New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[Flojomojo]

DISCOVER

WHAT YOU AND

ATARI

CAN DO®

 

 

Secret bonus: just in case you thought that awkward tagline was original because of the recent "mug shot" ...

 

 

 

It's from 1984, when Alan Alda was the pitchman for the Atari 800 line of computers.

 

 

 

[pacman000]

I think it's a rather nice tagline...

[TheVgaTv]

 

Are there any games deals in the works, at all? How binding are those commitments? If I were an indie developer, I'd steer clear. But even those who have reached out to them have been ignored or had their messages bounce.

 

You can't manage an email address and we're supposed to develop software for your platform?

Screen Shot 2019-06-13 at 11.59.22 AM.png

 

 

 

In addition to the incompetence on the part of Atari, developers should steer clear due to the lack of a viable user base. Going off of the IGG page, they had 11,216 backers, which some of those were double counted because if you ordered an additional joystick you got counted twice. So let's so big and assume they pre-sold 10,000 consoles. Sounds like a lot, right? Well the OUYA sold 58,000 and collapsed due to a lack of a user base.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

[ColecoJoe]

So it looks like a completely blank dummy board with nothing but breadboard plastic, a laptop fan, random wires and plastic widgets simulating components.

Doesn't even look like the components are connected to each other???? Unless the PCB is invisible?

[JBerel]

I still say half or better of their "pre-sales" are them posing as backers in the hopes of raising their stock visibility for sale of the company. It would fit right in with their other stock shenanigans.I bet the general lack of other activity on their IGG page had them take the unusual move of jumping to another pre-sale platform to get blood from that stone.

[Flojomojo]

I still say half or better of their "pre-sales" are them posing as backers in the hopes of raising their stock visibility for sale of the company. It would fit right in with their other stock shenanigans.I bet the general lack of other activity on their IGG page had them take the unusual move of jumping to another pre-sale platform to get blood from that stone.

 

Freezing IGG sales also has the effect of obscuring how many pre-sales they are making, and saves them the hassle of chargebacks. It also takes away the ability of any new "backers" to serve as the "advisory board" (or is it "peanut gallery") in the comments section, so I hope the regular gang stays interested. Not sure if Walmart or Gamestop allows reviews of items that are not yet available.

 

If they haven't already sold off the company on what it could be, how could they possibly make a sale once everyone knows exactly what it is?

 

Stock looks like it got a nickel bump on the distribution news, but that should correct once the market realizes there's nothing worth distributing.

 

[PlaysWithWolves]

Quoting Ser Flojomojo yet again for capturing things the leader of the Atarirealms don't wish us to see;

 

 

 

Quick motion cut of the user interface in action. Lots of 2600 games. I don't think this is the current Atari Vault interface. Will the components of Atari Vault going to be launchable from Atari OS, is this a work in progress, or just another fake/mockup "for illustration purposes only?"

15 ye olde intellectual properties.png

 

 

 

Pretty sure center square says "SANDBOX". They may be running their own games in sandbox mode, which for some reason I find hi-larious.

Edit: Unless Sandbox is run like an app, I suppose? And why doesn't it look closer to the below UI screenshot, which they claim is Atari World?

 

As for the walled-garden UI, Atarivcs' website has a still from the same style asc shown in their Atari VCS Official Launch Trailer. So I guess they're going with that design.

 

 

Speaking of sandbox mode, Win10, and external hard drives, this also comes from their website:

 

[Flojomojo]

Hm, there are lots of things hidden in plain view on their website.

 

ATARI VCS TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Welcome to AtariVCS.com ecommerce, operated by Xsolla. By visiting www.ATARIVCS.com (the “Website”) and/or purchasing something from us, you are “Using” the Website and agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions of Sale (the “Agreement”), including those additional terms and conditions and policies referenced herein and/or available by hyperlink. If you do not agree with the terms of this Agreement, do not Use the Website. This Agreement is binding as of its date of publication on the Website. You are solely responsible for being knowledgeable of, and in compliance with, this Agreement.

Upon entering into this Agreement, you represent that you are of the legal age of license in your state, province, or jurisdiction of residence. Throughout the site, the terms “we”, “us” and “our” refer to AtariVCS.com managed by Xsolla (USA), Inc. The terms “Customer”, “yourself”, and “you” refers to the person who visits or makes purchases from the Website.

 

7. SHIPPING

A. Shipping Address. We shall ship your order to the address you provide during the ordering process. You may not amend the address provided during the ordering process after the completion of said ordering process.

B. Destination. We are currently shipping to the United States of America only. When your order ships, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with a link to track your package. Some orders will ship in multiple boxes and each box will have its own unique tracking number.

D. Delivery. In the event that an estimated delivery date, or estimated shipping time, is provided during the checkout process, this information is provided on an informational basis and does not constitute an obligation on our part. We are not responsible for any delay in delivery or for any loss of or damage to a package or its contents while in the care of the courier or postal service. Should you have any questions, please contact customer support at help.xsolla.com.

 

https://xsolla.com

 

One of these things is not like the others.

 

Also, this is relevant to the durability of their stuff:

10. PRODUCT WARRANTY

Atari covers your Atari VCS console, included Classic Joystick or Modern controller, against accidents and mechanical or electrical breakdowns for up to one (1) year. For covered controller and console, you get up to one replacement of a Classic Joystick or one replacement of a Modern Controller, and one replacement of the VCS system box – no deductible required.

[JBerel]

Quote
Also, this is relevant to the durability of their stuff:

10. PRODUCT WARRANTY

Atari covers your Atari VCS console, included Classic Joystick or Modern controller, against accidents and mechanical or electrical breakdowns for up to one (1) year. For covered controller and console, you get up to one replacement of a Classic Joystick or one replacement of a Modern Controller, and one replacement of the VCS system box – no deductible required.

LOL...They better stock up on a gross of this stuff......

Edited June 13, 2019 by JBerel

[Mockduck]

Hm, there are lots of things hidden in plain view on their website.

 

 

 

https://xsolla.com

 

One of these things is not like the others.

Screen Shot 2019-06-13 at 1.16.34 PM.png

 

Also, this is relevant to the durability of their stuff:

 

Xolla is not very public, but they run a lot of payment systems in the current video game industry (including the company I work for, to be transparent). They do have some public outreach, though, on Twitter, and the name is not unheard of at all in the public.

 

On the "just get one replacement" legal text, I bet that's a new-ish clause we're gonna see a lot. Perhaps it should be renamed the "red ring of death clause".

[Clint Thompson]

 

Confirmed. But it's not like they inserted anything more interesting, they just took it out and looped some of their other hardware shots. They also removed the Android game. The games they showed: Centipede (arcade), Ms. Pac-Man (2600), Missile Command (2600), Borderlands (PC). There was a blurry snippet of a UI that seemed to be selecting Centipede but it's not worth highlighting.

 

Nobody could have ever guessed that appearing to sell your 40yo game alongside the included bundle, highlighted by an obese, green, vomiting zombie would be a turnoff.

 

What good is a joystick if there are no games to play? Even if it lights up.

 

 

I've been caught up with so much of their circus show that I started questioning if the lights were actually working with the movement of the joystick or if they just have a ring of light inside circling and someone has perfected the circular motion to try and match it for show.

 

#SkilledShowmanship

[PlaysWithWolves]

Xsolla can integrate via their Launcher.

Doesn't seem completely infeasible to see Atari World being built with their tools.

 

Xsolla's Launcher video, which doesn't allow embedding:

 

[Flojomojo]

Yeah, I think we can extrapolate how "AtariOS" will look and feel

 

 

Off the shelf PC hardware

Off the shelf controller
Off the shelf operating system
Off the shelf cloud and support
Off the shelf software -- same thing they paid for years ago

They should make an Infogrames edition with the rainbow armadillo so we can quantify exactly how much of this is down to branding and nothing more.

This whole project, pee-yew.

[PlaysWithWolves]

Ars Technica interviewed Atari. These are actual article quotes (emphasis is mine):

 

• ... Atari finally showed off playable, near-final prototypes
• Ryzen R1606G Raven 2 APU
• Borderlands 2, a 2012 title that frankly chugged along at a pretty choppy frame rate in our hotel-suite demonstration.
• ... the internal SSD and RAM can be easily accessed and replaced with standard parts, providing at least a modicum of "future-proofing," representatives said.
• "I want it to be a box where you can develop an app for the living room," Atari Systems Architect Rob Wyatt told Ars. "We want to be the Raspberry Pi of the living room."

 

"The Raspberry Pi of the Living Room" You keep doing you, Atari Systems Architect and daredevil Rob Wyatt.

 

Also added two Ars Technica crystal case shots to my previous post. One is a clear shot of the crystal case's back side and ports.

[Flojomojo]

"The Raspberry Pi of the Living Room" You keep doing you, Atari Systems Architect and daredevil Rob Wyatt.

 

Ahh jeez. Maybe his living room is very small indeed, but I can fit a Raspberry Pi into my living room just fine without help from "Atari."

 

When I pointed out that this sounded very similar to the pitch for Ouya's failed microconsole model, Wyatt said that "Ouya's problem was they went down the Android path, and with it they brought a lot of crap. This is far more curated than that, and it's exactly why we don't want the Android store model... It's not just 'Android in your living room' [as Ouya was]."

 

If you don't have any content, talk up the "freedom" to create on your box.

If everybody else has a lot more content, suggest that the absence of quantity suggests quality.

 

The Ars comments are thoughtful, as always.

[+Nathan Strum]

Ars Technica interviewed Atari. These are actual article quotes (emphasis is mine):

• "I want it to be a box where you can develop an app for the living room," Atari Systems Architect Rob Wyatt told Ars. "We want to be the Raspberry Pi of the living room."

 

Maybe I'm not searching hard enough... but I can't find a Raspberry Pi that costs $389.00.

[Flojomojo]

Maybe I'm not searching hard enough... but I can't find a Raspberry Pi that costs $389.00.

 

Here ya go

I might have overshot the price a little

[JBerel]

If ol' Rob hadn't been fired from the X-box development, he could have been a part of the "Playstation for the living room."

As a system architect, he sure seems to be the Steve Jobs of the storage facility.

[+Nathan Strum]

Here ya go

I might have overshot the price a little

 

Nice.

 

I assumed AtariSA meant Raspberry Pi as in an affordable hobbyist's starting point.

 

But this makes more sense - Atari has taken that first step for you, by pre-assembling a bunch of off-the-shelf parts, up-charging for it, and doing the hobby part for you.

 

Except for writing the software.

 

And actually assembling anything.

 

But conceptually, that seems to be what they're aspiring t...

 

 

 

 

Sorry.

 

I was suddenly distracted thinking about tacos. Must be lunchtime.

[Shawn]

[PlaysWithWolves]

Spending too much time on this when I should be doing actually-productive things.

 

PC World had my second-favorite Atari review from last year, as he could barely contain himself. This week, the same reporter was again given access to their hotel room. The key points are that Rob Wyatt says Sandbox mode made the system more expensive because there was no loss-leader aspect. Also, the article buttresses my earlier suggestion that Atari Vault may not be included (emphasis, mine):

 

 

 

Atari’s betting big on its back catalog again, but in a frankly kind of bizarre way. Wyatt’s apparently created an entire Atari emulator for the VCS from scratch, which is a good start. Instead of just giving VCS purchasers those old 2600 games though, Atari is...selling them. Piecemeal. We were shown a store demo, and classic Atari games seem to run about a dollar per.

<snip>

I can’t imagine spending $280 on a machine to play Space Invaders though, and I definitely can’t imagine spending that money and then finding out I need to purchase Space Invaders for another $1.

 

This corrects my earlier initial assumption about the Sandbox Mode icon. It's a way to load into the mode, not an indicator that the player is in the mode already:

 

On each tab, there’s a tile dead-center labeled Sandbox Mode. It’s a prettied-up bootloader basically. Select it, and you can choose whether to boot into Atari’s OS or any other OS you’ve installed—including Ubuntu (which we saw running at E3) or Windows.

 

 

The author calls it a "mostly functional product". Are people missing the big black box with cables plugged in, or are we the ones missing something?

[Hwlngmad]

Interesting article on Digital Trends ( I think the guy is right and that the VCS does certainly have an opportunity to be a lot of things to different people. I also think he has been drinking the Atari VCS Kool-Aid quite a bit, possibly even forcefully. However, we have practically seen bupkis regarding games beyond the Atari Vault, any streaming capabilities, browsers being used, etc. Sorry, but Atari is the one's making the bed for them to lie themselves onto, not the people whom they are trying to court and buy the thing.

[PlaysWithWolves]

So, the Ars Technica article is gone. I was hoping to see if they had an overhead shot of the consoles, which I think they did.

 

PCWorld does, and it seems Atari's back to it's old bag of tricks. Look at that USB cable coming from the upper-right console. Hard to tell if there was even a cable there for the CNET piece, but I'll attach a brightened screencap so you can be the judge. I mean, they could have snaked it leftward behind the console and out-of-sight--I guess.

 

 

From CNET (contrast & brightness adjusted):

 

 

 

Edited to add that I just noticed this shot from PCWorld, which is a similar angle to CNet's. Now you see it, now you don't!

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by PlaysWithWolves

[The Mr. Video]

$389.99 for what is essentially an OUYA: vaporware edition? You got to be kidding me! Also I'm not all that surprised that the "prototype" or what ever is just a bunch of random tech crap crammed into a clear case; It seems that the VCS may go the way of the Coleco Chameleon at this rate. They're getting down graded to "Fish Taco" status for this!