Published March 21, 2022 by

Atari VCS Gets A New Update

Atari is backing up their system with a new update.

Atari is excited to announce today that it has released the latest update to the Atari VCS Videogame Computer System, continuing its commitment to steadily adding new and highly-requested features and Quality-of-Life (QoL) improvements to the living room mini-PC.

Available to download now for all users, the new update adds online leaderboards, public “Friends” profiles, helpful dashboard notifications, expanded support for game developers, and several other system optimization features.

Highlights of the latest Atari VCS OS update include:

  • Leaderboards: Track and compare scores across your favorite Atari titles with new online leaderboards! See how you stack up against the rest of the VCS community or simply use your rank to brag. The first titles to benefit from the Leaderboard feature are Atari’s Recharged series (Black Widow, Asteroids, Breakout), with more to come in the future. The Atari VCS now supports daily, weekly, and monthly leaderboards across regions and globally.
  • Public “Friends” Profiles: Enhancements to the friends system, including expanded public profiles, that make it easier to discover and connect with other players.
  • DIY Developer Private Beta: With this update, every VCS can be turned into a dev kit. This change makes it easier for developers to create content for the Atari VCS, creates a pathway for homebrew developers to create games and apps for themselves, and eventually share that content with other VCS users. (Atari will work with a small group of independent developers to gather feedback before rolling it out to the full community.)
  • Stella/Atari 2600 Integration: The popular Atari 2600 emulator system, Stella, is now fully integrated with the Atari VCS operating system. The integration of Stella makes bringing classic and new third-party Atari 2600 titles to the VCS Storefront easy; VCS owners can expect 2600 titles to join the expanded collection of retro titles.
  • And More: Dashboard notifications, USB camera support, and new Customer Support Tools.
gareth

gareth

Syndicated movie & game critic, writer, author and frequent radio guest. His work has appeared in over 60 publications worldwide and he is the creator of the rising entertainment site and publication “Skewed and Reviewed”. He has three books of film, game reviews and interviews published and is a well-received and in demand speaker on the convention circuit. Gareth has appeared in movies and is a regular guest on a top-rated Seattle morning show. He has also appeared briefly in films such as “Prefountaine”, “Postal”. “Far Cry”. and others. Gareth is also an in-demand speaker at several conventions and has conducted popular panels for over two decades.

Hardware and Gear

Atari VCS