New Atari Hardware Console/System?

[Retro Rogue]

Guys, you're all arguing about stuff we've already pursued for years now and still have in the back burner. Nothing new to see in this thread, no new ideas, arguments, etc. If it's picked up by Atari any time soon, you can be sure we'll let all of you know.

Edited June 27, 2010 by wgungfu

[Shaggy the Atarian]

Nolan's and Atari's roots are in the arcade industry. Nolan still keeps up-to-date with what the coin-op industry does and so if Atari were ever to move in the direction of new hardware I would rather see them jump back into the arcade scene. It would be less risky than a new console and then Atari would be doing what it did originally.

 

Not that a new console wouldn't be welcome but like many have said, it's unrealistic in the current environment. I know that they probably have arcades far from their mind as well but it would be feasible to do.

[+remowilliams]

Guys, you're all arguing about stuff we've already pursued for years now and still have in the back burner. Nothing new to see in this thread, no new ideas, arguments, etc.

 

Well the only thing more fun than repeatedly beating a dead horse, is beating an imaginary dead horse.

[Retro Rogue]

Nolan's and Atari's roots are in the arcade industry. Nolan still keeps up-to-date with what the coin-op industry does and so if Atari were ever to move in the direction of new hardware I would rather see them jump back into the arcade scene. It would be less risky than a new console and then Atari would be doing what it did originally.

 

Not that a new console wouldn't be welcome but like many have said, it's unrealistic in the current environment. I know that they probably have arcades far from their mind as well but it would be feasible to do.

 

The last time that happened with the current Atari was back in 2001 with the Classic Arcade Series (Centipede/Missile Command/Millipede), which was done in conjunction with TeamPlay, Midway and Infogrames/Atari Interactive. I know the current push at Atari SA and Atari Inc. is for software publishing and downloadable content only, another coin venture is highly unlikely unless it's through a third party that simply licenses things and does it on their own. There's just not a market in coin right now, and there hasn't been for some time.

 

In actuality, new low end (value priced) hardware is far less risky, and a much higher volume. We were hoping the request for the 2+ would jump start things again, but who knows. We have a lot of nice things in the back burner for them and are trying to coordinate efforts with Nolan for presentation and hopefully approval. The board is more apt to approve things if they're hearing it from more than one direction of course (i.e. instead of just from us).

Edited June 27, 2010 by wgungfu

[Gorf]

My whole point is simply the viability of such an all -console system and its cost. A Spartan 3E could

do just about any classic system on up to the Jaguar. I know Mike J is working on ST VHDL as we speak.

It's been a while since I have checked his progress but its certainly more than possible.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

Nolan's and Atari's roots are in the arcade industry. Nolan still keeps up-to-date with what the coin-op industry does and so if Atari were ever to move in the direction of new hardware I would rather see them jump back into the arcade scene. It would be less risky than a new console and then Atari would be doing what it did originally.

 

Not that a new console wouldn't be welcome but like many have said, it's unrealistic in the current environment. I know that they probably have arcades far from their mind as well but it would be feasible to do.

 

The last time that happened with the current Atari was back in 2001 with the Classic Arcade Series (Centipede/Missile Command/Millipede), which was done in conjunction with TeamPlay, Midway and Infogrames/Atari Interactive. I know the current push at Atari SA and Atari Inc. is for software publishing and downloadable content only, another coin venture is highly unlikely unless it's through a third party the simply licenses things and does it on their own. There's just not a market in coin right now, and there hasn't been for some time.

 

In actuality, new low end (value priced) hardware is far less risky, and a much higher volume. We were hoping the request for the 2+ would jump start things again, but who knows. We have a lot of nice things in the back burner for them and are trying to coordinate efforts with Nolan for presentation and hopefully approval. The board is more apt to approve things if they're hearing it from more than one direction of course (i.e. instead of just from us).

 

There is a market for coin-op but it is much smaller than it used to be. To give you an idea, Raw Thrills (Eugene Jarvis' company) just released Terminator Salvation Arcade in April and they sold 1000 units in 30 days at about $8400 a unit. Incredible Technologies sold 3000 Silver Strike Live games on pre-order alone but most of those were to bars(then again, a sale is a sale). So there is plenty of money that can be made in amusement although understandably it may not be the amount Atari would be looking for anyways and it does require investment in cabinets, PC hardware, etc. What you mention certainly is one of the least risky ways to go about hardware development (in fact, I still need to get an FB2+ but I've been out of the loop, not sure if they are available)

 

Still, if they were open to licensing classics then that would be very cool, there are a lot of possibilities there in the amusement sector.

[cdoty]

A lame PC with a Commodore badge on it? What a waste of a good name

 

The Commodore Amigo model looks interesting.

 

Did you see their Com(m)odo OS? Definitely chuckle inducing; and brought back memories of the Commode 64 & Trash 80 days.

[Atari Joe]

I don't have to prove you wrong. You're asserting claims yet refusing to take action. Why?

 

 

Two problems....Curt is way busy working on other things and Atari would not give a rats ass about it.

 

Yeah because Atari isn't interested in leveraging their legacy library towards developing profitable new consumer products. Mr. Vendel's never made that happen before. Right? So let's just assume Atari "wouldn't give a rat's ass."

 

Excuses.

 

Are you asserting that Mr. Vendel is too busy to accept a 10 min phone call regarding the creation of a backwards compatible "all-in-one" Atari system that in your words "would not cost much at all, could be done on one flashable FPGA" and "would not take much in the way of developing such a system and it would be very low cost" ? Seriously.. I think for that he would be willing to spare a few mins of his time. Unless he already has and thought you were wrong.

 

But that's injecting the false assumption that you need Mr. Vendel in order to move forward. He's unavailable? Fine. Call Albert. Call a patent attorney. Write a plan. Convince others that you're project is viable and worth supporting. Learn conversational French and call Atari SA headquarters. Do something productive other than spend your Sunday night arguing with autistic strangers on the internet about project viability when you could be busy like Mr. Vendel striving to achieve something new that can be shown at CGE.

 

 

I already HAVE thought about it

 

Why do you say that as if I asserted that you hadn't?

 

"Thinking" about something doesn't get sh*t done. In the experienced words of Nolan Bushnell "..if you want to be successful you have to be a doer." Critical thinking and brainstorming and formulating constructive thought is an important first step. "Doers" know how to move on to the next one. Do you?

 

 

To discuss that any further with you, I'd have to kill you.

 

Cute.

 

 

You said it would be too costly and that is just plain you shooting your lips off.

 

Show me where I said that. Show me exactly where I said "it would be too costly."

 

To correct your condescending and ignorant misrepresentation of my words, what I said was:

 

Don't get your hopes up Kiddo. That's an awfully expensive project for such a niche market. I don't think we'll ever see anything like that, short of another Flashback system or the every-so-slight possibility of the Atari brand being revived to print on somebody else's game system. (Say a cheap and sleazy Chinese or Korean company with zero name recognition in North America.)

 

Hmm. Nope. Don't see "it would be too costly" anywhere in there whatsoever. I said it's "an awfully expensive project for such a niche market." I never said that it would be too costly and couldn't be done. I merely expressed reasonable skepticism regarding project expense relative to the existing demand for the product (hence the "niche market.") You assert that my skepticism is ill-founded. Good. Now it's up to you to educate and convince us of your claims rather than whining. I'd love to see you make these, I'd buy ten of them, day one. Sign me up!

 

Don't put words in the mouths of Others.

 

 

The code already exsists if you want to really know and it's just a matter of packaging and selling it.

 

Awesome! Go do it.

 

If it's a simple matter of packaging an distribution I can put you in touch with people who can assist you on both counts. Or maybe you could forward this thread to Albert and see what he can do to assist in terms of packaging (contest?) and getting this item in the AtariAge store. You know, since it's demonstrably viable and "just a matter of packaging and selling it." Albert & the team here at AtariAge has done a fantastic job aiding the community in these things. Have you tried speaking with him, or anyone, regarding the packaging and sales of your project?

 

 

So, with all that said, I hear all the talk coming from you and nothing to prove me wrong or otherwise.

 

If you're right then why arent you doing anything to take the next step towards building it?

 

 

Perhaps since you are such a hardware and VHDL expert, you can explain to every one how it's TOO costly and not market viable?

 

Why do you assume that my skepticism of your unproven claims equates to my wanting to prove you wrong? I want to see you prove yourself right!

 

Show us some numbers. A bill of materials and a simple break even chart would suffice. Do that and I'll fund your electronic expedition myself.

 

 

That's what I thought!

 

Forget to snap your fingers and throw a W "whatever" sign in my face with flamboyance? ...There's just something so Sassy and Intriguing about a Bad Boy.

 

Take Nolan's advice. Be a "doer." Achieve your greatness. Be productive. Stop making excuses and get something done. If you demonstrated even any effort towards at least trying, attempting to bring your project to fruition by any means necessary, I'm sure all of us here, including myself, would cheer you on beyond belief. Good luck to you, sir!

 

 

 

With Warm Regards and Best Wishes for a Good Week,

Your Friend,

Joe

 

*huggs*

[+wood_jl]

You said it would be too costly and that is just plain you shooting your lips off. Cost

has little to do with it. FPGA chips especially ones big enough to handle it cost nothing.

The code already exsists if you want to really know and it's just a matter of packaging and selling it.

 

Then the guy making the 1541 Ultimate-2 device for C64 (emulates 6502 inside 1541 drive, RAM expansion for C64, on-and-on-features, etc) must be making a killing, because they're about $200 each with currency conversion. It was my understanding he wasn't making much profit, more of a hobbiest thing. The version 2 has about twice the FPGA of the first. So it's cheaper for a bigger FPGA? If it cost nothing and is just a matter of packaging and selling it, then how about someone making something simpler like a new Atari 1088XE? I'll be the pitchman, and tape the boxes up. You do the rest!

[Gorf]

AJ.....Im just going to say these few things..... I have done all the research, discussed this with Curt

AT LENGHT and pretty much know what I am talking about. As for you, you are quite clueless concerning the

subject.

 

Too expensive and costly are the same thing so enough with the symantics as if no one will notice.

 

Doer? What have you ever done besides 'act' is if you know what you are talking about when clearly you do not.

 

I have released games and do understand FPGA/VHDL and coding a variety of processors.

 

Just so you understand tht this is the case.....

 

Marty wrote:

 

Guys, you're all arguing about stuff we've already pursued for years now and still have in the back burner. Nothing new to see in this thread, no new ideas, arguments, etc. If it's picked up by Atari any time soon, you can be sure we'll let all of you know.

 

 

This is the very thing I already discussed with Curt AT LEGNTH.

 

@ Marty.....trust me there is no argument. Just me correcting AJ who does not do his homework

or does not bother to read your above words before posting me back.

 

@ Wood_jl

 

I hope the answer to this rather time wasting post of AJ's has educated you. We also understand the limited

if any profits concering these kind of niche market products. When and if the time is right, if I have things

my way you will see such a device in one form or another.

Edited June 28, 2010 by Gorf

[82-T/A]

In order for Atari to be able to release a new system, they would need to have name recognition, otherwise there really would be no possible chance.

 

I think realistically, the only way Atari would ever actually release a new system would be if their game development company really started to take hold again. I know they still produce games, and I've kind of been out of it for a while, but hasn't their game development kind of died down the past couple of years? I just went to the site and it seems like most of their product is still based off of really REALLY old titles like Dungeons & Dragons... they pretty much died in the late 90s... I remember the old Gold Box series games when it was run by SSI, and then Test Drive... geeze... I remember playing Test Drive 1 and Test Drive 2 on my 8088. With the exception of a couple of other titles that aren't mega-hits... they don't really seem to have anything... which sucks.

 

I'd love to see Atari do really well, but without that kind of capital coming in, there's just no way in hell they're going to be able to produce a machine. They would need a massive portfolio of brand new games that are top of the line, cutting edge, and making tons of money. If they can do this in the next couple of years, there would be a possibility.

 

However, it seems to me that more so now than before... video games are becoming less and less dependant upon consoles. The biggest issue with moving everything to video games in the past was the confusion / difficulty (for most people, non-computer savvy people) to understand how to play them on their computer... installing, etc. With the technology and bandwidth that exists now, you can essentially have almost any game stream directly from the internet. In many cases, this is what the xBox / PS3 / Wii games are doing.

 

From what I've seen, the PS3 is basically going to die... it's now Microsoft's xBox 360 and the Wii, and it appears as though the Wii is getting a bad rap becuase the graphics aren't as good as the xBox and the Wii tends to have more childrens / adult games.

 

In 5 years, a console might not even be relevent anymore.... who knows.

[S1500]

You can replace Atari with anything that flourished in the past, but not the present. A new car from Triumph? A new franchise from Burger Chef? A new chain of video arcades from Time Out?

 

Again, I relate back to that Onion article of that guy who quit his job at the auto plant to start his own line of cars, not realizing the ungodly huge infrastructure needed to compete with Ford, GM, etc.

[Mord]

 

However, it seems to me that more so now than before... video games are becoming less and less dependant upon consoles. The biggest issue with moving everything to video games in the past was the confusion / difficulty (for most people, non-computer savvy people) to understand how to play them on their computer... installing, etc. With the technology and bandwidth that exists now, you can essentially have almost any game stream directly from the internet. In many cases, this is what the xBox / PS3 / Wii games are doing.

 

 

I think you're highly underestimating the attraction of closed wall dedicated systems have to producers/developers when it comes to having DRM built directly into the unit. I also kind of think you're underestimating how lazy gamers can be. PCs aren't uniform hardware. And one of the things that drives gamers away from them is the need for upgrading it constantly to be able to play the latest games each year. With a console, you know what you bought is going to be able to play the game as intended and you'll only need to get a new unit (barring system failures of course) once per generation.

 

Consoles aren't likely going anywhere. What a console represents however, is certainly changing even now. PS3/Wii/360 aren't going to die off suddenly. And I suspect each will get a next gen successor, but what those consoles will be able to do is anyone's guess.

[saboteur]

 

 

I think you're highly underestimating the attraction of closed wall dedicated systems have to producers/developers when it comes to having DRM built directly into the unit. I also kind of think you're underestimating how lazy gamers can be. PCs aren't uniform hardware. And one of the things that drives gamers away from them is the need for upgrading it constantly to be able to play the latest games each year. With a console, you know what you bought is going to be able to play the game as intended and you'll only need to get a new unit (barring system failures of course) once per generation.

 

Consoles aren't likely going anywhere. What a console represents however, is certainly changing even now. PS3/Wii/360 aren't going to die off suddenly. And I suspect each will get a next gen successor, but what those consoles will be able to do is anyone's guess.

 

This for me sums the currenct IT/GAMING situation up in a nutshell.

 

Going back to the 8 bit and probably the 16bit computer era, a computer had a good viable shelf life of 5+ years. In that time programmers would learn to squeeze every little bit ( pardon the pun ) out of the hardware and some truly impossible things would be acheived.

 

Buy a PC now and it's already out of date. Each month INTEL, AMD and others are rolling out newer faster ( or more cored ) processors, graphics cards etc.

 

So today's the programmer can now write 'lazy' code cos the computer will be so fast and with so much memory that creating the smallest tightest code takes to long and will be to expensive.

 

The stupid thing is that PC owners are glad to shell out for an upgrade to play the latest game, when a console gamer can just go out and buy the same game that will in most cases look and play the same on a piece of hardware that is probably 2 generations older than the PC.

 

Personaly, i think theres a market for an alternate computer - one with a built in basic. I think the bedroom programmer will/is making a resurgance and a return to the old style computer would be welcome ( you know the one - where u open the box on christmas morning - hook it up to the tv and spend 10 minutes amazing your parents by printing their name on the sreen - then playing a few games ).

 

Just my 2 pennies worth.

 

cheers

[nathanallan]

Wait. A computer that hooks up to a... TV set? And it comes in a BOX?? Heresy!

 

I would like to get one of those, too, new and shiny with stuff in it like Basic.

[Tyrant]

Personaly, i think theres a market for an alternate computer - one with a built in basic. I think the bedroom programmer will/is making a resurgance and a return to the old style computer would be welcome ( you know the one - where u open the box on christmas morning - hook it up to the tv and spend 10 minutes amazing your parents by printing their name on the sreen - then playing a few games ).

I'm all for that, but I say forget BASIC, it should run FORTH, and be aimed at kids aged 10-35.

[saboteur]

Personaly, i think theres a market for an alternate computer - one with a built in basic. I think the bedroom programmer will/is making a resurgance and a return to the old style computer would be welcome ( you know the one - where u open the box on christmas morning - hook it up to the tv and spend 10 minutes amazing your parents by printing their name on the sreen - then playing a few games ).

I'm all for that, but I say forget BASIC, it should run FORTH, and be aimed at kids aged 10-35.

 

The more I think about it, this would be a better appoach than a retro console.

 

Something small, based on a beagleboard or IGEP board ( arm cpu ) that u can hook up with generic keyboards, mice etc - it wouldn't be much bigger than a Jag cart.

 

If it were produced with a decent programming language a PROPER paper manual and many sample programs ( games ) it could be badged ATARI MINI

 

Hell they could even have an app store type arrangement where they could sell emulated atari games as well as homebrew.

 

I know i'd buy it.

 

Not sure about fourth though