Matt_B

Series X launched a couple of days back, PS5 launches today. Anything Atari do in the next week or so is going to be as widely heard as a fart in a hurricane.

17 days of prep? You obviously didn't get that attitude towards deadlines working for Atari. 😀

I can't argue with that. For what it's worth, I'll take your word for it on the software. I'm not really expecting any answers on the missing apps, just noting that they are missing.

Actually you can retail package a product before its software is ready if you intend to deliver it as an over the air update. Most games consoles have launched in such a state in recent years, even. Also, let me make it perfectly clear that I have not at any point claimed to know that the software isn't finished or that you've seen a finished unit up and running, so you are very much out of order in calling these 'fabrications.' For the record: 1. "I suspect that they've still got issues on the software front" is not a claim that the software isn't ready, merely a supposition. 2. "You didn't say that you'd seen one up and running yet" is merely a claim that you hadn't said it. You confirmed this, so it's not even wrong!

You've said that the units were complete and in the country. You didn't say that you'd seen one up and running yet though, so excuse me for conjecturing based on the information available rather than psychically reading your mind.

I don't disagree that Atari are royal fuckups. However, this is not made up. You can watch Jani Penttinen's video and it's quite clear that the only software on the VCS desktop when he launches it is Atari Vault. This is in stark contrast to the videos they showed earlier in the year where there were a bunch of other apps for things like Netflix, Antstream, Disney+, etc. most of which were presumably just mock-ups as there was a disclaimer to that effect. He's since stated in a YouTube comment that he was under NDA by Atari to only show his own game and deleted all the other apps from the desktop. Can you honestly think of any other reason why Atari would require that from him? I can understand asking him not to show unannounced or unfinished apps, but surely not ones that have already been confirmed and are ready to use. For contrast, it's not like we haven't seen people under NDAs from Microsoft and Sony showing us around the interfaces for their forthcoming consoles for over a month now. He also explicitly confirmed that this is one of the earlier dev units and not part of the recent shipment. We still know nothing about those. Sure, they might be sitting in the US with a full OS already installed just waiting for the controller shipment to arrive before being sent on to customers - but their PR people have suddenly become too bashful to show off its features - or there may yet be further shenanigans to come.

Ah, so much fail. He's not even got the bit about the PS5 right, as that launches in four days, which is considerably less than a 'matter of weeks.'

Shitty plastics aren't enough these days. You need a special edition with a real shit veneer for $100 extra the very least.

On the plus side, for anyone who wants a sub-$100 all-in-one Linux PC, the Pi 400 is out now.

Why pay for what Atari will readily supply gratis?

I'll believe that the scarcity is real for this one. 😄

I suspect that they've still got issues on the software front. We've all seen that the dev unit boots up with just the one app - Atari Vault - so what's to assume that they've got any further with the production version? Pretty much all the other videos they've shown so far of anyone doing anything with it were running Windows with extra RAM and storage. As such, they'll be using every excuse they can to push back the shipping date while they cobble together the remaining apps.

Yeah, it's something to be finally showing off the dev kits that were first mentioned around this time last year! More generally, every mildly positive announcement is invariably a development that they inferred happened months, if not years, ago so it just serves to illustrate how far reality is lagging behind the hype.

Is anyone else tempted to mock up a booking site for them and see if there are any takers from the IGG crowd before they're even built?

He's posted up a picture of it plugged in and running Atari Vault now. He's also confirmed that the packaging is not final, so this is presumably one of the units that they said were going out to devs in July. As such, I suspect there'll be a little longer to wait for the backer units.

Not months, not weeks, we're down to "business days" now guys. 😄

That description is a perfect fit for the aforementioned Snapdragon 460: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/qualcomm/snapdragon_400/460 There aren't a lot of current 600 series chips that fit that description but they could be using one that's a few years old. There are also a few chips designed for embedded applications that fit the description but who'd be insane enough to build a games console around one of those? 😉

Yeah, they might not have set a lot of hard deadlines but they've breezed past them freely enough that there seems little reason to expect them to hold them to ones that are merely inferred.

There's plenty of waggle room in that phrase. They could claim, for instance, to have started shipping by sending out a single unit in October. Similarly, I'm not sure what the guaranteed delivery by December 24 would entail if they miss it. It's not like you'd be getting a free pizza or anything.

If they're not saying which, it's probably one of the cheaper ones like the 460. Mind you, even that ought to be good enough for the sort of games they're offering. The reasons phones with them feel a bit slow is more down to how bloaty Android has become these days.

They're still taking pre-orders in Australia. At $849 a pop, I'm guessing they'll probably be the ones they want to fulfill first.

The 3DS did a bit more than barely make the cut-off. They sold 75 million of them, mostly of the five models that came after the Vita was launched. Also, the Switch Lite is a dedicated handheld. The real problem both Sony and Nintendo had was that they were stretched too thin, supporting multiple incompatible platforms in an age where AAA game development has become monumentally expensive, labour intensive and time consuming. If Sony ever make another handheld, it's just going to be one that runs PS5 games so they don't have that issue. Nintendo have already got there. The VCS won't have that problem because Atari have nothing to stretch. 😀

I thought the Alpha was a creditable attempt at a gaming Linux box, although I'm pretty sure that the Windows configurations sold better. Obviously neither of them did well enough though because they discontinued the line without a replacement a couple of years back. In terms of what you can do with them, they seem a far more capable platform than the VCS. The GPU benchmarks about three times better, for starters, and with the socketed CPU, RAM and 2.5" drive bay there's considerably more upgrade potential. Linux gamers holding out for something better to come along are probably going to pass up the VCS on that basis.

If you want to sue Atari, the best idea seems to be to get a job with them for six months so you'll then have a decent amount of money to go after when they don't pay you.

Probably nowhere near as they were when the Pi 4 came out though.