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New Atari Console that Ataribox?


Goochman

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You forgot Montgomery Ward or maybe I can use my green stamps to get one.

 

My childhood neighbor got his original Atari 2600 as a prize for selling Christmas cards for boy scouts. That is how I learned what an Atari was when I went to visit and we played Space Invaders.

Edited by SIO2
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- A truly illogical statement that will only make sense to those who have already given them money:

 

The Atari VCS, while in the Atari ecosystem, is certainly not just a PC under your TV. If you want a PC under your TV you can already do that. However, if we turn this problem on its head and assume that the Atari VCS is already connected to your TV, then why not have the option to use it as a PC if its what the end user wants? Other bespoke console platforms don't offer this and the Atari VCS looks much better in your family room than a typical PC!

 

 

Going back to my earlier statements re: the PS3 and the ability to run Linux on that device via the 'Other OS' option prior to Sony's removal of that capability in firmware version 3.21... This is different to that how, exactly?

 

More smoke & mirrors. Already been done, and only a really tiny percentage of users (which includes me) took advantage of it. Can't imagine it's going to be any different on the AtariVCSbollocks, and they need to stop hyping this as a 'feature' when they know full damn well that the end goal is to build something - anything - that makes the company look attractive for a potential buyout.

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I just want to pick it up during a Black Friday sale at Toys R Us.

 

No, wait... uh, Sears?

 

K-Mart?

 

Radio Shack?

 

I hear that Circuit City will be their primary retail partner. I suggest camping out in front of the store now; when this thing hits the shelves, it's gonna be bigger than an iPhone release. Mark my words on this: you'll be in line next to Tim Cook.

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Indiegogo is refunding [Atari] Gameband pledges, claiming they "determined this campaign didn't comply with our Terms of Use."

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/8z6iox/id_like_your_opinion_on_my_shitty_contribution/

 

This explains why the Gameband Indiegogo page erased all amount raised a few weeks ago. The total amount you see there now is the total amount raised on Kickstarter alone (hover your mouse over the question mark to see that notification) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gameband-the-world-s-most-powerful-smartwatch/x/12536588#/
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Indiegogo is refunding [Atari] Gameband pledges, claiming they "determined this campaign didn't comply with our Terms of Use."

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/8z6iox/id_like_your_opinion_on_my_shitty_contribution/

 

This explains why the Gameband Indiegogo page erased all amount raised a few weeks ago. The total amount you see there now is the total amount raised on Kickstarter alone (hover your mouse over the question mark to see that notification) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gameband-the-world-s-most-powerful-smartwatch/x/12536588#/

 

 

That's good to see from Indiegogo.

 

Still, I wonder where the refund money is coming from. Was Feargal good enough to give it back, or did they have to dip into their own pockets to avoid a PR disaster?

 

This could also be an interesting precedent for certain other crowdfunding campaigns that have gone pear shaped.

Edited by Matt_B
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That's good to see from Indiegogo.

 

Still, I wonder where the refund money is coming from. Was Feargal good enough to give it back, or did they have to dip into their own pockets to avoid a PR disaster?

 

This could also be an interesting precedent for certain other crowdfunding campaigns that have gone pear shaped.

 

Based on the Spectrum Vega+ precedent, I'd imagine that Indiegogo may be sending in the lawyers and/or debt collectors, assuming that the funds raised are unrecoverable.

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Unfortunately, the poster also states that he hasn't received the refund. They promised him it would arrive within 5 business days, but it's been two weeks and he's seen nothing.

 

I wonder where the money will come from too. I remember Indiegogo sent collectors after the ZX Vega+ campaign so maybe they're trying to do the same here. I agree it would be a step in the right direction for IGG but you can't squeeze water out of a rock so they really should explain where the money comes from, if it comes through.

 

 

EDIT: ah, you beat me to it.

 

It will also be interesting to figure out what Terms of Use were violated. I know Atari pulled their branding but they had permission at the time and it doesn't make sense to be retroactively applying rules.

Edited by StopDrop&Retro
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Unfortunately, the poster also states that he hasn't received the refund. They promised him it would arrive within 5 business days, but it's been two weeks and he's seen nothing.

 

I wonder where the money will come from too. I remember Indiegogo sent collectors after the ZX Vega+ campaign so maybe they're trying to do the same here. I agree it would be a step in the right direction for IGG but you can't squeeze water out of a rock so they really should explain where the money comes from, if it comes through.

 

 

EDIT: ah, you beat me to it.

 

It will also be interesting to figure out what Terms of Use were violated. I know Atari pulled their branding but they had permission at the time and it doesn't make sense to be retroactively applying rules.

 

Re: Terms of Use violations: my guess is that they're nailing them for non-delivery of the product. What's interesting is that, in common with the Spectrum Vega+, two years seems to be the approximate cutoff point that Indiegogo is applying for projects of this type before putting a halt to them and requiring that refunds be issued to the backers.

 

That two-year-rule idea should be taken as purely speculative, and I'd like to see some more data points (or a statement from Indiegogo confirming its validity) before considering it a hard break - but seeing it happen twice in close proximity with similar campaigns is certainly interesting. Mark your calendars for August of 2020 to check up on whether or not a refund order gets issued on the AtariVCSbollocks campaign.

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I don't find non-delivery to be the answer here because you have infamous scams like Skarp Laser Razor that have been going on for much longer than 2 years but have never been hit with a terms of use violation. It has to be something else and considering IGG is the Tijuana of crowdfunding where anything goes, it will be interesting to see which (if any) rule they're enforcing.

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Have Atari go this route: Buy up all the oldest computers of the 1980s and then slap some new logos on it and voilà !attachicon.gifultra_bomb_diggety_version.jpg

 

 

 

Frankodragon...I think you owe me some new pants or something. It's been a while since I laughed so hard! What really did it was when I casually noticed the words Overhead Taco Warmer just kinda snuck in there, then I looked up at the pic and noticed the taco above the monitor. Perhaps that struck me as way more funny than it should have.

 

Great Job! :rolling:

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I'd think that what it might come down to is that, while other products can be put down as merely delayed due to technical issues, there's definitely no way that the Atari Gameband can be delivered with an expired license.

 

Well, either that or IGG have noticed what a high profile failure it's turned into and want to bump it off into oblivion before it affects their future business and without leaving too many reasons for disgruntled backers to keep complaining about it.

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Ya gotta also figure AtariSA is using IGG for their wunderbox while, at almost the same moment, pulling their license on the gameband. IGG is probably happy to wash their hands of it now that they made their bucks on hapless Ataribawks backers and it's san refunds now. AtariSA wants the relentless connection to the Gameband cluster to stop. I wonder who initiated it, and who's paying up.

 

Oh, and it looks like the guy got his refund the same day he was notified. He was just looking in the wrong account.

Edited by JBerel
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Zayre or Venture.

Don't forget Ames, Alco, Woolco, Bradlees, Calddor, and Hills!

 

One crazy thing, TJMaxx used to be owned by Zayre. Zayre got bought out by Ames, and TJMaxx was spun off. Ames had ambitious expansion plans and wanted to get big and quick. Shortly after acquiring Zayre they filed Cahpter 11 bankruptcy but ended up emerging and surviving. Later they acquire Hills, and same exact thing happens. They go bankrupt, except this time they end up having to convert their Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 and in 2002 they go out of business for good. TJ Maxx on the other hand? If you follow retail news, TJ Maxx has been one of the best performing retail chains the past few years and doing a good job at holding their own against online competition.

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I missed this post about Rob Wyatt being let go from the original Xbox team. Hattip to Flojomojo's annotated FAQ #1.

 

I can't help but pick up on a few ironies in this retretrospectiv about the original X-Box development. Also can't tell if this announcement helps or hurts their effort given how things went on the X-Box. I do know continuing to provide no information of any substance about an actual product or development deals that exist and can be shown does nothing to bolster their credibility.

 

https://venturebeat.com/2011/11/14/making-of-the-xbox-1/view-all/

 

Game developers like Wyatt insisted on using Nvidia because developers were so familiar with making games for it. But Nvidia’s price quotes were much higher than what others offered. Rick Thompson felt like he had been sold a bill of goods, and it took Blackley and Bachus and others a lot of effort to keep Nvidia in the bidding. The nuances of chip economics were new to Microsoft. The price depended on the size of chip, its yield, complexity of design, and ability to be manufactured all came into play.
Team members had unearthed graphics chip design house GigaPixel, which promised to design a brand-new graphics chip with WebTV’s engineering help.
Within the Advanced Technologies Group, there was dismay. To them, GigaPixel was nothing but a bunch of promises.
“This was the worst decision in the entire project,” Rob Wyatt recalled. “Remember, this chip didn’t exist, the proposed architecture was new, and different from their prior design. We never got a working version of that. This was when programmable graphics shaders were coming out and GigaPixel had never made a programmable chip. We knew the box would fail if it used this hardware.”
The ATG team fought to keep Nvidia alive. The chip schedule pushed the launch date into 2001. Chip makers often needed two years to make chips. But Microsoft was pushing a schedule that would give chip vendors a little more than a year to do their work. Wyatt argued so much that he eventually got fired.

 

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Also, that's really cool that they managed to up the system to 8 GB of RAM, that's a more realistic amount of memory for a gaming system (even more than the Nintendo Switch actually).

That's all fine and dandy, but this is just an "empty announcement" since they haven't done anything in terms of building a working prototype or anything.

 

And ram is cheap, and easy to install/add on. If they're not going to have games or other things on the console taking advantage of said extra ram, then it just becomes an unnecessary waste of space inside the casing and a waste of money.

 

And lastly, it's games that make a console, as it's been proven throughout several decades of gaming. Every handheld competing against the Gameboy had far superior hardware, yet the Gameboy killed each and every one of them, even long before Pokemon came onto the scene and further cemented Nintendo as the leader of handheld gaming.

 

The Gamecube and Xbox were both superior, spec-wise, to the PS2, yet the PS2 had a much larger library of quality games (And it doubled as a DVD player, and was the cheapest DVD player on the market at the time IIRC which helped immensely as well) and ended up slaughtering both of them.

 

Superior specs are all fine and dandy, but if there aren't games worth playing then it's irrelevant. The Switch has Zelda, Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Splatoon, to name a few. What is Nutari going to have in terms of games? I'm not going to look at the Switch and the Ataco VCS box on store shelves (assuming the VCS ever makes it to shelves) and be like "Well, the VCS has superior specs/more ram/more power, I think i'll choose this over the Switch!"

 

The Jaguar's marketing and all the "Do the math" ads all revolved around how it was 64 bit vs Sega and Nintendo's 16 bit, and I can safely say out of all the consoles I own or have owned, the Jaguar has, by far and by a big, gigantic landslide, the weakest library of games out of all of them. Comparing it to the Super Nintendo, it is simply laughable.

 

 

Hindsight is 20/20 though, looking back it's clear what Atari had missed the mark on. The lady in the commercial forgot to mention one thing. The ONE BIG thing that would of made ALL THE DIFFERENCE in the world. The one thing that seperates the men from the boys. The one thing that would of made the Jaguar a larger success then the SNES and Sega Genesis combined. The one thing that would of saved Atari from going down the road they went down after the Jaguar bombed and was discontinued.

 

Give up? Well, i'll tell you. She forgot to mention it has a... *gasp* ATARI FUJI LOGO on it! How could Atari have possibly missed THAT? If only they would of emphasized that, everything would of been different... The video game industry that we all know today would be completely different. If she would of mentioned that, there would of been crowds camping out at retail stores that would of made the crowds of people waiting for the PS2 launch in 2001 or the Wii in 2006 seem pathetically small in comparison. As I said, hindsight is 20/20. Live & Learn.

Edited by Pink
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I don't find non-delivery to be the answer here because you have infamous scams like Skarp Laser Razor that have been going on for much longer than 2 years but have never been hit with a terms of use violation. It has to be something else and considering IGG is the Tijuana of crowdfunding where anything goes, it will be interesting to see which (if any) rule they're enforcing.

Good points. Did they refund everyone, or just people who asked for it? IGG takes 5%, which they will likely keep, and there's a 3% payment processing fee, which is almost certainly gone.

 

8% of AtariBox's $3M is $240,000.

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I hear that Circuit City will be their primary retail partner. I suggest camping out in front of the store now; when this thing hits the shelves, it's gonna be bigger than an iPhone release. Mark my words on this: you'll be in line next to Tim Cook.

May as well promise Steve Jobs while you're at it.

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That's all fine and dandy, but this is just an "empty announcement" since they haven't done anything in terms of building a working prototype or anything.

 

And ram is cheap, and easy to install/add on. If they're not going to have games or other things on the console taking advantage of said extra ram, then it just becomes an unnecessary waste of space inside the casing and a waste of money.

 

And lastly, it's games that make a console, as it's been proven throughout several decades of gaming. Every handheld competing against the Gameboy had far superior hardware, yet the Gameboy killed each and every one of them, even long before Pokemon came onto the scene and further cemented Nintendo as the leader of handheld gaming.

 

The Gamecube and Xbox were both superior, spec-wise, to the PS2, yet the PS2 had a much larger library of quality games (And it doubled as a DVD player, and was the cheapest DVD player on the market at the time IIRC which helped immensely as well) and ended up slaughtering both of them.

 

Superior specs are all fine and dandy, but if there aren't games worth playing then it's irrelevant. The Switch has Zelda, Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Splatoon, to name a few. What is Nutari going to have in terms of games? I'm not going to look at the Switch and the Ataco VCS box on store shelves (assuming the VCS ever makes it to shelves) and be like "Well, the VCS has superior specs/more ram/more power, I think i'll choose this over the Switch!"

 

The Jaguar's marketing and all the "Do the math" ads all revolved around how it was 64 bit vs Sega and Nintendo's 16 bit, and I can safely say out of all the consoles I own or have owned, the Jaguar has, by far and by a big, gigantic landslide, the weakest library of games out of all of them. Comparing it to the Super Nintendo, it is simply laughable.

 

 

Hindsight is 20/20 though, looking back it's clear what Atari had missed the mark on. The lady in the commercial forgot to mention one thing. The ONE BIG thing that would of made ALL THE DIFFERENCE in the world. The one thing that seperates the men from the boys. The one thing that would of made the Jaguar a larger success then the SNES and Sega Genesis combined. The one thing that would of saved Atari from going down the road they went down after the Jaguar bombed and was discontinued.

 

Give up? Well, i'll tell you. She forgot to mention it has a... *gasp* ATARI FUJI LOGO on it! How could Atari have possibly missed THAT? If only they would of emphasized that, everything would of been different... The video game industry that we all know today would be completely different. If she would of mentioned that, there would of been crowds camping out at retail stores that would of made the crowds of people waiting for the PS2 launch in 2001 or the Wii in 2006 seem pathetically small in comparison. As I said, hindsight is 20/20. Live & Learn.

 

Good point about the VCS needing stellar games/exclusives in order to sell. Interesting you used the Nintendo Switch as an example instead of the PS4, which is by far the most successful console out of all 3 this generation, probably because that's a system that doesn't really have a lot of enticing exclusives. xD

 

This year, I've heard about 2 exclusives in the PS4 library that I'm actually interested in-- Spiderman and The Last Of Us Part 2. Yakuza was an exclusive, but then that has now expired and is being released on PC. The Shenmue series are all coming to PC. Sonic Mania Plus is on all consoles and PC. Battle Toads-- all consoles and PC. Resident Evil 2 remake-- consoles and PC. Crash Bandicoot N'sane Trilogy-- all consoles and PC..... see the trend there? All the games I'm excited about are being released on everything. Besides the two I mentioned, there are no other exclusives on the PS4 that I'm excited about. Two isn't enough to warrant a PS4 purchase for me. But somehow it's the most successful console this generation. So, it's probably either the hardware, or its media capabilities that appeals to people.

 

As for the Xbox One, while it's not as successful as the PS4 it still has garnered 2nd place, a lot of it having to do with its hardware specs. I actually think that Microsoft has a few more compelling exclusives to own an Xbox One X, but they blow that incentive for me as well-- by making all exclusives compatible with Windows 10. However I could also see how it would make sense for people that don't have like $2000 to spend on a gaming PC. But Xbox One X's marketing, again, is about its media streaming capabilities, compatibility with Windows 10 apps, and how it can do true 4K, Skype, etc.

 

Going back to the VCS, it's understandable why they're touting the hardware so much-- because a LOT of people care about having those 4K graphics. Also, here's the kicker: If you're actually able to install Windows 10 on this thing, guess what? It can access a lot of the games listed above.

Edited by Lodmot
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She forgot to mention it has a... *gasp* ATARI FUJI LOGO on it! How could Atari have possibly missed THAT? If only they would of emphasized that, everything would of been different... The video game industry that we all know today would be completely different. If she would of mentioned that, there would of been crowds camping out at retail stores that would of made the crowds of people waiting for the PS2 launch in 2001 or the Wii in 2006 seem pathetically small in comparison. As I said, hindsight is 20/20. Live & Learn.

 

I've said it before but it's worth repeating. Twenty years ago, consumers had enough sense to avoid the underfunded, underdeveloped, undersupported Jag.

 

Fast forward to 2018 and there's a pernicious segment of shelf collectors, nostalgia buffs, and hipsters that are actively dumbing down the market.

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I've said it before but it's worth repeating. Twenty years ago, consumers had enough sense to avoid the underfunded, underdeveloped, undersupported Jag.

 

Fast forward to 2018 and there's a pernicious segment of shelf collectors, nostalgia buffs, and hipsters that are actively dumbing down the market.

It's a catch 22. They're expensive because they're a lot rarer and more scarce, and a lot less of them were produced. But on the other hand there is a reason why there were a lot less produced and why there is so much less of them.

 

Theres a reason why nobody was choosing to buy one over the SNES or Genesis at the time. Theres a reason stores like KBToys had pallets of them they couldn't give away for $20 and TigerDirect was advertising them well after the N64 came out, trying to advertise it as a cheap alternative to a N64.

 

And i'd say it's the other way. They're not dumbing down the market by artificially inflating the price of stuff like the Jaguar that's genuinely scarce. They're dumbing down the market by artificially inflating the price of common, mass produced, common as dirt items like the flagship SNES and N64 games. With the "retro scene" being "trendy" and 90s nostaglia being at an all time high, and Nintendo themselves cashing in with things like the NES Mini and SNES Mini, the prices have just gone insane. Gone are the days when you could get Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridges for 19 cents from Funcoland. https://i.imgur.com/2s9a3OT.jpg

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_64_video_games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_video_games

 

Theres no reason used N64 and SNES games that sold anywhere from 4-10 million copies, which have had numerous re-releases and available for download on the eShop should be going for $20-60. Not only that it's a massive pet peeve when people claim that they're "UBER RARE! zOMG!!!!!!!!!" It's the equivalent of paying $20-60 for 2600 games like Combat, Pac-Man and ET.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Atari_2600_video_games

 

Actually looking at the numbers, the flagship 2600 games sold a lot less then the flagship N64 or SNES games.

 

TL:DR-There is a lot of mass produced, common as dirt "retro" games and other various merchandise being advertised as "uber rare" and sold for asinine prices and morons continue to happily pay said prices.

 

 

Good point about the VCS needing stellar games/exclusives in order to sell. Interesting you used the Nintendo Switch as an example instead of the PS4, which is by far the most successful console out of all 3 this generation, probably because that's a system that doesn't really have a lot of enticing exclusives. xD

You were the one who compared the VCS by saying it now has (or will, if it ever comes out) Then the Switch will.

 

And as for the lack of exclusives on the PS4, I already explained earlier saying exclusives have been a dying breed and a lot of the big, popular games are multiplatform (Call of Duty, Madden, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, etc.) And how the biggest difference between the PS4 and Xbox One is the 1)controller and 2) the UI/Interface and how they're virtually identical on the inside. Porting a game from one to the other is extremely cheap and simple. Theres a reason Squre Enix continues to release Xbox versions of their games despite the fact they sell a teeny tiny minuscule percentage of the PS4 version. And because of that I explained how it would be extremely hard, if not impossible, for another company Like Samsung or Google to enter the marketplace and compete because their console would essentially be identical to the PS4 and Xbox One, with the same exact multi platform games.

Edited by Pink
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I wasn't referring to the vintage games market. I'm talking about people avoiding the Jaguar in 1995 because they knew Atari was washed up at that point, versus people actually getting excited about the VCS despite the current "Atari" only being a ghost of that shadow.

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