Pink Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 (edited) The people that really want it, the diehards and big fans, are the ones pledging/pre-ordering right away at the beginning. The tiny minority are congregating together at the launch of the campaign. It means nothing. Ouya smashed Kickstarter records too, and looked how well that did in retail. Dreamcast had an extremely successful launch in 1999 as well. And then a mere 18 months later in March 2001 Sega announced it was being discontinued and that they were exiting the console business. And stores had tons and tons of Dreamcasts they couldn't sell at $49.99. In fact you could still buy them new on places like Thinkgeek as late as 2009 (if my memory is correct) It was all old leftover stock that never sold. Same thing when a movie opens in theaters. It's not how it does in it's opening weekend, but about what kind of legs it has and how well it does in weeks 2,3,4 and so on. The new Power Rangers movie opened well (extremely well, much better then expected and was expected to be a breakout hit it's first weekend) and then it ended up dropping like a rock in week 2 (it dropped a whopping 73%) https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2017/04/01/box-office-power-rangers-tumbles-73-beauty-still-a-beast-kong-passes-400m/ Let me know on day 15 of the campaign if this thing is still raking in $700,000+ an hour. Edited May 30, 2018 by Pink 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexkeaton Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 There was so much traffic that Indiegogo had difficulties with the payment orders. When i tried to order my second Console i received an "payment error". It made no sense because my first order 5 Minutes ago was succesful and i used the same Credit Card details which were stored on the Website. It looks like that happened to other customers too. They received an "payment error" and clicked to order button again so they were charged twice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Seriously, I'm surprised at the level of demand (inflated tho' it may be). The question is how sustainable is it? There's no way this thing could be 299.00 in a retail situation. Not to mention that July 2019 is a long way off. The AMD tech they're putting into this (Bristol Ridge) is from 2016 and will be surpassed this fall. Here's a laptop with the same (or better) A10 CPU and R7 GPU for $361. Except it comes with a screen, keyboard, and pointing device, 2x the RAM, 30x the storage, a DVD drive, and Windows. Oh, and you could have it tomorrow. Atari Vault is in Steam now and Tempest 4000 is expected in two weeks. Part of me hopes that nobody gets screwed, but the rest of me wants this to go kablooey so it puts an end to this kind of retro brand exploitation. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVgaTv Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Not to mention that July 2019 is a long way off. The AMD tech they're putting into this (Bristol Ridge) is from 2016 and will be surpassed this fall. Here's a laptop with the same (or better) A10 CPU and R7 GPU for $361. Except it comes with a screen, keyboard, and pointing device, 2x the RAM, 30x the storage, a DVD drive, and Windows. Oh, and you could have it tomorrow. Atari Vault is in Steam now and Tempest 4000 is expected in two weeks. Part of me hopes that nobody gets screwed, but the rest of me wants this to go kablooey so it puts an end to this kind of retro brand exploitation. Yeah, but does it have woodgrain? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Not to mention that July 2019 is a long way off. The AMD tech they're putting into this (Bristol Ridge) is from 2016 and will be surpassed this fall. Here's a laptop with the same (or better) A10 CPU and R7 GPU for $361. Except it comes with a screen, keyboard, and pointing device, 2x the RAM, 30x the storage, a DVD drive, and Windows. Oh, and you could have it tomorrow. Will it pump my brain full of nostalgia endorphins? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shamus Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Yeah, but does it have woodgrain? Make it match the Deluxe Edition for $10.83, which is less than $100. https://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Honey-Adhesive-Contact-Paper/dp/B000KKIR0A Will it pump my brain full of nostalgia endorphins? You mean, like sniffing glue? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hwlngmad Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 I don't think we should be too shocked that the goal has already been surpassed and/or smashed. Sorry, but $319 for a console, two controllers, and 100 games from the 70s/80s is not a good deal IMO. But, I guess there a lot of people who have the dough to spend, so good for them. At this point, we gotta give credit to AtariSA as it looks as if their "pre-order" campaign will be a tremendous and overwhelming success. Of course, let's just see if they can bring everything to fruition and in the time-frame they are stating. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexkeaton Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 (edited) They made 1.2 Million Dollars in only 90 Minutes. Absolutely Amazing. Edited May 30, 2018 by alexkeaton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVgaTv Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Make it match the Deluxe Edition for $10.83, which is less than $100. https://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Honey-Adhesive-Contact-Paper/dp/B000KKIR0A You mean, like sniffing glue? Well played sir. Well played Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVgaTv Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Something worth noting. While it has been an impressive start to the campaign, at this moment there are only 3,775 consoles that have been claimed. for this to be a viable console that will attract companies to develop for it, they need to increase that number by a factor of a thousand, and even then it's still incredibly low compared to the other consoles out there. Unless they are able to turn it into a SteamBox 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexkeaton Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 (edited) If you check the Contributors List on Indiegogo than you can see the same Names with identical Donations/payments in only a few minutes apart or even the same Minute. I am pretty sure that Indiegogo messed up and the numbers have to be corrected down. The same Names appear again and again. This could become very interesting now. Edited May 30, 2018 by alexkeaton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 They made 1.2 Million Dollars in only 90 Minutes. Absolutely Amazing. Well, they're also expected to deliver. Unless they choose to torpedo their reputation and simply keep the money, which they can do with the Flexible Funding option they selected. As of this posting, here's what they sold: 1290 Woody + retro joystick @$299 + shipping 84 Classic sticks @$29 + shipping 66 Modern controllers @$49 + shipping 571 Controller combos @ $59 + shipping 144 Onyx Earlybird consoles @ $199 + shipping 372 Onyx + retro joystick @ $229 + shipping 0 Onyx full price @ $249 + shipping 4 Onyx + retro joystick @ $279 + shipping (why would anyone choose this?) 102 Onyx "all in" @ $319 + shipping 1803 Woody "all in" $339 + shipping These numbers might go up (though people could always change their minds and pull out within this month if they want). Still, that's ... 3093 Woody consoles 622 Onyx consoles 4226 Classic controllers 2542 Modern controllers Probably enough to make it worth a manufacturing order from China, but not scarce enough to be a "collectible." Still impressed, even without the framing of beating their goals? To put these numbers in context: Seven months later, Valve’s Steam Machines look dead in the water: Sales of under 500,000 machines so far show an utter lack of market demand. or Ouya had 36,000 registered developers, adding 1000 more each month and its best selling game, Towerfall, only had 7,000 sales. or the "failed" Wii U "only" sold 13 million units TL;DR: it's nice that "Atari" broke its crowdfunding goals, but without people who buy software for the thing, it's a brick. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whisperer_in_darkness Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 I guess if you look it from purely utilitarian point of view then yes this is not really necessary. But people like to buy new things. And I think the main thing here is not the hardware. I mean PC hardware has not been interesting since... early 2000 IMO. I think what a lot of people are expecting or fantasizing about is to have a console which is cool, no hassle easy to use,Linux based and open, so you can do what you want with it and maybe it will become popular among certain people and developers so that in the future it will have all the cool new apps and some of the games. The device is going to be used for gaming but also other other forms of entertainment like watching youtube or watching streams and all sorts of social activities on the internet. So at this point it doesn't really need to be cutting edge technology. All it needs is to look good and be accessible and popular enough to get some ecosystem going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 (edited) Was looking through the Commodore 64 mini's Facebook page as I am potentially interested in picking one of those up when/if they hit the USA. Why can't Gameband, or numerous other crowdfunding campaigns provide updates like these? A simple update like TheC64 folks have provided, nothing fancy. I remember the Ouya fiasco quite well when tons of people were complaining on Kickstarter that they never received their console and the crooks & scumbags had run off and vanished with their money. Edited May 30, 2018 by Pink Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Historian Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 The sub-reddit is back, I'm no longer moderating. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_convoy Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Something worth noting. While it has been an impressive start to the campaign, at this moment there are only 3,775 consoles that have been claimed. for this to be a viable console that will attract companies to develop for it, they need to increase that number by a factor of a thousand, and even then it's still incredibly low compared to the other consoles out there. Unless they are able to turn it into a SteamBox Absolutely; the numbers (over a million dollars so far! Wow!!11one) are misleading in that sense, and no one major will develop for a community of a few thousand. The trick is if Atari SA thinks this means boffo box office and commit their presumably meager resources to a full fledged retail release. As Flojo just pointed out, if this comes out next year with those specs at that price, it's a guaranteed shelf filling doorstop. I'm just puzzled that there are so many people willing to buy into something that doesn't exist. I'm not anti crowd funding (altho' I'm no fan of Indiegogo), but I'm definitely anti "take money for a product that, two months ago, was a literal empty box and hopefully we have something to show for it in a year.". 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Absolutely; the numbers (over a million dollars so far! Wow!!11one) are misleading in that sense, and no one major will develop for a community of a few thousand. The trick is if Atari SA thinks this means boffo box office and commit their presumably meager resources to a full fledged retail release. As Flojo just pointed out, if this comes out next year with those specs at that price, it's a guaranteed shelf filling doorstop. I'm just puzzled that there are so many people willing to buy into something that doesn't exist. I'm not anti crowd funding (altho' I'm no fan of Indiegogo), but I'm definitely anti "take money for a product that, two months ago, was a literal empty box and hopefully we have something to show for it in a year.". This might do OK at retail given a small shelf space and with a distinct lack of any type of inference this is taking on anything from Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo. The big challenge for it at retail is the relatively high price. Unless they can sell a SKU at $149 or less, I doubt they'd get much traction at retail. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 im pretty interested in the classic controller by its self- notsomuch in the console because it really just doesn't meet a need or want that I have. $29 is a pretty attractive price-point, assuming it materializes. I backed the joystick on my break. Yay! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVgaTv Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Absolutely; the numbers (over a million dollars so far! Wow!!11one) are misleading in that sense, and no one major will develop for a community of a few thousand. The trick is if Atari SA thinks this means boffo box office and commit their presumably meager resources to a full fledged retail release. As Flojo just pointed out, if this comes out next year with those specs at that price, it's a guaranteed shelf filling doorstop. I'm just puzzled that there are so many people willing to buy into something that doesn't exist. I'm not anti crowd funding (altho' I'm no fan of Indiegogo), but I'm definitely anti "take money for a product that, two months ago, was a literal empty box and hopefully we have something to show for it in a year.". Almost all of the consoles sold so far are the limited edition woodgrain, which is only an option until the 11th. So it looks like a lot of collector speculators are getting in on it. It's difficult to tell at this point what kind of actual interest there is in this thing beyond a collector piece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OBLIVION23 Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 I'm gonna wait until after i pay rent and see where i'm at. Probably gonna back the Onyx early bird while its discounted and hope i don't get totally ripped off. Seems unlikely that Atari SA would purposefully nuke their brand by not intending to ever deliver but it's not unheard of either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 I'm gonna wait until after i pay rent and see where i'm at. Probably gonna back the Onyx early bird while its discounted and hope i don't get totally ripped off. Seems unlikely that Atari SA would purposefully nuke their brand by not intending to ever deliver but it's not unheard of either. I'd say 95% of these crowdfunding things probably never intend to not deliver, but going from idea or prototype to full production is never easy. As was stated earlier, the plus in this case is that they're not promising anything particularly challenging to produce here. It's all off-the-shelf parts. About the only potential roadblocks are the UI/UX and related ecosystem they layer on top of Linux (which they can patch post-release, of course) and making sure fit, finish, and heat distribution are up-to-snuff with both the console and the classic controller (the modern controller is probably mostly a minor shell change for an off-the-shelf controller solution). 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBerel Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 I suspect their ability to actually hit production will be related to molds. If they have been doing nothing but 3D printing the box and classic controller to date, (looks like it), then they don't have molds and will have to get them developed by someone who actually knows what they're doing. If they have molds now, there's no reason on earth the off-the-shelf AMD board they're using can't be slapped in there and shipped in a few months. I've seen many of these projects die because the devs didn't have a clue about making plastic parts. Bill, Was this something the AtGames folks struggle(d) with or do they have that down to a science? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Android8675 Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Found a place to post this, sorry all, I'm sure it's been said a thousand times, but... What is your refund policy? Refund at any point in time through Indiegogo. After the campaign, we will lock refunds in order to go into production and shipment. We will honor the returns and exchange policy after your Atari VCS is delivered. So no refunds after end of campaign What is your return / exchange policy? If you received your product and you aren't satisfied, you may exchange it for a new one within 30 days, less shipping & handling fees. Did anyone really think this through? If I got a product that I'm not satisfied with, why would I exchange it for another one? How bout, "We can only exchange if your unit is defective." and instead of 30 days, make it a year. I'm glad they seem to be getting a lot of money for this "product", but there's just too many red flags for me to even risk this kid of money investment. (or is this how everyone feels?) I can't be alone here. I want this to be a special thing, but barring Jeff Minter announcing T4K is going to be exclusive to the AtariVCS... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarifan88 Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 If you look at what people are "buying", just about every single one of them are getting the limited edition one, with only 300 people so far getting the cheaper model. So it looks like collector speculators are rushing in to get the limited edition that will sit on a shelf never to be opened. And once that's gone there isn't going to be much interest. And that's sad because just keeping it in a box without being able to enjoy it is a waste of money, IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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