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 On 11/13/2025 at 06:17 PM by SanAndreas See More From This User » |
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.
Defender got mentioned several times in the interviews, so maybe that's a hint that Williams/Midway is next. I can't wait for another DLC pack. I gobbled up this one a little too quickly yesterday.
It was fun to see and play the 8-bit Atari computer versions of Pac-Man, Dig Dug and others. I hadn't seen/played those before.
Namco has had strong relationships with Atari in the past, so this DLC doesn't surprise me as much once I thought about that. In fact, before Namco made arcade games of their own, they just distributed Atari's games in Japan.
When I was a kid, I always thought that Atari made games like Dig Dug and Pole Position (kind of surprised that's not on this DLC), while Midway made games like Pac-Man and Galaga. I was just a little kid, I didn't know!
The first time I realized that Namco had something to do with these games was when I saw the Namco logo on the Pac-Man's Park maze in the arcade Pac-Mania game (which Atari distributed in the US). Then as I did more research and learned that Namco made pretty much all my favorite arcade games, I was like, "OK I know who my favorite video game company is now!"
There are a lot of games that I thought were made by Atari that were in fact Japanese imports, thanks to Atari's licensing. I thought Pac-Man was an Atari franchise thanks to the 2600 and 8-bit games. The arcade version of Dig-Dug is actually a part of this DLC, with Atari's logo appearing in place of Namco's logo on the title animation. Other games I thought were Atari franchises but aren't included Kangaroo (which was Sunsoft) and Vanguard (which was SNK). Atari had a habit of putting its name on the games it licensed from other companies but not actually mentioning the original owners in the game. The labels Pac-Man cartridges for the 2600 and 8-bit, for instance, had an asterisk notation noting that the games were licensed from Namco-America. Atari also got the rights to some of Nintendo's IP on the 5200 and 8-bit systems, but Nintendo didn't let Atari get away with taking credit for the IP, as all Atari-published versions clearly state "By Nintendo" in the games themselves and on the packaging.
Namco actually got its start in video games after Nolan Bushnell realized that Atari Japan was not a legal business. He had started it unawarae of Japanese business regulations and was eventually forced to sell the company, and since Namco was already helping distribute his games, that was the natural buyer.
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