jaybird3rd

To the best of my knowledge, no.

PM sent for 1050 and banged-up 850!

Just type an "@" sign in the post editor, followed by the first few letters of the member's name. A drop-down list of matching names should appear; select the name from the list, and a tag will be added to your post.

This thread is not an "echo chamber." We've had a wide range of opinions here, particularly over the past few days, and nobody has been censured for it. As I've said repeatedly, positive and negative opinions, and criticisms offered in good faith, are welcome here, as long as everyone involved commits to having a respectful and civilized discussion—which, after all, is what a Q&A thread is supposed to be about. Leaving hit-and-run post reactions as you've been doing, without offering any explanations or questions or counterarguments—even after you've been invited to—is not participating in the discussion. So, please do not leave such post reactions in the future unless you can also do us the courtesy of writing a follow-up post to state your reasons for doing so. This should take only a minute or less; I don't think that's too much to ask.

Fixed. Probably just an echo in the server room.

I will optimistically assume that he was being tongue-in-cheek with this, but I agree, let's not let this get political and racial because there's no reason for it. Any posts which cross those lines will be deleted. EDIT: See Albert's post above.

Tommy would have to be the one to answer definitively, but off the top of my head, some possibilities that come to mind are: journalists, investors, industry analysts, retail buyers, game developers ... and parents and grandparents, of course. The assumption that they would make this presentation for kids doesn't make sense to me. Much of the information in it (such as distribution partnerships) isn't relevant to kids and clearly wasn't intended for them. In addition, the release date is now months away, and kids have notoriously short attention spans, so why begin marketing to them now when the system won't be available until April?

It's not my impression that this video was intended primarily for kids. As I said before, videos like this have a specific target audience in mind and are made for a specific purpose, so people who are outside of that audience might not get as much out of it. I'm sure there will be more kid-friendly videos as the release date gets closer.

I would say that you're comparing two very different situations. The Amico launch delay was the *first* and *only* such delay they've announced, and it was specifically because of COVID-19, which is a circumstance that everyone can relate to because we're all having to deal with it in our own way; with very few exceptions, it's causing delays and disruptions across the board, in every country and every industry. They've also been very open and transparent about it; anyone who has been following that project has known for months that this was a possibility. How many times has "Atari" postponed or delayed the VCS, and with a lot less transparency? I've honestly lost count at this point.

Thank you for sharing your input, and just to clarify, the comments about trolling and dopamine highs were not in reference to you. I simply used my reply to your post to address a few broader issues—including trolling, which we've had to deal with ever since the Amico was announced—but it wasn't my intention to characterize your critiques specifically as trolling. Respectfully stated points of view, both positive and negative, are welcome here.

I think this game looks gorgeous, particularly this last screenshot. One of the things I appreciate about classic games is that, out of necessity, the visuals were simple and clean. It's now possible to create environments that are richer and more detailed, but beyond a certain point, I find that this extra visual "noise" can actually detract from the gameplay, and from the player's own imagination, if the graphic design is not carefully balanced. Perhaps the people claiming that the Amico games "look like Flash games!" don't realize why this is a deliberate choice, but judging from these screenshots, I think that the developers have made those choices very effectively here.

Who's "blowing smoke"? Some people seem to have experienced lag or synchronization issues and some didn't, which indicates to me that the problem was not at the source. For all we know, it could have been a problem with individual viewers' devices or connections, or a problem with YouTube, or some combination of both.

I didn't experience any lag, either. (Then again, I wasn't watching on a wireless device with a slow connection, which might have been a factor for some.)

Well, I think it's important to remember that we (meaning the people who frequent AtariAge and other similar communities) are not the primary audience for presentations like this, just as we've long acknowledged that we're not the primary audience for the console itself. Our community is simply too small for that. Any last-minute developments which prompted the delay might not seem that important to us, but it was decided that they were important enough to the primary audience to justify waiting the extra day; if that weren't the case, I doubt that the team would have waited. Personally, I think the one-day delay wasn't all that big of a deal, and that it will be quickly forgotten. As I understand it, the "extra" countdown at the beginning was a YouTube livestream thing; the people watching it on replay (which will probably be most of them) won't ever see it. For whatever it's worth, I was impressed by the presentation. The Amico team have clearly made significant progress under difficult circumstances, they showed a good mix of different games, and the games that were shown all appeared to be well-executed for the kinds of games that they are. Whether the art style appeals or not is up to the individual players' tastes, but granting that the games are still works in progress, I didn't have any problem with what I saw. To me, the platform—particularly the controllers—will be what sets apart the overall experience of playing these games from the smartphone games and flash games that they're often compared to. With most smartphone games, you don't usually have the ability to play together in front of a shared TV, or with physical controllers, or with multiple screens. It may be possible to cobble together expansions and add-ons (at extra cost and complexity!) which would give you most of that, but then you're not really comparing the Amico to a typical smartphone gaming experience anymore, nor would that experience be available for all games, or as seamless or as consistent as what you can have with a platform inherently designed for local multiplayer. Flash games, too, had limits that the Amico won't have: most of them had to be played on a PC, with a mouse, on a single (relatively low-resolution) monitor screen, and usually within a Web browser. Again, not an apples-to-apples comparison with gaming on a modern console. I also liked that the presentation took the time to introduce the teams behind the Amico and its library of games. It was very nice to get to "meet" them, particularly the international development teams, and I'm looking forward to the different styles and sensibilities that they will bring to the Amico. It was good to see them for another reason ... one of the things about the tiresome trolls we've all had to deal with is that they're largely disconnected from the consequences of their behavior. They operate as if they're impersonally racking up achievements in a video game, usually without ever having to reveal their own identities, which is really dangerous. It's useful to be reminded that there are real people on the receiving end of such behavior, people who do have to live with those consequences, long after the trolls have moved on to their next targets in search of their next dopamine high. Looking on the bright side, I hope that the delayed release, as unavoidable as it is given the circumstances, will at least give them the time that they need to develop an even deeper launch catalog. That will become especially important once the first Amico players begin to look beyond the pack-ins.

It takes time, but I'm optimistic about their chances of getting a Tron license. Disney is in a bit of financial pain at the moment, and presumably less inclined to turn down a potential source of revenue.

The delay is disappointing for everybody, but as I said before, one has to expect such delays given the circumstances.

Thank you! Here is a direct link to the post you mention. (And I agree: ignoring these people is still the best policy.)

True enough. It's been a rough year for everybody, and I've had to learn to be more forbearant when it comes to tolerating delays and disruptions; given the circumstances, one has to expect them.

They probably just haven't finished updating the website. A one-day delay is disappointing, but in my opinion, not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Just another bump in the road.

Thanks! I've moved it to the correct place.

Wow, how did I manage to overlook this?! Put me down for one as well! (By the way, you do have edit permission to the first post in the thread. If you don't want to continue re-posting your preorder list, you can add it to your first post and re-edit it to keep it current. Of course, if you prefer, feel free to continue using your current method.)

Sounds like fun! I'll have to see if I can rustle up something special for the event. Question: I notice that the date in your post is August 15th, but the date in the Zoom appointment is August 8th. Did you intend to move the event from the 8th to the 15th? (Never mind, the 8th is the correct date.)

I'll second that. @Iron-Marine Soldier, your shtick is getting tiresome.

Nope.