The Atari VCS/2600 in its natural habitat. | Photo: Getty
Nostalgia kit follows Lego’s successful NES playset from 2020
The Atari 2600 — in its familiar, wood-paneled, super-groovy late-1970s incarnation — will get a celebratory Lego-styled build this August in recognition of the console’s 40th/45th anniversaries (see below), according to German Lego fan site Promobricks.
According to Promobricks (translation via Google), the playset will feature a buildable Atari VCS deck, with a scene from Activision’s seminal hit Pitfall!. Pitfall!, by David Crane, was video gaming’s first third-party, made-for-consoles blockbuster.
Pitfall! launched in 1982, the same year that Atari rebranded the VCS (so, there’s your 40th anniversary) as the 2600. The console originally launched in 1977 (there’s the 45th). That came five years after Allan Alcorn and Nolan Bushnell installed the first PONG coin-operated cabinet at a bar in Sunnyvale, California (a 50th anniversary, for good measure).
Promobricks suggested that the fold-out scene of Pitfall! should be movable, using the playset’s joystick replica. In 2020, Lego launched a commemorative Nintendo Entertainment System brickset, which included a nearly life-size representation of the console, a Super Mario Bros. Game Pak, and an adorable, wooden-legged TV (with analog dials and rabbit-ear antenna) as a monitor. Builders could scroll Mario through a representation of World 1-1 by turning a crank on the side of the assembled TV.
The Lego Atari 2600 has set number 10306 (Atari 50th Anniversary Technovanguard Console) and will sell for $199.99 (€169.99), says Promobricks. Interestingly, that price (US) is about $10 more, in whole dollars, than the Atari VCS’ original MSRP when it launched in 1977. Of course, $189.95 in Jimmy Carter money is about $900 today.
