Former Chief Architect Atari VCS Sues Company Over Missed Payments

Former systems architect behind retro console Atari VCS, Rob Wyatt, is suing Atari for missed payments. He claims that Atari still owes him $261,720. Atari is not commenting at this time.

GPU and 3D expert Wyatt has been working on the Atari VCS as lead architect since 2018 and has worked on, for example, the original Xbox in the past. Until six months ago, he worked on the VCS. According to him, he had not been paid for some time before his departure, but for a while he still had the intention to finish the project. In the long run, however, this became unbearable.

In the indictment, discovered by Venturebeat, Wyatt accuses Atari of breach of contract and defamation. The latter would be based on Atari’s accusation that Wyatt and his company are the reason that the retro console has been delayed and that he has not met the contract terms.

The Atari VCS, initially called the Ataribox, is to be a Linux-based console that will contain more than a hundred retro Atari games, such as Missile Command and Pong, although new games will also be released for the console. The VCS also supports a sandbox mode so that any OS you want can be put on the device. The plan was to release the console in March, but due to the corona virus, there is again a delay.