Atari ends Atari VCS support, store to close on February 1, 2027

Atari has made the end of life of the Atari VCS, its console-PC launched in 2021, official in a statement posted on its Atari Club Discord. The console's store will close on February 1, 2027. Atari itself acknowledges it is "unwelcome news" and says the VCS "earned its rightful spot" among the many platforms the brand has launched over 50-plus years.

So owners aren't left with an unusable machine, Atari plans an operating system update that will let them migrate all functionality to their own machine, removing the console's reliance on Atari's infrastructure for authentication and software. The Atari Home Brew app will also be pushed to all users so developers can keep supporting the VCS and sharing projects independently.

A console born on Indiegogo that never really took off

Teased at E3 2017 as the Ataribox and revealed at GDC 2018, the VCS raised roughly $3 million from 8,471 backers on Indiegogo. Production delays pushed backer shipments to December 2020, before a release in North America, Australia and New Zealand in 2021. Early reviews were mixed to negative and sales stayed below expectations. Atari is due to publish migration and Home Brew information early in 2027; it is not yet known whether past purchases can be backed up.

Photo: Wizzard, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Source: Time Extension