Releasing in 2021 as a community-funded project, the Atari VCS promised a modern take on the nostalgia you held for the 2600. The problem is, I’m not sure who is holding on to that nostalgia. As someone in my early 40s, I was around Atari consoles as a kid and played them plenty at various friends’ and relative’s houses, but the experience was nothing compared to the NES. I wasn’t part of the group that grew up with the 2600 as THE home video gaming experience, and I think those that were, have largely had their fix.
Nice design
The VCS means well and really shows some genuine heart, but the project was never going to be more than a lark for most gamers. A neat modern graphical update to Asteroids is just that, neat. It’s not likely to hold anyone’s attention. So why dive in in 2024, years after this niche console launched?
Simple. A project, of course! The VCS Black Walnut Bundle was selling for as low as $85 over the Thanksgiving holiday and after recalling what our friend ETA Prime showed us a while back, figured it would be a fun console-box project, especially with the emergence of Bazzite on the scene.
The Console
You get the idea of what you’re working with
Opening the box and getting into the hardware itself, I was actually slightly taken aback at the size of the VCS. It’s a smaller footprint than what I imagined in my head. To give you some idea, the console is roughly the same size as a Steam Deck. You can pull up specs and measurements if you’re really interested, but this ain’t that kinda party. The bundle I purchased came with a modern wireless version of the iconic Atari 2600 joystick, along with a more modern controller.
The joystick looks neat enough, but after two seconds out of the box, you realize that it really has very little utility in the modern era. The more traditional controller seems ok. If I had to compare it to something, it feels like a slightly cheaper version of the Nintendo Switch Pro knockoffs from AliExpress. Both seem fine enough, but I have a million other controllers that I’d rather use. So back in the boxes, those go.
The entirety of my Atari VCS stock experience
The stock experience on the VCS is broken. I would love to tell you about how I tried what it has to offer out of the box, and how it’s a plucky little startup system that’s charming in its own way. Love to, but can’t. I have no idea what the devs intended experience was for me with the VCS because my console arrived in a totally broken state out of the box.
The OS boots into a nearly blank menu, nothing will launch, and the OTA update required to get it into a functioning state fails. Sure, I could have downloaded the firmware update and installed it myself via USB, or left the console on overnight so that it would MAYBE update, but who cares? I’m not going to make the effort to experience something I was on the fence about in the first place. So, I’m sorry VCS folks, but you lost any shot you had out of the gate.
Upgrades
The VCS opened up
The Atari VCS specs are not going to set the world on fire. “Why would I need an AMD Ryzen and Vega to play Pong and Asteroids?” was a common question after the initial announcement. A reasonable question, but I’m quite happy to have access to what we do with this hardware because, with a little tweaking, you can really squeeze more than you might expect out of this little box.
The VCS ships with 8GB of SODIMM 2400MHz RAM installed. Anyone who has done any modern PC gaming will tell you that this isn’t likely going to be enough to cut the mustard. I upgraded the RAM to 16GB but ignored the fact that the board will actually support up to 3200MHz RAM speed with some BIOS setting changes. I neglected to note this and made the mistake of picking up the slower DIMMs. Let my mistakes be your guide.
Underside of the VCS PCB shows the RAM slots
I’m not going to go into full tutorial mode for the purposes of this article, as it has been covered at length by folks more capable than me, but needless to say, the process is very simple. The VCS opens up via 4 torx bits under the rubber feet of its underside. From there, it’s just a matter of undoing some more screws and getting access to the underside of the board to swap the RAM. A blank M2 slot also sits ready on the board if you want to install additional local storage over the 32GB of eMMC.
The Atari VCS PCB features the clear passion of its creators.
After any hardware upgrades are made, you can just close the shell up, plug in a USB boot disk, and treat the VCS like any other PC. Bash on the Del button to enter BIOS setup, input the password (Atar!C3l3br8te$50Ye4r$), and you’re off to the races. You will need to disable secure boot if you want to install an OS like Batocera or Bazzite, over something like Windows or Ubuntu, but any OS that works on a PC should work here. You are bound only by your imagination.
Gaming
Bazzite running on the Atari VCS
The Bazzite experience on the VCS has been exactly what I’ve been looking for in a console box. If I want graphical horsepower, I already have a PS5, Xbox, and gaming PC available to me. I wanted a console box that connects Steam games seamlessly into my living room for a fraction of what the Steam Deck costs. And now, I have it. If emulation and something like a Batocera install was your goal, the VCS has enough under the hood to get you into playable-at-60 Gamecube and PS2 territory.
“But what are you going to play on it?!” was the question I kept getting in chat when I announced this endeavor. As if we aren’t in the middle of an absolute indie gaming renaissance! Horsepower doesn’t equal good, and the VCS is good enough for a lot of my Steam library. Modern games that have captured the majority of my free time haven’t been AAA ray-tracing tech demos.
It’s stuff like Vampire Survivors, Horizon Chase Turbo, UFO 50, and so on. The box has enough in the tank to handle a game like GTA V in a playable state, and that’s really about as much as I need out of a project like this for $80. If you want something more, you’ve probably already bought yourself a very nice AMD Beelink or something similar.
Final Thoughts
The partially unboxed VCS and some dirt-cheap Amazon RAM
I’m not the first to say this, but if Atari had marketed this device as an SFF AMD Mini-PC with a throwback Atari aesthetic, it might have actually sold. The dedicated console experience isn’t going to light too many people’s fires in 2024.
Sorry, Atari superfans, but it’s just the reality of where we are now. And that’s in a best-case scenario where the experience the devs behind this box intended works. We’re years into the VCS’ lifespan and I received what was essentially a brick-in-box experience. One requiring a crucial update that can’t be implemented. Nuts to that.
I wouldn’t recommend spending more than I did on the VCS, and if you want something that “just works” out of the box you’re in for a bad time, but if you’re the type that yearns for the next Anbernic release just to have something new to tinker with and set up, then you could do a lot worse. The VCS has a pleasing design to sit next to my more traditional consoles, and I have a “consolized” PC experience to be able to natively play a whole host of Steam games from the couch for under a hundred bucks.
Sure, you could put a used SFF Dell in the entertainment center on the cheap and have a very similar experience, but where’s the fun in that? Modifying hardware to become its best self is an addictive and gratifying portion of this hobby, and if you’re up for it, the VCS can make a great addition to your tinkered-to-personal-perfection collection.
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