BillLoguidice

Changing the plan again? You win. I give up. It's impossible to get a clear answer from you on anything. I have to agree with the others that at this point you're just trolling. Good job. If you can't even answer some simple questions, I don't know how you plan on doing anything else.

You might be able to squeak in today if you send a message with your details to support@atgames.net. It's a good idea to try so you don't miss out on the bonuses.

What I'm surprised about is how they're still limiting their market by not supporting ROMs. I have checked in again until recently and it seems like they did a bunch of stuff/updates, but not that. Seems strange.

I can understand the statement. I don't think there's been any emulation box that simply doesn't dump the cartridge and run it as a ROM. In that case, you really are better off in almost all cases with just running the ROM rather than going through the ritual of putting in a cartridge first. With an FPGA-based system, you kind of get the best of all worlds, but it's no doubt going to be several more years before those are truly at mass market pricing (fortunately they're at enthusiast - us on here - pricing already).

I can't confirm as of yet what version is going to be on there, but there's definitely a chance it's a 3.x instead of a 5.x. I just don't want the 5.x thing to gain steam in case it doesn't work out on the final release units.

If you have the woodworking and handyman skills, and plenty of free time, no doubt you could do something that both looks nice and is feature-packed for a hundred (or two) bucks more than what these sell at. That would still be completely different from what's on offer here and certainly wouldn't prove that these are a rip off in any way, just that you can have something with more features for more effort and money. Look, I get it, you and others don't like it. That's perfectly understandable and makes sense considering the obvious downsides of these products. But to keep running the "rip off" line is rather silly. There have literally been no products like these in this price range ever (which we've been over in this very thread). Certainly someone or some company CAN do better in many of the areas, but it will no doubt cost a bit more. So kindly show how it's a rip off by providing links to something similar for less money. The one empty cabinet that somebody pointed to was both incomplete and more costly, so that one is out. Hacking a used cabinet might work, but I doubt it would be pretty without considerable work, and it certainly wouldn't be all that cheap once you got the parts together, and it certainly wouldn't be plug and play (we can of course ignore the fact that none of the games would be legally licensed either).

I AM impressed that they're able to both release these at $300 and get a huge amount of inventory into major retailers. However, that's completely separate from my personal impression of these. Perhaps my tolerance for spending $300 here or there is higher than for some other people, but it's the gamer in me that likes what's on offer here, not the person who happens to work in the industry (and you can bet the person who works in the industry is also interested in doing one better than these, but again, that's a different thing entirely). I also freely admit that I have a greater fondness for the non-joystick cabinets. I feel like I can be just as happy playing joystick-based games any other way. On the contrary, I like the idea of playing trackball- and spinner-based games using real controls. That's why I'd be onboard with a steering wheel-based machine. In fact, I'd be onboard with that even though I already have a very nice steering wheel setup that works on modern consoles. There's something "different" about playing on a dedicated machine, even one that's not quite the right size (and the small size and the fact that I can move it around easily is a big plus -- I sold off a very expensive dedicated MAME arcade machine with almost every type of arcade control and Wells Gardner 27" monitor--it was just too large and too time consuming to configure exactly right). [And I also have an X-Arcade dual stick still - I don't use it much because it's kind of a pain to setup--that's another thing nice about something like this, i.e., it's always ready to go!). Of course, with all of the above in mind, I do acknowledge this Arcade1Up stuff has some serious downsides, not the least of which is too many different options (which will only get worse), with it obviously being very difficult for the average person to accommodate more than one or two of these. I still think it's worth the money.

It's not that complicated, really. Anyone is free to criticize any company publicly, but accusations or even assumptions of theft or other untoward actions do cross a line, especially if the accusers don't bother contacting the company. Anyway, at least some initial contact has been established, so whatever issues there may or may not be can start to be sorted out.

I only see the truncated names. How do I make it show the long names?

I ask again, what do the colors have to do with the functionality? It meets the bare minimum of a Wolfenstein-3D-like game on an unenhanced 8-bit computer. It's about as good as any of them will likely ever get, which is really not that great if you actually play it, i.e., the real-world limitations of what we think of as that type of game become evident when you play it rather than just watch a video. It's a lot farther off from a Wolfenstein 3D-like game than someone might think. It doesn't take away from the impressiveness of the achievement, though. It's still a complete game rather than just moving down an empty corridor. We can certainly quibble about aesthetics - and I agree that it's not the prettiest game, not by a longshot - but then I wouldn't necessarily expect it to be. Of course, since you have a problem with how Sam's Journey looks and apparently like the way some of the stuff looks that you've shown, I'm afraid I don't have a particularly high opinion of your aesthetic sensibilities either (perhaps you yourself suffer from a type of visual agnosia?). But then this again is not about the tangent of colors.

I don't even think it's necessarily that. Both platforms have their own strengths, obviously, and it would be nice to see new games crafted around those. What's probably needed more than anything is a similarly-sized and qualified team on the Atari side to put the same production value and depth into whatever game they chose as their own passion project. That's also why that podcast interview was so interesting. It's clear that the right talent was put together to make a project like Sam's Journey work out the way it did.

Giana Sisters was and is great, but it's pretty clear that Sam's Journey surpasses it on a technical level. It reminds me of an MMC-enhanced NES game in many ways. It's really quite the achievement, especially in 2018 when this kind of production, let alone scope, is rarely put into homebrews. Even if you don't like the genre, it's undeniable this is a AAA end result.

I've actually been having the opposite problem. I can get the CoCoSDC to work just fine on my CoCos (auto-booting into CoCoSDC Explorer), but can't get it to work on my Tano Dragon. I have switch 1 up and 2, 3, and 4 down, and the DRQ pins jumpered (the Auto is not). My Dragon boots to a green screen with or without an SD card in the slot. Any tips?

US distribution is still being discussed.

Yes, because among the greatest 8-bit homebrew games ever created in Sam's Journey on a computer renowned for the quality of its sound chip just sounds so awful. I think you're trying a bit too hard.