mrsearch

... and there's even one booting up in Austria from time to time ;-). Got my collector's edition when the first consoles got shipped.

A pretty interesting document has been posted on the official Atari Corporate site last Friday. It's their yearly annual report and it's about 130 (!) pages long. It's certainly an advantage to understand French; on the other hand, Google Translate does a relatively good job nowadays. Check it out yourself (see link below). Remember when I mentioned that videogame-industry analysts are talking about 'Pay per play'? There's a hint about such a concept in that document. Oh, and the following is certainly interesting to get translated into English (this section talks about contracts that current Atari SA is holding): CONTRATS AVEC LES FABRICANTS DE CONSOLES Des contrats entre la Société et/ou ses filiales et les fabricants de consoles (Sony Computer Entertainment et Microsoft) régissent le fonctionnement de la relation entre les parties. Ces contrats autorisent la Société à utiliser la technologie de ces fabricants de consoles aux fins de développer et d'exploiter des produits compatibles avec leurs consoles respectives. Ces contrats couvrent notamment, de façon détaillée, l'utilisation des kits de développement, le processus d'autorisation d'éditer, les redevances de l'éditeur au fabricant, la durée de la relation, les territoires concernés, les coûts de fabrication ainsi que la logistique afférente, les conditions de paiement et les obligations de confidentialité auxquelles sont tenues les parties. Here's the link; get hold of your French dictionaries : http://www.atari-investisseurs.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ATARI-DDR-2017-VDEF-2017-08-03.pdf

Here's the math of the UBS analysts: 1hr in the movie business is about 5 bucks, 1hr in the videogame business currently is at 25 cents. If the videogame companies will be able to improve that (just a bit) by offering game-streaming, their future should be golden (well, that's at least what the UBS analysts say).

UBS (United Bank of Switzerland) analysts just recommended several videogame stocks as they see the industry moving from regular software sales (=set price per game) to a usage model (=price to play/hr). I think it's likely that Ataribox will have this model as well...

... and I personally found this guys's previous employers quite interesting.

Let's see if this box will have something to do with a mysterious service that Atari calls 'Atari Connect' ...

I would not be surprised about a decent crowdfunding result for the Ataribox if I have a look on the following campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1835143999/zx-spectrum-next?ref=nav_search

I'm pretty sure by now that the Sigfox thing is a totally separate project. 'Crowdfunding' however can work well, as the example of the Atari-branded smartwatch has shown (Gameband): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gameband/gameband-the-first-smartwatch-for-gamers?lang=de Us Atarians have to understand (and accept) that today's Atari is no longer a pure hard- & software company but they try to turn it into a 'lifestyle' company. The biggest challenge will be to make the brand interesting for a younger audience. They try to achieve that with deals like that: http://www.atari-investisseurs.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/CP-2017-06-22-Codebreaker-TV-show-final-CP.pdf 'Atari' & 'Discovery' doesn't sound like a bad partnership to me Taking into account how much a 'from scratch' development of a new console would cost, I understand the crowdfunding approach. Today's Atari just generates small profits (compared to its glory past) and this way it can 'test' the acceptance of such a new product before going into a larger production cycle. Plus each of your backers usually promotes the new product ('word of mouth marketing'). Whatever the Ataribox will be, its announcement (or the announcement of the Discovery deal) has send Atari's stock-price North: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ATA.PA?p=ATA.PA I agree with some other users of this forum that we first should wait and see 'what the Ataribox' really will be before calling for the grave digger...

This is interesting news from Europe: French headquartered Atari S.A. has confirmed in an official press release that the Ataribox will be launched thru a Crowdfunding campaign to minimize the financial risk. See (sorry, Fench only): https://www.zonebourse.com/ATARI-2168735/actualite/Atari-Le-Groupe-Atari-reaffirme-sa-strategie-de-croissance-rentable-a-l-issue-du-salon-des-jeux-vi-24638926/

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/atari-wants-to-get-back-into-hardware-but-not-with-a-console/1100-6419745/

True, seems to work much better for 'retro' than for any other products. I wonder how it worked out for ROAM? http://roamwith.com/atari/ Anyway, the goal of the current Atari management is to transform Atari into a 'lifestyle company' but without forgetting their glory past (games) and this transformation process will take time and is probably a huge job. If you follow the development of the company, then it looks like the current French/American-team is bringing the company back to track (and moderate profits) ... in little steps, of course. I often hear that the current Atari is nothing else than a merchandising company but honestly I can spot it's again becoming something more substantial.

@ Flojomojo: neither, I actually work for a Japanese IT company. However, taking into account how little effort it has taken to produce that website and teaser, it's a nice example of the power of digital marketing. And quite some Atari fans would be excited to see a new Atari hardware device, right?

I wonder if it's actually a box to play subscription based games. Described as 'Netflix of games', this concept gets quite often discussed by different game labels and developers. Us Europeans hear about their partnership with Sigfox [see:Sigfox announcement ] on a regular basis, so it could also be an IoT device (or a combo of both: IoT and game subscriptions). At the end of the day their teaser has really worked; lots of excitement...