Atari has unveiled the Atari 7800+, a remake of its retro home gaming console the Atari 7800, scheduled to arrive later in 2024 featuring backward compatibility and other perks.
This one’s for all you retro gaming fans out there and anyone old enough to remember playing classics like Pole Position, Galaga, or Track & Field back in the day. I belong to the latter camp, so I went ahead and pre-ordered immediately. Global deliveries are expected in “winter 2024”—just in time for the holidays!
The system replicates the retro-futuristic look of 1986, “from the brushed metal strip to the angular edges,” according to Atari’s August 20 press release. For $130 a pop, you get a remade console that resembles the design of the original Atari 7800 but in a smaller casing, plus a bundled controller that looks like a replica of the original two-button controller that shipped with the 7800.
The machine runs Atari’s own and third-party titles and comes with Bentley Bear’s Crystal Quest, a sequel to the Crystal Castles coin-op. It connects to your TV via HDMI, and you can play titles in the 3:2 aspect ratio to preserve the original feel or on a widescreen.
Atari is offering some new game cartridges at launch, purchased separately at $30 a piece, including Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Asteroids Deluxe, modernized versions of Berzerk and its sequel Frenzy, Space Duel, etc. There are also multi-carts with collections of games like Armor Ambush, Star Strike, Astroblast, and Frogs & Flies. Another one bundles three classic Epyx Sports titles on one cartridge. If your collection of Atari 2600 and 7800 games is lying around somewhere, dust those cartridges off because the 7800+ will readily accept them.
Atari has been recreating its popular home consoles of the past and re-releasing them in a miniaturized form. Last year, for example, the company recreated retro console experiences with the Atari 2600+ and, more recently, with the Atari THE400 Mini.
In the same vein, the new 7800+ is a recreation of the Atari 7800 ProSystem, launched in 1986. The original 7800 could run almost all Atari 7800 and 2600 cartridges, which was a major selling point—backward compatibility was more important after the video game crash of 1983. Powered by a 1.79MHz chip, the original 7800 offered performance comparable to the Nintendo NES. It was bundled with the Pole Position II racing title and a joystick, sported significantly improved graphics over its predecessors, and featured digitally signed cartridges which enabled Atari to prevent low-quality games from being distributed. The 7800 was the first Atari home console designed by a third-party company, General Computer Corporation, and was discontinued six years later in 1992.
You can pre-order your Atari 7800 for $130 in the United States, £100 in the United Kingdom, and €120 in the European Union. The console, the new joystick, the gamepad, and the new titles will all start shipping on November 29, 2024.
The included CX78 Plus Wireless Gamepad is available separately for $35. Atari also offers the CX40 Plus Wireless Joystick for the same price, which should appeal to folks who prefer the arcade-like feel of holding a proper joystick in their hand. Both the gamepad and joystick are compatible with Windows, but you’ll need a USB-C adapter to connect to a PC.
