PixlBit

Atari 50 got its most recent update today, which concerns Atari’s heavily intertwined history with Namco (the latter company’s video game division was originally Atari Japan, but Bushnell apparently got into trouble for trying to do business in Japan for not following Japanese regulations and ended up having to sell).

Among the games are the 2600 and 8-bit versions of Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, and Galaxian.

The 2600 version of Pac-Man gets dogged on, but back then, most people didn’t care. When you start a level. Pac-Man looks like he’s smoking a cigar.

I had the 8-bit version of Pac-Man, it (and Star Raiders) came bundled with my Atari 130XE. It was a much better port. You could select your level by bonus treat. The levels where the Galaxian was the bonus treat in the arcade are replaced by the Atari symbol.

I also had the 8-bit version of Dig-Dug. It was kind of rough, but again, we weren’t that picky back then. The arcade version of Dig-Dug is also included, though this version has the Atari logo on the title screen instead of Namco. 

I’ve honestly always thought that Bandai Namco should buy Atari/Digital Eclipse.

I’d love for a future update to include the 2600 and 8-bit versions of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. Won’t happen because, well, Nintendo, but still. Hopefully Atari will look into a future Atari 50 DLC pack with Williams/Midway, given that they handled Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection, because Defender and Joust had decent ports on Atari systems, and God knows Warner Bros isn’t doing anything with them.