andy_bernstein Posted December 22, 2003 Share Posted December 22, 2003 I'm wondering what is the market for new Atari 8-bit releases -> if properly carried by such vendors as Atari Age, B&C Computervisions, Best Electronics, Derek Fern in the UK, anybody from Atari Histeria who can do the job in Poland, somebody in Germany and a bunch of French A8 fans I know. For instance, how many units Space Harrier XE (CIB) -in your opinion- would sell and at what price ? If it's available in a CIB configuration, I'd be ready to shell out $50 minimum for Space Harrier XE. Let's say Sheddy sells a minimum of 25 units, that's $1250 minus Paypal fees (or other vendor's fees unless they give him a break) and minus the manufacturing costs (Pixels Past -> Please be affordable). Also, because it's a cart, I'd be suprised if there would be any piracy but correct me if I'm wrong (while a simple tool like the Super Pill ! can transfer an 8 / 16 ko cart, Space Harrier XE would be in a completely different league). So what do you think ? The text above is from the Prototype Thread (1) dated yesterday. In other words, what do you think is the market for new Atari releases ? It would be nice to get numbers from Sunmark (regarding Commando) or Bry for Castle Crisis. I doubt B&C or Best will say anything about the volumes they moved when they first introduced Deflektor and Tower Toppler back in 96. AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Eidolon Posted December 22, 2003 Share Posted December 22, 2003 I don't know any specific numbers, but i believe Castle Crisis was an initial 50 cart run. Sunmark also stated that many of their releases would be a run of 50 carts. As far as I know, tho only one which has sold out was the MULE cartridge, so most of the rest probably have less than 50 carts sold, even after several months. I would guess it is not impossible to cover materials and production costs by selling carts, but if you take the author's time into account this is a probably a business only for hobbyists who love working with 8-bits for their own sake. --The Eidolon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 23, 2003 Author Share Posted December 23, 2003 Hi, Does anyone of you (Al ?) know how much it cost to manufacture an Atari 8-bit cartridge with at least 1Meg of content like Space Harrier XE ? In comparison, how much does something like Castle Crisis (16ko) cost to manufacture ? Thanks. AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted December 23, 2003 Share Posted December 23, 2003 Hi, Does anyone of you (Al ?) know how much it cost to manufacture an Atari 8-bit cartridge with at least 1Meg of content like Space Harrier XE ? In comparison, how much does something like Castle Crisis (16ko) cost to manufacture ? Thanks. AB. It all depends a lot on where you get your parts, and what you can do yourself. If you can afford a large run of custom PCB's it becomes cheaper than buying anything pre-made. Best sells cartridge shells for $2.50 each, and unless someone can afford an injection mold, there's no way to reduce that cost. Castle Crisis is 32K, so it requires a bank-switching cart which I designed myself. The board is able to go up to 1MB, but at that capacity (and beyond), I'd probably switch from EPROM to cheaper Flash ROM, although that requires surface mounting, which is impractical to do by hand. Buying parts in quantity drives down the overall price, but you need the market to support that investment. Making just a few of something (or buying a lot of parts you can't sell) is much more expensive. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 23, 2003 Author Share Posted December 23, 2003 Bry, Thank you for explaining. I'll have to deal with Best to get the parts for the Antic / Gtia upgrade so I'll see what they can get me if I want to make a cart. Having said that, I'd probably go for a custom approach (as long as it's financially viable) and, yes, we need a market for releases. I'm wondering if there is a way to attract a new audience for the XL/XE machines beyond the retro-gaming community. In comparison, just to make the U.S. market interested in Polish software releases from the early nineties was mission impossible (during a visit at B&C, Cathy literaly told me "it doesn't sell" -> well, lower your prices !). AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord-Chaos Posted December 23, 2003 Share Posted December 23, 2003 If you are experienced with soldering/de-soldering ROMs from existing PCBs and rewiring/modifying , the cheapest way to produce "small runs" would be to buy existing XEGS carts. Some of the are rather cheap, the ABBUC in Germany sells Barnyard Blaster for only 1.30 Euro (ca. $1.60) , Barnyard Blaster can be found on ebay.de for 1 Euro sometimes. There could be similar cheap games in the US, especially the Lighgun games since there a lot are more of these games than Lightguns. So if you want to make 10 or maybe 20 carts without investing money for new PCBs, you may try to locate some cheap new XEGS carts, since some are really common and cheap. Thimo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 23, 2003 Author Share Posted December 23, 2003 Gunten Morgen Lord Chaos, Very good idea ! I tend to be a perfectionist (Pixels Past -> please manufacture transparent XL/XE cartridge shells !) but, in a budget situation, the use of pre-existing XEGS carts is just fine. Thanks again for mentioning this possibility. AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted December 24, 2003 Share Posted December 24, 2003 Theres really no need for anyone to invest money anymore unless they want the 'whole experience' of making the hardware, packing it, selling it, etc. There are at least 3 people, myself included who can bring an Atari 8-bit cart to market in days or even hours, with full color labels, etc. I can even do it in flash-upgradable formats on a zero-investment basis. I think the real problem is there just arent many people home brewing games for the 8-bit yet. The 2600 and 5200 seem to get the lions share of attention by home brewers at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 24, 2003 Author Share Posted December 24, 2003 Steven, A few of us are working on this (the lack of homebrews) but I must say that, being on Mac, beyond ATARI800X (the emulator) and what I can get from www.cc65.org, it's almost easier to program on a native machine. Question for you -> Is some sort of a SIO2MAC (using Firewire 400/800) or basic APE doable on OS X ? AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted December 24, 2003 Share Posted December 24, 2003 Steven, Question for you -> Is some sort of a SIO2MAC (using Firewire 400/800) or basic APE doable on OS X ? AB. There are a couple of linux SIO2PC programs. One of those should port nicely to OS X, at least as a command line *nix program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy California Posted December 24, 2003 Share Posted December 24, 2003 I think the real problem is there just arent many people home brewing games for the 8-bit yet. The 2600 and 5200 seem to get the lions share of attention by home brewers at the moment. No offense intended but this kind of passivity has harmed the A8 for years. Heck, if people were jut informed of what's happening in the A8 world, there would be more demand... For one thing, I'm sure there are still some coders in Poland willing to write stuff if they see a nicely organized project. Did anyone at AtariAge, Video 61, Sunmark... ever contact the guys at http://www.atariarea.histeria.pl or post a message on the forum there? If you did and got a negative reply, I'll just shut up. If you didn't, I'd suggest you give it a try... It's only a matter of five minutes and simply a logical thing to do. ++ RC ++ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted December 24, 2003 Share Posted December 24, 2003 I think the real problem is there just arent many people ome brewing games for the 8-bit yet. The 2600 and 5200 seem to get the lions share of attention by home brewers at the moment. What I never understood about this is that you get the same hardware in the computer, plus they're easier to come by and get controllers for. They just don't have that "console" image. Image that... After years of hearing our beloved computers called "game machines," now it seems they're not "game machine" enough! -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathtrappomegranate Posted December 24, 2003 Share Posted December 24, 2003 After years of hearing our beloved computers called "game machines," now it seems they're not "game machine" enough! What he said!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted December 24, 2003 Share Posted December 24, 2003 I've been wondering why we almost never see any of the Polish A8 software over here. I'm sure that if several of those guys are wanting to sell software over here, there's plenty of websites (like, um, AtariAge) who would be more than willing to help them out. One thing that I believe has been a hinderance is that much of the Eastern European A8 software I've seen hasn't been in English, which I believe cuts down the audience they would find here in the US. Of course, I may not have seen a representative sampling of what all is available, but even then I think the point still stands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super-Genius! Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 To give everyone an idea of the "8-bit" world, here are my statistics: 1. MULE did sell all 50 carts in three days. 2. The Synapse MultiCart is mostly sold out. (Four left!) 3. InstaDOS cart has sold over 100++ copies. 4. The sio2pc circuit board has sold over 200++ copies. (This includes the ones AtariAge sells also!) 5. The Hollex Cartridge has sold 47 copies. We do sell a lot of 8-bit bare boards, probably over 200 in the last two years. Of course, you have things like the R-Time cartridge that I have only sold five copies. http://www.sunmark.com Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 To give everyone an idea of the "8-bit" world, here are my statistics: 1. MULE did sell all 50 carts in three days. Okay, that bums me out. I'm up to 28 Castle Crisis A8 carts. I hope the 5200 version is a big hit. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 One thing that hinders me from buying every A8 release is generally the price coupled with the fact that I'm poor right now. I'm not complaining about the price though, I know it simply can't be helped with the quantities, and even then I think it's reasonable. That's something I'll end up having to deal with too whenever my game is ready for release. As it is, though, I'm certain that more sales will happen as the community here grows. I know there's still quite a few A8 fans who really aren't aware of many of the things that have been released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy California Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 Don't forget there are still MANY A8 users who don't know the Atari boards or don't have frequent Internet access (if at all). The German ABBUC club has about 500 members and there are still some people in Poland who like to fiddle around with the A8. Mark, your opinion on this and what I wrote previously? I'm also pretty sure B & C Computervisions and Video 61 have customers who don't necessarily read the AtariAge forum. Final thought: I find it APPALLING no A8 publication exists in the US (not even disk-based). ++ RC ++ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 I find it APPALLING no A8 publication exists in the US (not even disk-based). The problem is finding news that's interesting to US users. A magazine that just covers one European copy party after another wouldn't be too interesting, and new releases aren't coming at a rate that can fill a magazine. The thing that amazes me more is that the A8 forum here is pretty slow compared to the console forums, yet the computers were quite popular in the day. What we really need is a way to steer A8 enthusiasts to AA. The cheapest thing I can think of is some sort of banner that AA members could slip into their ebay auctions to raise awareness. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy California Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 The problem is finding news that's interesting to US users. A magazine that just covers one European copy party after another wouldn't be too interesting, and new releases aren't coming at a rate that can fill a magazine. The Polish or German disk magazines cover a wide range of interesting subjects A8-related, not only demo parties. A bi-monthly magazine available on disk (via subscription, selected dealers, e-mail... whatever...) could work. Just give it a slick presentation (you could even ask some European coders to write a cool intro) and interesting content (not that childish crap about the "good old days" or how great it was when I got Star Raiders at Christmas...). Heck, the Europeans can do it, why can't we? The thing that amazes me more is that the A8 forum here is pretty slow compared to the console forums, yet the computers were quite popular in the day. What we really need is a way to steer A8 enthusiasts to AA. Still sticking to my original comment but what else do you expect when there's no newsletter or publication around? The cheapest thing I can think of is some sort of banner that AA members could slip into their ebay auctions to raise awareness. Brilliant, let's do it then ++ RC ++ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 i probably missed it, but is there an 88x31 banner for AA that i could shove on my websites...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted January 1, 2004 Share Posted January 1, 2004 What we really need is a way to steer A8 enthusiasts to AA. That can be really difficult. Looking at myself: I've been an Atari-enthousiast from 1989 (thinking I was the only one left on the planet), and it wasn't untill last summer that I'm active on the forums. You just need to have that bright idea: "Hey maybe there is a forum about my favourite A8bit". That idea did occur to me per accident. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari Smeghead Posted January 1, 2004 Share Posted January 1, 2004 To give everyone an idea of the "8-bit" world, here are my statistics: 1. MULE did sell all 50 carts in three days. Okay, that bums me out. I'm up to 28 Castle Crisis A8 carts. I hope the 5200 version is a big hit. First off, I think it's extremely cool that Super-G and Bry were willing to share their sales info with us! Bry, I really don't think you should 'bum' all that much. There are probably people (like me) out there who will buy your cartridge when they're sure they can afford it. Christmas seems to cost more and more every year. Personally, I'm sorry I wasn't able to be in the initial purchasing frenzy. I really wanted to be, but timing is everything in this world, and until I see that dreaded credit card bill, I just GOTTA be responsible. It sure sucks being an adult, sometimes. The main thing I wanted to say here is that I am one of those Atari die-hards who tries their best to support every and any new endeavour that pops up. I have spent a lot of money on AtariMax and SunMark products, and I have bought many things from vendors (B&C, GoAtari, Best, etc) and eBay. But I have to divvy up my spending between the new Jaguar, Lynx and 8 Bit releases, as well as the REST of my LIFE. (Hmmm...food or Castle Crisis... damn, I'm hungry, but it looks SO cool!) So, anyone out there who is speculating about jumping into the market with a new game, I say do it. You already KNOW you won't get rich, but you will be supported by many of us, sooner or later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted January 1, 2004 Share Posted January 1, 2004 AtariAge needs to launch their 8-bit section of the game database. That will help, believe me. People will become more interested in the platform again if they get a nice interactive history lesson on it in the form of the database. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted January 1, 2004 Share Posted January 1, 2004 I also think the 8-bit is a victim of its on success. It lived long enough as a hobby machine that there are countless "homebrews" that have been written for it in the form of shareware and freeware games from years ago. In the computer magazine and BBS era, these games circulated efficiently with far less overhead than making physical cartridges. The whole dynamic of homebrewing changes when you have an OPEN platform with disks to store games and modems to fill the disks. There simply isn't as much uncharted territory gamewise on the A8 as there is with even popular console platforms like the 2600. So it's hard to pick projects that really stand out. I do think Space Harrier could stand out, and I also plan on getting Castle Crisis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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