Flojomojo

@jgkspsx cinematic universe, you say? In space, no one can hear you say, GOOD GOD WHAT IS THAT THING?!?

Oooh! Oooh! Pick me, teacher, I know the answer! It’s because Hindsight is 20/20, but despite all the hope and wishcasting, all the warning signs were clearly there, right from the start.

If you have the best idea for a retro reimagined nostalgia cash-in, just remember this: ideas are easy, but execution is difficult. Zero points are given for ideas, everyone has them. Only the best of the best get produced, let alone sell in sufficient quantities for the maker to think it was worth it. Single-board computers, open-source software, and quick fabrication like 3D printers make amateur creations easier than ever, but they also raise the bar for what makes something really worth owning. So you have graph paper and like to animate overlapping, scrolling .png files? Neat, but please don’t assume Super Nintendo homebrew developers want to take your colorforms mockups and make them real. Did you enjoy a 1980s TV show about a talking car? Neat. But not everything needs to be made into an Atari VCS game. If you’re excited about the prospect of a cartridge-dumping Atari 2600+, that doesn’t mean anyone else is going to make an Atari Jaguar+ to indulge you and your similarly 1990s-obsessed friends, no matter how hard you bully them in message boards. Mortgaged your home to buy the rights to a childhood favorite, only without most of the licensed titles that made it worth owning the first time around? Neat! Good luck navigating supply chain challenges and competing in a software marketplace that is more crowded than ever. Wouldn’t that be something? We have a tremendously healthy array of current console choices from which to choose, so the market doesn’t need disrupting in the way you’re wishing about. Even if someone feels jaded and alienated by the current choices, there are nearly 50 years of back catalogue computer and video games to enjoy, whether its on original hardware, emulation, FPGA simulation, or whatever the future holds. If you have the skills to try and recreate a 1982 potato computer for a 2023 audience, have at it. But if you don’t have the skills, please at least have the sense to respect the community and not jam up the airwaves with your world-changing, trademarked idea of how you want to play point-to-point multiplayer games using the deprecated Nextel cellular protocols that went away over a decade ago.

It is permissible to check out the “competition” but @TrogdarRobusto how about a licensing deal so Atari can include Battlezone in Atari 50.

There’s a theme selector at the very bottom of the page.

Where did Wade's money come from, and for how long is this kind of behavior sustainable?

That's an interesting idea. I think monetizing it would be hard, because there are razor thin margins on screen hardware (hasn't been a western manufacturer for decades as far as I know) and the mainstream, commodity LCDs are "good enough" for people who value low prices. Have you ever seen one of those laser/mirror screens in person? I'd love to put my eyes on one. Some of us will try to continue to do that for free, for as long as we're allowed to. 😇 I knew that paying $50 fees on a $130 purchase would pay off! j/k Atari added a lot of value to those old names back in the olden days, when they were on top, but that was a long time ago, like 3 generations ago. Note that Warner's "Atari" games are from after the 1984 split. Games by the company called Atari Games are not the same thing as Atari SA. Roadsters, Paperboy, Marble Madness, etc -- NOT AtariAge's Atari. Arguably that's where the better stuff is. Some of the old Atari licenses like Star Wars and Indiana Jones are in unusual places, like on AtGames or Arcade1up arcade machines and on AntStream cloud streaming platforms. Those releases give me hope that they'll appear elsewhere, someday. Maybe those places have more favorable terms than traditional console stores? I guess this is the "what is the future of Atari?" thread now!

The 2600+ wouldn't be able to use the extra chips in the Pitfall II cartridge, since it works by simply dumping the files into a software emulator. There's no reason the emulator couldn't run Pitfall II directly, though -- so long as there's a way to get the ROM file into the emulator via USB or similar. Analogy: My Analogue Super NT, a FPGA system that simulates Super Nintendo, works a bit like this, but in reverse. I can run SuperFX cartridges like Doom and Star Fox from the cartridge since the system can access the extra hardware. But I can't run the ROMs from the SD card since it doesn't have the SuperFX chip to work from. This is why people want a real VCS-on-a-chip or an FPGA Atari, so the system can interact directly with the cartridge hardware, not just download the data. Short answer to your question: possible to fake it, but unlikely they'd implement a hack for one game.

OMG you could have spent that on another copy of Atari 50 for a friend. Or for yourself. Let me guess: did you also buy an Atari VCS 2021 and trick it out with 32GB of RAM? I know, I know ... it's your money. And I wish you well. There was at least one quarter when Atari SA made more money from copyright and trademark lawsuits than from selling games. That's facepalm stuff. Current iteration of Atari has been making interesting acquisitions like Berzerk/Frenzy, M Network Games (the Mattel games remade for Atari systems), and a whole bunch of old Accolade games including Bubsy. They tickle my gamer bone (picture it) but I don't see a strategy there. They also acquired NightDive, which DOES seem strategic, or at least self-serving. Same with the AtariAge acquisition. Not sure how much punch there is in terms of financial value, but it definitely shores up the brand and gives them a little more credibility. I doubt any individual Atari Recharged title has hit 100K, that's a lot of cheddar. But they also haven't been bundled or put on a desperation discount. I wonder if they can track whether the same people buy their stuff?

Clip on. This is from the old AtariAge magazine in the 1980s.

He's more Marty McFly than John Wayne though

I agree wholeheartedly. I'm interested in Atari for the art, not the business.

I don't understand it and it didn't hook me enough to learn. I need to set aside some time to figure it out, but there's so many other things to play. I can see why it didn't test well as an arcade game. LOL I think you have the full collection, even Pong Quest. There was another version of Missile Command Recharged but I don't think it made it to PS5. If they had an Atari game subscription, you'd be the first to sign up. If you like old games, I think you'd also enjoy Donut Dodo, Galactic, and Murtop. Not sure if they're on PS5 though, but they're on Switch and Steam.

Nah, I'd rather just bitch and whine on Internet forums than own Atari stock. 😇 If they make good products, I'll buy 'em.

Just ran across this online, and thought it would be nice to see in the realm of Intellivision Amico and some of its enablers. I'd really like to see @Tommy Tallarico and maybe @jaybird3rd take a shot at this. No excuses or deflection, but a real, honest apology. I doubt it's coming, because it would mean they would have to acknowledge doing some not-so-nice things, but if they tried, lots of people would listen.

This game is like Breakout on acid. Recommended. https://store.steampowered.com/app/684320/HOT_PINK/ Breakout was old and trite by the time the Atari 2600 came out, and if not for Atari having more lawyers than common sense, would be in the public domain as a concept. It's hard to believe that Super Breakout was the pack-in game for Atari 5200, which probably hastened its inevitable demise. You might do better than to try and teach old people history when you could sit back and learn from them instead. And no, you don't get bonus points "just being here on Atari Age," that proves nothing.

@Wildstar I think you're missing what @Matt_B was saying. At the time when Atari Speaker Hats came out for $129, Atari's company slogan on their website was "Atari, so much more than video games." They were pushing the idea of an Atari Hotel, Atari casino games, Atari crypto currency, Atari NFT/metaverse fad crap, and poorly articulated and vague aspirations to be a "lifestyle brand." In truth, they were so much LESS than video games and the company's reputation was diminished by it. https://web.archive.org/web/20181121071042/https://www.atari.com/ Despite the Tallarico-like shilling efforts of PowerDubs, Atari SA stock is still locked in at 13 cents per share. I appreciate the brand as a historical artifact and occasional game publisher, but the further they got out of their lane, the more ridiculous they seemed. I don't know if they'll grow much beyond where they are now, but at least they're making some games that fit with the heritage.

He’s a behind the scenes guy. I was delighted to learn that he directed Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody.

It must be in the other thread. I know I saw it on AtariAge.

The full list is on page 3 of that thread. Red Baron and I, Robot are on it. Battlezone was sold off to Rebellion in the ~2013 bankruptcy so Atari would have to pay to license it back. Here’s the list

I assume they were holding up game lists til the last minute in case there were late breaking changes. I just got back from Costco. They had lots of holiday toys out, but I didn’t see the Gamestation to buy. I did, however, get some food court pizza and other purchases, so it wasn’t a wasted trip. I would not drive 47 miles to check, @GoldLeader. Especially since the MyArcade site seems to have it for the same price after using their discount code. I’d offer to pick one up and ship it to you if I saw one, but I don’t want to act like a drug dealer.

@OldSchoolRetroGamer how do you like the old-school reflective screen? Is it making you go outside to play games?

I ran it a few more times and got different results! And no, I don't want to spend any effort on enumerating Atari games on nostalgia collections manually. Here are the main differences between the three lists: Gamestation Pro, Atari 50, and Atari Flashback: **Gamestation Pro**: 1. Alpha One 2. Basketball 3. Cloud 9 4. Drag Race 5. Lunar Battle 6. Night Driver 7. Runaway 8. Sky Raider 9. Tournament Table 10. Ultra Tank **Atari 50**: 1. Akka Arrh 2. Black Widow 3. Breakout 4. Cloak & Dagger 5. Fire Truck/Smokey Joe 6. Maze Invaders 7. Pong 8. Sprint 8 **Atari Flashback**: 1. Atari Baseball 2. Atari Basketball 3. Atari Football 4. Atari Soccer 5. Destroyer 6. Pong 7. Sprint 2 **Differences between Gamestation Pro and Atari 50**: - Gamestation Pro includes 10 games that are not in Atari 50. - Atari 50 includes 8 games that are not in Gamestation Pro. **Differences between Gamestation Pro and Atari Flashback**: - Gamestation Pro includes 10 games that are not in Atari Flashback. - Atari Flashback includes 7 games that are not in Gamestation Pro. **Differences between Atari 50 and Atari Flashback**: - Atari 50 includes 8 games that are not in Atari Flashback. - Atari Flashback includes 7 games that are not in Atari 50. Please note that some games appear in multiple lists, so they are not counted as differences when comparing the lists.

with a little help from chatGPT, here are some wrong answers (I, Robot and Food Fight are in Atari 50 for example) Here are the key differences between the three lists: Gamestation Pro, Atari 50, and Atari Flashback: **Games exclusive to Gamestation Pro (not in Atari 50 or Atari Flashback):** 1. Alpha One 2. Basketball 3. Cloud 9 4. Drag Race 5. Food Fight 6. I, Robot 7. Lunar Battle 8. Night Driver 9. Pool Shark 10. Quantum 11. Runaway 12. Sky Raider 13. Tournament Table 14. Ultra Tank **Games exclusive to Atari 50 (not in Gamestation Pro or Atari Flashback):** 1. Akka Arrh 2. Black Widow 3. Cloak & Dagger 4. Maze Invaders 5. Pong 6. Sprint 8 **Games exclusive to Atari Flashback (not in Gamestation Pro or Atari 50):** 1. Atari Baseball 2. Atari Basketball 3. Atari Football 4. Atari Soccer 5. Destroyer 6. Monte Carlo 7. Sprint 2 These lists represent the differences in the game libraries of Gamestation Pro, Atari 50, and Atari Flashback gaming consoles. Each console has a unique set of games, and there is some overlap between them as well.