Atari VCS's store is closing, and the door swings open for homebrew

Another console is retiring. On 21 October Atari announced that it is ending support for the VCS, which came out in 2021. The announcement went up on the company's VCS page and on its official Discord server.

The store has already stopped taking new games. Some outlets give 1 February 2027 as the date the store closes. Atari's own announcement only says "early next year". The sources don't agree on the last day you can buy something either (31 January or 1 February, nobody can say). Games you have already bought and downloaded will keep working. After the store closes, a system update will arrive. It moves authentication and the software off Atari's servers and onto the machine itself. The instructions for the switch will also come out "early next year".

The interesting part is an app called "Atari Home Brew" (homebrew: software that developers or hobbyists write themselves). Every VCS owner will get it, and it lets you install new games without going through the store. So the machine's future is being handed to the community.

Mind you, this only matters to owners in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, because the console was never sold in Europe or Asia. The VCS started at $139.99. It ran on Debian, and its PC Mode could boot Linux or Windows. Plenty of devices turn into paperweights once their servers go dark, so as goodbyes go, this one isn't bad at all.