Gamers with an eye for history will likely be most excited in Atari Arcade, which is the classic zone of the new site. Here, you can play retro faves like Crystal Castles and Yars' Revenge. Atari is adding global leaderboards to these classics so retrogamers around the planet can see how their twitch skills stack up against the rest. Interesting that Atari opted to make its own web destination rather than piggyback on a popular social network, such as Facebook. Other publishers, such as Ubi and EA, are using Facebook as a launching pad for their games instead of trying to pull them away from one of the Internet's hottest destinations. Although, Atari is partnering with OMGPOP for social aspects of free-to-play classic Missile Command.
The store is currently stocked with titles for all current systems as well as a Zazzle link to an exclusive Atari t-shirt that is quite striking thanks to the kanji lettering beneath the legendary Atari logo. With Reagan Era gear still quite fashionable, Atari could make decent stack off selling retro clothes. (I know I'd certainly buy a shirt with the still-awesome artwork from some of those gloriously late-seventies/early-eighties Atari 2600 boxes, like Haunted House.)
Over time, Atari promises to add more retro titles to the arcade and a run on those t-shirts could lead to more classic schwag in the future. With so many free-to-play games ripping off the successful formulae of classic titles, it's good to see Atari muscling in with the real deals.