Atari VCS 800 All-in Bundle – Black Walnut
$399.99
Last updated on September 3, 2024 2:59 am Details
Photos: Atari VCS 800 All-in Bundle – Black Walnut
8 reviews for Atari VCS 800 All-in Bundle – Black Walnut
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Erik –
This is a solid all in one media device. It comes with classic Atari games, the controllers are pretty solid and can run a bunch of streaming services. You can install windows on it via a flash drive, external SSD, or if you’re a more experienced user you can put an M.2 SATA inside. I put in a 1tb M.2 SATA, installed windows. It runs Windows very well even with the stock RAM (which is also uogradeable). This can easily be used to surf the web and for office apps etc. It’s not large (size of a small console) and looks nice.
Goodtimes –
This is a great micro console/PC. Atari themselves have said this is not a competitor to the likes of Xbox or playstation. Anyone comparing it to them just don’t understand the intent. The VCS is a micro computer with a “console” style OS as default. I can play stadia and other steaming gaming services like antstream and AirConsole. Yes some you can play on mobile or pc but now I can do it on my tv instead of mobile with crappy controls or hooking up a pc to my tv. It has a game store that has a decent start to games that fit perfectly with this system. Chrome is the default browser so all google apps work natively. If you want, side load windows or another os to give you the full pc experience. They are supposedly going to announce several new games soon and a few I know of coming down the pipeline look fantastic. As long as they keep the games coming I’m a happy camper.
Sethro –
Nice piece of kit; Nostalgia at its finest. The real wood is sweet touch. The attention to detail is beyond belief and the classic games have never played better, love that they are in 4K and the added rumble support for centipede and others has brought a tear to my eye. Thanks Atari
Troy –
Great system for nostalgia. The store ads a new 7800 game for $3 every Friday along with others new games. It’s great for when you just want to play games for 20-30 min when you don’t have a lot of spare time to spend hours and hours on a more modern game. If you’re a fan of the older retro systems, this will be a good one for you.
MCIT –
I had an Atari growing up and I so wanted to like this, I did like the fact that I could have this as a multi boot unit and will use it as a PC.
I’m going to continue to mess around with this and will update as it progresses.
The games imho simply do NOT play the way that they used to, I’m using the joy stick as I do on my 2600.
I cannot put my finger on it.
I do think the design of the device is great and it does appear to be a quality piece of hardware. I hope that this does not turn into PC for the TV, but that is what it is starting to feel like.
With that said – it is NOT a bad piece of hardware and should perform well once I upgrade storage and ram.
Updates – it did take quite a bit of time for all of the updates to be applied to the system. I do NOT see this as a negative as other people do- thank goodness you can update and resolve issues.
Do be prepaired for updates and this will take time, but it is worth it.
This does display well on 75″ TV in all resolutions – no lag or jitter – -granted I’m playing games from the 1980s so i do not expect there to be
Forger –
Honestly I didn’t expect much from this product. From the first day it was announced almost every website and podcast I regularly follow has universally panned it as over-priced and doomed to failure, and on those points, they may be right. But I purchased it anyway because of the nostalgia factor. I expected it would be buggy, slow, and pretty useless…but it isn’t.
It’s not an Xbox series x or a ps5, it might not even be an Xbox one or a ps4, but it’s not a Raspberry pi either. This thing is really slick and polished. I’ve only been using it for two days but everything I’ve tried on it has worked really well.
Downloads are really fast. I purchased pixel cup soccer, which is about a 2 gig download and it finished in seconds. For me, that’s faster than Steam and the PlayStation store.
I launched into the YouTube app and tried to navigate with the Classic controller but it didn’t seem to work with that controller (i didn’t try the modern controller), so I launched the companion app on my smartphone. The companion app allows you to control your vcs through your phone and has a slick interface that emulates a mouse and or keyboard. Controlling YouTube with this app was intuitive and snappy. I played a couple music videos and found the picture quality to be excellent. I found the YouTube app plus the companion app to be an excellent combination and far superior to using a controller for input. This same companion app can be used to control other apps as well, such as Chrome and Netflix etc…
The Atari is good for…
Nostalgia…
Streaming content…
Airconsole.com and antstream.com
playing Atari 2600 games
playing old Atari arcade games
Emulation
A second PC in another room (ability to install other OSes)
The Atari is not good for…
running modern games
competing with modern consoles
not a lot of games available on the store just yet
ABOUT THE PRICE…
Is $400 too much? Yes AND No. Everyone knows that Microsoft and Sony subsidies their consoles because they know they can make up the loss in software and subscriptions down the line. They can afford it. I remember reading that the PS3 was losing $300 for every console they sold at launch. Atari can’t compete with that. They have to sell it for a reasonable price, or lose their shirts. Unfortunately, that probably means they are pricing themselves right out of the market…but it’s a catch 22, and I just don’t see what else they can do about it.
If you love Atari…buy this product.
if you want a decent mini PC for the price…buy it.
if you want to tinker with a neat little machine with a lot of heart, and very little hope…buy it.
if you want to play anything modern…don’t
peprBeardo –
Excellent versatile system. VCS mode is light on content for the moment, but there are some quality gems available with more on the way. Easily install Linux, Windows, etc. to expand your options dramatically. Right now I have Ubuntu Linux installed running my Steam games, runs great! Don’t go into it expecting xbox/ps quality, but for what it is, it’s a cool little system.
VictorD –
Absolutely wonderful! Ok, so you saw the negative reviews? They’re wrong. Not their experience, or opinion there of, but their reasons for buying it.
The wrong reason to buy it: Atari games for $399, original internal OS
The best reasons to buy it: emulators! Beautiful console in your living room, a machine that is as gorgeous as it is a functional – look at PCs, tell me which TINY laptop currently at retail gets you a 2gb graphics card on board and can be upgraded to 32gb of ram?
If you guessed “none” – you are right.
You buy this for the beauty of this machine and to have a compact PC in your living room – not fast enough? Upgrade the RAM. It can run Steam games at 1080 on medium or low settings, which means you should be able to play Doom or Fallout right on your TV, AND switch right over to video editing/photo editing and work related tasks with a gorgeous box sitting in your Ikea drawer.
Would I pay $399 for access to original Atari games? No, but I would pay $399 for a miniPC with a built in low power graphics card that lets me video edit and play games all at once from the comfort of my couch