godslabrat

Just from a classic gaming perspective, the switch has a library that includes NES, SNES, Atari, Capcom, Sega, and a bunch of Arcade. It's way more of an "Ultimate Retrobox" than the VCS will ever be. You're also getting not-quite-totally retro titles from the PS2 era, and actual new games as well.

You complained about walled gardens, then eliminated the option that was not a walled garden. I just suspected the two might be connected, that's all.

Is there a particular reason you snipped out my comment about PCs when you wrote that reply?

That's not what I've said at all. In fact, I've said the opposite: there is a huge middle ground, and that middle ground is currently occupied by devices made by Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. In addition, there are a considerable number of PCs at similar price points. The middle ground is flooded, and the VCS doesn't even have what it takes to be an edge case. That's been my point since the beginning.

So, are you telling me that the VCS allows you to use a gamepad to do all the "sandbox mode" stuff, like run emulators, Steam, etc.? Because that runs counter to what I've heard.

You don't need a VCS to run Steam. Steam's been around a long time. Nothing new here. Either you're not getting my point, or if you are, you're ignoring it. Flashbacks are more limited in what they can do, but they have a considerably lower price to compensate. High-end gaming rigs are far more expensive, but can do more than the VCS can to compensate. In short, the VCS is way too expensive for what it can't do.

I think you overestimate how much the activity of this forum reflects the behavior of consumers as a whole. As a whole, the world is indeed meeting the VCS with a collective yawn, as evidenced by the fact that the crowdfunding sold barely over 10,000 units, the units that were sold are readily available still sealed on the secondhand market, and no further runs seem to be planned. It didn't sell well, the people who actually bought them aren't using them, and there are unlikely to be more. That is not the mark of a product with healthy consumer interest. You do realize that PCs can have their resolution, font size, and layout altered by the user, right? All with considerably less effort than messing with a VCS. You can add literally any control device you want, from a one-button joystick to a VR handset, and everything in between. What you're doing is arguing in favor of a PC, not against it. The VCS isn't a new thing. It's a very old thing, in a new case, with all the useful options plucked out and sold as upgrades.

Don't forget, Atari themselves said in the Register article they didn't know who it was being sold to.

An Atari Flashback does not compete with the Big 3 in any meaningful sense, but it's very clear to see what it offers, why, and what the value proposition is. Same with the Retron 77. Same with a $20 joystick plug-and-play or a $4000 gaming PC. It's not that people expect the VCS to jump in and compete with the Big 3. It's that people expect it to do SOMETHING besides extract money from their wallets and take up space on a shelf.

If Atari is going to sell a video game console (which is what they themselves brand it) then it should be compared to the devices made from other video game companies. I don't think it's unreasonable to want a console to be competitive with other consoles. If Atari did not want the comparison made, they shouldn't have announced this project. Why does it make more sense? It still comes back to "What can the VCS do that other devices do not?" Chances are, if someone has a major console, they already have a gaming experience superior to what the VCS will allow. And if they have a console and a PC, there's literally nothing the VCS can offer them. If the people buying the VCS are, as you say "gen-Xers that are now in their peak earning years with disposable income", then what I'm hearing is that it's a great device for people willing to buy a widget that adds no real value to their lives and provides no advantage over competing products. I'm not suggesting such people don't exist (they obviously do) but I don't think they exist in sufficient numbers to build a viable gaming platform.

The primary purpose of both is to play video games. To say they're not in competition with each other is wishful thinking. The fact that the competition is one-sided and completely unfair doesn't change that.

Agreed. But for anything resembling a PC, the VCS is *not* complete hardware.

If it costs as much as the Switch, it's in competition with the Switch. Not to mention, this is from Atari's website TODAY, not when it was first announced, TODAY: "Atari® returns to the living room with the Atari VCS™ — a completely modern gaming and video computer system, blending the best of consoles and PCs to delight a whole new generation of gamers and creators." So how is it not in competition with the Switch, PS, Xbox, etc., if it's not a "complely modern video gaming... system" and "blending the best of consoles and PCs"? What part of this does NOT invite comparisons between the VCS and other relevant gaming devices?

Last I heard, you could either order from Polymega themselves, or another online retailer, but no one has committed to stocking it in B&M stores. Even giving this project an unhealthy dose of optimism, I think you'll see covid shipping issues go away long before Polymega is available at your local McGameShop.

I agree with nearly everything you've said here. I'm skeptical, though, that a company exists that would be fooled by l'Atari's house of cards, yet would have the resources to sink into purchasing it. Or to put it another way, I'm thinking if someone were going to purchase Chesnais, INC., they would have done so before now.

All this foolish talk of a shell. It's what's inside that counts.

If that's true, and I have no real room to disagree, I'm still not seeing why the VCS is a compelling solution. There already exist devices which can fill that need... for less money and with less user labor. With "living room retroboxes", you usually come down to people arguing between cheap devices you have to set up yourself (RPi, PC, Etc.) , or expensive ones that are ready out of the box (Polymega). The VCS falls into neither camp, so I'm really not sure who it's cheerleaders are going to be.

As a thought experiment, it would be interesting to see if we could pinpoint the exact moment when l'Atari started actually realizing they would need to do the work themselves, and not some hypothetical company that would buy them out. At what point was the Ataribox no longer Someone Else's Problem?

It's not fair for me to try and read the minds of people who backed this and received one. If they're happy, they're happy. That said, it's an extremely small number of people that won't be getting any bigger. If running Linux and old roms is a big deal, then the VCS won't be a game changer regardless.

Which is nonsense. If a platform doesn't get supported, it's because it didn't offer anything the public wanted to support. Consumers don't "owe" a company support, and they aren't "hating" if support isn't offered.

I'm just curious how we arrived at the point where merely being sent from a factory to the public was a mark of success. It wasn't for the Jaguar. Or the 3do. Or the CDi. Somehow a console merely existing means it's awesome? Should this be dubbed "The Kennedy Effect?"

Remember when this was the most absurd project around? good times, man. Good times.

At least the Atari of its day didn't consider merely RELEASING the console to be a victory.

That's why I'm looking for numbers, because I agree... the chances of IGG backers getting shafted are pretty high, and it would be typical l'Atari to publicly screw someone after giving themselves a big back-patting session.

Yeah, that's what I'd heard. Just wondering if you take the total amount made, subtract the Indiegogo fulfillments... whatever is left is available to sell via Walmart and GameStop. Then these things are gone. And is l'Atari going to make more? They're blowing smoke about announcing games, but what good are future titles if only the same 11,000 people can play them?