What are your biggest hopes and fears for the Ataribox?

[Dr Manhattan]

I know there are other threads on the Ataribox, however after reading them I still felt this question deserved its own topic.

What are your biggest hopes and fears for the Ataribox? What are your greatest desires? What are your biggest concerns? What must Atari do to make the Ataribox a success? Get creative here, without being completely unreasonable.

 

A few quick examples.

 

Hope: It will unite a great portion of the Atari gaming catalog, past to present, and sell it to me at an affordable price. It will be an Atari content box. Make sure that I have lots of storage space because I might want to buy and play everything.

 

Hope: Atari Age and Atari make some sort of agreement to include Atari Age homewbrew content on the Atari Box.

 

Hope: Atari also creates a built in news portal for the Ataribox. It will combine their own PR and advertising with major news from all of the big Atari fan sites, Atari Age included. Perhaps this would be the "community page" of the Atari news portal?

 

Hope: There's an enormous catalog of Atari commercials, video clips and other forms of advertising on the web. Unite all of that content and provide it to me in the form of a cheap, streaming Atari video nostalgia channel. It could all be rooted in YouTube to save Atari hosting costs as well as making them YouTube revenue.

 

Fears: A weak gaming catalog, overly expensive games, lazy ports, bad controllers, Input lag problems that would be game breaking or would just scare away serious gamers.

 

What say you Atari Age?

[Keatah]

Fear: Increasing thread count.

 

---

 

I don't believe atari has 1/10th the knowledge to do 1/20th of what U list. Remember, they are not gamers, let alone nostalgic gamers. They know nothing of genuine retro, let alone the difference between retro, vintage, and classic. They are businessmen with eyes on the $$$. They know nothing of the halcyonic days and what made them great.

 

The spirit of original Atari is better captured here on AtariAge, through quality emulators, and through your own personal collection. It's the kind of stuff you can't put in a box.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Keatah

[Dr Manhattan]

Fear: Increasing thread count.

 

It's to be expected with the juggernaut of Ataribox mania bearing down upon us.

 

 

I don't believe atari has 1/10th the knowledge to do 1/20th of what U list. They are businessmen with eyes on the $$$.

 

Appealing to their greed might encourage them to get things done right. Having a solid product would definitely increase their bottom line. If there's a chance to possibly influence this sort of decision making, it's now. I'm sure Atari PR has to be keeping an eye on things here.

[Keatah]

I'm sure they are following. I don't see excessive greed as far as corporations go. I also don't see good brains either, because, they are pushing too many modern things with too many modern ways. There's nothing wrong with that, but there isn't anything here for the seasoned gamer. If there is I sure as hell ain't seen it.

 

And they are NOT controlling the hype. The product is gonna be so good in people's imaginations that it can't possibly live up to it in real life.

[Dr Manhattan]

I'm sure they are following. I don't see excessive greed as far as corporations go. I also don't see good brains either, because, they are pushing too many modern things with too many modern ways. There's nothing wrong with that, but there isn't anything here for the seasoned gamer. If there is I sure as hell ain't seen it.

 

And they are NOT controlling the hype. The product is gonna be so good in people's imaginations that it can't possibly live up to it in real life.

 

On the first point, this isn't about what you see now, but what you hope they might achieve if they do things right. And while I admit that maybe my own personal hopes range from unlikely to unreasonable, they still work within the premise of this thread, which is to ask two questions. What should they do to succeed? What should they do to avoid failure?

[Keatah]

To succeed they are going to have to deliver on the massive hype they allowed to build up. Or start reigning it in.

 

I think a mix of the new and the old could work. Not sure the exact prescription. But if it's x86, and open enough, then there is the possibility of running Altirra and Stella. And that's going to enable the classics in droves. For $25 extra you can add a keyboard and mouse and now you have an 8-bit computer.

[JamesD]

Hope: It will become a great platform for classic emulation so I can use my android box for something it's better suited for

Fear: It will be another big vaporware or flop that people can't shut up about just because it says Atari

[AlecRob]

Fear: vaporware

 

 

 

Hope: vaporwave

[Flojomojo]

"Fear" and "hope" are way too strong feelings for what I think about this.

 

Best case scenario: meh

Worst case scenario: HA-ha!

 

Note that best/worst is from the perspective of Atari. I will not necessarily be disappointed if it crashes and burns, because I am an AtariAge Hater Brigader.

[AlecRob]

I'm gonna support it ALL THE WAY, baby

[NE146]

Hopes and fears? I have neither of each.. it's a friggin product. The only feeling I have if it comes out is: "I'll check it out" ;p

[Good_Times]

I stay awake most nights lately, obsessing about the Ataribox. I typically get no more than an hour of solid sleep before I'm driven awake again, shrieking into the dark and trembling. Last night it was so bad that I found myself sitting in the corner of my darkened bedroom, nude and sweating profusely, screaming "ATARIIIIBOXXXXX!!" with my face pressed tightly to the wall.

Oh Ataribox, you merciless whore.

 

It's awful. Just awful.

[RainbowCemetery]

i think i exhausted most of my hope in the other threads. i dunno, basic in rom?

[Keatah]

Your thoughts about Basic in ROM are well intentioned. But the modern manufacturer of today has zero desire to create a device that powers up to a command prompt. They have to be that way because people wouldn't know what to do with such a machine. God FORBID you'd have to type something to get a game to play. And having to look something up in a manual, let alone a real reference manual for a computer language is a curse straight from the devil to be avoided at all costs.

 

So no Basic for you!

[godslabrat]

My only fear is that this isn't the last retro cash-grab we'll see.

 

My only hope is that the scars don't go too deep.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Hope: There wont be anymore threads about the AtariBox.

Fear: There will be more threads about the AtariBox.

[Serguei2]

Hope: we can play original 2600 cartridges on Ataribox

 

Fear: If Ataribox cannot accept cartridges,, you just lose potential customer.s.

[Raticon]

Hope: Can play some degree of modern/relevant games.

Fear: Another Ouya-like box of meh or glorified Flashback.

Note that best/worst is from the perspective of Atari. I will not necessarily be disappointed if it crashes and burns, because I am an AtariAge Hater Brigader.

Hater Brigade represent! :jango:

[Dr Manhattan]

 

I'm sure you've noticed this thing has a lot of ports on it. It looks like 4 USB, Ethernet, HDMI out, maybe a USB-C and some kind of card slot. Looking at this stuff makes me want to a few new hopes to my list.

 

Hope: Let me use USB controllers on this machine. Why would you even need 4 USB ports if they're not going to let us use them? Obviously there's a plan for these, and hopefully it includes USB joysticks. Also, let me put the USB ports to other use, like playing media files, or adding home brew game roms to my collection.

 

 

 

It would be nice if the Ataribox had two forward facing USB ports. I'm not thrilled about reaching around behind the system all the time. I'm also a bit worried that when I play with a corded controller I'll always be pulling the system to one side.

[Video]

Fears, its going to suck, be over priced, lack of good game selection, and games would also be overpriced, or just be yet more vaporware.

 

Hopes, it works well, has a decent controller, reasonable prices for console and games, and has good new titles as well as better classics.

[cybercylon]

Fears: It is vaporware. Remember those are just renders. They finally make the shell, and poof, MK appears.

 

Hope: hmmm. Processing... thinking...uhmm... errr.... (sigh)... okay, it is some more open x86 thing, and it allows you to use carts... dump them onto an SD card even.

[Mord]

I'm just going to sit and wait until it's out. The PR flying around the web about it is actually pretty insane given how little actual information has been released with the rest being everyone trying to speculate...

[godslabrat]

....but remember, they aren't trying to tease! *eye roll*

 

It's exactly the lack of real info that is making me more cautious. There have been a number of vaporware projects that announced with exactly the same strategy. I'm sure for some people it creates "mystery", for me it's a sign that the company isn't serious about making a quality product.

[Keatah]

For me it's a slight variation. I think they're serious about doing something. But they do not know what, or how.

[Dr Manhattan]

What if Atari is smart enough to announce this product, let the hype build on its own, and then sit back and see what people say they want from it? It would be a good way to gauge public opinion. They could be trying to balance public expectations with their own vision for the product. They might also be fishing for ideas.

 

Letting the hype build might also be good for business. The Atari Gameband was crowd funded at 4 times the original pledge goal.

 

Fear: They're letting the hype build so they can also build up the size of their con. Lure in as many suckers as possible. Then the Atari CEOs are going to take the money and run off to Vegas. Eventually one of them is going to wind up crashing a Ferrari in Malibu.