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leech

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Posts posted by leech

  1. Posted

    By the way, a weird hint... Jeff Minter had popped into a thread talking about llamatron or something similar a while back, and mentioned he was working on a VR project.

     

    I have no idea if that actually pertains to anything to do with the Ataribox though.

  2. Posted

    By the way guys, I'm curious about who the third party company is that Atari is partnering with.

    Further back in this topic, somebody mentioned this: https://www.sigfox.com/en/news/sigfox-announcing-global-partnership-iconic-gaming-brand-atari

    So maybe it's with Sigfox?

    Other people have also been saying it might perhaps be Sega, because they just recently put out a video called "The Future of Sega" around the same timing that Atari Box was teased.

    I highly doubt it's the latter though.

     

    On a sidenote, I do find it pretty amazing though, that all 3 companies of yesteryear are coming out big into the spotlight in 2017. You've got Nintendo seeing great success with the Switch, Sega teasing a rebranding of their company and "Sega Forever", and then the AtariBox.

    I generally try not to quote the person that is immediately before me in a thread... But that last sentence needs to be bolded. While everyone knew about the Nintendo, and they never really went away, just kind of ended up having to do their own thing... Which if you think about it has been the case since the N64. I mean everyone by that time had gone away from Cartridge, but not them.

     

    On the other hand, for both Sega and Atari to be doing teasers like this? Very interesting times for gamers who remember back when they were great! Atari is a weird one because they seem to be the one who suffers the death of a thousand cuts, but still somehow survive.

     

    I was thinking this the other day.... they better not leave the name as 'Ataribox' that's terrible. They should follow their tradition of cats (Yeah, I know they only had two that launched and one that didn't) and call it the Puma!

    • Like 3

  3. Posted · Edited by leech

    Funny thing is.. even when the Jaguar was released, there was the SNES and Genesis, the CD32 was coming out, the Neo Geo for overly rich people, and CD-i then shortly after Sony stormed in with their giant cash cow with the PSX, which oddly was going originally be a Nintendo system at one point, but they didn't want CD-ROM based, so Sony plucked them up. Much in the same manner that the Lynx was bought by Atari. So with that in mind.... maybe we are thinking about this the wrong way. Atari probably didn't develop/engineer anything, some other company probably worked on their own hardware and wanted a famous name to lead it.

     

    Edit: I really should not reply from my phone...

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    Rebellion.

    I wonder if they are open to licensing the original Atari IP.

    Hmm, did they lose the licensing, or did they just license it to Rebellion (who also famously made Alien vs Predator (Jag) and Battlewheels (Lynx)).

     

    VR Battlezone does have the old classic game in it too.

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

     

    Kinda funny.. Streaming 4K bytes of "Game Program" in this day and age. Even funnier is that the entire VCS library wouldn't fill the cache on a modern microprocessor, let alone the buffers in the hard drive of a bargain bin PC.

     

    Nobody likes likes uber-modern remakes of the classic Atari games. The few that have been made, like Star Raiders, bombed. They dumbed it down with pop-up text boxes and cartoon bubbles. The gameplay dynamics which made the original Atari 400/800 version from 1979 so famous must have been lost in a different galaxy.

     

    I haven't heard one iota about the Battlezone remake from Activision in like 15-years. So.. yeh, no re-imaginings, no reboots, no remakes, no retro styling!

     

    The new VR Battlezone is absolutely awesome! Holy crap, I can't tell you how awesome it is... I have it on PC/Vive. And while it is lame in the eyes of some due to it requiring to use a game pad instead of the Vive wands, it plays so well it doesn't really matter much, and it's not like you really need to interact with the controls. But it is pretty damned awesome.

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    I work in computer security... while I agree all antivirus software is terrible for one reason or another, leaving a system connected to the internet without something protecting it is a terrible idea. Vulnerabilities are discovered all the time, not to mention things like botnets, ransomware, etc. Hell, I remember a guy I worked with kept getting a message that basically asked for 10 dallars for an applicstion to disable the message... turns out Windows Messaging system was enabled by default on XP at one point, and peeple were broadcasting messages with over the internet to make money. Moron paid for it, even after I gold him to just disable the service....

  11. Posted

     

    I've been using Windows since the day it was invented (yes all the way from version 1.0) and don't know what's there not to trust. Have never been infected by a virus/malware save a few browser hijacks on occasion and those where probably partly due to my own mistakes (perhaps visiting websites who's names must remain anonymous) No spy agencies or dark types ever stole my personal info and started to harass me either. Windows is like a sports car, if you know how to handle it and be sober while driving, you will never have accidents :-D

    Ha, isn't that back in the day when you had to close out everything or you'd lose files when you'd shut down? A friend of mine said he had to do that when he was doing the same on another friend's Amiga, and we were wondering why...

     

    Every piece of software has their own bugs and quirks, it really all comes down to 'does it do what I want it to without being a pain in the butt?' Linux and it's associated stack all the way up to Gnome-shell does that for me.

     

    Oh and with the latest updates to Windows 10.. wow Cortana is really annoying. If you want to see some serious amounts of 'wow this isn't terribly professional' thoughts, do a fresh install of the Creator's Update. Cortana literally mentions connecting to a network 'so you can get to looking at cat videos.'

  12. Posted

    <-- Linux user since September 1991, bootstrapped atop Minix 1.5

     

    -Thom

    Nice, I've really been a Linux user since around '96-'97. There was a guy on Reddit that called it a "Trash OS" because you "have to compile everything." Dude try using it 20 years ago or something? I don't compile hardly anything anymore, and I work with Linux professionally. Hell, even most of the things that are custom and compiled are done with a simple click of a button, and a yum or apt install....

     

    Silly people. Oddly, my first Unix-y setup was on my Mega STe where I actually had managed to get X11 and Emacs running. Though time has made my memory fuzzy on if I had managed to get them to work both at once, I remember Emacs being a HUGE memory hog (considering 4mb of ram).

  14. Posted

    I've always thought the Jag was a great system to do 2D games (on paper, at least). In that respect it could have done very well against the SNES and Genesis. Problem was when Atari tried to get into 3D gaming to compete with the upcoming PlayStation and Saturn, along with a CD unit that was too little, too late.

     

    Just my thoughts on the failure of the system looking at it from the outside:

     

    1) Hardware issues such as three processors making it difficult to program for, bugs in the hardware, etc.

    2) Controller only having three buttons and a keypad that was given up after the early 80s's

    3) The 3D and CD decision as mentioned above

    4) Marketing, for numerous reasons

    5) The Atari name itself had a bad taste in people's and retailer's mouths by this point, again for numerous reasons

    6) The company was overstretched trying to support this, the Lynx, and the computer line.

    7) Timing didn't help either. No one talks about this, but there was a 'mini crash' of gaming consoles in the mid 90's like what happened in 83-84. Too many systems on the market and only the big boys made it through.

    8) Due to the 68000 processor a lot of games were just slightly enhanced ports, like what the 7800 suffered from. The original and really good games -- and there were some -- weren't enough to get kids to want to get a Jag when they already had (and probably were very happy with) playing those games on their SNES or Genesis or PC.

    1) From what I had read, this was added to with terrible development documentation.

    2) The reasoning for this is simple, they already had developed a 3 button controller+keypad for the STe. The Atari PowerPad was created before the Jaguar, from what I've seen. https://atariage.com/forums/topic/252546-wtb-atari-stjaguar-bluegray-power-pad-controller/

    3) Seems some of the 3D games looked much better early on than the ones on the PSX. Compare something like AvP with some of the launch titles for PSX. CD would have been a better decision if it'd been released with the system.

    4) Wow, marketing for the Jag was terrible... from the style to the lack of seeing it outside of infomercial times.

    5) Don't forget that they'd pissed off developers as well.

    6) I think by the time the Jag launched, they had dropped support for Lynx and the computers, which literally meant they'd had the Falcon supported for less than a year.

    7) completely agree.

     

    Last note about the 68000, I just recently read that a lot of the Jaguar releases were initially created for the Panther then 'forward' ported to the Jag, which also explains the lack of utilizing the hardware.

     

    This really left the Jaguar and Falcon to be horribly underutilized.

  15. Posted

    Streaming is a terrible idea for gaming. The lag is horrendous.

    Ha, I have a Steam Link in my living room (stupidly they only included a 100Mb NIC on it) and I agree, it's pretty terrible. Oddly the control lag is pretty good on most games, but I do have the random time when it decides to make the audio off sync by about 10 seconds.

     

    Any sort of 'streaming' service would have to do a LOT of caching. Granted when you're talking older 8-bit on down stuff, you could cache the entire library in like a GB of space...

  16. Posted

    From what I recall regarding Android and licensing: the userspace components are provided under a different FOSS license (Apache 2.0) to certain other components (mostly to do with the Linux-based parts of the core OS) which are GPLv2. There are also licenses that cover both commercial and non-commercial contributions to the codebase and ownership thereof. Android's only a free platform to develop for depending on the type of development taking place.

     

     

    With modern broadband, delivery of most older titles could be literally instantaneous (or near enough as doesn't matter) into an emulation VM, or other architecture perhaps along pluggable lines a la retroarch. Stick a Netflix-alike or similar UI onto it, license game IP from multiple holders, and basically do exactly what you're proposing for back-catalogue titles. Ship with, say, the 2600 back catalogue thrown in for free, then pay for pluggable upgrades to allow running other emulated architectures. That would be unique, but given how things like this have worked out so far on existing platforms I'm dubious as to whether or not it would be enough to sustain a dedicated hardware platform.

     

    Thinking about it, though, UI could be the killer app (no pun intended) that makes this acceptable to the mass market. Hell, it worked for the iPhone and iPod - they weren't the first to do what they did, but they got the look and feel right, and that's where their success was really derived from.

     

    That said, I believe that the emulation station idea was somewhat mooted earlier in either this thread or one of the others. Not that that couldn't have changed, though.

    For licensing, I was talking more about how much Netflix pays. libhybris is the compatibility layer for Android apps I was talking about, and it's specifically Apache Licensed; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybris_(software)

     

    I'd agree with the streaming being near instant. 2600 in the cloud... My thinking of Yar's Revenge would be a 'reboot' since we all love those, right? Though a Yar's Revenge 2020 would be awesome...

  18. Posted

    What, Netflix isn't supported on Linux? All you need is a good up to date web browser... :o

    Ha, not exactly what I meant.. I meant within SteamOS's big picture interface. Yeah, I watch Netflix all the time on Linux. Still can't figure out why hbonow refuses to play (it used to work fine, I figure I have something funky cached somewhere, meh.). But yeah, Netflix/Amazon Video both work fine under Firefox.

  19. Posted

    So I was just thinking... we know who the CEO is. But does Atari have any engineers (software/hardware) working for them that anyone knows about? They've just been a software publisher for so many years now, I'm not even sure if they do their own development. If we could find out who currently works for them, it'd give us a bigger hint at what they are planning.

     

    I still think it'd be great if they finally released the VR headset we were promised 20 years ago... who knows, maybe they finally paid their debt to Virtuality... haha!

     

    Netflix was mentioned. It's funny that SteamOS is the only gaming platform out there that doesn't really have it's own netflix/amazon/hbonow plugin. Yet it's definitely the closest to being a 'real computer' vs the xbone and ps4. But I'd agree that who cares? It's not like there aren't an abundance of smartTVs, Bluray players, etc that can't already play the streaming channels.

     

    All that crap costs licensing anyhow, unless they plan on having some sort of Android compatibility layer. Hell, this literally could be a platform for emulating all the old things that they still have rights to. Yar's Revenge HD/4k would be cool though...

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    This business strategy that might actually work to rebuild the brand. Sex sells!

     

    attachicon.gifAtari_Doll.jpg

     

     

    But then people will get the wrong impression and think the guys hanging out at AtariAge are a bunch of old perverts... :P

     

     

    Yeah, like the good, old fashioned, reliable DPDT toggle switch slowing getting replaced by Smart Apps and the Internet of Things. If it ain't broke, don't fix it... :lol:

    There is your Atari 'Box'.

    • Like 2

  22. Posted

    Value adds... Services... My mind is still swirling.

     

    If this thing goes in a home entertainment center, but the services don't involve streaming, just what the heck are they? Bill said that this isn't necessarily an innovative device and that the hardware value they were offering was probably gonna be its biggest market differentiator. I have a dumb question...

     

    Does this thing include 3D printing? Sigfox's talk of a new dimension of gaming had me thinking about that. Is this a service for downloading physical games, like card and board?

    It prints out baby Atari 2600s.

    • Like 3

  24. Posted

     

    I'm joking with you. I have no idea if you'll like it or not, but you seem enthusiastic about it either way.

    The funny thing is... a lot of the articles out there are assuming it's going to be a 'retro' platform. But clearly the words coming out about it are 'this is a new PC based platform'. so... do we start getting Defender 2020, Breakout 2020, etc? :)

  25. Posted

    They actually paired up with a company from Japan, and the new platform is a sexbot. :P

     

    On a more serious note, these are indeed strange times we live in. Like I said in the other thread, technically speaking the Xbox One and PS4 are 'PC based technology.' That could literally mean anything. But if Valve partnered with Atari on a Steam Machine that wasn't a generic one, but the 'official' one, that'd be kind of cool. Especially with how many games I have supported under Linux.

     

    Build it in with emulation of all their old systems, and good times had by all.

     

    Someone should sign up as a dev for them :P

    • Like 1
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