have some truly classic games, but I don’t think they will interest today’s youth.

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The newsletter continues; “We’re not teasing you intentionally; we want to get this right, so we’ve opted to share things step by step as we bring this to life, and to listen closely to the Atari community feedback as we do so.”

No more information has officially been released yet, so pricing, release date, game content and internal specs are still up in the air. Perhaps a pre-Christmas release might be on the cards? But then they would be competing with the SNES classic and the new Xbox, so a 2018 release sounds like the safer option.