Who is REALLY Behind the Atari 2600+

so you've probably heard about the Atari 2600 plus that was announced about a week ago it's a new console that's compatible with the original 2600 and 7800 really cool that Atari is coming out with a new way to play your original cartridges but is it really Atari that's behind this as in the original company from the80s or is there more to the story let's take a look all right well this semester just started what's going on guys it's poer coming at you with another video so we're going to be talking about the Atari 2600 plus and we're going to be talking about who's actually making this anyway we're really close to 10,000 subscribers just hit that subscribe button right there and you'll help me get there if everyone watching this video hits that subscribe button I will literally hit it tomorrow and don't forget we got a Discord server it's doing really well right now just go to discord. p.net or click on the link in the description anyway stick around I think this will be an interesting [Music] video about a week ago Atari announced the 2600 Plus in the past few years atari's been releasing some questionable products for example their Atari box which was confusingly renamed the VCS was an overly expensive emulation box that didn't have any exclusive games this unit really didn't offer anything that a basic PC or Raspberry Pi didn't already do most people who bought this only did so because of the name it took them a really long time to send out pre-orders too not a super great product in general for their 50th Anniversary Atari would sell a limited edition box set of 10 of their classic titles for $1,000 they look cool but who would pay $11,000 for something like this to be fair though Atari also sold some decent prod products they do have some reproduction Games available on their site and even some new titles like Mr Run and Jump so what about the 2600 Plus for those who don't know it's a brand new console that's coming out in November and it will support both 2600 and 7800 cartridges it comes with a cartridge that contains 10 classic Atari titles so yeah it's a console that supports your original cartridges in HDMI output so how do I feel about it if this console were a recreation of the original Hardware or fpga Hardware this will be a slam dunk this would by far be the best way to play 2600 in 7800 games outside of buying a mister but because it's emulation it's not quite as special but still a decent product you might have the urge to compare this to the Retron 77 which is another 2600 clone that runs on emulation this is a cheaper alternative but this unit has very limited compatibility with games and it doesn't have 7800 support Plus it's not an official Atari product whether you choose the Retron 77 or 2600 plus these are great ways to play classic Atari titles because the original consoles only supported RF output which doesn't look great on Modern TVs going back to compatibility for a second they're very upfront with what's supported and what's not which I respect a lot of games have not been tested though but I imagine 99% of these will work the only games that are confirmed to not work are real Sports boxing Super Cobra and Texas Chainsaw Massacre I think releasing a packing game that contains 10 titles is a great idea and I hope a Ty releases more compilation games like this on their website maybe have a sports themed one or a puzzle themed one they already sell other 2600 cartridges on their website so this new console makes a great companion a lot of people have complained about the price of this thing $130 but I think that's pretty reasonable considering it supports two consoles and it's an official product so here's my final thoughts I think this is a product people will actually want unlike the Atari box it's a nice way to play your classic games on a modern TV but because it's emulation and not real Hardware it's not quite as special and a very similar product has already been made but I do think it's cool that Atari is re-releasing this console after so many years but is this actually Atari or just a different company that uses the Atari name in other words is this the same group of people that were around in the late '70s and early ' 80s well Atari has actually had a lot of buyouts and name changes and it's a little confusing but I'll talk about each of them first we'll talk about Atari Inc this is the original Atari that was founded by Nolan Bushnell who would be the CEO from 1976 to 1978 in that time we would see numerous early arcade games home pong consoles and the release of the Atari 2600 the workplace environment was very relaxed under Bushnell he would let his employees wear t-shirts and jeans and there were company sponsored events that had hot tubs alcohol and marijuana in order to speed up the development process of the upcoming Atari 2600 Bushell sold the company to Warner Communications but the new company disagreed with some of Bushnell's strategies and they put Ray casar in charge which meant Bushnell was no longer with the company despite that though Nolan Bushnell is generally regarded positively and if it weren for him we wouldn't be talking about this today casar wasn't as well-liked as CEO a lot of employees were unhappy with the way they were treated and some developers would voice their issues to rasar but we be turned away many employees left the company because of gar including programmer David crane who formed Activision we would see some success under casar like the release of Space Invaders which would put Atari on the map but under kar's Administration we would see a lot of failures too both Pac-Man and ET were released under casar and they were both rushed to meet a deadline and as a result neither game was well received some of the choices that were made under casara's management team led to Consumers not trusting Atari or their games which had some part in the cause of the video game Crash of 1983 Atari Inc would end up getting into some major Financial issues and by 1984 the company was split into two one of them was Atari corporation which retains the console and computer divisions and the other was Atari games which kept most of the employees from Atari Inc but only focused on our titles so the original company that Bushnell founded was officially dead Atari Corporation would be led by Jack tral and he would hire a brand new team so the original developers that made the 2600 great were no longer in the picture originally chamal put the 2600 on the back burner in favor of the computer scene but later on he would resurrect older projects that were scrapped like the 7800 and a few unreleased 2600 games similar to rayar Jack chamal was not well liked and it impacted Atari negatively a lot of companies didn't want to do business with Atari because they didn't want to deal with trell under Jack chamal we would receive the 700 the lynx and the Jaguar the company fell on harder times because of the Jaguar being a commercial failure chamal wanted out of the company and ended up selling Atari Corporation to jts Corporation who would then sell it to Hasbro interactive in 1998 at this point most of Atari corporation's employees were either fired or voluntarily resigned so to recap Atari inc's original employees from the late '70s and early 80s had nothing to do with Atari Corporation traml hired a completely new team of employees and now after the acquisition those employees were gone as well so we can see that Atari isn't really Atari at this point you have the name and all the assets but that's it going back to Atari games which was the other company that was formed after the dissolving of Atari Inc they would make some well-known arcade titles including Marble Madness paper boy Gauntlet and others they didn't have access to any of atari's assets those were given to Atari Corporation so there would be no breakout asteroids or Missile Command from these guys like I mentioned before most of the employees that left Atari Inc flocked over to Atari games so this is the closest resemblance of the original company that we would get about a year into their operation they expressed interest in developing games for consoles but they weren't allowed to use the Atari games branding on Console games because it would have been indistinguishable from Atari Corporation so they published them under the name Tangen they would publish games on numerous consoles most notably the NES where they made on licensed games behind Nintendo's back so most people claim that Tangen is just Atari and this is basically true if you consider most of the employees from the original company moved over to Tangen but if we're being technical they're Atari games not Atari Inc so what happened to the company in 19 1996 Atari games was sold to WMS Industries who also owned Midway but then the company was renamed to Midway games and the name Atari games would be officially dropped however in 2009 Midway would file for bankruptcy and most of Atari games' assets would be sold to Warner Brothers interactive entertainment so basically the assets are still around but the company itself isn't so we have one company that was bought out and lost most of their employees and another one that was bought out when bankrupt and their assets were sold so here's the big question with the original company dead and these two other companies seemingly dead where did this new Atari come from well it all stems from Hasbro's acquisition of Atari Corporation in 2000 Hasbro was going through some financial troubles and they sold their company to infograms infograms really valued the Atari name and they decided to go all in on it they renamed their French headquarters to Atari sa and they would change one of their acquired companies to Atari Inc not to be confused with the original company from the early 80s the new Atari Inc would be the American subsidiary of Atari sa and finally Hasbro will be renamed to Atari interactive who owns the Atari branding that is licensed out to Atari sa so that's probably all really confusing but all you need to know is that infograms took the Atari assets from Hasbro and decided to build their company around it I'm not a business Expert but it's interesting that they decide to do this because Atari is really not a recognizable name anymore that would be like if I were a big store chain and I acquired Kmart and decided to Rebrand all my stores and headquarters to Kmart I guess you could say I'd be part of the Kmart cult so what's my point with all these Acquisitions Employees leaving and companies being dissolved Atari is just a name now none of the same talent that was there before is present now so why does this matter some people buying the Atari box or the new 2600 plus might believe they're buying from the same company that existed in the early 80s but it's really not it may say Atari on the cover but it's not really them even though it's just a name is the 2600 plus worth [Music] it at this point the original Atari Inc from the80s no longer exists despite that though the 2600 Plus still seems promising it's a shame it's not real Hardware or fpga but even as emulation it's still worth considering it's one of the few viable ways of playing these old games on Modern TVs and it even has 7800 support which is uncommon if you're looking for a way to play your Atari cartridges this might be the way to [Music] go [Music] hey I just wanted to thank you so much for watching this video if you made it this far hit that like button if you enjoy this type of content hit the Subscribe button for more content both of these things really help the channel grow if you have anything to share feel free to leave a comment I read every single comment on this channel and I'm pretty good at replying back anyway have a good [Music] one

Channel: pojr

Views: 20,807

Keywords: Atari 2600+, MadLittlePixel, John Hancock, RGT 85, Atari Inc, Atari Incorporated, Atari Corp, Atari Corporation, Atari Games, Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames, Warner Bros, Time Warner, Tengen, Atari Box, Atari VCS, Retron 77, pojr, Game Rant, Game Review

Id: rmikfYVhRZE

Length: 12min 34sec (754 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023