Life at Atari - A Honest Account - Andrew Burgess Interview

[Adriano Arcade]

Life at Atari - A Honest Account - Andrew Burgess Interview

 

Atari developer Andrew Burgess spills all the beans on what it was like working for Atari and the Tremiel brothers during the 90s on both the ST and Jaguar! Let's just say he doesn't hold back...

 

He also shares his views on S.T.U.N. Runner, Trevor McFur and his views on the Jaguar console.

 

http://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/andrew-burgess/

[Lost Dragon]

Yet another fantastic interview.

 

Very interesting to hear his honest thoughts on working environment under the Tramiels. .

 

Rather telling he was hired to develop Jaguar games, but spent majority of his time on everything but actual game creation, just aspects of..

 

And yet another person involved with Crescent Galaxy that knew it was the wrong product for the Jaguar.

 

Very interesting hint at what Sony are working on..VR system for PS5 perhaps?.

Although slower than expected sales of PS4 VR might have killed that idea stone dead.

 

Wonder if rumours they really are consideing returning to the hand held market, having seen the success of Switch might be grounded in reality.

 

Your doing sterling work with these.

[Adriano Arcade]

Yet another fantastic interview.

 

Very interesting to hear his honest thoughts on working environment under the Tramiels. .

 

Rather telling he was hired to develop Jaguar games, but spent majority of his time on everything but actual game creation, just aspects of..

 

And yet another person involved with Crescent Galaxy that knew it was the wrong product for the Jaguar.

 

Very interesting hint at what Sony are working on..VR system for PS5 perhaps?.

Although slower than expected sales of PS4 VR might have killed that idea stone dead.

 

Wonder if rumours they really are consideing returning to the hand held market, having seen the success of Switch might be grounded in reality.

 

Your doing sterling work with these.

Thanks Lost Dragon!

 

Andrew was very open and gave an interesting view on life at Atari! Those VR rumours are certainly eye-opening!

 

Much appreciation as always! Adrian.

[zzip]

Very interesting hint at what Sony are working on..VR system for PS5 perhaps?.

Although slower than expected sales of PS4 VR might have killed that idea stone dead.

The industry still believes VR is only going to grow. As long as that is the industry view, I don't think Sony gives up on VR. They like to be a dominant player after all. If they give up now, they hand the VR market to Oculus, who is dumping tons of money into it.

 

Personally I don't think VR really takes off until you have good standalone units. As opposed to ones that depend on a host PC/Console/mobile device.. that adds inconvenience, expense and a barrier to entry for many.

[Lost Dragon]

I've been watching the prospect of Home VR since the Sega Genesis era.

 

It's something that has always been something i feel has great potential, but the technology for an affordable/mass market system just isn't there yet...

 

Plus, developers need time to really understand what consumers really want from VR games.

 

I doubt Sony will make the mistake MS made with XB1 by bundling an expensive add on such as a VR kit with the PS5 (Kinect as standard with XB1 was a costly mistake), but it will be interesting to see what they plan to do with it on PS5.

 

The Pro model PS4 was supposed to be a response to developersonalise wanting more power for PS4 VR games..was it ever utilised to any real degree?.

 

Back to main interview...

 

I love it when people speak openly about their working environments and projects they worked on, adds a lot more to an interview for myself.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

VR...............wake me up when we have Holodecks............

[zzip]

I doubt Sony will make the mistake MS made with XB1 by bundling an expensive add on such as a VR kit with the PS5 (Kinect as standard with XB1 was a costly mistake), but it will be interesting to see what they plan to do with it on PS5.

The speculation is (based on patent filings or something) that Sony will incorporated the features of the "breakout box" directly into the PS5. This allows for features like second screen/social screen/theater mode. That makes sense as the breakout box is one of the annoyances of the VR setup. I don't think anyone thinks they will include the headset or even the camera. The next iteration of VR may not even need the camera, since the next step in VR evolution seems to be using something called 'inside-out tracking' which seems like it means putting the tracking sensors on the head unit. This might be what Andrew was hinting at in the interview.

 

The Pro model PS4 was supposed to be a response to developersonalise wanting more power for PS4 VR games..was it ever utilised to any real degree?.

No, the PS4 Pro was always intended to provide a 4K (ish) solution. The VR part was an internet rumor because after seeing the Oculus Rift minimum requirements, people online didn't think the stock PS4 was capable of handling VR. VR works fine on the base PS4, VR games do get enhanced for the Pro though.

Edited May 30, 2018 by zzip

[ParanoidLittleMan]

This was interesting interview, sadly little more Jaguar oriented.

I would like to see more of it, especially with people involved in TOS development.

[MrMaddog]

This was interesting interview, sadly little more Jaguar oriented.

I would like to see more of it, especially with people involved in TOS development.

 

Sadly, the Tramiels at the time didn't give a TOS about their computers...

Edited June 2, 2018 by MrMaddog

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I'm sure that Tramiels wanted good TOS, as much possible. But ways, how they tried to enforce it were not 'optimal' - said very-very nice.

[leech]

I'm sure that Tramiels wanted good TOS, as much possible. But ways, how they tried to enforce it were not 'optimal' - said very-very nice.

 

The speculation is (based on patent filings or something) that Sony will incorporated the features of the "breakout box" directly into the PS5. This allows for features like second screen/social screen/theater mode. That makes sense as the breakout box is one of the annoyances of the VR setup. I don't think anyone thinks they will include the headset or even the camera. The next iteration of VR may not even need the camera, since the next step in VR evolution seems to be using something called 'inside-out tracking' which seems like it means putting the tracking sensors on the head unit. This might be what Andrew was hinting at in the interview.

 

 

No, the PS4 Pro was always intended to provide a 4K (ish) solution. The VR part was an internet rumor because after seeing the Oculus Rift minimum requirements, people online didn't think the stock PS4 was capable of handling VR. VR works fine on the base PS4, VR games do get enhanced for the Pro though.

Yeah, I think the PS4 Pro was for 4k TVs and it supports the HDR ones.

 

By the way, everything I've read about Inside Out Tracking says it's greatly inferior to having the Lighthouse external tracking like the Vive has (and the Rift if you have 3 cameras and many cables).

 

I'm sure that Tramiels wanted good TOS, as much possible. But ways, how they tried to enforce it were not 'optimal' - said very-very nice.

 

TOS 5.0 was codenamed Salad TOS, or S-TOS for short, though some thought it was Super TOS....

 

(Note, this is for humor and in no way factual in case anyone tries to take me as some sort of insider!)

[Greyfox]

As Lost Dragon a superb read and great honest insightful interview, many thanks for bring these stories and antidotes to us all here.

 

Great work fella

[Lynxpro]

The speculation is (based on patent filings or something) that Sony will incorporated the features of the "breakout box" directly into the PS5. This allows for features like second screen/social screen/theater mode. That makes sense as the breakout box is one of the annoyances of the VR setup. I don't think anyone thinks they will include the headset or even the camera. The next iteration of VR may not even need the camera, since the next step in VR evolution seems to be using something called 'inside-out tracking' which seems like it means putting the tracking sensors on the head unit. This might be what Andrew was hinting at in the interview.

 

 

No, the PS4 Pro was always intended to provide a 4K (ish) solution. The VR part was an internet rumor because after seeing the Oculus Rift minimum requirements, people online didn't think the stock PS4 was capable of handling VR. VR works fine on the base PS4, VR games do get enhanced for the Pro though.

 

The PS4 Pro is disappointing considering it doesn't even support 4K Blu-ray, which is Sony's own tech, unlike Microsoft's top-end Xbox One.