A Company Called Atari is Releasing a Brand-New 2600 Cartridge This Year

The company that currently owns the Atari name and trademarks has decided to give owners of the old Atari Video Computer System (aka the Atari 2600) something new to do. From a report: Mr. Run and Jump is a new Atari-published platformer that is coming to vintage Atari consoles in cartridge form, complete with a box and instruction manual. Preorders for the cartridge begin on July 31 for $59.99. The version of Mr. Run and Jump coming to the 2600 is a primitive version of a much different-looking game with the same name that's coming to PCs and all major game consoles on July 25. We've got to hand it to Atari here -- as a PR gambit for a new game, porting a rough version of your game to a 46-year-old game console and then giving it a physical release complete with box and manual is pretty good.

Atari is billing this release as 'the first 2600 cartridge launch for a new Atari title since 1990,' though there have also been some limited-run cartridge releases for games like 2005's Yars' Return. There were also a few new 2600-inspired games and remakes, including Vctr Sctr, in Atari's 50th-anniversary collection, which also got a physical release on modern consoles. Although modern game development for the 2600, NES, Game Boy, and other retro consoles are mostly the provenance of homebrew developers working in emulators, physical cartridge releases aren't uncommon. Limited Run Games and other independent and crowdfunded outfits have released plenty of physical cartridges for old consoles, including a Smash Bros-style NES game that includes a Wi-Fi chip to support online play.

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