The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[MarcinJ]

2 hours ago, vagabondartist said:

I’m recently interested in Atari thanks to the Evercade Atari carts and then Atari 50.

I’m super excited for this system. This is the first product I can think of that is officially continuing support for a legacy platform in a new way. This is going to be a big deal. Maybe not for tinkerers and hobbyists here, but for regular dudes like me who just got into these games and now have an affordable retro system to collect for and play.

 

I don’t want to mess with Roms and emulators, I just want to pour whiskey or some wine, sit down and play games for 30 minutes, then go back to my day.

 

While I’ve been buying some carts leading up to the launch of this thing in anticipation, I’m most interested in new or deluxe versions of games Atari will be making themselves in the future.

Hopefully home brew carts are also able to be figured out because there are a ton I’m interested in.

Same here. I do not have enough time to spend hours playing and want to enjoy 30 minutes playing one or two games. Atari 2600+ of course has also nostalgia factor and looks gorgeous. 
 

Ps Hopefully my kids will want to play with me. 🙃

[Albert]

1 minute ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Insider LOL.

[MarcinJ]

Just now, Ben from Plaion said:

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Tomorrow brings the Atari 2600+, because tomorrow is the 17th of November.   
On a more serious note. I hope Atari 2600+ is just the beginning of a bigger, higher quality ecosystem built around the Atari legacy.

[donjn]

41 minutes ago, E. King said:

After further digging, I think the only way to use Harmony Cart on 2600+ is to use the Harmony software and flash the Harmony cartridge to be in single image mode, which overwrites the normal firmware and turns it into a one game at a time flash cart. In this case the cart behaves like a standalone cartridge so a single game can be played just like a standard cartridge so should theoretically work on the 2600+.

 

Hopefully someone soon comes up with a better way to play a rom on the 2600+.

Unfortunately, with the release of the Atari 2600+ and Atari starting to release games again you are not going to get much support and testing for things like Harmony cart (cough, cough) roms..
With games like Outlaw and Bezerk being re-released, they are not going to support any multicart or a way to get these roms from your PC to that system. This will be up to smart third-party dedicated people who are good at this kind of thing.

 

The only initial thought I had would be if someone made a Harmony-like cart with a USB slot and you connect it to your PC. You select the game you want to play on your PC then boot up the Atari 2600+. When you select the game you want to play, behind the scenes the ROM is copied to the cart (which is a one game only rom cart)

 

 

 

[Bakasama]

2 hours ago, Alarm said:

They did, but only one button worked, so no good for playing 7800 games.  

It's no big surprise since Genesis gamepads aren't wired for 7800 games just 2600 games but think there was the Seagull 78 adapter from edladdin might do. Still, I have yet see anyone get the C button work with the 2600 two button hacks on the 2600+.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Bakasama

[E. King]

17 minutes ago, donjn said:

Unfortunately, with the release of the Atari 2600+ and Atari starting to release games again you are not going to get much support and testing for things like Harmony cart (cough, cough) roms..
With games like Outlaw and Bezerk being re-released, they are not going to support any multicart or a way to get these roms from your PC to that system. This will be up to smart third-party dedicated people who are good at this kind of thing.

 

The only initial thought I had would be if someone made a Harmony-like cart with a USB slot and you connect it to your PC. You select the game you want to play on your PC then boot up the Atari 2600+. When you select the game you want to play, behind the scenes the ROM is copied to the cart (which is a one game only rom cart)

 

 

 

The Harmony cart already has a micro USB connection to connect to PC with USB cable.  The Harmony software has a development tab that easily allows you to load a single game on the Harmony cart and play that one game on the 2600+. 

 

Outlaw is a $5 cartridge for the original so the only people buying the $60 version are people that want to collect the re-releases or flip them for profit and most of them will remain sealed.  

Edited November 16, 2023 by E. King
added

[donjn]

3 minutes ago, E. King said:

The Harmony cart already has a micro USB connection to connect to PC with USB cable.  The Harmony software has a development tab that easily allows you to load a single game on the Harmony cart and play that one game on the 2600+. 

Thats great, maybe something could be developed with this that is less...clunky..

 

[donjn]

Quick question for @Ben from Plaion, why was the option for Stella scanlines not included? Was this ever talked about?

 

I know you wanted to keep things as close to the original as possible but I think personally the 4:3 / 16:9 button should have been scanlines OFF and ON, and 4:3 output should be the default. I cant think of anyone who would play on 16:9.

 

 

[Chemical Burrito]

Amazon has moved my expected delivery date up a bit (now it's Nov 22).  At least it's moving in the right direction.  I've got carts to test here!

[Chemical Burrito]

3 minutes ago, donjn said:

 I cant think of anyone who would play on 16:9.

 

 

People who own a plasma screen.

[vagabondartist]

42 minutes ago, MarcinJ said:

Same here. I do not have enough time to spend hours playing and want to enjoy 30 minutes playing one or two games. Atari 2600+ of course has also nostalgia factor and looks gorgeous. 
 

Ps Hopefully my kids will want to play with me. 🙃

My kid has enjoyed playing the Flashback Gold 50th with me. We play it a few times a week.

She will love this too.

[protomank]

50 minutes ago, MarcinJ said:

Do you know where I could purchase such extension cables? 

There are quite a few in AliExpress (good if you are outside US) like this one:

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/4000095438635.html?algo_pvid=b114fc53-714b-4694-8471-7ed7e885c286&algo_exp_id=b114fc53-714b-4694-8471-7ed7e885c286-0&pdp_npi=4%40dis!BRL!7.07!4.68!!!1.39!!%402101e63417001597965258738e32c4!10000000250468932!sea!BR!160245062!&curPageLogUid=ZBxbhad82Oss

 

Most of them are for Mega Drive/Genesis, but works with the 2600 fine - I have a couple.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Are there any YouTube streamers who are not only showing the same unboxing and just brief gameplay over and over again. But who did some more thorough compatibility testing?

[H.Fraenkel]

22 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Are there any YouTube streamers who are not only showing the same unboxing and just brief gameplay over and over again. But who did some more thorough compatibility testing?

I didn't have much time, the console arrived yesterday. But now my German review video is rendering. It should go online tonight. I'm not finished with the testing, I'll write an article by the end of next week, but I hope I was able to go deeper in the video than some others. I am positively surprised: Out of around 40 old modules, only two have failed to start so far. There were also a few among them which, according to Atari, have not yet been tested. But of course, nothing worked with new homebrews and the Harmony Cart. My eleven-year-old son got involved, under the motto "Torturing children with retro games", hrhrhr.

[H.Fraenkel]

28 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Are there any YouTube streamers who are not only showing the same unboxing and just brief gameplay over and over again. But who did some more thorough compatibility testing?

I can post my provisional list of pros and cons here in English in twelve hours at the latest.

[Ben from Plaion]

49 minutes ago, Chemical Burrito said:

Amazon has moved my expected delivery date up a bit (now it's Nov 22).  At least it's moving in the right direction.  I've got carts to test here!

Have you isopropanol alcohol and qtips to hand? I really recommend cleaning your cartridge contacts as you go through them.

[+LS650]

Just got a notification from Amazon Canada that my 2600+ has shipped... but no update on my order for Berzerk Enhanced.

[+remowilliams]

34 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Are there any YouTube streamers who are not only showing the same unboxing and just brief gameplay over and over again. But who did some more thorough compatibility testing?

 

That's probably asking a bit much for the vast majority of streamers unfortunately...

[+LS650]

40 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Are there any YouTube streamers who are not only showing the same unboxing and just brief gameplay over and over again. But who did some more thorough compatibility testing?

I thought John Hancock's review was fairly detailed. 

He tested a fair number of carts and mentioned details on issues with some carts and controllers.

 

[PacManPlus]

No notice from Atari for me yet  

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 minutes ago, remowilliams said:

 

That's probably asking a bit much for the vast majority of streamers unfortunately...

Some seem quite clueless regarding the 2600. E.g. that on most old games you have to press reset to play. 🙄

[esmith13]

41 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Are there any YouTube streamers who are not only showing the same unboxing and just brief gameplay over and over again. But who did some more thorough compatibility testing?

best I've found so far, personally:  

 

 

[Alarm]

41 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Are there any YouTube streamers who are not only showing the same unboxing and just brief gameplay over and over again. But who did some more thorough compatibility testing?

Not a stream, but this reviewer tests several VCS and 7800 carts from his collection.

[Ben from Plaion]

1 hour ago, donjn said:

Quick question for @Ben from Plaion, why was the option for Stella scanlines not included? Was this ever talked about?

 

I know you wanted to keep things as close to the original as possible but I think personally the 4:3 / 16:9 button should have been scanlines OFF and ON, and 4:3 output should be the default. I cant think of anyone who would play on 16:9.

 

 

Yeah, Earlier in the year I managed to get a flux capacitor and neuralyzer on the blackmarket and put my foot down in the car, soon as I hit 88mph I was transported back to 1980 something, incredibly I was actually in Activisions office, David Crane was there with Garry Fisher, both were tinkering on their computers. I said I'm from the future and showed them my smartphone, Garry feinted at the sight of it, I then explained to David what was happening in 2023 with Atari 2600+, showed him footage of the 2600+ playing on a 75inch OLED, he was astounded. I said to him you know people actually develop fake overlays over that crisp display to mimic long obsolete CRT screens whilst pointing to his monitor.

 

He said in disbelief "Why the hell would people do that?"

 

With that I activated the neuralyzer and hot skipped it back to 2023 where I filed CRT overlays task into the "Maybe - if we can do it after launch" folder.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Ben from Plaion

[m.o.terra kaesi]

that's a good unboxing video. I like it.

But I will still wait vor the "Revision B" model with advanced compatibility to homebrew games 🙂