The Atari VCS Info Thread

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

3 hours ago, Matt_B said:

Has anyone seen any of these Atari hotels actually being built?

It's not like you could hide a building site behind an NDA or anything.

My guess is, land deals of that magnitude take a while.  More than likely, whatever idiot bought into the idea of an Atari hotel will come to their senses before the name ever gets used.  

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

42 minutes ago, svenski said:

Atari has signed at least 3 deals - these hotels are planned for all parts of the globe now. Atari gets an upfront licensing deal, then 5% of all revenue from each hotel. 

 

If they don't get built Atari already has the licensing money. Of course Atari will have a massive say in how these hotels look, feel and operate. Barring an apocalypse, these hotels will be happening.

Man, I haven't been hoping for an apocalypse this much since the Twilight craze.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

12 minutes ago, Mockduck said:

Yeah, having read the full release now this seems to largely be, "Business as usual for the Games Division, a new Blockchain 'division' that aims to become a separate spin off and blockchain-powered IPO headed by Fred, who is super into crypto."

 

So, mostly about positioning related to Crypto. 

Given that crypto always seemed to be about gambling and skirting regulations while doing so, it's pretty on-brand that Fred is sticking close to that.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

1 hour ago, The Historian said:

 

Rosen is a younger gent (35 I think), perhaps his vision for Atari will better serve its fans. 

A nice thought, but the increased focus on "blockchain" makes me reign in my optimism.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

22 minutes ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Been a while since I checked in - haven't looked at the VCS forums in quite a while and I didn't bother to catch up on the pages I'd missed.

 

Seems that if you don't intentionally go looking for it, you can surf the web for weeks & weeks checking out gaming news on a daily basis, including obscure stuff of what's going on with indies and arcade games, and not hear a single thing about the VCS. Odd bit of marketing from Atari's end!

 

 

Last I checked, Atari was saying a general release in March, I think it was? Since we're in April now, is Tempest 4000 being played and streamed like never before and is the VCS in stock in giant piles at Wal-Mart, GameStop and your local friendly game store that survived the pandemic? I've visited a few of these places in my area in recent weeks and not seen any hints of it's existence or heard anyone talking about it, so I'm unsure if I might have overlooked the massive retro revival it will bring to gaming as I've read about around here before.

 

Just curious!

 

 

Just matters what your definition of "hit" is...

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

1 hour ago, Stephen said:

Yeah - good interview.  For anyone that says they were being harsh or just bashing the product, there was a lot of details left out.  Things like having nothing but renderings for over half the project, the empty shell which only lit up an LED, faked screenshots using fake controllers, the Tempest 4000 debacle, etc.

That's by design.  In a situation like this, I think it's really important to let the guest outline what details are and are not crucial.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

I had a chat with Kieren McCarthy about his misadventures with the Atari SA crew.  Not much new information, but a few additional details putting his existing articles in context.  In particular, the fascination with "chipsets" Mike Artz had.

 

He also ventures a few opinions on the Amico, which I wasn't expecting.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

3 hours ago, leech said:

Let's be fair here, none of our definitions of a 'hit' matter.  It is if Atari thinks it is big enough of a 'hit' to continue developing it or not.  Without them putting in the effort to get it built / shipped and developers to release games for it, none of what we think about it really matters in the end.

I can't think of any criteria for being a "hit" that would apply to a system that never produced more than 20,000 units, and struggled to sell those units that it did produce.  We can argue about what we want vs. what Atari wants all day, but if the pure numbers we're dealing with are so low, the word "hit" just shouldn't be part of the conversation.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

52 minutes ago, Mockduck said:

Nah, the only difference is the gatekeeping nonsense crowd found a different target for their outrage youtube culture. They're all yelling about the Amico nowadays so aren't wasting our time in this thread. 

I'm a tad insulted you'd suggest I can't find two projects useless at the exact same time.  Heck, I can laugh at the Amico and the VCS and STILL have time left over to call the Polymega a waste of space.

 

A model of efficiency, I am.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

2 hours ago, Saldo said:

I guess it will really take off once it hits the retail selves.....oh wait, that is never gonna happen.

That's not true.

 

Big Lots counts.

[Retroblox]

6 hours ago, Ricdeau said:

The saga continues. While this isn't necessarily a huge deal it is indicative of a company that doesn't have their affairs in order (I know...just add it to the list). I'm glad I cancelled and refunded. It just seems convenient that every time they are getting ready to start shipping there's something that prevents it.

It's a nice little continuation of the game they played when it came to announcing specs.  "We'll answer all your questions at the NEXT event!" Which conveniently never arrives.

 

But to be fair, the other FauxRetro consoles pull the exact same thing.  

[Retroblox]

1 hour ago, XtraSmiley said:

I know it's just systems but man you should put Paprium on the list too... also something that shipped before the PM.

If I were gonna list Paprium, I'd add Sydney Hunter on there too.

[Retroblox]

 

It's worth noting that as of now, Polymega has been yanking our collective chain longer than Atari SA did with the VCS.

[VCS BIOS Password]

The password is 1... 2... 3... 4... *gulp* 5.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

I'll admit, you may have a point on the Coleco Chameleon.  It did set the precedent.  But I don't see that as a bad thing.  We know the pattern and these faux-retro clowns don't deviate from it.  The chameleon begat the AtariBox, and the Polymega, and the Amico.  That's not even counting Raspberry Pi remixes like the Retro engine sigma.  
 

We observed that the VCS followed the pattern the Chamelon set.  That hardly puts the VCS in a favorable light.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

If you hang out in an Atari forum, popular opinions probably aren't your thing anyway.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

32 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Do we know if walmart had pre-ordered atari vcs consoles for their physical stores?  Walmart is the largest retailer for video games so Atari SA would want to be there but that would be up to the retailer.

I think we can safely conclude Wal-Mart has not done that.  If they had, they would have ordered a sufficient quantity that the 10,000 made for the IndieGoGo backers would not have been the struggle that it clearly was.  

[Formatted diskettes]

On 2/8/2021 at 4:33 AM, MrMaddog said:

Techinically you could reformat a High Density disk as a Double Density by covering up the square hole (opposite side of the read/write tab).  Just stick a floppy in a Mac's drive and it'll ask you if you want to Initialize (format) the disk.

 

But that's not really a good idea in the long term since High Density disks use a thinner material and can get worn out quicker in DD drives, so that's more of a last minute thing untill you can get DD disks.

 

And the pre-formated disks were sold in office supply stores BITD so PC users wouldn't have to use the format DOS command, but they can be reformated for any computer...

Yep.  I remember very common computer advice in the floppy era was "Don't forget, 'Formatted' and 'Preformatted' mean the same thing!"  

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

2 minutes ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I can't take you seriously when your argument claims that one of the most recognizable gaming brands on the planet had a major product flop (even though they were at your supposedly magical price point of becoming a guaranteed impulse buy) but somehow the VCS will do gangbusters just because... it's Atari and you worked at retail for a while?

 

 

To be fair, I worked at Circuit City for several years.  I also would get a sinking feeling when certain products would show up, knowing they were just a horrible mismatch of what they did vs. what they cost.  As for the stinkers that just sat on shelves, I always had to wonder what idiot in corporate approved it, and what terrible "market research" had sold them on the idea.

 

There was a certain price point where people stopped using critical thinking and would often take a risk on any piece of garbage that looked "fun", but that price was considerably less than $300.  Honestly, you'd start to hit resistance once you got past $99.99.  As has been said so many ways, if someone walks into Wal-Mart with $300 in their pocket and sees the Atari VCS, there's no comparison they could make that favors the VCS.  In the odd event that someone gets duped into thinking it's a fully usable computer out of the box, or a video game system on par with an Xbox, you can be sure they would discover their mistake within an hour of opening the thing up.

 

Not a small point to make: Wal-Mart has a very generous return policy, and people returning items there because of buyer's remorse is almost proverbial.

 

But to take this out of speculation and back to reality, there are about 3,500 Wal Mart supercenters in the US.  Let's put aside the idea of each one selling a pallet of Atari VCS units.  If each store were to get six of them, Atari would need to produce another 21,000 units, plus enough to handle warranty issues and replacements, of which they've already had their share.  So, a very conservative number would be them having to produce at least 25,000 more units.  And this is the same company that nearly choked the fish trying to fill less than 10,000 IGG orders.  

 

Where would Atari get the money to make nearly 30,000 units?  

Would Wal-Mart actually have confidence in them to deliver on time?

Would Wal-Mart have any faith in Atari to buy back any unsold stock?

 

I'm going to make the suggestion that stocking the VCS at retail would put nearly ALL the risk on Wal-Mart, for honestly very little reward.  They've been working with Atari SA on this for about three years now, and have not made any move to help Atari get the VCS into stores or help fund production.  I'd conclude they have their reasoning.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

The Wii-U was incredibly frustrating for me, as a fan of Nintendo in general and of the system specifically.  On paper, there was no reason it shouldn't have been able to compete with the 360 and PS3.  It had comparable tech, plus Nintendo's exclusives.  The problem was, Nintendo kept trying to focus on the stuff that no one cared about (the tablet being first on the list) at the expense of stuff that could have been bigger had they put some muscle into it (social media, streaming, TVii).  The tablet wasn't even a completely terrible idea, but the fact that it became the hill Nintendo had to die on just sunk the works.  If they could have made a tablet-free version that could sell for $220, comparisions between it and the other two systems would have been much more even.  It was also a time when being able to play Blu-Ray (or at least DVD) was still really relevant, so not having that as an option was, again, a problem Nintendo gave themselves.

 

The legacy of the Wii-U is that, if you like the original Wii, it's the best system to play those games.  But it could have been so much more.  

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

5 hours ago, yrly said:

 

The Wii U just wasn’t seen as an “impulse” item. Bulk of the controller, sharing part of the name with the Wii, just some of the factors. It’s hard to explain why this works this way but it’s how it is. 

I'm needing a little more here.  The VCS is (hypothetically) $300 and shares a name with a well-loved predecessor, and you can move a pallet of them.  The Wii-U was (in reality) $300 and shared a name with a well-loved predecessor, and gathered dust.  Let's not forget that the Wii-U offered games relevant to the current generation... so much so that when they were re-released on the Switch, they sold like crazy.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

2 hours ago, 82-T/A said:

 

Do you know what builds friendships? It's through communication and people finding commonality. It's why even people like my wife, who is a radical leftist Jewish woman, decided to marry a hard-core Republican Catholic... and it works. Because even with all of that, there's still some shared interests. She may drive a VW Bus, and I may drive a Ford Explorer... but at the end of the day, we both like Game of Thrones, sex, and vintage video games, not in any particular order.

 

 

I'm totally on board with that.  In my life outside AA, I make a point out of trying to spotlight geek communities and making them stronger.  I've grown very distressed by what's happened to retrogaming, and I put part of the blame on profiteering with no committment to quality.  But that's another conversation.

 

2 hours ago, 82-T/A said:

 

With that, I am interested to know what in your opinion would be something that WOULD be better for the hobby? Genuinely interested, no sarcasm here... just curious what that would look like and if I would think it cool as well.

 

That's a great question.  Because of the thread topic, I'll limit my ideas to what Atari themselves could do:

 

1) Create an HDMI replacement for the 2600.  I know that conventional wisdom says this wouldn't sell, but Hyperkin has one.  And, to be honest, if your main marketing angle is "We made the 2600 once", then you need to own that and put some money into it.

 

2) Create an actual vintage development community, including tutorials, tools, and possibly even the ability to make your own carts.  Now, I realize that last one might not be cost-effective, but the first few most certainly are.  You might actually get some sellable games out of the deal, at a much lower cost than outsourcing to known companies.

 

3) Embrace other platforms and offer your vintage and slightly-less-vintage games as a service that includes online chat, communities, and competition.  This is probably my favorite option, as it's the one most agreeable with modern gaming and moden audiences.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

1 hour ago, leech said:

Curious, could you please explain why you think their business model is an insult to the consumer?  And not healthy to the hobby? 

 

Let me answer your second question first: I do not believe that efforts such as this, which are blatant get-in-and-get-out cash grabs, are healthy for the hobby.  It presents retrogaming consumers as easy marks, and sets a precedent that we'll buy any piece of garbage box that has a familiar logo on it.  I beleive the hobby is healthier when it's expected that new products be of higher quality.  

 

The Atari VCS is an insult to the consumer precisely because it treats us this way-- expecting us to buy anything because it has a familiar logo.  Beyond that, the company itself showed a massive lack of concern (and occasionally, outright disdain) for its customers.  Showing up at a convention with a demo unit, but not being able to even talk about the "target market", much less answer basic questions about the hardware functionality, sends the message that you don't care about what you're selling, or the people that buy it.  Taking pre-order money before engineering the shell (requiring a full redesign afterward) is such a high degree of incompetence that no one should feel right trusting the company with thier money.

 

This doesn't even address the speculation that Atari never intended to fulfull the orders themselves, they just wanted to be bought out and unload the project onto someone else.  For the moment, I'm just sticking with the screwups that have been documented beyond the point of disagreement.

 

1 hour ago, leech said:

I actually never thought of the VCS as a 'retro' machine at all, and as a new platform.  As outside of including the Vault, none of the games out for it are old. 

I was thinking last night about why,  specifically after all these years of nothing, would whomever that owns Atari bother with trying a new console.  My conclusion was 'The flashbacks and mini computers seem to sell well enough'.  Otherwise why do it? 

 

I can't get into their head as to WHY they did it, but the answer that consistently makes sense to me is (as I said above) they wanted a flashy project to boost their stock value and attract a buyout.  Personally, I'm very impressed by the success of the Flashbacks, and think that the VCS is an incredible wasted opportunity on a technical level.  Had Atari actually wanted to build a viable platform (as opposed to just throwing something together and running) they could have and should have started with the Flashback concept and built it up from there.  The very first detail we ever heard about the Ataribox was that it "was not a Flashback", and I contend that was the first among many, many errors they made.

 

Again, that's an error made with the assumption that Atari actually intended to build a viable platform.  Since I do not beleive they did, I do not think that's an error in their view-- only mine.

 

 

1 hour ago, leech said:

What this system really is, at least if they do it right, is a way for them to actually resell their IP instead of sitting on it.  Like who wouldn't want a new Yars Revenge with some particle physics and such? 

But yeah, I treat it just as I treat the Switch.  A system for playing games both old and new.

 

If I had faith in Atari's motivation to build the VCS into something, I could agree with you.  Yes, indeed, I would love updated versions of all their games-- but it's not the first time Atari has played with that idea and dropped it almost immediately.

 

 

[Retroblox]

3 minutes ago, cybercylon said:

Can't see how this was going to turn out any other way.

The bar was set way too low at only half a million for pre-orders.  With such a small amount of money for such an big project, there just wasn't a good outcome waiting.

[The Atari VCS Info Thread]

24 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

IT'S OK... you're totally entitled to your opinion.

 

Your answer basically tells me that:

 

"I think the Atari VCS is a bad idea, and I want people to understand that the decision they've made is poor."

 

... that's perfectly OK. But there's probably more to this than that simple answer. There are a lot of people who buy dumb things that we disagree with every single day. The question I'm interested in getting answered is specifically why this one bothers you particularly? I suppose we could spend equal time on the local Communist Party USA message board and enlighten them as to the error of their ways, but we've chosen the Atari VCS. It could be that you just have time on your hands, and this is mildly entertaining to you and convenient since... here we are on AtariAge... and that's totally fine. For me, this discussion is interesting because I actually enjoy the psychological aspect of these discussions and what actually drives people. On another aspect of it, I'm a fan of the VCS, though I recognize the unnecessary aspect of the purchase, but I'm also open to the possibility that there's some fantastical reasoning that I've perhaps missed that you otherwise are enlightened to.

 

No Socratic method here, just genuine inquiry...

 

- Do you want the Atari VCS to fail, and if yes, what would that mean to you (...that you were right?)

- Why is it important that you let us know that our decision was wrong to purchase the VCS?

These are valid questions and I will dispense with the snark.  
 

I'm focusing on the VCS because it intersects with an interest I actually do have-- retro video games.  There are equally stupid products I never acknowledge because they never even tangently touched a topic I cared about.  Truck Nuts come to mind.

 

Do I want it to fail?  Yes.  Absolutely. The reason why is not out of any need for vindication (I'm not expecting any trophy to show up) but because I find the business model to be insulting to the consumer, and not healthy for the hobby as a whole.  If the VCS fails, it will be a sign that this model should not be repeated in the future, and that will hopefully beget future projects that are better for the hobby.

 

I have no need to tell you that your purchase of the VCS was "wrong", as most of the people on this forum I've spoken to seem to have bought it as a combination of a lark and an expression of brand loyalty.  I see nothing particularly shameful about either one (I have a closet full of Star Trek uniforms.  It's not my place to be judgy on taste). What I do feel the need to do is call out people giving out bad advice on buying one (there's no reason to get one beyond the aforementioned lark/loyalty).  Saying it's a fun toy is one thing, saying it's a reasonable alternative to a PS5 or Roku is another.  This is also why I do not take seriously any discussion if the "next wave" of the device.  It is what it is.

 

I realize I might get carried away with the hyperbole.  I should work on that.  However, I do not feel that Atari has taken me seriously as a customer, so I refuse to take the end result of their efforts seriously in return.