2016 Flashback speculation thread

[Bill Loguidice]

Yes, and unless something changes, we'll have another architecture change for 2017 (and that "mystery" product potentially in November), since none of those solutions mentioned earlier support HDMI.

[Keatah]

 

Your impression is correct, but also because we have to be careful with how much we promote SD card features, period. The IP companies could easily balk if it's over-promoted. Crazy, I know, but I suppose it's understandable on one level. After all, it's a way to get "free" games. Personally, I don't think it matters because that genie left the bottle a long, long time ago, but it always takes business interests a while to catch up.

 

Sometimes business interests are 20 years behind!

[Keatah]

Yes, and unless something changes, we'll have another architecture change for 2017 (and that "mystery" product potentially in November), since none of those solutions mentioned earlier support HDMI.

 

All these changes and iterations. The capability to get it right exists now, and has existed for some time. Don't know the internals of how all businesses work and stuff, least of all, videogames. But I say do it right and make the best possible product. That's a winner for sure.

 

It is also important to remember that Stella emulates much more than just the 3 main chips of a VCS. Stella is essentially a VCS II - like having all the bank switching schemes, the DPC+, ARM, extra memory, extra sound chip and all the emulation niceties & additions built right in. Video adjustments, save games, PAL/NTSC. Yes, we have a VCS II here!

Edited September 16, 2016 by Keatah

[Mr SQL]

 

My impression has been that they're not pushing that feature, just as they never made much mention of it with their past Sega products that included it as well. Take this press release that Bill posted, for instance.

 

http://armchairarcade.com/perspectives/2016/07/27/press-release-atgames-release-latest-generation-atari-flashback-genesis-classic-game-console-products/

 

So I'd hardly say that they're contradicting a major portion of their marketing for this device just because of these issues that Bill has been discovering.

 

Huh? My impression is until they can write an emulator I can't support it with this:

[Mr SQL]

This is no different than say the SNES Everdrive not working with FX or SA-1 games. However to Krikzz credit, all non-chipped games run flawless because they're playing on original hardware. The Atgames emulations are less than perfect track record...

 

 

Berzerk is a 4K standard game, Ms Pacman is 8K with a 128 byte Sara RAM chip; these are classics, not at all like the enhanced FX or SA=1 coprocessor games imo.

[+swlovinist]

Sad to hear that my favorite game will not play. Oh well, going to get one anyways.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Hmm...perhaps the "logical reason" is that Atgames did not create Curt's hardware, or distribute it

I beat you to it!

 

Yes, and unless something changes, we'll have another architecture change for 2017 (and that "mystery" product potentially in November), since none of those solutions mentioned earlier support HDMI.

HDMI should be standard in 2016 going forward, IMO.

 

 

Berzerk is a 4K standard game, Ms Pacman is 8K with a 128 byte Sara RAM chip; these are classics, not at all like the enhanced FX or SA=1 coprocessor games imo.

I think you misinterpreted my post. I specifically stated Atgames emulation track record was "less than stellar". Pitfall II was represented as non-supported. DCP+ is not supported by extention. That's well and good, but SNES games that used extra hardware are excluded from SUPER everdrive, yet games that did not use extra hardware (Berzerk in your case) were not excluded from the "not working" list. This reveals less than stellar emulation on the part of Atgames, and I stand by this statement.

[Asaki]

I beat you to it!

To be fair, I was "typing" on a 3DS, so it took me a while =)

[Andromeda Stardust]

To be fair, I was "typing" on a 3DS, so it took me a while =)

Been there, I know. I've lost more posts using my 3DS...

[Bill Loguidice]

I'm not going to do this again going forward, but I wanted to make sure the info got to the right posts, so you'll probably see this in a few other threads...

 

The Atari Flashback 7, Sega Classic Console, and Sega portable should all be out on or before October 1 (Staples already broke street date). The Atari Flashback Portable will not be out until some time in November.

[onmode-ky]

AA user Arenafoot picked up a Flashback 7 and posted a look at the system on YouTube (also posted over in the FB Portable thread). He walks through the full game selection menu, from which I was able to verify that the press release we got from Bill L. matches the lineup (you might say, "It came straight from the company, so of course it does!", but that's not an automatic given). It's the FB6 lineup plus a no-music port of arcade Frogger. Some other items of note from the menu:

 

- Video Olympics had been listed in previous AtGames Flashbacks as "Pong," but for the FB7, this has been upgraded to "Pong Sports," even on its onscreen cartridge label

 

- Yars' Revenge and Yars' Return were spelled properly on the FB6 menu, and they're spelled properly on the back of the FB7's box (visible in Arenafoot's video), but in the FB7 menu, they're listed as "Yar's Revenge" and "Yar's Return." Someone went and fixed what wasn't broken.

 

By the way, Bill, what is the button combo for bringing up the status screen in Secret Quest? Is it documented in the FB7 manual?

 

onmode-ky

[Bill Loguidice]

By the way, Bill, what is the button combo for bringing up the status screen in Secret Quest? Is it documented in the FB7 manual?

 

onmode-ky

 

Select + Up. Yes, it's in the manual.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Bill Loguidice

[FifthPlayer]

AA user Arenafoot picked up a Flashback 7 and posted a look at the system on YouTube

 

 

This video has a glaring problem; several times the reviewer says that the Flashback 3 through 7 units are based on Nintendo-on-a-chip. That's false and misleading.

 

Ordinarily I wouldn't bother to comment, but the reviewer makes a point of claiming the NOAC nature of the Flashback 7 makes it inferior to the Flashback 2. Whether the 7 really is better than the 2 is best left for everyone to judge for themselves, but it's not because of NOAC.

Edited September 23, 2016 by FifthPlayer

[Bill Loguidice]

 

 

This video has a glaring problem; several times the reviewer says that the Flashback 3 through 7 units are based on Nintendo-on-a-chip. That's false and misleading.

 

Ordinarily I wouldn't bother to comment, but the reviewer makes a point of claiming the NOAC nature of the Flashback 7 makes it inferior to the Flashback 2. Whether the 7 really is better than the 2 is best left for everyone to judge for themselves, but it's not because of NOAC.

 

For all practical purposes all built-in games work perfectly fine on the 7, so it's really only "inferior" if you prefer the game selection (smaller, but also different) on the 2 or are among the small percentage of users who want a hackable system.

 

The 8 will see significant advances and new features for the first time, although it still obviously won't be a system-on-a-chip.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

 

This video has a glaring problem; several times the reviewer says that the Flashback 3 through 7 units are based on Nintendo-on-a-chip. That's false and misleading.

 

Ordinarily I wouldn't bother to comment, but the reviewer makes a point of claiming the NOAC nature of the Flashback 7 makes it inferior to the Flashback 2. Whether the 7 really is better than the 2 is best left for everyone to judge for themselves, but it's not because of NOAC.

Misinformation on Youtube and internet in general is high. Surprise, surprise....

 

Two FB products used the NOAC and had like ten built in games. There was a plug n play joystick with batteries and the "Flashback 1" with 7800 clone controllers that use NES logic in a 9-pin plug like the old Pirate Famiclones used to use.

 

I have the PNP joystick and I also have a FB2 that doesn't work (I did not "return" it because I got it cheap and the controllers it came with were much nicer than the originals - I'm hoping it's a dead 7805, gonna try and fix it one of these days).

 

FB 3-7 used low power embedded ARM with in house emulator.

[onmode-ky]

This video has a glaring problem; several times the reviewer says that the Flashback 3 through 7 units are based on Nintendo-on-a-chip. That's false and misleading.

Yeah, and as a result, I kind of went into lecture mode about the various Flashbacks' underpinnings in my reply to his embedded-video post in the FB Portable thread. It looks like he's added some in-line correction annotations to his video.

 

Two FB products used the NOAC and had like ten built in games.

If you're talking about the Atari and Activision TV Games systems from Jakks Pacific back in 2001-2004, those were not NOAC-based either. My research many, many moons ago indicated that they were built on 65C816-architecture microcontrollers from Winbond, likely from their W55x family. Jakks switched to Sunplus microcontrollers for later plug-n-play products, except for their Atari Paddle system.

 

It's kind of a downer that the FB7's Frogger has no music at all. Surely some new, froggy music of some sort could have been written for it. Maybe made up of ribbit noises. Could add in some car horns, perhaps a splat and drowning noise here and there. Have the rhythm be reminiscent of Seinfeld's theme. But, I guess that wouldn't be very retro.

 

onmode-ky

[Andromeda Stardust]

Yeah, and as a result, I kind of went into lecture mode about the various Flashbacks' underpinnings in my reply to his embedded-video post in the FB Portable thread. It looks like he's added some in-line correction annotations to his video.

 

 

If you're talking about the Atari and Activision TV Games systems from Jakks Pacific back in 2001-2004, those were not NOAC-based either. My research many, many moons ago indicated that they were built on 65C816-architecture microcontrollers from Winbond, likely from their W55x family. Jakks switched to Sunplus microcontrollers for later plug-n-play products, except for their Atari Paddle system.

 

It's kind of a downer that the FB7's Frogger has no music at all. Surely some new, froggy music of some sort could have been written for it. Maybe made up of ribbit noises. Could add in some car horns, perhaps a splat and drowning noise here and there. Have the rhythm be reminiscent of Seinfeld's theme. But, I guess that wouldn't be very retro.

 

onmode-ky

I have the Jakks Pacific Joystick that comes with ten built in games and runs off 4x AA batteries. it is painfully obvious with the system menu that it's running an NOAC because the system menu practically uses NES like fonts. The games are all a bit "off" from the Atari originals in ways that couldn't be attributed to emulation bugs. A bigger indicator is the 50 and 25 percent duty square waves in the sound effects, and the noise generators sounding NES-ish rather than Atari-ish. Granted they did a fairly decent job cloning the graphics and gameplay, but they aren't correct. Especially in Yars, the "beam" of color bricks don't have the variety of color the Atari version had. Remember Atari pallet has 16 hues (including bw) and 8 luminosity levels each. NES has 14 different hues (including bw) and only 4 luminosities each. Anyway that's 56 colors (NES) vs 128 colors (Atari). You can see the entire "rainbow" in Yars and the original was more colorful.

[Kokovec69]

 

 

This video has a glaring problem;

 

He also mentioned that the unit has component video but was kind enough to correct this in the comments.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Kokovec69

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

He also mentioned that the unit has component video but was kind enough to correct this in the comments.

Uninformed consumer reviews product and posts on YT? If they say it online, it must be true!

[Asaki]

People get "component" and "composite" mixed up all the time, though.

[Andromeda Stardust]

People get "component" and "composite" mixed up all the time, though.

Even the manufacturers are getting them mixed up, "Plug yellow composite cable into the green component jack..."

 

Sheesh, whatever; you've saved like 50 cents by eliminating a couple analog phono jacks nobody uses anyway...

[Flojomojo]

People get "component" and "composite" mixed up all the time, though.

 

I make that mistake constantly. You use red/white/yellow RCA cables to plug in your stereo COMPONENTS, after all.

[Kokovec69]

 

I make that mistake constantly. You use red/white/yellow RCA cables to plug in your stereo COMPONENTS, after all.

 

I agree that it's not a big deal but I did get excited for a brief moment as it would have distinguished the FB7 from the rest with a slight bump up in video quality.

HDMI would have been the icing on the cake though.

[Bill Loguidice]

HDMI would have been the icing on the cake though.

 

Unless something goes horribly wrong, that's the plan for next year for all of their console products.

[tep392]

 

I make that mistake constantly. You use red/white/yellow RCA cables to plug in your stereo COMPONENTS, after all.

It helps if you think about the definition of the words composite and component. Composite is a combination of the video signal's individual components.