Atari's XP Nightmare Continues As It Ships Broken Cartridges To Customers

Last year, Atari - or at least the iteration of Atari that exists today – announced that it would be publishing a bunch of homebrew and prototype VCS / 2600 games under its new 'Atari XP' label.

Things didn't start all that well, with Atari incorrectly claiming that Yars' Return, a 2005 ROM hack of Yars’ Revenge, was the work of former Atari programmer Howard Scott Warshaw – the man behind the original game as well as E.T., the game that was so bad Atari buried it in the desert.

The games included in the Atari XP range went up for preorder in December of last year, and physical copies are now shipping to customers – and things haven't gotten particularly better.

As reported by The Immortal John Hancock (and spotted by Pat The NES Punk), the PCBs inside the cartridges have been installed the wrong way around. Needless to say, they won't play on your console in this state.

As you can see in the video above, the 'fix' is to use a hairdryer to slightly weaken the glue on the stickers and then remove them. Once the PCB inside the cart has been flipped, the game works as it should – but, given that these are supposed to be collector's items, it's a process that is unlikely to go down well with those who paid $50 a pop for these games.