Ataribox Console Promises to Play Classic Games and Current Content

Atari is looking to get in on the retro gaming console action like Nintendo has. The Atari offering will be called the Ataribox and some images have been offered up for us to check out and you can see both of them below. Other than offering up those images and promising that the console will play both classic and current games with modern internal specs, we know little else about the console.

Nintendo is mum on hardware specs, price, and launch date. We know that the game console has four USB ports on the back from the images Atari has offered along with an SD card slot, HDMI output, and an Ethernet port. The biggest bit of confusion is what exactly does Atari mean by retro and current games?

We know what the retro bit means obviously, it will play all those cool Atari games from the ’70s and ’80s that old school gamers grew up on. The current games statement is what makes us wonder. Forbes predicts (and I agree) that the Ataribox console will be something along the lines of the Ouya that will be able to run current gen game apps thanks to packing the Android operating system or some sort of Windows micro-console inside.

The lack of details from Atari could mean that the hardware simply isn’t ready to talk about or it could be an attempt at Atari marketing to raise some word of mouth about the console. Atari issued a statement that mentions “…a lot of milestones, challenges, and decision points in front of us in the months ahead…” and that statement certainly makes it seem as if the hardware and features aren’t set in stone just yet. We’ll have to wait and see what Atari is cooking up for all the details.