Did Gamestop Kill the Atari VCS?

Did you take advantage of the $99 bundle? If you missed it, do you plan on paying the full retail or will you wait for a potential sale?

Preorders are almost exclusively for items that stores don’t have in stock — hence the name, “preorder.”

5200 bro ...get it right

What made Atari King was the Fight......it doesn't have any other companies to fight against

Is this a dejavu of the Atari Jaguar? The Jaguar had a price drop too, just as Atari closed down.

It’s interesting you say you like it; what can you do/play on the Atari VCS that you can’t on other systems/a gaming PC?

Atari should’ve made this the ultimate fan console, with EXCLUSIVE 2600/Jaguar/Lynx collections. Also adapters to let fans use their old controllers/games (could’ve sparked an interest in releasing brand new 2600/Jaguar content).

I think the system as it is, is pretty pointless to be honest.

I saw 1 at a convention today for $199.00 I didn't buy it.

Best buy has it for 299.

Its a crappy console.

I feel like the song you picked for BG music is a bit too complicated. It's kind of distracting.

Fuck ya they did. They was like get this piece of shit outta here.. And thats saying alot for game stop.

Wish I picked it up too bad.

Just waiting for the VCS to come out to Europe.

Your title is wrong it should read, "Did GameStop just saved Atari VCS ?" 99 is the price it should be !

atari wants to "earn back the trust of gamers" by hosing the people who bought the system? lmao nice

its a ripoff if you are going to use it as a pc
but it looks so.... cute, CUTE 🥰

I think the problem is for the price of the hardware it doesn't really have any software that would appeal a mass market since many of the newer games being released on it could be done on systems that are much cheaper. The only thing it was relying on was simple nostalgia. I think any retailers who picked it up soon realised that when it wasn't going to sell at that price unless it was to people who wanted it from the start.

Yeah, no one wants to buy it at full price now. That 99 sale is going to damage any chance of selling them. It was to low to fast.

sooooo upset i missed this

Atari is the worst console of all time that’s the only console Nintendo beats if your playing on Atari means you love bad graphics weakest console of all time Xbox and PlayStation are the best consoles of all time

GameStop didn't kill it, they dumped their stock at firesale prices because it was sitting in inventory. I'm other words, it was dead already.

Atari should take notes on this. They have a market, it’s just too expensive.

I saw my stupid face in the Twitter feed

Just nailed mine on eBay for $200

They promoted the hell out of it last year, I'm not sure what you think more promotion would do. For example, when movies are released, most of their money is made in the first weekend. Just the opening weekend! The rest is diminishing returns.. Also, $200-$250 is a good price for a Windows10 PC of this power and graphics capability. I'm really looking forward to the next wave of discounts. It makes me nostalgic for 1983 when Atari cartridges went from $55-65 to $5. lol

To be perfectly honest I hadn't even heard of this game system until I saw your video about it today. I seem to hear a lot of negative things about it but it seems like it would be a damn cheap alternative to building a gaming PC. Which to me even $400 makes it sound like a bit of a steal. Am I wrong on this can you explain this to me?

Sadly, such a cheap price was to flush inventory. I would have jumped to buy one at such a low price, for production cost would be more than that; especially since they are not pushing production numbers like a popular console.

Atari themselves need to drop $100 of the thing

The Atari VCS was just a money grab, it's not even by the origional Atari and not really true to the origional Atari 2600, apart from the case design. Here in Australia they are selling the VCS Onyx Base for $699. Compare this to the recently released A500 mini which is based on the Amiga 500, which retails for $199 and IS true to the Amiga as it has origional games and you can use your own games via a USB Flash drive. Whereas correct me if I am wrong, the VCS you need to buy games via a store that they had setup. One downside of the A500 mini is that it doesn't have a working keyboard which is fine if you are just playing games.

Lol I never heard of it, I guess I'll check it out

I missed it, but it's only a matter of time before the other companies follow suit.

I got this deal as well. Got a 512gb SSD and upgraded the RAM to 16GB. Been enjoying playing paper Mario ttyd on it. It's amazing

I paid $400 for mine...$100 is a steal.

This was bundled from the get go.. Missed opportunity

Not like they were selling anyways. This coming from a guy who bought 3 of them including 1 at the $99 price lol

If they sold it at 100-130 dollars at launch, I would have gotten it

I jumped on the sale price to mainly use it as a mini emulation/media PC.

You guys are so lucky in the US sometimes. Also that PS Classic sale on Amazon America for 10 bucks… There is not even 1 major selling company (with stores) in Europe just regularly selling the VCS! As far as i know…

You do realize Gamestop is supposed to be out of business right? Smart business decisions is not something gamestop is capable of.

If the Atari VCS servers go down, will you be able to play your Atari VCS games?

I would've loved to pay 99 bucks, but I do have the original collectors edition, so I'm happy about it. It's disconcerting to hear they're not focusing on the VCS as much. Really I just want them to keep pumping out games. A great idea would be to allow home brew 2600 games on the store and really they need to get the rights to Pitfall and River Raid etc. Even an ET for free on the store, why not? Or how about a unit you can plug into the USB port that plays cartridges?

Wish I had of caught the sale price, $99 would have been well worth it. Great video, cheers 🍻

Vcs following the same path as the jaguar.

Wish I had noticed that. I like unusual things like this, just can't do it at full price.

Gamestop didn't kill vcs. Atari killed vcs

Hmm ps5 or atari.... I went with my digital ps5

Honestly, I think if anybody killed the Atari VCS, it was Atari. There's no way I'd even consider buying in at $400 for what is conceivably a lesser console experience than what's currently available with even the PS4 and Xbox One. In my opinion, a lot of what Atari's basing the value on here is essentially is its name recognition. This is, in short, not really a console so much as a cheap PC dolled up to play games. And that's actually kind of cool. I don't really have an issue with that, conceptually. Don't get me wrong - I can absolutely see the value in a product like this. And it's clear that there's SOME market for this specific product from your positive view on it.

But from a general consumer standpoint, I think ultimately what's hurt this product more than anything else IS that $400 price point. I genuinely feel like the marketing represented this console as what is ultimately a novelty good that relied heavily on nostalgia. You can already get something like the Atari Flashback for significantly less than $400. Why am I, as a general consumer, going to look at this device which is not attempting to compete in the AAA space and consider paying what is ostensibly an AAA pricetag.

That is something that should absolutely NOT be discounted. Because, sure, you've got the branding from Atari which is fine but it's competing against things like the Switch for under $400 and it objectively is not able to compete against that platform. If you want to compare it to the PS5 and XBox One X, it absolutely is outpaced and those technically retail for only about $100 more. Meanwhile the Atari VCS has hardware that is priced in that AAA space and simply doesn't have either the exclusive titles OR hardware to compete with those devices. But then you have to consider the fact that the Atari VCS is not specced to compete with even the LAST generation of console hardware. And even if it WAS, you have the same issue with regards to the software. The libraries simply do not hold up in comparison to one another.

You could argue that Atari DOES have a competitive edge because they have all of those classic titles, but Atari's watered their brand down even there because regardless of how you feel about emulation, Atari's made a significant portion of their library widely available on modern platforms for VERY reasonable prices. I can't speak to how extensive those modern libraries are, but I have to assume that if you want to get your fill of the most important/popular Atari games, they are probably currently available in the Atari Flashback Classics collections which are widely available digitally on modern platforms so again, there's no real reason to choose the VCS over a PS4. And that's not taking into account the backwards compatibility for these modern consoles which helps to further expand their libraries. And even if you were hard up to ONLY support the Atari branding, you can go on Ebay and buy an Atari 2800 (that's the one with all of the console's popular games) for about $50 and for another $350 you could fill out your physical media library.

But hold on, I hear you saying that the VCS can be used as an emulation box and comes with its own controllers, which - fair enough - I can see value in THAT functionality. But that functionality is nothing new. We have had emulation boxes going back years. I mean, I can still go on Amazon and order an OUYA for less than $150 if I'm hard up for console emulation on a device I can plug directly into my television. And sure, you might say that the VCS is a much more powerful device than the Ouya, but I have to ask, does that truly justify another $250 on top of the cost of an Ouya?

So let's get back to that question of emulation which I feel like is something a lot of people are just doing with the device. And I have to ask a question here - is it worth the $400 asking price to be able to emulate with the VCS? I mean, maybe? I'm not saying the VCS is NOT a capable machine, but if you're buying a device to emulate stuff with, chances are that you're in 1 of 2 camps - someone who wants stuff to be simplified or b) you're someone who's got some technical knowhow. So, how does emulation on the VCS function? Well, I honestly don't know. This one is kind of beyond me. I have no idea if we're looking at something like an Android device which allows the easy installation of emulators via the Play store. And maybe in that regard, emulation on the VCS might win out with regards to ease of use.

But again, if you're looking to emulate stuff on a device, chances are that you ARE somewhat technical and you're probably able to overcome whatever hurdles may be presented to you on most devices to be used for emulation. In which case, I'd have to ask you why you're choosing to spend $400 on a device you still need to modify as much as you would a Raspberry Pi. And then I'd have to ask why you're opting for THIS over a Pi when a) there are NO exclusives on the platform, b) the hardware is over 300% more expensive and c) both devices are equally capable, technically speaking.

I hate to sound like I'm just pointlessly bashing the VCS when I don't even own the console. I don't really have a horse in this game. While I did grow up with consoles, I haven't regularly played on one since about 2006 or so with the PS2? I genuinely am not here to tell you that it sucks, but I do think that it's something that's genuinely neat. It's a mid-range console that exists to fill that double-A gaming space. And don't get me wrong. I think that's perfectly fine. Frankly, I think we've lost something since the PS1/PS2 era where games could be weird and experimental and didn't need to cost a lot of money. And THAT is something that excites me. I really do want to see developers go back to making weird but polished games again and THIS could have been the platform that would have been perfect for it had it the right marketing, but more importantly, the right price point. But as it stands, it is a console that's significantly overpriced for its technical specifications that offers little beyond nostalgia to the average consumer. And for the more technically minded, you'd probably just be better off buying absolutely anything else.

So those are just a few of my thoughts on why the VCS has failed to make a significant impact globally. That's aside from the challenges of dealing with supply-chain management and the pandemic - and that's a whole other story - but I truly believe that at this price point, the VCS would have failed under even the best of circumstances because it offers very little to existing loyalists and very little to entice new consumers to the brand.

I just don't think it had mass appeal or a compelling place in the market. The story of the system still seemed to end better than I imagine the majority of people expected.

Michael Arts abandoned ship recently, he was the Lead Marketing and (i believe) COO of the project

Atari killed the Atari VCS.