New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[+thanatos]

While not hot sauce, I just got these today, and they are not messing around!

 

 

[CPUWIZ]

Problem with ghost peppers is, they just melt your face off and don't have a lot of flavor.  IMHO

[+Spriggy]

15 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

<Takei voice> Oh, my. Go see the whole thing in context, I'm only going to quote the "Atari" rep. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/AtariVCS/comments/cdq9pc/hey_atari_vcs_team/

 

 

As was predicted here .... the pigeons are now preparing to bust out of the coup.  "Can't show you this."  "Can't tell you that."  "Just trust Us"!  

We're knocking on the August door FFS Fred!  The pigeons are still in the dark, with one curtain slightly open, for the December release.  And you didn't thing a revolt was nigh?

 

 

Also, I bemoan social media, hence not on it.  Thanks to all for the links (such as Flos above).   Makes it so much easier for me to follow this clown car closely! ?

 

15 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Interesting, so it looks like any likeness of their IP they freak out about, although a brief search of registered, active trademarks do not show any of their consoles apart from the "Ataribox." Certainly not the Lynx or other consoles. Their logo I totally understand and didn't use (apart from the tiny bit that would have been visible at the bottom of the Lynx, but since I'd seen Sega and Nintendo stuff with the logos on there, didn't think much of it), and wouldn't bother with a straight up Atari logo shirt anyways. But yeah, I'll echo this: "fsck these guys and all of their backers, right in the cartridge slot. "

 

 

 

Sadly, their behaviour on Social Media, Indietaco, Chipboard HQ, E3, the Courts, truly shows the only thing they care about .......

 

 

14 hours ago, JBerel said:

So who's up for a T-shirt design contest. Best disparaging remark about these Atari ass clowns wins. I'll just stick  with...a VCS ii picture and the phrase, "F#@k Atari in the Neck." on a field of Asteroids.

 

 

11 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

Had two tacos earlier, with that new hot sauce, glorious.  My brother in law ate 4 with the same sauce, "Mmm, tasty and zippy!".

 

Make sure you prep for the brother-in-law .... 

 

 

 

[+Spriggy]

12 hours ago, JBerel said:

So who's up for a T-shirt design contest. Best disparaging remark about these Atari ass clowns wins. I'll just stick  with...a VCS ii picture and the phrase, "F#@k Atari in the Neck." on a field of Asteroids.

 

No words needed.

[JBerel]

You win!

[PlaysWithWolves]

From dev boards to "demo station", Atari's latest Medium blog confirms everything we said about E3: https://medium.com/@atarivcs/atari-vcs-teases-the-future-at-the-e3-expo-in-los-angeles-c08e970a90d9

 

The only new info I saw was something about Rob Wyatt creating a 2600 emulator which will be "baked in" the Atari OS.

 

 

[MrBeefy]

35 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

From dev boards to "demo station", Atari's latest Medium blog confirms everything we said about E3: https://medium.com/@atarivcs/atari-vcs-teases-the-future-at-the-e3-expo-in-los-angeles-c08e970a90d9

 

The only new info I saw was something about Rob Wyatt creating a 2600 emulator which will be "baked in" the Atari OS.

 

 

Eh they probably stole Stella and didn't get permission to use it. Us "retro fans" already have ways to play games on modern TVs that don't require $300.

[Flojomojo]

[digdugnate]

2 hours ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

From dev boards to "demo station", Atari's latest Medium blog confirms everything we said about E3: https://medium.com/@atarivcs/atari-vcs-teases-the-future-at-the-e3-expo-in-los-angeles-c08e970a90d9

 

The only new info I saw was something about Rob Wyatt creating a 2600 emulator which will be "baked in" the Atari OS.

 

 

I noticed that, too.

 

it was funny that 'Kevlar Gold' is still shown on their model diagram.  It makes you ask, though, how many times can they regurgitate the same old stuff and folks think it's 'new news?'

[+frankodragon]

Speaking of creepy clowns, this is why I don't teach a tune in a lesson book to piano students.  I call it the forbidden song.  And do you want to know why?  Just listen...

 

 (Not my video nor one of my students, BTW.)

 

 

[JBerel]

2 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

Eh they probably stole Stella and didn't get permission to use it. Us "retro fans" already have ways to play games on modern TVs that don't require $300.

 I would expect no less. I look forward to the emu devs picking it apart to find their stolen code, if it ever hits the street.

 

So they're working on their first trip overseas to visit their factory partner and "oversee preparations" for mass production. Remember what I said about Chinese New Year, and remember the hundreds of promises these clowns have made to assure backers they are going to meet their December ship deadline. Keep pressing them on that now, cuz it ain't happening, not by a long, long shot.

 

 

 

 

 

[Albert]

Funny, looking at that screen of the AtariVCS 2600 emulation, seems they are using game images straight from AtariAge..  I marked up the image below showing label defects that match up with scans in our database.  The image is a bit low-resolution, I bet I could match all of them up with a higher-quality image.

 

 

Here are the images from the AtariAge database:

 

 

 

 

I don't care that much, mostly find it amusing.  Odd also that they used this particular Frogger image--guess they were looking for an Atari-style label?

 

 ..Al

 

[Flojomojo]

It's not the first instance of them demonstrating remarkable laziness for a "professional" firm. I guess they figure it's all their (intellectual) property anyway. You can find screenshots from ROM sites in the PDF of the catalog listing all their license-ready titles. 

 

How is difficult is it to craft an Atari 2600 emulator from scratch? Has anyone here been approached for software licensing, and if so, how do you feel about them giving such credit and glory to Rob Wyatt?

[JBerel]

Well they did steal a ton of the imagery from AA and other sites for their press packets as was proven previously. 

It's funny as hell the ass clowns that claim rights ownership of that back catalog don't even have copies of most of it. People should watermark images and ROMs to catch these skeezy weasels in the act.

 

I hope ol Robb actually does put a Nintendo emu on the thing so Nintendo can own them shortly there after. I don't think they'd look to kindly on an official Atari emu device facilitating piracy of their IP, no matter how hopeless and forlorn they are.

Edited July 20, 2019 by JBerel

[Albert]

2 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

How is difficult is it to craft an Atari 2600 emulator from scratch?

Not easy. It's difficult to perfectly emulate the Atari 2600 in software.  Look how long Stella has been worked on, and they are still making improvements to it (although it's been pretty damn good for a while as far as emulating the 2600 games).  I would hope that they licensed an existing emulator rather than trying to write one from scratch.

 

 ..Al

[+frankodragon]

I would be really infuriated if "Atari" decides to call those images as their own because they're not.  Those images belong to AtariAge.

[Albert]

2 minutes ago, JBerel said:

People should watermark images and ROMs to catch these skeezy weasels in the act.

I've stated that before and I'll state it again: I'm not going to watermark the images here.  I want people to be able to ues the images and not have them molested with stupid watermarks.  The whole goal of AtariAge from its inception was to make the content freely available, at least for non-commercial use.  If Atari wants to send me an AtariVCS when it comes out, that would be nice.  But given how hostile this thread has been to them, I don't see that happening.

 

 ..Al

[Flojomojo]

@Albert

You yourself have been more than fair to them. It's to your credit that there's a lightly moderated place to critique this project. The "official" outlets are filled with censorship and doublespeak, and the mainstream press doesn't care about "Atari." The project runners don't deserve to coast along and take more pigeon money without the ability for anyone to articulate an alternate point of view. 

 

If it's important for historical/preservation purposes for AtariAge to lay hands on a "VCS," I'll kick in so long as my name isn't attached to anything that could be construed as support for the concept or its delivery. 

[JBerel]

God no, not those horrid stamps across the images like the graphic houses put on all their stuff. I was just talking about the invisible kind that can be buried in the pixel info so you always had the option to identify its origin like web analytics. I totally appreciate putting them out there. That's what makes it more insulting that the so-called company then takes them from here after failing to contribute much of anything to the fan base. These guys would get a pass from everybody if they simply used 1% of their marketing and BS budget to establish a competent public information archive of their own licensed products.

 

If these guys had the tiniest fraction of a clue, they would have courted the fans here from the beginning just to get them on board with what they were going to do. Not to seek approval, or even buy-in, just "honest" feedback and communication with the most informed people on their content that they clearly aren't all that familiar with themselves. It's that honesty they completely lack, so good riddance to bad rubbish.

 

Also, to Flo's point, if the thing actually becomes available for actual sale and delivery, I'll also contribute to Al getting one for analysis, as long as I too have no association to giving these crooks money. Sad thing is, I'd like a classic controller like that, but I'll be absolutely shocked if it's not discovered to be poor to horrid in very short order. If PowerA is actually the competent party making it, I could be wrong, but no indication of such yet.

Edited July 20, 2019 by JBerel

[Flojomojo]

Let's take a closer look at the latest update, which is unsigned, like most of their recent communication. 

Quote

Everyone left LA feeling like it was “mission accomplished,” with visiting press and partners stopping in to get private early previews of, and hands-on time with, key Atari VCS system features and final pre-production hardware units.

If you're going to use that word, you should probably tell folks what the "mission" was supposed to be, otherwise you end up looking like GWB on the aircraft carrier, an image I will leave to the superior photoshoppers to envision. Typical "Atari" to miss the irony of it, of course -- and to forget the history of 2003 while they try to recapture 1977. 

 

Quote

Atari’s E3 presentation suite displayed the final Atari VCS pre-production models, including the just-announced Atari VCS 800 Black Walnut and the Atari VCS 800 Onyx. The new “Black Walnut” design is not to be confused with the Collector’s Edition (CE) that was offered on Indiegogo last year as a limited edition. CE models will feature a lighter-colored “teakwood” face reminiscent of the finish on the original Atari 2600, with unique numbering as part of only 6,000 to ever be produced, and each includes a Certificate of Authenticity that verifies this.

The material known as "wood" is not to be confused with "Black Walnut" or "teakwood" which is always shown in quotes. Is it real wood, or is it Atari? On what material is the Certificate of Authenticity printed?

Quote

Not shown at E3, was another all-new Atari VCS design that we are calling the Atari VCS 800 “Carbon Gold” All-In. It features a futuristic black and gold carbon mesh face and is only available in the US through Walmart.

Of course they show the image labeled "Kevlar" because they're sloppy AF and they always meant to do that. Are you sure you want to trust these jackwagons to make something that plugs into electricity?

Quote

... the engineers provided the team with a unique crystal-clear “check model” that they use to verify fit tolerances, board and component placements, thermal venting and other internal elements. The nearly transparent check model also looks super-cool in person.

It's also the closest thing anyone got to see that bore any resemblance to final hardware. It would be fun to get a closer look at it. Don't tell us that your commodity hardware in a retro-style-but-not-retro case is in danger of getting ripped off, this isn't the mighty mighty Coleco Chameleon, after all.

Quote

The Atari VCS boot-up is activated by pressing the “Fuji” button on the Modern Controller and begins with a black TV screen. Suddenly it’s filled by several floating “Asteroids” in all their white arcade-vector glory, followed by an outlined Fuji logo. The familiar wedge-shaped spaceship enters from offscreen and immediately blasts the Fuji apart into little pebbles while familiar-but-new audio chimes in. Atari’s past literally gives way to a contemporary, colorful, 3x3 tiled “home” dashboard for today, complete with a modern navigation bar across the top. The Atari VCS and a “new” Atari interface have arrived! We don’t want to say too much yet, but fans can expect for there to be several different randomized versions of the boot sequence that we think will delight both our legacy fans and new ones that pick up the Atari VCS. For example, our plan is that you may get the Asteroids boot up animation one day, a PONG one another time, Missile Command a third day, or any of a handful of others that will randomly cycle in at any time. Ideally we can add more to the mix when new VCS system updates are pushed.

That actually sounds like a pleasant feature to have, and I'm curious how well they hid these to prevent others from just putting them into custom linux build, or arcade frontend. Once again, there's a vague statement that is not quite a promise, but more than a hint. 

Quote

We are not going to share or be more descriptive about the actual visuals of everything in the GUI at this time because it is still a work-in-progress. Plus we want everyone to be surprised by the fresh, modern take that the Atari VCS brings to the table. 

OK whatever. It's not as if I can prove that their animator has stopped work because Atari hasn't been paying invoices. (I'm kidding, don't sue me, you goons)

Quote

 System architect Rob Wyatt is an Atari super-fan and has created a flawless Atari 2600 emulator that will be “baked into” the Atari OS and GUI with several benefits in mind. 

That's a bold statement. Created means it was done in-house, despite all of the existing community emulators out there. And wunderkind Rob "yoga pants" Wyatt made it all by himself, even though Atari has relationships with perfectly functional 2600 emulators in AtGames and Code Mystics products? Are you sure about that statement? I'm saving the original, so if they want to correct themselves, I hope they do so in a transparent way. 

Quote

We hope that having this as a feature in the Atari VCS will help “demystify” the world of ROMs and emulators for the casual fans that may want a very authentic retro experience. It also gives more technical-minded retro-gamers a new way to get their favorite classic games onto modern big-screen TVs. 

They sure don't think much of their backers, do they? I can't tell which is more insulting, this or Mike Arzt talking about making a simpler Netflix for mom. 

Quote

The built-in emulator will also allow VCS users to play a quick classic game while waiting for bigger, newer games and apps to load. 

I see that the old patent on game-loading mini-games is no longer limited to Namco's use. That was a very neat feature ... in 1994!

Quote

The plan is to eventually make games from Atari and other classic 3rd party console emulators available on the VCS post-launch.

In other words, the poor sap who was charged with engaging the community and promising updates has been hung out to dry. Are we to assume there will be NO games at launch other than Atari Vault (available for $9.99 on big-girl hardware)?

 

So in other public events, Atari has claimed that the VCS is retro-styled, but is not a retro product. Now they say

Quote

While the Atari VCS is not intended to go head-to-head against the top-performing game consoles

such as the Xbox One (as low as $180) and PS4 (as low as $199), either of which have hundreds of games

Quote

it is more than up to the job for the vast majority of gameplay and entertainment content that today’s consumers expect. In fact, it’s a device that has been designed with an eye toward the future that allows 4K HDR video streaming, which means the Atari VCS will also be ready for the coming wave of game streaming services.

Oh. My. Dog. It's not of the past, it's not of the present, but it's certainly of the future, for all the streaming content that can be viewed on a Roku or AppleTV or Fire Stick. Unnamed copy writer of "Atari," do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? 

 

Something tells me that the cartridge-lovin' true believers did NOT give $200+ a year ago for a Google Stadia client, controller not included. 

Quote

These last two stations were each outfitted with 4K monitors connected to the newest AMD R1000 Atari VCS dev boards. Station 3 featured an incredible 4K 60FPS nature video loop featuring stunning images of endangered wildlife and breathtaking landscapes. Visitors could look into the bright eyes of exotic tree frogs, track snakes as they wove in and out of the underbrush and follow a tree sloth as he slowly made his way up a thick bamboo stalk.

Yes, that's what they wrote. Their little computer can play video files. Has the author been frozen in carbonite since 1994, when the Sony Playstation dinosaur demo was something to behold? Call me jaded, but this isn't a system-seller. 

Quote

On the last station, the team was inspired by one of E3’s most celebrated games, Borderlands 3, and elected to demonstrate Borderlands 2, one of their all-time favorite contemporary titles that also plays great in offline mode. The game ran fantastically in its Linux version in the VCS Sandbox Mode, showing off all the outrageous awesomeness of Pandora in full 1080p.

Contemporary as in "within our lifetimes," because it came out in 2012 and runs great on current-gen, last-gen, and mobile hardware. Too bad they didn't show any video, because the clip we saw was super-ropey. It might have been 1080p (hey what happened to 4K gaming?) but it looked to be running at about 15 frames per second. 

Quote

Atari’s Steam account was loaded up in Linux Ubuntu, tapping the VCS Sandbox Mode, and featured a number of other team favorites that all play quite well on the VCS hardware: Rocket League, The Banner Saga, Broforce and many others.

All of which are available on contemporary (as in "what you have already") hardware, as well as the delightful Nintendo Switch. I have been keeping count of differentiating features, and apart from "runs cute retro-style GIFs while loading" and "lets you play old games while loading new ones," I'm coming up empty. 

Quote

We look forward to showing off some of these modern gameplay examples and other great content publicly later this summer. In the meantime, the team is working on wrapping up more game and content deals, prepping the public-facing version of our SDK, and traveling overseas to our factory partner. 

More game and content deals would be nice for them, wouldn't it? And I'm glad the team is getting an IndieGoGo-paid trip to China. Keep Rob Wyatt away from the airplane doors!

Quote

We will bring back some new info and look forward to many more “mission accomplished” moments ahead!

If that's "mission accomplished," I'd hate to see a "you'll have to wait for more info" update. Not much to see here, even fewer reasons to pony up money in advance. 

 

They do NOT get points for updates, because once again, they haven't moved the ball at all. This is from their own project page:

And this is from the distant past. You've seen it many times. 

 

As always, it will be ... interesting ... to see the reaction of the fans. 

Oh, hon! If only you had listened to your elders in the Atariage Secret Society of Eating Tacos (A.S.S.E.T., or just ASS if you're on a diet)!

 

 

 

[leech]

On 7/19/2019 at 4:05 PM, frankodragon said:

I wouldn't doubt Biff used a pirated version of Fusion 2.5 to make his Pitfall clone.

I got a copy through humble bundle

[+Spriggy]

8 hours ago, Albert said:

Funny, looking at that screen of the AtariVCS 2600 emulation, seems they are using game images straight from AtariAge..  I marked up the image below showing label defects that match up with scans in our database.  The image is a bit low-resolution, I bet I could match all of them up with a higher-quality image.

 

 

Here are the images from the AtariAge database:

 

 

 

 

I don't care that much, mostly find it amusing.  Odd also that they used this particular Frogger image--guess they were looking for an Atari-style label?

 

 ..Al

 

 

Definately AA label.  I just tested it with Ms-Pac.  Circled areas match the marks on the AA label.  It's actually good that the pic is low res, as it over exagerates the label marks highlighted.  No doubt the others are the same.  Amusing, if anything.

 

 

[+frankodragon]

Could be because copies of Frogger here have a Parker Bros. label and Hasbro now owns Parker Bros.

[Mike_2000]

14 hours ago, JBerel said:

Well they did steal a ton of the imagery from AA and other sites for their press packets as was proven previously. 

It's funny as hell the ass clowns that claim rights ownership of that back catalog don't even have copies of most of it. People should watermark images and ROMs to catch these skeezy weasels in the act.

 

I hope ol Robb actually does put a Nintendo emu on the thing so Nintendo can own them shortly there after. I don't think they'd look to kindly on an official Atari emu device facilitating piracy of their IP, no matter how hopeless and forlorn they are.

Not a lawyer, so I might be full of shit. Emulators are legal. ROMs are legal. Piracy is a crime.You are 100% allowed to use a ROM Dumper and an Emulator to play retro games on a PC or Android Phone or whatever device you want. The crime is distributing it. If you don't believe this would hold up in court, take a look at history. Sony tried shutting down PSX Emulators in the Early 2000s and failed spectacularly. Google "Bleem" and "VGS" if you're curious.

 

If Rob Wyatt wants to steal NEStopia, claim it as his own, and let you play RBI Baseball and Paperboy and Gauntlet in a firmware patch, that is 100% legal, albeit dishonest and rather shady.

 

Edit: wait, is it legal? I looked it up, and Tengen became Time Warner Interactive which became Atari Games which became Midway Games which  became Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment. Infogrames is not a part of this equation, so maybe the VCS couldn't include  Paperboy without getting a license from Time Warner/AT&T? It's crazy to see the fate of Atari...

Edited July 21, 2019 by Mike_2000

[+TwentySixHundred]

37 minutes ago, Mike_2000 said:

Not a lawyer, so I might be full of shit. Emulators are legal. ROMs are legal. Piracy is a crime.You are 100% allowed to use a ROM Dumper and an Emulator to play retro games on a PC or Android Phone or whatever device you want. The crime is distributing it. If you don't believe this would hold up in court, take a look at history. Sony tried shutting down PSX Emulators in the Early 2000s and failed spectacularly. Google "Bleem" and "VGS" if you're curious.

 

If Rob Wyatt wants to steal NEStopia, claim it as his own, and let you play RBI Baseball and Paperboy and Gauntlet in a firmware patch, that is 100% legal, albeit dishonest and rather shady.

 

Edit: wait, is it legal? I looked it up, and Tengen became Time Warner Interactive which became Atari Games which became Midway Games which  became Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment. Infogrames is not a part of this equation, so maybe the VCS couldn't include  Paperboy without getting a license from Time Warner/AT&T? It's crazy to see the fate of Atari...

Pretty much. As far as i know emulators are indeed legal however not looked at fondly by these companies, i think there it's still a grey area though. Sega decided to hire Steve Snake (author of Kega Fusion) to help them port some their games to PC, so Steve has mentioned in an interview. Nintendo and Sony are a bit more aggressive about it though.

 

I believe backups/ROMs are also legal as long as you own the game although many ROM sites were targeted due to ad revenue. Nintendo looked for a loophole and found that ROM sites with ad revenue class as commercial distribution of their IP. Well as far as i have looked into it anyway

Edited July 21, 2019 by TwentySixHundred