The pre-E3 announcement that everyone has been waiting for is finally here. No, not Fallout 76. The Atari VCS pre-order is live, and with it, the official specifications and pricing.
Let’s get to the good news first. As I had suggested in a previous news item on this new console, the Indiegogo campaign confirms that the the VCS is designed to work with Steam. With its Ubuntu Linux (Kernel 4.10) based OS, the VCS will be able to handle almost any game that supports Steam OS. Essentially this is a small Linux-based computer with a nice wood-grain finish (for the Collector’s Edition version, at least) that can unify the functions of a game console, media hub, and streaming PC.
The full family. Console, retro joystick, and modern controller
Atari had originally set a modest $100,000 goal for their Indiegogo campaign. They hit that within hours of the console’s launch. Just four days in, and they’ve already surpassed the two million dollar mark, with over nine thousand backers. The cheapest console version, an Onyx with early bird pricing, is available for $199 for the duration of the campaign. The classically styled Collector’s Edition runs $299, with an all-up bundle which includes the console, a retro controller, and a modern controller, coming in at $279 for the Onyx and $339 for the Collector’s Edition. Given that the console is stated to support other Bluetooth and USB controllers, keyboards, and mice, it may be tough to justify picking up a modern controller for any reason beyond completing the set. The retro controller, on the other hand, is the perfect thing to use with the hundred game Atari classic library that comes packed with the console.
The Indiegogo page also finally reveals the full technical specifications of the console. The VCS will be powered by a Bristol Ridge A10 CPU, an AMD Radeon R7 GPU and 4GB of DDR4 RAM. 32GB of eMMC memory, plus support for external hard drives and flash drives provide the storage options. In this writer’s opinion, that’s some pretty underwhelming hardware, for a system that won’t come out until 2019. Especially that 4 gigs of RAM, when games being release with Linux support this year, like Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire are requiring 8GB. With Atari seemingly banking on Steam and game streaming services for most of their new content, saving a few bucks on RAM seems like a bad decision.
The Indiegogo campaign will be open throughout June, allowing gamers plenty of time to secure their spots in the initial production run. For now, Atari is projecting that the first console orders will be arriving on doorsteps in July 2019.
