Items tagged with Atari 2600
Gamers who are old enough to remember playing on an Atari 2600 will recall spending endless days and nights grinding games like Asteroids, Centipede, and Defender. With the introduction of the Atari VCS recently, gamers of all ages have been able to experience the 8-bit nostalgia that was early generation gaming. And thanks to AtariXP, you will be able to play some never-released Atari games from the 1970's and 1980's. AtariXP is a publisher of collectible, physical games. It takes its name as a tribute to the Atari Program Exchange (AXP), which was a mail order catalog that sold software in the 70s and 80s. The company is offering three never-released titles from Atari for pre-order right now....
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Although it's still hard for some of us to comprehend the exorbitant prices that some rare game cartridges fetch on the open market, the practice continues unabated. For example, a mint, sealed copy of the original Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sold for $660,000 earlier this year. Now it's time for the classic Atari 2600 game console to bask in the limelight, although the dollar figure, in this case, doesn't come close to approaching six figures. Alex Juarez, an employee of Goodwill North Texas' e-commerce processing center, began sorting through a stack of video games donated earlier this month. While Juarez likely came across plenty of duds during his search,...
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Researchers around the world are working on new types of artificial intelligence (AI) that can dominate in games created by humans. Typically, these AI complete video games with much higher scores than a human is capable of achieving. A team of Uber AI researchers has developed a new set of algorithms capable of defeating any Atari 2600 game, and it's called Go-Explore. The developers say that Go-Explore can defeat Atari 2600 games with "superhuman" scores, including games that previous AI had trouble with. The team says the key to their new system is that it remembers promising states and returns to the states before it begins exploring the game. Uber AI researchers say that Go-Explore improved...
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It looks as though the VCS isn't the only "new" console on the way from Atari. The company has announced that it will soon be releasing the Atari Retro Handheld, which is in essence a portable version of the classic Atari 2600 home console. However, while the original Atari 2600 hooked up to your old 13-inch(ish) tube television, the Atari Retro Handheld has all the action taking place on a rather small 2.4-inch display. Flanking the display is a directional joystick on the left and two game buttons on the right. You'll also find select and start buttons near the top of the device. Atari is really playing up the retro aspect of its new portable device with the same ribbed black plastic...
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For more than 35 years, nobody has been able to post a faster speed run in Dragster, a racing game for the Atari 2600, than the 5.51 seconds that had been officially recognized as the record by the game's publisher, Activision, along with The Guinness Book of World Records and Twin Galaxies, a gaming organization that tracks video game world records. However, the record has not been without controversy, and Twin Galaxies has decided to remove the score on allegations of cheating. This story begins way back in 1982 when a man named Todd Rogers submitted a Polaroid to Activision showing his score time of 5.51 seconds. Activision later published the score as being confirmed in its official newsletter,...
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After plenty of teasers, Atari has finally lifted the veil on its upcoming Ataribox gaming console. Given the success that Nintendo found with the NES Classic, and the hype surrounding the upcoming SNES Classic, Atari is definitely introducing the Ataribox to a receptive audience. Like the NES Classic and SNES Classic, the Ataribox takes inspiration from its predecessors — in this case, the Atari 2600. But while the Nintendo consoles are largely exact [design] replicas of their respective counterparts (after being hit with a shrink ray, of course), the Ataribox melds retro touches with a modern flavor. For example, you will be able to order an Ataribox with a wooden front panel, and the ribbed...
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It appears that one man’s trash is, indeed, another man’s treasure as bids for old, dirty, and crumpled up Atari 2600 games on Ebay have exceeded $500. Thousands of Atari games were buried in Alamogordo, New Mexico and, after being buried for 30 years, were dug up and are now being sold on Ebay that includes copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Defender, Asteroids, and other classic games. The games are being sold through the Tularosa Basin Historical society on Ebay. Right now, only 100 cartridges are being auctioned off on Ebay to get a sense of how much they’ll go for with plans to sell around 700 to 800 more. Games such as Asteroids, Missile Command, Warlords, and Star...
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Talk about an unexpected pay day. Tanner Sandlin of Austin, Texas raked in $31,600 on Ebay for an old Atari 2600 game that was tucked away in his garage. It's the second highest ever paid for a videogame, and much more than the $5 or $10 Sandlin said he paid for it when he was about 10 years old. So why did it fetch so much? The game, called Air Raid, is extremely rare. Counting the one Sandlin sold, there are only 13 known copies, and his was the only one that came in its original box. It also didn't hurt matters that Sandlin was the original owner and had the foresight to enlist an Atari expert to confirm the game's authenticity. "I clearly remember buying this game back in 1984 or 1985," Sandlin...
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