Awesome Game Consoles

Valve relaunches its Steam Machine with a PC gaming system in a 6″ cube. Significantly more powerful than the handheld Steam Deck, the system lets you play thousands of games from the Steam library with support for 4K gaming at 60 FPS. It runs quietly, has no external power brick, and plenty of ports. Available with 512 GB or 2TB of storage. Pricing TBD.

Atari’s 8-bit console gets a Pac-Man yellow special edition. The 2600+ plays both 2600 and 7800 cartridges and comes with PAC-MAN: Double Feature, DigDug, Xevious, and Galaga, plus a wireless yellow joystick. Collectors, go for the bundles with four more joysticks, inspired by the pesky ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde. Pre-orders start 7.23.25.

RoseColoredGaming sells these precision-cut wood veneers to give game consoles a fresh and living room-friendly look. They’re made from real wood including mahogany, walnut, and padauk and stick on with an adhesive backing. Available for classic consoles like the NES and current-gen systems like the Xbox Series X and PS4. (Consoles not included.)

The PlayStation 5 Pro is all about improving graphical fidelity and speed. It packs an upgraded GPU that can render 45% faster than the PS5, enhanced ray tracing capabilities, and AI-powered upscaling. It also ups the performance of more than 8500 PS4 titles. It comes with a 2TB SSD, but the Blu-Ray drive is an add-on. Launches 11.7.24 with pre-orders starting 9.26.24.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SpongeBox X-Pants! Microsoft’s game console is the ideal canvas for SpongeBob’s boxy yellow body. The special $699 bundle comes with a colorful cartoon character controller and the game Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 packed in. Grab one starting 3.7.2024 via Best Buy Drops on the Best Buy Mobile App.

In 1994, Sony and Nintendo collaborated on an unreleased video game console that birthed the PlayStation name. While there is a rare prototype of the system, James Channel thought it would be fun to build his own. His Frankenstein’s monster of a console has the body of a Super Famicom, the brains of a PlayStation, and a sketchy exposed CD-ROM drive.

One lucky winner will take homa a Sony PS5, an Xbox Series X, a Nintendo Switch, a Sony X900H 65″ 4K TV, a Bose QuietComfort 35 gaming headset, an Oculus Quest 2, and 5-year subscriptions to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo’s online services. A portion of donations helps support the Playing for Change Foundation.

Following up on his extensive Evolution of Game Music, violinist Rob Landes is back with a much shorter tribute to video games. This time, he’s focused solely on the console startup music from the SEGA Genesis through the Nintendo Switch. He skipped the PS2 and string-tuning PS3 startups for some reason though.