When growing up, Ben Jones played on an Atari 2600. “I was born in 1978 so I was six, seven or eight when I enjoyed the console – about halfway through its lifecycle,” he says. He recalls its iconic design and the large number of games (“I remember enjoying Pong and we had River Raid”). But never in his wildest dreams did he ever think he would one day be remaking the machine 46 years after it originally launched.
“I’m really quite taken aback that Atari invited me to be the custodian of what, I would say, was the first mainstream console that had interchangeable cartridges,” he says, the excitement still starkly evident on his face. Indeed, as the commercial director of retro at Plaion (formerly Koch Media), Ben has been involved in every single aspect of the design of what has become the Atari 2600+. “I’m still kind of working on it full time,” he adds. And this, you sense, is only the beginning.
