Atari Arcade for iPad only $19.95! I'll take… none?

AtariArcade
Hang on a minute. Retro gaming on my iPad, and I don’t want it? Have I fallen into a bizarre alternate universe or something?
Catch Of The Day is running a special right now — at the time of writing, there’s about five hours left on it — on the Atari Arcade Controller for iPad at only $19.95 plus $6.40 shipping. The Atari Arcade Controller allows you to use an actual joystick with the iPad for some more genuine retro arcade action, and normally I’d be all over that stuff like a greased weasel… presuming that is, that greased weasels like retro games. I’m pretty sure they do.

But there are problems, you see. Two of them, to be precise. The Atari Arcade’s most obvious competitor would be the iCade, and, even leaving aside the fact that I’ve already got one of those, the Atari still isn’t that great a deal. Firstly, it uses the dock connector rather than Bluetooth for connectivity, which means anyone with an iPad Mini or 4th Generation iPad would need to wobble it precariously on a Lightning adaptor. That’s perhaps a minor issue for some, but the bigger one is that the Atari Arcade only works with the Atari Greatest Hits app. There are some great games in that pack… but that’s it. Whereas the iCade offers Bluetooth and works with a whole host of iOS games above and beyond the Atari fare. You’ll pay a little more for the iCade — but it’s well worth it. So in fact, contrary to the video above, it does indeed get better than this.
Source: Catch Of The Day

4 thoughts on “Atari Arcade for iPad only $19.95! I'll take… none?”

  1. Curious about the iCade… does it require you to jailbreak your iPad to use? From what I’ve understood, Apple doesn’t like people attaching blutooth controllers to the iPad/iPhone unless the owner of the software/hardware pays them extra money for the privelage of selling the controller and games that work with the controller….. or is has this now been changed since I last researched the subject?

  2. No jailbreak required for the iCade as long as you’re sticking to the list of supported apps (which is fairly broad) — there’s a full list here: http://www.ionaudio.com/products/icade-games
    From memory, some emulators are jailbreak only, although there have been a few that snuck MAME onto the App store for a little while under Apple’s nose. But there’s enough stuff that officially supports the iCade to make it worthwhile if you like your retro games.

    1. Ok fair enough.. so there are still some limitations (ie. you can’t just plug and play any old game that might be suitable for such controls) as compared to jailbroken apps like Blutrol that allow you to effectively setup most compatible games with blutooth controllers..

  3. All I want is some decent games for my surface. Don’t get me wrong minesweeper is a great game and all…

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.