Atari made several announcements about its all-new Atari VCS home gaming and entertainment system during the 2019 E3 Expo.
The Atari VCS Official Online Presale is now underway for U.S. customers, with systems and accessories, including retailer-exclusive editions, available for preorder today on GameStop.com, Walmart.com, and AtariVCS.com, for deliveries starting in March 2020. Pricing starts at $249.99 for the Atari VCS 400 Onyx (4GB RAM) Base model and tops off at $389.99 for one of three Atari VCS 800 (8GB RAM) All-In system bundles that include an Atari VCS Classic Joystick and Atari VCS Modern Controller. Classic Joysticks priced at $49.99 and Modern Controllers at $59.99, created in partnership with PowerA, are also available now for retail pre-order. Additional international presale dates and retailers will be announced soon.
“Atari made a commitment to its fans to make the new VCS the best and most versatile game and home entertainment platform it can be, with a wide array of options,” said Atari CEO Frédéric Chesnais. “After so many months of work defining and refining the products, and after the strong initial support of thousands of Indiegogo backers, we are excited to finally and officially announce our product launch configurations, first key retail partnerships, and the kickoff of the Atari VCS Official Online Presale that will put the products into the hands of gamers.”
The start of the Atari VCS Official Online Presale and retail partnerships brings Atari’s successful Indiegogo campaign and Indemand period to a close after one full year. Original Atari VCS backers will receive their hardware starting in December 2019, completing a drive that began on May 30, 2018, with platform-crushing traffic on day-one to achieve $2 Million in funding in the first week and nearly $3 Million over its 30-day span. Total gross sales have since topped $4 Million with more than 12,000 individual contributors.
This new Atari VCS Official Online Presale is for products scheduled to start shipping in March 2020 and offers new hardware configurations, exclusive new designs, and three online retail destinations to choose from: GameStop, Walmart, and AtariVCS.com.
The all-new home gaming and video computer system is aimed at transforming the TV-centric home entertainment experience. At E3, Atari plans to share demos of the Atari VCS dashboard and Sandbox Mode to showcase the capabilities of the AMD tech that powers the VCS. Users will be introduced to an expanding Atari world of all-new games, classic and remastered favorites, streaming multimedia and personal apps–or easily make their own. The AMD Ryzen processor features Radeon Graphics Technology to handle everything such as 4K HDR streaming. The all-new Atari Classic Joystick and Atari Modern Controller are also designed to make gaming easier. Switch to the Atari Sandbox Mode to unlock an open and expandable multimedia PC for freedom and versatility.
Atari plans to make several more product development updates and announcements this year that will include expanded details about games and entertainment content, software development protocols, expanded distribution and more. In addition, Atari will continue to provide periodic work-in-progress updates and product demonstrations via its Atari VCS Project Development blogs.