Atari has released a hard-to-ignore new console in striking, vivid yellow livery. The bold, (perhaps overly) bright edition of this console is meant to celebrate a special collaboration with Plaion Replai and Namco to bring retro gaming fans the Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition.
Atari consoles and Pac-Man are both enduring icons of the first home video gaming boom. While the console was released in the late 1970s, it wasn’t until 1982 that Pac-Man was made available for the home cartridge system. The timing of the release was near the plateau of ‘Pac-Man Fever’ that swept the globe in the early '80s.
Namco’s Pac-Man is an iconic and innovative game for its time, designed to offer a non-violent, universally appealing arcade experience to the masses. Instead of bullets and bombs, it features our friendly, bright yellow eponymous hero being pursued by colorful ghosts through a maze.
Pac-Man had a cool trick, though, as he could temporarily turn the tables on the ghosts by chomping power pellets. And there are extra points to be had by grabbing temporarily appearing bonus fruit.
“Atari and PAC-MAN both defined what it meant to play,” said Wade Rosen, CEO of Atari. “This release celebrates that shared legacy and the endless joy of the chase that continues to inspire generations.”
Play your old carts on your modern TV
Though some modern retro console reissues seem extremely generous with the game libraries you get in the pack, often baked into the firmware, the new Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition comes with just two versions of Pac-Man in the box.
The Atari 2600+ console is resolutely cartridge-based, and thus targeted mainly at retro gamers with existing collections of Atari 2600 and 7800 games (and accessories). In this light, the Pac-Man: Double Feature 2-in-1 game cartridge makes sense.
Modern features of this retro console include HDMI output, USB-C charging, and support for multiple display modes (4:3/16:9). However, there are no USB ports or an SD card slot for sideloading games, homebrew, or ROMs. For this level of expandability, you will need to buy a flash cart that fits into the game slot.
For your $169, you will get the bright yellow Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition and a matching Pac-Man CX-40+ Wireless Joystick. As we mentioned in the intro, this console is available now, along with extra CX-40+ Joysticks in Yellow (Pac-Man), Red (Blinky), Pink (Pinky), Blue (Inky), and Orange (Clyde), for $39 each.
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