Atari returned to consoles with the Atari VCS, a retro-inspired game console that’s also basically a cheap, low-power Linux computer designed to look like an Atari console from the 1980s, but things are not so rosy. The system had bad early reviews and Atari noted in a recent earnings report that sales of VCS consoles and cartridges fell “from €2.3M to €0.2M, primarily resulting from cartridge activity and underperformance by the VCS” compared with the previous half of the year.
As such, Atari has announced it is suspending “existing VCS manufacturing contracts.” Atari doesn’t plan to leave hardware altogether and the company is planning “a new commercial strategy for VCS” and to launch “a complementary hardware strategy via partnerships and under licensing agreements.”
This could mean a number of things, but for now, if you want an Atari VCS , they are selling for 20% off at Atari.com, bringing the starting price down to $160 for a VCS console alone or $240 for an all-in-one bundle that also includes a joystick and a modern controller.