Atari’s Big Wizardry Move, a Pocket GameCube, and a Wave of Retro Gaming Experiments

You’re now entering yet another busy week full of retro gaming announcements, where long-dead game franchises come back to life, hardware gets miniaturized into a small portable format, and fan-developed games continue to expand the boundaries of your imagination on old consoles. In a way, it’s a week where it all happens at once – mergers and acquisitions happen, while some folks continue experimenting with unusual builds.

One of the big announcements that will be on everybody’s lips for the foreseeable future is Atari acquiring the rights to Wizardry 1-5 video games. Specifically, we’re talking about Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, Wizardry II: The Knights of Diamonds, Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn, Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna, and finally, Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom.

Even if you’ve never heard of them before, there’s a reason they’ve been around for so long. And of course, Atari didn’t just acquire them without a plan for what to do with the IPs. The company is looking to revive these games through remasters and collections, and to expand its release schedule. Even a venture into the realm of TV shows and movies based on the Wizardry series seems likely, considering the current trend of using gaming IPs for media franchises.

On the other hand, there have been misconceptions about exactly what was acquired, making it clear that only the first five titles belong to Atari, while the next three belong to a different universe. Here, too, one can observe yet another step in the evolution of Atari under Wade Rosen. The company continues its tradition of acquiring retro IPs, but this time, it doesn’t try to rebrand every property it acquires and release it immediately.

Instead, Atari tries to preserve and revive the IPs through careful management and releases.

But then comes the complete gear shift, and before you know it, you find yourself staring at what seems like an out-of-this-world concept: the miniaturized GameCube. In reality, you are seeing an entire game console assembled from recycled Nintendo parts, specifically the compacted Wii, which also plays GameCube titles due to their similar architectures.

This compact unit is encased in a machined aluminum case, anodized blue, measuring just 60 x 60 x 15.8 mm. But it is more than just another brick in the wall; it comes complete with passive cooling fins, LED displays, and a docking module for receiving controller inputs, power, and video signals through pogo pin contacts.

In essence, you are dealing with a product that embodies real hardware design principles, except this time they have been condensed to the point where carrying it about in your pockets seems like a viable idea.

Next up is Evercade territory.

As anyone who follows this game platform knows, physical retro cartridges are already among its best-selling products. According to information from Blaze, Evercade’s creator, it appears that retired cartridge games may not be permanently off the shelves after all. In an interview with the company's CEO, it was suggested that some of these older cartridge games may be reintroduced into the marketplace, with the CEO urging people to watch this space.

And then there’s one of the better examples of technical gaming fan community experiments this week. There has been a success in getting Super Mario 64 running on a Game Boy Advance. You already know what that means – it’s gone into the deep end of optimizing the software for the system. The Game Boy Advance wasn’t meant to host 3D games, but that didn’t stop the experiment from happening.

There are some slow moments, with some sequences barely rendering a frame per second, while others perform quite well, depending on the level's complexity. It’s not the most polished port out there, but it’s impressive that this is even possible thanks to the technical knowledge that gamers have amassed over the years.

Now, you get another delay for yet another piece of retro technology: the A1200 console from Retro Games Limited. Expected to be released halfway through the year, its arrival will have to wait until December. As usual, chip shortages and higher manufacturing expenses are causing delays in hardware production.

Of course, this issue also leads to problems with software preparedness, meaning the company does not want to release an unfinished product with an underdeveloped operating system. Thus, instead of having their customers buy a console and then wait for updates, they choose to keep the release date away from everyone's sight.

Then, there is a much less publicized but no less significant announcement coming from the industry. Takashi Tezuka, an important developer and director responsible for iconic franchises such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Yoshi, and Pikmin, has retired after almost 4 decades of service at Nintendo.

Takashi Tezuka is considered a member of a group of developers who made Nintendo a household name worldwide during its golden age. He belongs to the same generation as such legendary developers as Shigeru Miyamoto and Koji Kondo. This is a clear sign that a period of intensive development has come to an end.