The Atari VCS retro console delivery date has finally been set and will ship by December 24, 2020 The long and tumultuous wait appears to be almost over for the console, which was backed by 11,597 people in June 2018 for a total of £2,446,857.

Backers of the Indiegogo campaign will begin receiving their systems in October, a tweet from the official Atari VCS account said. Following that, pre-orders have begun for those who couldn't wait two years for Atari's throwback console.

And what a long and precarious wait those two years have been (except for the pre-Indiegogo promise that began in 2017). During that time, the console's designer, Rob Wyatt, quit the project, claiming that his company, Tin Giant, was not being paid. Atari subsequently failed to respond to Wyatt's lawsuit in Colorado state court.

Alternatively, Atari's largest VCS subreddit was stripped of official mod status for attempting to mute users who expressed concerns about the console's delivery. Michael Artz, the company's COO, responded in a public blog, "no news is good news. However, he does not seem to respect the old adage that "there is no such thing as bad publicity," and Atari once called a reporter for The Register an "irresponsible troll" for allegedly giving bad press in a GDC interview. That reporter provided the full recording of his interview with Artz.

If you want a complete breakdown of the console's tricky history, including a list of delays and tweaks, you can find it on the Atari VCS subreddit, "the biggest and best unofficial community." [Hence why the Atari VCS ship date feels so newsworthy. But what is very positive about this case is that those who have been waiting a long time to get their hands on this gaming machine may finally be able to enjoy it for themselves.

As for the gaming machine itself, the Atari VCS 800 system is built around an AMD Ryzen Embedded SoC, with 32GB of storage and 8GB of DDR4 RAM. It runs on a custom Linux OS. An "all-in bundle" available for order includes the Atari VCS 800, a classic joystick, and a modern controller for $390.