Yeah, but it's still Pong...

Have you ever just been desperate to play Pong? Me neither, but that didn't stop the company currently wearing the skin suit sewn together out of the tanned fragments of the hide of Atari from coming up with Mini Pong Junior. 

"Finally!"

-Nobody

Pictured: there is no grimmer sign of
economic decay than these things springing
up in the decayed remnants of retail.

Yeah, I mean what's even up with this thing? It's a Pong machine. Like, it's a dedicated device that plays Pong and only Pong. As in the game that came out in 1972. Somewhat updated, but still, just Pong. A trail blazer sure, but it's a trail that was paved over a long time ago and is lined with run down strip malls full of Spirit Halloween stores and places that buy gold. So I guess my questions are these: who's damn fool enough to put the money into marketing and selling this? And who is it even for?

Like I mentioned earlier, Atari, as a thing, is long gone. This new incarnation is some weird collection of venture capitalists who bought the name and intellectual property and have been trying to make Atari happen again with things like a new wood-paneled console that may or may not actually exist but costs three hundred dollars, and hotels. Yeah, Atari-themed hotels that will hold esports tournaments. And I guess I'm just not clear on where they got the impression that there's still interest in the brand beyond ironic vintage t-shirts. 

Again, not a business person, but the average age of a pro gamer is 25, so I'm not
sure that betting millions on their nostalgia for a game console their grandparents
might have been into was necessarily the best move. But what do I know?

People also had to occasionally stop
to do the hustle. Because the 70's.

Sure, it represents the golden age of gaming but-no really, that's actually what the era of gaming between between 1971 and 1983 is called, but maybe we need to rethink that. Was it seminal? Absolutely. Foundational even. But good? Eh...I don't know. Ok, fine, that's my 80/90's nerd chauvinism showing. It's subjective I know, and maybe it's because I don't really have nostalgia for it, but gaming back then was marked by crude graphics and sound and gameplay that just increased in difficulty until you gave up in frustration, or just ran out of quarters.

There's a table right next to the kitchen in hell
for whoever put Mega Man 2 on a touch screen.

And ok, it's got one thing going for it that I can see appealing to hardcore Pong fans, if there is such a thing. It uses built-in paddle controllers which is keeping with the original and I suppose sets it apart from most other ways to play Pong on a contemporary device so there's that. Purists won't want to use a directional pad or an analogue stick, and I firmly believe that we should all stop pretending that touch screens aren't inarguably the worst way to control video games.

"Marginally improved graphics and 
sound you say? Let me get my wallet!"

-Some idiot, who is me

But still, nuAtari is assuming that gamers of a certain age are looking for that nostalgia hit and I'm not sure they are. As a grown-ass adult with an admitted Achilles heel for anything that reminds me of the 8 and 16-bit era of gaming-the objectively best era-I get it. I buy mini-consoles and overpriced re-releases of games I already own. I have like seven different version of Final Fantasy II. Seven. But I think it's people my age and younger that fall for this. My parents are from the days of Pong and remember it, but they never had any interest in returning to it. 

Normal, well-adjusted people don't need to live in the past like we do-ok, fine, I'll speak for myself-like I do. And that's fine, and maybe my anecdotal and vague impression of the buying habits of the disco generation isn't as accurate as whatever GDS, the company using the corpse of Atari like a meat-puppet, might be using for marketing research. But I'm going to go ahead and predict that they are grossly overestimating Pong's continuing appeal and that this thing will soon be fodder for clearance shelves and Loot Crates.

I'm not suggesting that people who came of age during the time
of Pong don't have issues. I mean, look at the state of the world. I'm just
saying that falling for video game nostalgia cash-ins isn't one of them.