Atari 7800+: Traditional Gaming with a Trendy Twist

From the late Seventies to the mid-Eighties, Atari was driving excessive on the wave of recognition in a brand new craze — dwelling online game consoles. Throughout this time, the corporate grew to become so well-known for his or her video games and consoles that the identify Atari grew to become just about synonymous with video video games. However as they are saying, what goes up should go down. The corporate’s meteoric rise quickly reversed course into an epic freefall that was triggered by occasions like the discharge of E.T. the Further-Terrestrial and numerous different low-quality, complicated video games made by firms that have been simply making an attempt to money in on what they noticed as a fad.

Across the similar time that customers actually took discover of the heaps of horrible video games flooding the market, Atari launched their first next-generation console, the 5200. However a fateful resolution was made to not embrace backwards compatibility with the extremely fashionable 2600 console, and another odd selections have been additionally made (I imply, have you ever ever used these controllers?), which induced it to turn into a business failure.

Atari tried to salvage their online game console enterprise with the discharge of the 7800 in 1986. And it was, in some ways, fairly a very good console. Many points seen within the 5200 have been mounted, and backwards compatibility with the 2600 was included. Graphics and sport complexity have been additionally an enormous step up from the 2600. This technique might nicely have saved Atari — that’s, if it weren’t for the discharge of the Nintendo Leisure System and a sure mustachioed plumber.

Comparatively few 7800 consoles have been offered, which is a disgrace contemplating how good a few of the video games have been, particularly the arcade ports. However there may be some excellent news in case you are one which missed out on the 7800 since you have been preoccupied with stomping on Koopa Troopas within the Mushroom Kingdom. The fashionable-day Atari has simply launched a console known as the 7800+. Apart from being lowered to about 80 % of the unique dimension, it appears to be like similar to the console from 1986, and works a lot the identical too.

As you may anticipate, the internals are in no way like the unique 7800 console, nonetheless. Look as you may, you’ll not discover a SALLY CPU or a MARIA graphics chip. Of their place, the 7800+ is provided with a way more highly effective Rockchip 3128 SoC that emulates the unique {hardware}. There are additionally a lot of different trendy touches like wi-fi controllers and HDMI output — no, you’ll not want that previous TV/Recreation change field that has been gathering mud within the attic.

In contrast to related retro console remakes, the 7800+ doesn’t come loaded with a bunch of video games saved in an inside reminiscence. Somewhat, it accepts each 7800 and 2600 bodily cartridges that have to be clicked into the slot similar to God meant it. The 7800+ does include a replica of Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest (a model new sequel to the basic sport Crystal Castles) to get you began, nonetheless.

The Atari 7800+ might be not one thing any of us actually need, but it surely appears to be like like one thing a whole lot of retro gaming lovers are going to need. And at $129.99, the console is fairly fairly priced. If you wish to be one of many first to personal Atari’s newest throwback console, it’s now obtainable for pre-order.