Atari, Celebrates 50 Years of History with the Release of Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration

[TheLostSwede]

Atari—one of the world's most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers—today launches its new title, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, commemorating 50 years of success, growth, and progress in the video game industry. Available now on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Series X|S, PlayStation 4|5, and Windows PC, Atari 50 functions as an interactive trek through Atari's historic past, featuring a selection of the publisher's most iconic games, and brands, as well as showcasing the creative individuals who launched the video game industry.

A mix of video game collection-meets-anthology, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration showcases the history of Atari through a combination of retro and modern playable games, short videos, never-before-seen interviews, early development diaries, and more. Emulating seven separate console platforms, and containing titles spanning five decades, the library-styled interface presents over 100 video games sorted by era in an intuitive linear timeline. Other files and materials are also part of the package, including early development sketches, hardware schematics, internal memos, pictures, films, and other "artifacts," the majority of which have never been made public.




A digital romp through Atari's enduring past and a peek into the creative minds that created the publisher's legacy, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration invites players to explore the golden age of video games through a new lens. Watch Atari grow from a small Silicon Valley startup to the iconic brand it quickly grew to become, explore early game concepts, and enjoy a handful of reimagined fan-favorites lovingly created by developer Digital Eclipse.

Additional Key Features:

• Expert Insight Through Storytelling: The collection is outfitted with a handful of various never-before-seen interviews with past-and-present Atari leadership as well as other prolific names in the games industry; complemented, of course, by the video game developers who helped raise Atari to become an industry icon.
  
• Playable History: The massive selection of over 100 games spans seven different platforms: Arcade, 2600, 5200, 7800, Atari 8-bit computers, and, for the first time ever on modern consoles, Atari Lynx and Jaguar! Play the classics like Tempest 2000, Asteroids, and Yars' Revenge, or dive into some deeper cuts.
  
• Reimagined and Revisited: The team at Digital Eclipse created six new games for the collection that reimagines some of the most beloved Atari classics or put a twist on classic game themes, including Haunted House, Neo Breakout, Yars' Revenge, Vctr Sctr, and the infamously never-finished Airworld.

Developed by Digital Eclipse, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration launches today on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Series X|S, PlayStation 4|5, and Windows PC via Steam and Epic Games Store for $39.99. Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration releases for Atari VCS later this year.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[80251]

I think the reincarnated Atari of today has little, if anything, to do with the company founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney.

 

[trsttte]

Just trying to keep milking the same old games and maybe extending their rights over them

The games are great and it's cool to have access on modern platforms without having to use workarounds, but they are taking their sweet margins on ancient games that either are or should be public domain already.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Developed by Digital Eclipse, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration launches today on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Series X|S, PlayStation 4|5, and Windows PC via Steam and Epic Games Store for $39.99.

Dear Atari,
GOG dot com. Get on it please. We DRM-Free activists will thank you.
EDIT:
Nevermind! As stated below, found it on GOG. Thank You!

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration releases for Atari VCS later this year.

That's a very cool thing too!

Just trying to keep milking the same old games and maybe extending their rights over them

And there's something wrong with that, why?

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
40.us and no blood soaked violence :/
This is to new to me

 

[zlobby]

Let's see how people react to this - 2600.

 

[Bones]

This is as far into Atari as I'm getting aside from an actual 2600 setup.
We played it a few times but since the number of games on it is limited, didn't take long to get bored with it so we boxed and stored it.
May or may not hook it up again one of these days - We'll see.

 

[80251]

I remember the 2600 and a few games for it: a knock-off of Berzerk (where you kill robots that have the Cylon one-eye), Adventure (there used to be a cheat where if you hit the reset button briefly you could sometimes get into a secret room) and some sort of Indiana Jones type game where you used vines to jump over obstacles and alligators. I also remember the pathetic joysticks.

 

[Space Lynx]

This is as far into Atari as I'm getting aside from an actual 2600 setup.
We played it a few times but since the number of games on it is limited, didn't take long to get bored with it so we boxed and stored it.
May or may not hook it up again one of these days - We'll see.
View attachment 269580

My Dad was the same way, wanted to get an Atari system up and going again, he has only played it twice, and never got it going since. It probably will collect dust forever.

 

[lexluthermiester]

My Dad was the same way, wanted to get an Atari system up and going again, he has only played it twice, and never got it going since. It probably will collect dust forever.

To be fair, the 2600 was not impressive, even when new. It had some good titles for sure, but the home video game revolution didn't really start until the Famicom/NES/MasterSystem came on the market. The 5200 was an upgrade and had some good titles, but was so problematic that it just couldn't compete. By then the NES was on the scene and no one cared about it. The 7800 also had some good titles but was too little too late. After that, Atari stopped making home systems until the Jag, which itself was fair decent, but still could not compete. Their arcade and PC game line up is entirely more impressive.

 

[80251]

@lexluthermiester

Atari published PC games? Did they own Activision?

 

[lexluthermiester]

@lexluthermiester

Atari published PC games? Did they own Activision?

Yes they did and I believe so it seems no, they never owned Activision, just a very close partnership.

Developed by Digital Eclipse, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration launches today on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Series X|S, PlayStation 4|5, and Windows PC via Steam and Epic Games Store for $39.99.

Just logged into GOG to check something and was greeted with the following:

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration

Join the celebration! Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration takes you on an interactive

www.gog.com

Someone let @TheLostSwede know with a suggestion to update the article!

 

[Mac the Geek]

@lexluthermiester

Atari published PC games? Did they own Activision?

Activision was founded by programmers who had left Atari. Atari refused to allow them to put their name on their games, or take any credit for the work they had done; so they left and became Atari's first third-party developer.

 

[kapone32]

I remember the 2600 and a few games for it: a knock-off of Berzerk (where you kill robots that have the Cylon one-eye), Adventure (there used to be a cheat where if you hit the reset button briefly you could sometimes get into a secret room) and some sort of Indiana Jones type game where you used vines to jump over obstacles and alligators. I also remember the pathetic joysticks.

Pitfall is an excellent Atari Game and there was a skiing Game that was fun too.

 

[80251]

I've wondered what it would be like to play those games today or what my nephew would think of them. He's played side-scrollers before (like Pitfall [thanks kapone32]) but not with such low-res graphics or only an 8-colour palette.
I don't think there are any games like Missile Command or Tempest (not sure if that was an Atari arcade game or not) now.
I remember another bizarre Atari 2600 game that simulated a nuclear reactor and you had to bounce the particles into a holding chamber (by colliding with them) in order to win.
Atari invented pong I believe. I remember once seeing an arcade version of pong that was built into barroom tables (and by then no one wanted to play pong anymore).

 

[MarsM4N]

I think it's great that they bring back the old games, so that the youth can dive into the gaming history without emulators & illegal downloads from dodgy sites.

For me personally a lot prior to the NES area isn't attracting anymore. Lacks too much mechanical & visual depths. Remastered with new visuals & 60+FPS however, which ... drumroll, Activision already did, that's more my cup of tea. They have already released 7 games under the ATARI Recharged program, bet there are more to come.

Activision was founded by programmers who had left Atari. Atari refused to allow them to put their name on their games, or take any credit for the work they had done; so they left and became Atari's first third-party developer.

Activision released some pretty banger games back in the days. Still remember the Activision logo, always connected with some darker games.
Esp. Altered Beast I can't get of my head. It's now on Steam for 0,99€, so I'll give it a go in a sale & see if it still holds up, lol. Also a prehistoric arena game where the player has a physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger & you can chop of heads in a finishing move. And a game where you have to fight against skeletons. Can't remember their names, and I have to say it's pretty hard to find some info nowadays, lol.

Another one I couldn't get out of my head is Blackthorne. Luckily Blizzard included it in their Blizzard® Arcade Collection. Launched almost 2 years ago, it's still only 3 games. Guess they gave up on it.

Pitfall is an excellent Atari Game and there was a skiing Game that was fun too.

Ohh yea, totally forgot about it. A real gem. Watching the dangling & sliding animations on the vines brings back memories.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Yes they did and I believe so.

Activision also produced those little hand-held games, I had football, my introduction into following reds dots across a small screen.

 

[Bones]

Activision also produced those little hand-held games, I had football, my introduction into following reds dots across a small screen.

The biggest maker of those back in the day I'm aware of was Coleco.
There were knockoffs of course - I don't recall seeing alot of Activision made versions, mostly Coleco's for these handheld games. There was also baseball, basketball and a few other variants with these red dots.

 

[TheLostSwede]

The biggest maker of those back in the day I'm aware of was Coleco.
There were knockoffs of course - I don't recall seeing alot of Activision made versions, mostly Coleco's for these handheld games. There was also baseball, basketball and a few other variants with these red dots.

Not Nintendo's Game & Watch?

Activision also produced those little hand-held games, I had football, my introduction into following reds dots across a small screen.

Ah, I see, you mean the american handball game...

 

[QuietBob]

Wishlisted. Will definitely check it out at some point. To me the included extras are even more interesting than the actual games. I always enjoy game dev and retro tech documentaries!

I'm too young to have experienced the golden age of video games, but I can vaguely remember some of them from my very early childhood. The people behind these classics deserve nothing but praise, given the limited capabilities of the contemporary hardware. If it hadn't been for those pioneers, video gaming might not have developed into the great industry it is today. And we may not have experienced later games that drew inspiration from those early developments.

 

[lemonadesoda]

There are a lot of crappy games from the 80's. The really good ones, the classics, are the 8-bit wonders like PacMan, Defender, Scramble, Invaders, Mr E, Donkey Kong, Super Mario, Zaxxon and they all fit into 16K RAM. Yes. 16K. Some just 8K. They were creative. Inventive. They were totally new. A real-time interaction of a "player" and a "CPU". Those games *defined* what computer games were all about. We might not play them any more, but they were truly ground-breaking a defined key elements of gameplay and user controls.

8-bit games were a new paradigm. A new mode of fun and entertainment. A new culture. A new industry.

16-bit games added size, complexity, more graphics and more sound and an opportunity for companies to increase prices and profit margins. But I'd argue it was all quantity, volumes and prices and not quality. 99.9% of 16-bit games can be gladly archived in the wastebin of history. They might have been an exciting development in the concept of LONG game, an ADVENTURE game, rather than the 3 minutes game wonders like the 8 bit classics. But I can't think of one 16bit game that I would touch today. 16 bit was only a stepping stone on the road to 32-bit gaming.

Long live 8-bit!

 

[LifeOnMars]

I remember playing smurfs on Atari 2600. It was the "Elden Ring' of its time.

Oh and we were already being programmed with advertising -

So the boy has a pink mirror and a flower in his hair, old man is hiding in the bushes staring at the juniors and loads of little blue things living in 'magic mushroom' houses. Not to mention that the signing of the picture at the bottom could easily be read as 'Penis' with an extravagant N.

Yeh, loved the smurfs, the Atari and the early 80's lol

 

[QuietBob]

To be fair, the 2600 was not impressive, even when new. It had some good titles for sure

True that! Arguably, the 2600 was the weakest console of the second generation spec-wise, but it was one of the cheapest at $199 (about $980 in today's money ) It was also second to the market, and had the largest library with over 500 titles. As players would buy into games, and not hardware, it's no wonder the console topped the charts with 30 million units sold. The runner-up Intellivision only sold 3 million.

Atari invented pong I believe

While Atari were the ones to bring Pong to the arcade in 1972, they essentially ripped off a tennis game developed for the Magnavox Odyssey -- the first video game console -- which released earlier that year. The Odyssey had been in development since 1966 and the people at Atari were aware of it, and had even attended its tech demonstration. A lawsuit from Magnavox followed, and the case was eventually settled out of court in 1976.

But even Ralph Baer, the principal engineer behind the Odyssey, had most likely heard of Tennis for Two (aka Computer Tennis). This was the first video game created solely for entertainment purposes, and the first game where two players competed in real time. It was showcased at a public exhibition in 1958 and again in 1959.

Also a prehistoric arena game where the player has a physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger & you can chop of heads in a finishing move. And a game where you have to fight against skeletons.

The first one sounds like Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior, and the second could be Golden Axe?

Another one I couldn't get out of my head is Blackthorne.

Absolutely loved that one, one of my favorite cinematic platformers of all time!

 

[MarsM4N]

16-bit games added size, complexity, more graphics and more sound and an opportunity for companies to increase prices and profit margins. But I'd argue it was all quantity, volumes and prices and not quality. 99.9% of 16-bit games can be gladly archived in the wastebin of history. They might have been an exciting development in the concept of LONG game, an ADVENTURE game, rather than the 3 minutes game wonders like the 8 bit classics. But I can't think of one 16bit game that I would touch today. 16 bit was only a stepping stone on the road to 32-bit gaming.

Agree on the first part, but not the second part. From 8-bit to 16-bit was not only a big step in visuals, but also in gameplay mechanics & especially better 16-bit sounds. From 16-bit to 32-bit was mostly just more eye candy (and even better sound). Especially the sound evolved the most from generation to generation. The 8-bit area was a lot of pioneering work and a low market penetration rate.

Looking back the where some really great games from the 16-bit area. Esp. on the Super NES:

The 16-bit area and the 32-bit area is where they collected the experience. But the 128-bit area is where it really took of & got super mainstream. To this day the Playstation 2 is still the most sold gaming console (155 million units), and with the most games released (4.379 games). Really impressive, it was really the golden age of console gaming. Has also some of the best games ever created. If you're into retro gaming, the PS2 Slim is where it's at. Can't get more out of it.

Man, Wikipedia's History of Video Games page is just pure gold. Info overload, lol.

History of video games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The first one sounds like Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior, and the second could be Golden Axe?

Ohh yea, "Barbarian", that's what it was! Not sure about "Golden Axe". In my memories I could chop heads off and the skeletons would collapse in itself with bone noises.

But who knows, our memories getting pretty foggy after such a long time, lol.

 

[R0Sch]

In case people don't know about this, LEGO is also celebrating ATARI's 50th anniversary with a set similar to the previous NES:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/atari-2600-10306