Atari has revealed that its new nostalgia-meets-present Ataribox will indeed be a fully-fledged $250 console that runs on Linux and is powered by an AMD chip.
The Ataribox is a very, very risky move. The new console sees Atari trying to marry nostalgic arcade classics with modern video games in a set-top box that does lots of other things including web browsing, social media, apps, and streaming. Today's console gaming market is absolutely dominated by the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and more recently, Nintendo (the latter of which has made an incredibly rags-to-riches leap with its new Switch hardware), and now Atari wants to carve out its own niche in the market with a re-vamped Atari machine. But the industry has changed dramatically since the 70's and 80's where Atari was all the rage--now the billion dollar games industry makes most of its revenue from software, especially on marketplaces wholly owned by the companies that sell the consoles themselves.
The strange thing is that it will play games across multiple PC gaming storefront platforms as long as they support Linux. This apparently means users can play their GoG and Steam games on the box (if the hardware can support them). As such the Ataribox is essentially making it a $250 Steam Machine that comes pre-loaded with classic Atari games. It'll also come with select indie titles baked in, meaning Atari will be teaming up with independent studios. So how will Atari make its money? Via hardware, or its own storefront that sells classic and revamped Atari games? There's lots of questions here.
Hardware-wise the Ataribox will be powered by AMD Radeon graphics--likely an APU similar to those in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but scaled down--and of course runs on the Linux OS just like Valve's ill-fated Steam Machines. The box is currently in prototype stages so no exact specifications have apparently been locked down, but if I had to guess, I'd say it has 6GB to 8GB of unified RAM and probably a 500GB hard drive.
