Ayatollah-X

I stand corrected on Genesis emulation. You're correct that I jumped to that conclusion based only on the sour notes of some sounds (and some game incompatibility). All this didn't stop me from picking up the 2016 Ultimate Portable yesterday! I needed a second portable for the kids to open on Christmas (in addition to the Atari portable). Lucky for the kids, both systems will have been thoroughly QC'd by their dad. That's good to hear the new consoles are being upgraded. I'm sure AtGames knows they need to step up their game, now that Nintendo and others have been cashing in on the retro console idea. I've never been compelled to buy a Flashback console (only the portable) as I already have a 2600, but I will if they make one with HDMI output and a cartridge port (ideally) or (at least) an SD card slot.

I'm sure this has been discussed, but I couldn't find it addressed directly. If the AtGames Genesis console has a cartridge port. Why not the Flashback? It's not as if the Genesis is a true Sega machine, it uses emulation just as the Flashback does. Is the hardware needed to make an Atari cart port more expensive and/or scarce than what's needed to make a Genesis cart port? Is there a prevailing theory on this?

v2 of Pac-Man 8k works for me, but some of the colors are off. If only v.5 worked with this. Oh, well. Interestingly enough, Pac-Man 4k doesn't work for me. Pac-man himself is not aligned with the mazes. On another note, while I certainly miss Pitfall II, Princess Rescue works great. Can anyone else recommend any games that really push the limits of the 2600, and work on the Flashback Portable?

I like the record analogy. It holds true in so many respects. It's much like acquiring cartridges vs. using emulation, or having a Harmony cart full of ROMs. It's convenient to have Spotify or Apple Music, but there's something about purchasing the original vinyl album. With Atari, it's even more ridiculous because it isn't even an analog vs. digital argument. It's all digital to begin with, but there's just something about sticking a vintage cartridge into a vintage machine hooked up to a CRT TV, and having everything work just as it did in 1981.

Due to the tag sale origin of my system and the fact that it came with no games, I must be one of the only 80s kids who didn't own Combat! I corrected that in adulthood.

Is a 32k+ cart possible/practical for new carts for the AtariAge store, or would these big future games be emulation dependent? I've been considering the regular Harmony vs. the Encore, but I'm thinking I'd buy the cartridge for something cool like Zippy anyway, and would have little need for the encore.

A little OT, but it sounds like there's a lot of familiarity with the Genesis portable here. Anyone know a good source for that now? BB&B only carries the Atari portable and the Genesis TV console, and now I'm looking for a Genesis portable to go alongside it for Xmas. Online it looks like it's tough to get one for less than $50 (which isn't bad, I guess, but now I've been spoiled with 500+ Atari games in my hand for around $35!

Ha! I'm an idiot. Criticism withdrawn! I actually did have that thought before posting, but found no trace of the cover. After picking at the edge of the screen with a toothpick, I finally caught the edge of the cover, and the screen is just fine!

Got mine a few hours ago. Technically it's a Christmas present for the kids, but I'd better test it out now! Unfortunately the packaging is somewhat haphazard, and there's a diagonal scratch across the whole screen. I'll probably exchange it for another. Otherwise, not bad at all for less than $40. The game selection will get old pretty quickly -- 60 games is cool, but no Pac Man, Activision games, etc., but who cares, there's an SD card slot! It can handle an 8MB SD card, which is way more than you need anyway. Pretty insane. And the video and audio quality are pretty great considering the price. Sure there's a little fatigue from the backlight, and the sound is tinny -- but it gets loud enough, and it's $40! Plus a library of Atari games I would have killed for (and spent a fortune on) as a kid is in the palm of my hand! Easy to take this sort of thing for granted these days, but it's pretty amazing just the same.

I got a heavy sixer at a tag sale for $15 as a kid c. 1984, but it didn't come with any games. It sat in the garage for a few days that seemed like forever. Then my mom picked up a fresh copy Asteroids at a toy store. I'll never forget it. In my mind, it was just like the arcade. Not long after, we got Super Breakout. Then Yar's Revenge. I was a little late to the party, so I got a lot of great games for cheap, post-crash. I also got my share of turkeys (Sneak 'n Peek comes to mind). But overall I loved my Atari, even as the other kids started to get Nintendos. I finally got an NES of my own c. 1988, and my dad gave the Atari away to my uncle's church youth group -- never to be seen again. The Nintendo was awesome, but for some reason I soon began to miss the Atari. Thanks to eBay, decades later, my wife got me one for my 30-somethingth birthday. Not the heavy sixer of my youth, but at least I'm back in the game!