Your retro gaming icon wants back into the console business.
Twenty four years after the company put out its last home console, Atari announced Friday that it will release a new console for an already crowded mass market.
In an exclusive interview with GameBeats, Atari CEO Fred Chesnais confirmed that the New York company had big plans in the works.
“We’re back in the hardware business,” he said.
The move was teased last week, when Atari launched a site for something called the Atari Box. The site featured a video of a wood-paneled something that could only be the Atari Box.
At this point, little else is known. Chesnais only seems to have told GameBeats that the Atari Box (Or maybe it’s Ataribox?) uses PC technology (which, what console doesn’t?). He also said they are still finalizing the design and will show it off some time in the future. There is no word on what kind of games would be provided for it or how development would work.
Atari led the market in home console adoption in the late 1970s and largely contributed to the video game industry’s collapse with its oversaturation of poor quality titles. The company launched its last console, the sad-fated Jaguar, in 1993. The Jaguar was discontinued in 1995, selling only about 125,000 units — compare that with one of its competitors, the Super Nintendo, which sold almost 50 million.
After Atari filed for bankruptcy protection in 2013, Chesnais bought the company and made it profitable by focusing on mobile games. He told GameBeats that he sees the Ataribox as another step in the company’s revival.
Good luck, buddy.
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