Atari 50 Celebrates Intellivision Takeover By Adding Nearly 40 New Retro Games
This November will mark two years since Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration released to PC and console, bringing with it a bevy of retro games, videos, and enlightening interviews. The developer behind that collection, Digital Eclipse, is now getting ready to launch a sizable DLC containing a bunch more games spread across two new timelines, one of which celebrates "the first console war."
These days, the modern console war is largely fought between Sony (PlayStation 5), Microsoft (Xbox Series X|S), and Nintendo (Switch). But back in ancient times, the first real console skirmish of significance took place between the venerable Atari 2600 released in 1977 and Mattel's trendy Intellivision that came to market two years later.
That rivalry officially ended last month with the current owner of the Atari brand acquiring the Intellivision brand along with certain games from Intellivision Entertainment LLC, which plans to rebrand itself as it works towards developing and releasing the oft-delayed Amico game console.
Wasting no time with the acquisition, Digital Eclipse and Atari are readying an expanded collection that will include 20 playable games and a half-dozen video segments within The First Console War timeline. These will collectively tell the story between the early battles between Atari and Mattel in the game console space.
"Highlights include a selection of M Network games, including some fan-favorites; a mix of Atari and M Network sports games, and some rare Atari 2600 and 5200 prototypes. New interview features include former Intellivision game director Don Daglow, M Network programmer Jane Terjung, Activision‘s David Crane and Garry Kitchen, homebrew programmer Dennis Debro, and historians Leonard Herman and Mike Mika," Digital Eclipse states.
In addition, the expanded collection will see another 19 games added as part of The Wider World of Atari timeline, along with eight more video segments. These aim to take a deep dive into stories from Atari's history and will include new interviews, vintage ads, historical artifacts, and more.
That's a total of 39 games being added to the original collection, and at least 14 videos, making it a substantial add-on. As to what games will be part of the expansion, Atari stated on X/Twitter that "the games list is currently hidden in our top-secret vault." Drats!
However, Atari did say that the expansion will release on October 25, 2024, and confirmed that both timelines will be available as downloadable DLC to current owners of Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. It's not clear how much they'll cost (we don't have any expectations of them being free).
Likewise, Atari plans to launch the whole kit and caboodle as Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration Expanded Edition with physical editions made available for the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. There will also be a steelbook. In the meantime, you can find the current collection for several different platforms...
Of course, games have improved by leaps and bounds in every way since the Atari 2600 era. Be that as it may, this is a pretty awesome collection that's about to get even better.
