While Takeshi fights with a sword, spear and bow and can parry blows, Chisai appears more stealth-focused (but is also capable of fighting). Kodama can seemingly venture into smaller spaces and fight enemies below the surface. It’s a combination of combat and platforming as players venture to mountain caves, cemeteries and more, battling all kinds of horrors rendered in disturbing stop-motion.

You gain experience from slaying foes and can upgrade stats and abilities. There’s even an editor for creating combos. The Spirit of the Samurai is coming to PC, Xbox, PS5 and Atari VCS in 2024. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

We heard last month that the new console being released by Atari, the Atari VCS, has been delayed to upgrade the specs. It looks like now we have a clearer idea of what that upgrade will entail. In a press release by Atari, COO of Connected Devices for the company, Michael Arzt, stated that the VCS will use AMD’s all-new Ryzen embedded chip to sport what they hope will be a simpler architecture, and will have built-in Ethernet, Native 4K video support with modern HDCP, and a secure frame buffer that fully-supports DRM video.

“With the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 powering the Atari VCS, we can support the 4K 60fps HDR content that users expect from a modern, secure gaming and entertainment system,” said Michael Arzt. “AMD’s new Ryzen Embedded SoC will also help protect the VCS’ environment and content as we support an unprecedented open-access model that allows Atari’s highly-creative community to install any other operating system side by side with the Atari OS.”

The system isn’t a retro-box, like the NES and SNES Classics that Nintendo released, or the PlayStation Classic that Sony did, but apparently is aiming to be a full streaming box that will allow users to download and stream older and newer games. At this point we’ve seen nothing running on the hardware, nor do we know what the new date is on the machine’s release- so how effectively it will accomplish what it’s setting out to do remains to be seen.

Google’s new gaming platform may not have turned out to be the fourth console many may have hoped would shake up the market, but that’s no biggie! We still have Atari trying to return to the market they founded with their upcoming console, titled VCS.

The VCS was originally supposed to be out this Summer, after having suffered a plethora of phantom delays. However, now there’s another delay to add to the list—Atari confirmed in a Medium post today that it will be pushing the launch of the platform a bit. However, this delay is for a good cause, because Atari will take this chance to upgrade the system’s specs.

Specifically, the GPU will now be Raedon Vega, there will be two ZEN CPU cores, and the chip fabrication process will move to 14nm. All of this is good news, assuming Atari pulls it off—but given that so far we haven’t even seen a single game running on the system properly, nor any indication of meaningful third party support, even from indie developers, it doesn’t do all that much to allay skepticism.

The Atari VCS was revealed only recently and it became available to pre-order just a day ago. The campaign for the console is now live on Indiegogo, and it has already raised over $2 million.  In the campaign, you can also find out some interesting details about the console, including its specifications.

The system will have a Radeon R7 GPU along with a Bristol Ridge A10 CPU, 4 GB of DDR4 RAM, and 32 GB of Storage which can be further expanded using external hard drives or SD cards. The OS will be Linux based on Ubuntu, and even Steam games which work on Linux will be playable on this system. Additionally, mouse and keyboard will be supported as well. Furthermore, new versions of some classic Atari games will support PvP and online multiplayer, so there’s definitely a lot going for this console.

You can read more about the console on its Indiegogo campaign site.

The Atari VCS, the upcoming console from Atari, the grand daddy of the console market, will be launching next year, but Atari had previously announced that it will put it up for pre-order on IndieGoGo for its backers at a discounted price- and that is exactly what the company has done.

The Atari VCS Day One Collector’s Edition has real a wooden build (harkening to the original Atari 2600, which had wood styled aesthetics), and can be pre-ordered for $299- it is also limited edition, so if you don’t get it now, you might not be able to get it ever.

There is also the Atari VCS Onyx, which is the black model with the red Atari logo, available for $199. Peripherals such as a Classic Joystick and a modern controller are both available, plus, owing to the device being a mid range Linux PC, it will also have general universal peripheral compatibility.

While the hardware may be tempting, given that for now, we have literally zero indication about what games are coming to the system (outside of 100 Atari Vault classics, which will be pre-installed on every system), makes it a bit of a hard sell. Still, I am sure that there are many who will find one worth purchasing regardless, whether due to nostalgia, or for collection purposes. I just hope Atari reveals the full lineup for the game soon, however.

The Atari VCS was announced back in March and today Atari has announced that the platform will become available for pre-orders starting from May 30. However, the system will begin to shipped only by 2019. We also get to learn more about the different versions of the system available to buy.

You will be able to buy the VCS exclusively from Indiegogo and two different variants have been revealed so far. There is the Collector’s Edition which features a wood-front panelling and it will be available only for a limited time. Then there is the Onyx Edition which is just black in color. The Onyx Edition will be available as part of Early-bird packages for just $200, but prices will change after this period. There will also be packages that come with a controller joystick, but this will not be the case with every Edition of the system.

As of now, the Atari VCS is expected to begin shipping by Spring of 2019.

As Atari promised, they have taken the wraps off of the AtariBox this week- it is now called the Atari VCS (which stands for Video Computer System), a name that is a blast from the past of Atari’s heyday back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

It’s not just the name that harkens back to the era- the design of the console does, too, which is a very clear reference to the Atari 2600. Atari has also indicated that the system will come with a host of retro games, but that it will also have modern mid tier and indie game support. Apparently it will also “transform the way we interact with our TVs” much like the original Atari did, although how it will do that is something that remains to be seen.

On the one hand, I want a new major entrant into the console market to shake things up, so I wish Atari well. On the other, I can’t help but feel that this is a misguided venture…