Jstick

Ha, they actually did address that in the stream as well... according to Dave, they originally just found someone local who could provide adhesive, there was no thought given to how it might hold up 40 years later.

Champ games & Spiceware are mainly doing ports of well-loved classic games, whereas Audacity seems to be continuing the Activision philosophy of original games tailored to the platform. Both of these approaches are valid, and in my opinion necessary for keeping the 2600 scene alive. The Champ / Spiceware stuff is totally fantastic, but I'm also looking forward to seeing more unique AAA games for the 2600.

Box, manual, unique NFT token etched onto the back of an (empty) labeled cartridge shell, and link to digital download. There, I just created a new business model for someone.

It does in the sense that the larger a potential market for something, the more chance you will find people in there whose primary motivation is money. Freemium games and the trend towards IAP are the most egregious example of this in the modern market. Therefore, these types will try and monetize everything to the max; physical, digital, media tie-ins, merchandising, whatever they can market. As you get down to the tiny niche markets where people are making things out of pure passion and money is at the bottom of the list, you will find almost 100% of developers making stuff for their own (potentially weird) personal reasons. As an example, I have been working on my first 2600 title in my spare time for fun. If it ever does get a release, I'm only concerned with putting on physical carts, because to me that is special. It's not that I'm against digital, or trying to prevent people from playing the game; rather that my vision is to create a game as it would have been back in the day, something special for those with original hardware to enjoy. When Nintendo puts out a game exclusively on the Switch, are they "forcing" people to not enjoy it on the viable medium of PS5 and Xbox? There are millions of examples of things being created for specific platforms, I mean in gaming alone it's been there since the start. If you aren't interested in investing in a particular platform, it's hard to justify complaining about it.

If they eventually offer the standard Atari style as well, that would for sure change things.

This might be where there is a bit of disconnect. People still into early Atari systems are a niche much, much smaller than say the amount of people who are playing SNES, Genesis or even NES games on their Raspberry Pi's or whatever. There is still a small but viable market for roms for these later systems. The 2600/5200/7800 on the other hand, these are pretty much all going to be approached by developers solely as a labor of love. Maybe the majority of them are simply attached to the idea of having their games physically available for the original physical consoles. Maybe the thought of someone playing their games on a PC with discord alerts popping up is not how they envision their creation being experienced? Total profit or number of sales is most likely not a major driving factor. (Audacity might change things a bit in this space, it will be interesting to see). Anyway, John has mentioned that at least Champ games will have digital versions available here on AA shortly, so it is starting to happen.

@Captain Jack You might also want to check out the "Berzerk VE" hack which adds speech to the game on regular hardware.

Great news! (Hopefully sooner than "Soon™" )

...or if you are interested in the "free gift" that goes with the first 250 preorders.

Yes! Just like those 2600 games with menus added, that keep popping up out of nowhere

This is a good point. These guys were the originators of the 2600 scene, which years later we have become reverent towards. But in the same way that George Lucas doesn't collect new Star Wars action figures and read all the new Star Wars comics, the 2600 might simply not hold the same mystique and nostalgia for them, since they were in the guts of it back then. Outside of meeting folks at conventions and such, it's certainly possible that they are not following every single latest development they way we do here. Yes, let's do that please. This is Audacity's first game, they deserve a fair chance on the merits of their game just like any other developer here. Circus Convoy looks really cool, and has some neat ideas!

There is also the matter of co-processor support (i.e. Harmony CDFJ, etc.). Sorg dismissed the idea of implementing this a year or two ago, but certainly someone else with the knowhow could do so. Not sure if it would require leveraging the ARM on the DE-10, or (since the original purpose of the Melody ARM was just to replicate DPC etc.) if the co-processor could simply be implemented on the FPGA itself.

I keep seeing comments like this in this thread... This is what Dan actually said (timestamp 39:10): "We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the homebrew. Homebrew kept the system alive, and made people interested in it. It's wonderful, the things that have been done in homebrew to keep the machine alive. It's one of our favorite systems, and certainly it's become a favorite for a lot of people, and you know we're very, very happy that they took the step forward a number of years ago. I think John Champeau told me I think its about 15 years he's been playing with homebrew... ...that's wonderful the work that's been done" It seems pretty obvious that they do have respect for the homebrew scene, and they even gave a shout out to John specifically.

They did address a decent number of questions I believe, if not directly then incidentally during conversation. It should also be noted that Dan did explicitly say that they were thankful to the homebrew community for keeping the 2600 alive all this time, and acknowledged that they wouldn't be able to do what they are attempting now without that foundation. Ok, perhaps I should stop responding here for the evening, as I seem to have somehow given myself the completely unnecessary role of "Defender of Audacity"

Well, to be fair they started on the game long before the physical stuff, and it does look like a pretty good one from what they've shown.

I don't think so, I'm sure it's really just a personal point of view thing; how you want to see yourself. Some people identify with the role of the underdog, the small craftsman, the lone wolf, etc. Others like these guys who started professionally in the industry under very different circumstances (Atari and later Activision were really on top of the world) probably see things larger, more organized, more communally.

Dave specifically discussed writing a new graphics editor to handle some of the detailed graphics they are using. There was another reference to "tools" generically, but I don't believe there were any claims made with regards to a custom assembler, emulator, etc. Dave just mentioned he was still fluent in 6502 (well, 6507 I guess).

I can highly, highly recommend putting together a MiSTer system, for many reasons (especially to the kind of folks that hang out here). One of my favourite things ever. The new 7800 core is indeed great. Ironically, the 2600 core is actually the main weak point for the MiSTer, and I'm really hoping it will get the same love and attention someday. Most of the other arcade, computer and console cores are fantastic if not flawless.

The feeling I got was that they were really focusing on how much investment they had made in physical production capabilities, specifically large quantities of new injection molded carts. Albert does an amazing job, but he is still buying old carts and refurbishing them, and there is still a lot of delay in the game release schedule because he can only handle so much. Dave said he felt homebrew was someone at home making a game, whereas they have apparently invested a lot in this venture as a company, to the point where it's possible they wont fully see a return on that. If they can leverage this (as well as their new dev tools) to bring aboard and publish other devs from back in the day as they mentioned in the stream, then I think it's a fair viewpoint.

The answer to this is obvious: 2600 games with free-to-play game mechanics and requiring an always-on internet connection. Register with your credit card, and then press the select button to add more virtual currency. (In addition, a special ad screen kernel that triggers after every reset)

Maybe the “Physical + Digital” bundle is the way to go, but even then you might end up with a bunch of carts on the secondhand market from those who dont have physical consoles anymore but want to play the game via emulation.

It will definitely allow these games to be available to a wider audience (Harmony Cart owners, Stella users, etc.) Of course piracy is always a thing, but I think at this point most of us in these forums are here because we enjoy seeing new titles being developed for these old systems, and the majority are happy to support the developers so that they can continue to bring us fun games. I would hazard a guess that even if these games eventually end up in ROM packs for Retropie or whatever, the casual folks that are going check them out for 30 seconds represent about %0 lost revenue potential.

We hadn't really seen anything tangible besides a few bits of tech info until that video posted 4 hours ago, so tech specs were all anyone could speculate on. In the days of overpromised and underdelivered crowdfunding campaigns, many people are wary of big promises from resurrected superstar devs (e.g. Keiji Inafune, Chris Roberts, Peter Molyneux, et al.). Based on the video just posted however, it appears Audacity are off to a great start, so I expect you will see more appreciation and respect for this venture going forward.

Interesting, this sheds some light on their approach: So apparently they aren't going the way of arm co-processors or other fancy tech (aside from the internet score thing), but rather continuing where they left off and trying to squeeze even more out of the original 2600 limitations. Admirable in a way, I'm sure this will make purists happy.

Back then many of us were clamoring for more rich & engaging experiences beyond simple arcade-style games, and the Intellivision controller with its custom overlays had the appearance of something more deep and sophisticated. But generally these days we revisit this generation of games because of their simplicity, and the Intellivision controller becomes a bit of a hindrance for simple pick-up-and-play gaming (as most of the games themselves aren't particularly advanced over 2600 games, when viewed from a modern perspective)