You can pre-order the Ataribox this week, but why would you?

The gaming world got a bit of a surprise back in July, when Atari teased it was creating a new console called the Ataribox. Today the company announced you’ll be able to pre-order in just a few days – December 14 to be precise – when it will presumably launch its crowdfunding campaign. But why in the world would you?

So far, we know almost nothing about the Ataribox. The last major update we got was in September, which revealed the console would run on Linux and be priced around $250 to $300. It will supposedly be able to play the same games as a mid-range PC, which is a highly ambiguous metric.

More importantly, a console actually needs games to sell. I’m a sucker for nostalgia too, and there’s a reason the NES and SNES classic have done so well. But without any games revealed, there’s no reason you should be spending a couple hundred dollars on a console from a company that hasn’t built hardware in decades.

To be fair, I assume Atari will reveal at least some games and more information when it goes up on Indiegogo. But the fact that it’s already asking people to pre-order before revealing a single game doesn’t bode well – it makes me think the company is banking on selling purely on nostalgia. Here’s hoping the campaign proves me wrong.