Shaggy the Atarian

Interesting, so it looks like any likeness of their IP they freak out about, although a brief search of registered, active trademarks do not show any of their consoles apart from the "Ataribox." Certainly not the Lynx or other consoles. Their logo I totally understand and didn't use (apart from the tiny bit that would have been visible at the bottom of the Lynx, but since I'd seen Sega and Nintendo stuff with the logos on there, didn't think much of it), and wouldn't bother with a straight up Atari logo shirt anyways. But yeah, I'll echo this: "fsck these guys and all of their backers, right in the cartridge slot. "

I can understand it for anything that actually says "Atari" on it like the first one did. When I got the takedown notice that time, I just wanted clarification, but figured it would fall along that line. But for something that doesn't mention Atari at all? That seems outright ridiculous to me. They really have no clue how to treat the fandom; we're giving your brand free advertising. Of course I will not be surprised if the design or something like it suddenly shows up at Target.

I had a run-in with Atari yesterday & today. I guess it's related, although if this belongs somewhere else, feel free to move. I created a design for the Teepublic store celebrating the Lynx. The first design said Atari Lynx on the side, and had the Atari logo on the Lynx itself among other things. After it was up on the store for a few days, I got a DMCA from Atari stating that they were enforcing an IP takedown. I sent an email asking for clarification(is it just because it says "Atari" or something else? It was a little bit of a surprise as you can type "Gameboy" into the search and 37 pages of designs pop-up, many are just pictures of the GB and nothing else), but didn't hear back from Teepublic. I figured it had to do with the Atari name on there, so today I re-uploaded the design without mentioning Atari at all - replaced "Atari Lynx" with "16-power" and blacking out the Atari logo on the Lynx itself. Image of the design in the store attached. This time, I got another takedown notice from Atari in about an hour along with a warning, despite there not being any mention of Atari at all within the design. I doubt that they legally have a trademark to an image of the Lynx, much less one without branding; the Teepublic store is loaded to the brim of designs showing Nintendo and Sega consoles, but noticing that there's nothing on there from Atari. They must have some kind of deal in place, but goes to show how much they really care about the independent creator (spelling bad news for Biff...)

LOL And about that trailer - I really look forward to it. The gnashing of teeth that will go one when certain people realize that the only place to get certain Atari games won't be on the VCS, but on the Amico, will be glorious (and a little sad, but that's how it is at this point)

It'll end up like the small portion of fandom that defends the Last Jedi from it's many, obvious plot holes and flaws. Star Wars land: "Hey, Vice Admiral Purple Hair's "plan" makes no sense, and..." "IT'S THE FORCE, SHUT UP" Atari VCS land: "Hey, this doesn't work and how come the VCS Store is so barren with interesting content?" "SANDBOX, SHUT UP & BANNED"

This is a really good point. If you want to know how Atari SA can handle projects, just look at the mess they've made of anything that tries to be major in recent years. Asteroids Outpost: Laughable to have called that a beta for a final release. Abandoned Haunted House: Cryptic Graves: Same situation as Asteroids. Unfinished abandonware Minimum: Playable and innovative because it was handled by Human Head, but Atari didn't have the money to finish paying the devs, so it ended up as abandonware. This was made worse by it being an online only game, so fans had to scramble together to run servers (for a while, you simply couldn't play the game though). Eventually handed off to someone else, but a lot of the planned content for it never materialized. RollerCoaster Tycoon World: This is supposed to be their main IP at this point, but they can't get that right. Same issue that goes on behind the scenes that you don't hear about unless you know a dev - they don't have the money or interest to present a working product. Years after release, RTW still is a buggy mess. Night Driver: It garnered some fanfare on the release, but was quickly forgotten. Currently sitting at 2.6 stars on the Google Play store, most reviews complain about the craptastic controls. I'm using a Windows PC, and looking on the Apple app store, there's no mention of the game, just a few things like Breakout and RollerCoaster Tycoon. Main website still says "Coming Soon," no links to the actual game on either App Store, so that tells you how much they care about anything that doesn't instantly become a hit. Yes, they do have some bright spots, although getting the Atari Vault and Tempest 4000 wrong would be quite a feat, since they didn't really have to do anything there. Flashback 9 is probably the best thing they can refer to at this point, but again, that was AtGames. All Atari had to do was give the thumbs up and cash the licensing fee checks. So what does all of the evidence point to - that even if the VCS does get out the door, the track record of the parent company in supporting it in the aftermarket is not something to hold any faith in. I also think that's why they are acting like the sandbox mode is going to be a huge deal, as they can easily tell people that it's their fault if they can't get Linux to run right, or will just throw out a "we can't guarantee compatibility" on anything that doesn't want to work out of the box.

I have to hand it to TacoVCS supporters, they really do put a lot of effort into making pretzel logic...hmm, preztels and tacos?

1a. 1b. Oh yeah, like so-and-so and whatshisface. I love their AAA quality games! 2. I don't recall Atari proclaiming that it was a crappy pseudo-PC that could play all PC games ever made until last month. The Unconsole! 3. Arrrrrr matE3y 4. Which one, December 2019? March 2020? Whichever date that unforeseen circumstances due to cosmic rays delay it next time? 5. Fixed: "The Intellivision Amico will be awesome!"

LOL. How much time has Atari spent pointing out that companies like Power A and AMD are really the brains behind the Tacobox?

Either he's stepping on a nail or on a VCS... (and nice way to go before the ban)

I'd still take half of the Jaguar library over what I've seen from Biff. Seems well past time for him to hire an artist, although that won't help a lick with the derivative game design. PLANS WITHIN PLANS! How could we have missed such brilliance before?

The algorithm did some ok work on the skin tones, but I had to literally hand paint a bunch of the other colors in...so I guess that works out to it being a painting of sorts

"It might have Alone in the Dark! You'll just have to buy one to find out!" - Fred Chesnais

They should take Biff up on his offers of exclusive garbage games, then change the VCS name to the Infogrames BiffBox. That would be more appropriate.

I've spent a bit of time this week restoring color to some old B&W photos from days of arcade past, and have posted them online. One of those is that famous pic of Ted Dabney, Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn standing with the Pong machine (it turned out the best IMHO...would need to spend more time tweaking the color to get some of the others right) https://arcadeheroes.com/2019/07/10/restoring-the-colors-of-arcade-past/

If I ran into myself at that age, I probably would have assumed that Then an adult could set me straight. I first remember questioning the whole bit premise when I heard arguing about the Genesis and SNES, but sitting at my house was a 16-bit TI/99-4A computer, which had games that certainly didn't look like what you saw on those two, but I knew it was 16-bit.

I made that mistake once when I was 5 or 6 years old. I can remember having a "Bit Wars" conversation with my friend while we were playing something on the 800XL and "logically" concluded that because the other consoles looked better than the 2600, it must be "4-bit." I am surprised that Ataco hasn't been whipping out bitness again, since it seems like the kind of thing that they would do. I half expect them to come up with something akin to Blast Processing to cover up the next delay of the Box.

One way I've captured the moments is to take a photo of the players who get the top score and put their pics on the machine with the score (pic attached...I have a photo of the 3rd place person, just need to go over to Costco and print it) Yeah, it can get close, and it's a bonus that Stern has supported it a few times with their newer tables...but real always wins

Likewise with my time on Star Wars or Crisis Zone. I'm certainly not able to play those games the same anymore. But you don't always need the event to be recorded for personal validation. Well, unless you're trying to dethrone the King of Kong or some other high score

But the 32GB eMMC is inside of a box designed by ATARI, which means that it's extra-super-hyper-edition-awesome, and worth every penny. It's like having 32TB of space, as long as you pretend that 32GB is still a lot of space to do things with!

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of good gaming memories from home and nostalgia for those times when I was exploring game compilations on floppy disks or playing with friends. But you can make some unique ones at the arcade, whether that's making new friends on playing a game with a stranger (happened many times on everything from fighting games to dancing games - in some cases, people met their future spouse), or showing off your gaming skills in public (early type of Esports, I guess). I recall playing through Star Wars Trilogy arcade on my break back in 1999 - I worked at an arcade, and myself and a few of the other employees would regularly compete on certain machines. I learned that game, Crisis Zone and SF Rush 2049 inside and out. One day I was playing through Star Wars and I was doing so without getting hit. There was one moment where the screen changed to black as it loaded the next scene, and I saw in the reflection of the plexi a crowd of people standing around watching me play. Apart from suddenly becoming aware of the watchers, it was a great sensation that I was able to be one of those guys who makes a game look easy. Right after I finished my game, a kid jumped on and was shot within the first 20 seconds. I couldn't have made that memory at home. Same with playing with strangers on Gauntlet Legends or other 4-player games. I have one of those newer Pac-Man Battle Royale games at my arcade, and every weekend there's a group shouting and laughing as they play that one. As another example of the "show off" nature of arcades, some people take it up a notch, but regardless, showing off at the arcade is far more satisfying than it is at home with no one watching or over a stream that doesn't give you the live feedback of a crowd:

Plenty of times those constraints made the game better. I doubt anyone would prefer to play Star Wars on the 2600 over a cockpit arcade cabinet. That same thing goes for now - most games that major manufacturers release have some kind of gimmick to them to make them stand out from what you would have with a home game. Which is why most are variations of a light-gun or driving game. Same goes for the appeal of pinball - no matter how good virtual pinball looks or tweaked the physics are, they still can't hold a candle to the real thing. Then there's the social gaming aspect of arcades. As I type this, I've got a couple of kids playing the new TMNT arcade game with their dad (the game sits right in front of my desk). That makes for a memory that will stick out more than playing on the couch, I would think On servicing, it boils down to whoever owns the game is responsible for fixing it, but there is a support network in place. While the buyer could go and fix it themselves, as long as the game was in warranty, they could call their distributor, who would help them out according to whatever the policy is. I'm not sure what kind of after-sales support they had back in 1982, but these days it's pretty solid on anything new (free tech support over phone/email; part coverage can be terrible at 90 days, although Raw Thrills is currently replacing all PCs in their machines for 3 years). You also can contact the manufacturer depending on the issue, especially if it's new game that has some new tech in it that's failing. I believe Atari was pretty good about getting back to people and had a solid technician network, at least by what I've read.

Having Stella run at 4K resolution should be doable, right? Ergo, we fulfilled our promise! (although I could swear that they were backtracking on 4K gaming stuff and moving the goalposts to just "4K streaming")

I do feel bad for Rebellion, in that they are always going to have people erroneously mislabeling their property, but at least the BZ remake sounds like it sold well. The unconsole thing will be the ultimate un-doing of the VCS...it's supposed to be a major feature, but it's so absurd to think that a majority of buyers are actually going to be jumping through the hoops of installing a Linux OS and properly figuring out all of the nuances to get everything running. You can't even get 100% attach rates or program usage rates on existing platforms, so them going into this assuming that 100% of buyers will be using Sandbox mode and will be able to figure it out, well good luck on that fantasy. Yeah, a few people will, although the "Top Fans" don't strike me as the most technically competent people around...especially those who can't take a few minutes to read a Wikipedia article. That makes me wonder what kind of crap show we're going to see the moment that people can't figure out how to get anything running on this thing? Tech support for big PC companies is an expensive endeavor, and given how "well" Atari communicates with current fans/investors/buyers, it's going to be quite a sight (to watch from the sidelines).