The Atari VCS is a home video game console produced by Atari, Inc. While its physical design is intended to pay homage to the Atari 2600, the new Atari VCS plays modern games and streaming entertainment via a Linux-based operating system called AtariOS that will allow users to download and install other compatible games, including those compatible with Windows 10. The system shares a name with Atari, Inc.'s 1977 Video Computer System, usually shortened to VCS, which was renamed to the Atari 2600 in late 1982.
The system was first revealed in June 2017 and partially crowdfunded starting in May 2018. After several delays, the console was expected to ship in March 2020, but was delayed again to that December due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Initial units for backers were shipped in December 2020, while the console had a general release in Australia and New Zealand on June 10, 2021, with the VCS released in North America on June 15, 2021. Shipping was initially restricted to the United States only by Atari and official distributors. As of October 2021, shipping has been expanded to include Canada, when ordering directly from the Atari VCS Store.
History
Atari Corporation left the hardware business around 1996, after it released the Atari Jaguar video game console, and was liquidated in 1998, with Hasbro Interactive purchasing the intellectual property of the brand. In 2001, Infogrames Entertainment SA purchased Hasbro Interactive. Infogrames would later rename itself Atari SA, while the Hasbro Interactive subsidiary was renamed Atari Interactive. Atari Interactive provided licensing for the various Atari Flashback dedicated consoles produced since 2004.
The concept of the Atari VCS came from Feargal Mac Conuladh, who joined Atari and became general manager to oversee the Ataribox release. Conuladh said that he was inspired to create the unit after seeing players connect laptops to televisions to use a larger screen to play games that were not available for consoles, and then use social media platforms outside of the games via the same laptop to communicate with friends. He also saw that Atari's game catalog had a good amount of brand recognition. His design goal was to feed nostalgia for the old Atari consoles and allow players to enjoy indie games without a personal computer. Processor maker AMD provided custom componentry for it. While Atari made most of the decisions on the unit's hardware, they have also kept open to suggestions from Atari fans on the unit's aesthetics and other visual features.
The console in its current rendition functions as a sort of hybrid between a home video game console and a gaming PC, two branches of electronics Atari has operated in previously. Conuladh took lessons learned from the commercial failure of the Ouya, a similar crowd-funded microconsole. One was to use the Linux operating system directly, rather than through the limited version offered through Android, as to be able to provide more capabilities and a more open system to developers and users. Conuladh did not want to restrict what users could install on the device; while the unit's operating system will have a storefront feature, he wanted users to be able to add software by any means possible. He also decided to use a higher-performance laptop/desktop APU than the smartphone/tablet APU used in the Ouya. Conuladh also wanted to steer away from problems encountered by Valve's Steam Machines, which provided a minimum set of specifications for hardware that Valve expected other vendors to build towards, but ultimately never took off. Instead, the Atari VCS hardware configuration will remain fixed and controlled by Atari. Additionally, Atari will contract for the manufacture of all the consoles themselves, rather than relying on third parties to manufacture their own systems based on the Ataribox specifications.
In December 2017, just prior to opening for pre-orders for the VCS (at the time known as Ataribox), Atari recognized there were still several issues they needed to address with the hardware, and decided to postpone the pre-orders. At that point, Michael Arzt, the head for Atari Connected Devices, took over production while Conuladh left Atari, though the two had been coordinating its development previously. According to Atari CEO Fred Chesnais, this period gave them time to review what they wanted the Ataribox to do, and revise the unit's specifications and hardware without sacrificing the core elements of being a Linux-based system that would be able to run classic Atari games along with newer titles.