Atari 2600 Plus Coming in November 2023 (1 Viewer)

[John*Wells]

A new Atari 2600 will play your old cartridges

Get ready to play your old Pitfall cartridge with HDMI.

www.theverge.com

I'll be getting one of these. I still have a bunch of the old cartridges as well as Atari 7800 Games. It also works with old paddle and joystick controllers. Anyone else?

 

[LeoA]

I'm also going to pick one up along with the paddle controller bundle. Also planning on getting the My Arcade Atari Gamestation Pro (some interesting classic Atari arcade games that haven't appeared in compilations before sealed the deal for me in the game list reveal earlier today).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I want that!

Then I’ll be hopping over to eBay for a Keystone Kapers cartridge, thank you very much.

 

[BobO'Link]

Possibly... I still have a largish collection of 2600 cartridges as well as an original Sears version of the console that, AFAIK, still works. The price is certainly right. The big thing is availability and that it's not one of those limited availability things like those NES/SNES mini consoles were.

Currently $129 + $12 shipping and comes with a 10 game cartridge (which has a few decent games). Outputs HDMI and uses all of the standard controllers. Tempting...

 

[Greg.K]

Hmm, kind of tempting.

 

[John*Wells]

I pre ordered mine. I wonder if it will allow you to hack Space Invaders by holding down the reset Toggle switch and turning on the power ? I used to get to missiles at once to fire by doing that

 

[Malcolm R]

I used to have the 5200. Not sure if that's still in storage somewhere, or if I got rid of it. Probably got rid of it, as I was never much of a gamer.

 

[Greg.K]

I pre ordered mine. I wonder if it will allow you to hack Space Invaders by holding down the reset Toggle switch and turning on the power ? I used to get to missiles at once to fire by doing that

I kind of doubt it, since it’s seems to be emulated hardware.

i preordered. Price is a little high (close to what I spent for a real one in 1980 saving lawn mowing money, that came with 2 joysticks & paddle controllers too, I believe)

I’d been thinking of looking for a 2600. I do have a box of 2600/7800 cartridges, and a 7800 (though no 7800 controller or power supply). And my working Atari 800XL stuff that I’ve had since high school.

 

[Robert Saccone]

I ordered it as well. I have a working original 2600 but this will be nice because of the HDMI support.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

What the VCS was such a success that they came out with this?

 

[Ruz-El]

I'm tempted but will hold off for reviews. The gamestation pro may be a better option for me if you can put roms on it. There are some cartridge's I never got lol.


Main thing with these is Indy 500. It came with special paddles and nothing beats playing it with those paddles. If I remember right they didn't have a stop point, they spun full around like the steering wheels in the arcade. It made them really sensitive compared to the regular paddles. Why Atari made two types is a mystery for me.

 

[Baenwort]

I'm tempted by this but I extracted all my ROMs years ago and built a RetroPie to run them.

It would be nice to use the original controllers as I've never replicated them.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Main thing with these is Indy 500. It came with special paddles and nothing beats playing it with those paddles. If I remember right they didn't have a stop point, they spun full around like the steering wheels in the arcade. It made them really sensitive compared to the regular paddles. Why Atari made two types is a mystery for me.

You are absolutely correct. We only had the regular paddles with our 2600 which we used for Kaboom and Night Driver. We never owned Indy 500 although one of my childhood friends did and I remember the paddles came with the game because there was no stop point to them.

 

[LeoA]

The Atari 2600+ is indeed relying on software emulation, powered using the latest version of the respected Stella emulator. What they're using for Atari 7800 emulation remains to be confirmed.

The Gamestation Pro supports adding your own roms via SD card. Confirmed to work so far are 2600, 5200, 7800, NES, and Genesis rom images (It has bonus NES, Genesis, and non-Atari arcade games to push it past 200 titles which is why it has a NES and Genesis emulator). Remaining to be confirmed is if additional arcade games can be added by the end user.

The reason for why the 2600 had the driving controller for Indy 500 as well as the lookalike paddles, is all about resolution. The paddles have a lot more finesse with the potentiometer, crucial for controlling games like Breakout and Kaboom. The driving controller used a rotary encoder with only 16 positions.

The potentiometer though comes with a limitation, which is a limited 300 degree or so rotation range before hitting a physical stop. It can't be spun a full 360 degrees an unlimited number of turns like the driving controller could. Hence the existence of the driving controller for Indy 500, which surprisingly is again called Indy 500 on the Gamestation Pro's game roster.

When it first escaped the vault when it finally dawned on Atari SA's legal team that the game could still be rereleased under a non-infringing title with Atari Flashback Classics Volume 3 on XB1/PS4, it went by the Sears name which was Race to escape the ire of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Then with last year's Atari 50 compilation, it was rebranded as 'Race 500', blending both names that it originally went under (Sears insisted on Sears branding back in the day, hence why the Atari 2600 was branded as the Sears Telegames Video Arcade at Sears retailers and why Atari's games usually got a different title for their Telegames release).

 

[John*Wells]

I got my first atari 2600 from Sears and got the Sears version of Space Invaders and Air Sea Battle. I ended up getting another one because I played the first one so much it crashed lol

 

[Clinton McClure]

Ours came from Walmart if I remember correctly. It was the version with fake wood grain, because everything had wood grain in the early 80s.

 

[John*Wells]

I’ve been advised by Amazon that mine will arrive on November 21. Anyone getting theirs on the 17th?

 

[Greg.K]

I ordered mine directly from Atari.com, it shows no change in status so far. Just Fulfillment status: Unfulfilled. Hopefully will show shipped tomorrow.

 

[Ruz-El]

I didn't order one, but a reviewer is posting pictures of a review model he got with the paddles and damn. I'm tempted lol.

 

[Greg.K]

Should have ordered from Amazon.