New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[Lodmot]

15 minutes ago, TheVgaTv said:

So in order to run this software it looks like you're going to have to be in Sandbox mode, which is basically either Windows or Linux.  So if it's running those operating systems, why not just instal emulators and play all these games and a whole lot more for free?  This doesn't seem like they really thought this through.

100%. No thought process behind the marketing for this thing whatsoever. A better idea would've been to market this as an entry-level gaming PC for people that are used to console-gaming on their TV. Forget "AtariOS" and just ship it with either a copy of Linux, or Windows 10, and include a controller with it.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Lodmot

[AtariNerd]

Anyone able to peep at the version of the Ryzen chip they're using on that board, just to see what kind of performance users might get out of it? 

[Lodmot]

5 minutes ago, AtariNerd said:

Anyone able to peep at the version of the Ryzen chip they're using on that board, just to see what kind of performance users might get out of it? 

Tried to, but it's just a tad too far away from where the camera took the picture. Really wish they gave us more than one picture (or better yet, a video...).

[racerx]

Quote

A better idea would've been to market this as an entry-level gaming PC for people that are used to console-gaming on their TV. Forget "AtariOS" and just ship it with either a copy of Linux, or Windows 10, and include a controller with it.

 

Even at that, you're going to have to add some actual storage, right off the bat.

Edited September 30, 2019 by racerx

[JaqenHghar]

2 hours ago, TACODON said:

Is the Atari Vault dropped now? Will it have both? This big update doesn't address that. Seems to me they are charging for a feature they claimed would be free.

 

Hey, don't forgot Rob Wyatt's perfect-from-scratch Atari 2600 emulator is supposed to be in there too (to play games during the loading screens?). Maybe the true meaning of Freedom is 50 different ways to play Combat.

[TheVgaTv]

 

That is just some straight comedy from the Reddit page.  They are actively encouraging emulation, which I'm sure their new partner is just going to be thrilled with since you can get every single of of their games for free via emulation.

[Lodmot]

5 minutes ago, TheVgaTv said:

 

That is just some straight comedy from the Reddit page.  They are actively encouraging emulation, which I'm sure their new partner is just going to be thrilled with since you can get every single of of their games for free via emulation.

 

Hell, you don't even need to obtain games really. There's a number of websites that have built-in browser emulators where you can just literally play the games for free directly in your browser. Lol. And, they're compatible with gamepads too.

[racerx]

3 minutes ago, TheVgaTv said:

They are actively encouraging emulation, which I'm sure their new partner is just going to be thrilled with since you can get every single of of their games for free via emulation.

 

Yes, but not with optimised rumble and controller lighting functions.  ?

[themewsh]

But is it still...coming soon?

 

I am legitimately happy for those that backed early about the fact that they get to see something.

 

Now about those launch dates...maybe Atari will see how much activity kicks off when they say something besides "pre-order now! what games do you play? pre-order now!" and think to update on shipping (even if it's bad news).

Edited September 30, 2019 by themewsh
grammar

[TheVgaTv]

3 minutes ago, themewsh said:

But is still...coming soon?

 

I am legitimately happy for those that backed early about the fact that they get to see something.

 

Now about those launch dates...maybe Atari will see how much activity kicks off when they say something besides "pre-order now! what games do you play? pre-order now!" and think to update on shipping (even if it's bad news).

 

They still haven't shown a working prototype, and this "update" is the first time they've shown off something they claim is actual hardware (but for all we know it could be an art project).  This thing is supposed to ship to backers in 2 months, which is shaping up to be pure fantasy since if they don't have a working prototype it means they haven't even placed the order with their Chinese manufacturers, and with how little money they have on hand you know they aren't going to be going for the express shipping option.

[aramis]

2 hours ago, frankodragon said:

On second thought, forget it.  I just found a scanner that costs over $6K just to verify one of those codes.

That PCB barcode only contains this string: 440377100008MPA1938A0100009

 

Nothing too exciting.

 

It may be interesting that it appears that the bare fab was made in week 35 (August 26-September 1) of 2019.

It was populated sometime after that.

 

Also, that UL file E239218 (shown in the board's silkscreen) is "owned" by Aoshikang Precision Circuit Co Ltd (AskPCB), who can do quick-turn prototype assembly too.

 

In other words, several signs point to this likely being a quick-turn prototype / low-volume board shown in the picture, made very recently.

 

(oh, and Hi everyone)

Edited September 30, 2019 by aramis

[themewsh]

24 minutes ago, TheVgaTv said:

 

They still haven't shown a working prototype, and this "update" is the first time they've shown off something they claim is actual hardware (but for all we know it could be an art project).  This thing is supposed to ship to backers in 2 months, which is shaping up to be pure fantasy since if they don't have a working prototype it means they haven't even placed the order with their Chinese manufacturers, and with how little money they have on hand you know they aren't going to be going for the express shipping option.

I agree, I don't see how they hit their dates. I just hope that they are able to pull their heads (hands?) from their butts and realize that the sooner they get out ahead of the delays and announce "sorry guys, its gonna be delayed again" the better it would be for their customers. Managing expectations doesn't seem to be their strong suit though, so I doubt it.

Who knows, maybe the short run prototype board is the distraction they will use to "soften" the delay message, and thats the reason it was included.

[themewsh]

20 minutes ago, aramis said:

That PCB barcode only contains this string: 440377100008MPA1938A0100009

 

Nothing too exciting.

 

It may be interesting that it appears that the bare fab was made in week 35 (August 26-September 1) of 2019.

It was populated sometime after that.

 

Also, that UL file E239218 (shown in the board's silkscreen) is "owned" by Aoshikang Precision Circuit Co Ltd (AskPCB), who can do quick-turn prototype assembly too.

 

In other words, several signs point to this likely being a quick-turn prototype / low-volume board shown in the picture, made very recently.

 

(oh, and Hi everyone)

Nice work detective!

[Clint Thompson]

36 minutes ago, aramis said:

That PCB barcode only contains this string: 440377100008MPA1938A0100009

 

Nothing too exciting.

 

It may be interesting that it appears that the bare fab was made in week 35 (August 26-September 1) of 2019.

It was populated sometime after that.

 

Also, that UL file E239218 (shown in the board's silkscreen) is "owned" by Aoshikang Precision Circuit Co Ltd (AskPCB), who can do quick-turn prototype assembly too.

 

In other words, several signs point to this likely being a quick-turn prototype / low-volume board shown in the picture, made very recently.

 

(oh, and Hi everyone)

Easy enough, just call them up and tell them you need a few more boards made for testing and where to send them lol  

[lingyi]

Woo hoo...more confirmation that early backers get to be Beta (or Alpha) testers: "Hello! Keep in mind that the launch will be March 2020. Backers will receive their orders in December to take part in the unfinished "early access" phase while content is completed and kinks worked out!"

 

 

[AtariNerd]

It appears Rob has delivered most of what was asked of him and has his mind on his next project. If he's designed this board from scratch, or at least reworked a base design, to reduce complexity, verified it and this is a working sample, that's a significant amount of work and he should be recognized. Maybe his contract with the company had an NDA or perhaps he's just a quiet guy. The competence of the company he works for, is another consideration.

 

If, at this point, we're willing to give them any benefit-of-the-doubt, it looks like they've met their minimum requirements, at least technically, with a production-ready (?) board and have managed to snag at least one partner.  Their media presence has been handled terribly, though. A lot of hype with very little to show and almost no insight into the process, which is kind of expected of the plat-form they chose to fund on. Maybe they thought that keeping things close to their chest was how the "big players" or how Atari of old, might have dealt with things. If so, at least key technical mile-stones might have been noted, something to show their investors that they are still living.  As far as getting the boards to production for a March release, it's certainly possible, December, not so much.  

 

Maybe, with this hint of life, they'll manage to scrounge up a few more partners and keep enough cash-flow to keep the flat, the beer and tacos flowing for a little bit, until someone buys them up and puts them out of their misery, after-all. 

[racerx]

Whatever else comes of this, whatever money they've paid UberStrategist is money absolutely wasted. What an absolute trainwreck of a social media campaign this has been.

 

Were I Fred, I'd have severed ties with these idiots long ago. Hell, if Atari had simply handled it internally part time, they couldn't have done much worse.

[JBerel]

I might humbly remind everyone that to give these guys the benefit of the doubt is hugely short sighted based on their history. Hooray for them if they actually have a new form factor dev board, and more kudos if it's functional.

 

Remember, they've been backed up against a wall having missed their own self imposed deadlines for "lots of information about games this summer." Now the best they can trot out is news that somebody had a conversation or signed paper with another crowdfunded outfit to include Atari roms in their subscription game service. That's all they're announcing. The streaming service is already available to pretty much any connected device, because that's what they do. That arrangement should have taken all of 30 minutes, and almost certainly happened since the latest dust-ups they've created by having no actual developer information or original game content to talk about.

 

This is just them buying time again and kicking the can further. Once again, a lot of chatter, but what have they actually shown? Their "free" and "open" mid range AMD computer will connect to internet services. That's not news. Everything is consistent with them not showing any progress to ship on schedule. One also has to ask, if they have a functional board, or even a mockup board, why isn't it shown in one of the many 3D printed boxes they've been so fond of to date? I'm not hating on them, just being realistic about what has actually been communicated once you wring out all the nostalgia bating and marketing spin. To date, it's still very little. The one thing these guys excel at is inferring a bunch of stuff that isn't said and isn't true to create a rich, convincing back story. That's just what all good con artists do. 

Edited September 30, 2019 by JBerel

[DurradonXylles]

Like Caleb at the beginning of Blood: I live. AGAIN.

So Atari seems to be throwing a lot of information out at once, hoping no one will notice the various minutia in their announcements or updates, especially the ones they don't advertise too heavily or really at all. Throwing the prototype motherboard at the bottom of their Antstream partnership announcement is really only the beginning of this. While we have the rest of you lovely sleuths on the ball with Antstream, the motherboard, and Atari's dumb-as-a-college-student-at-Mardi-Gras PR responses, don't forget the last little blurb on the bottom:

Quote

PS — Please head over to AtariVCS.com to learn more about the Atari VCS and peripherals, or to participate in the ongoing Official Atari VCS Presale happening now at AtariVCS.com, GameStop.com and Walmart.com. There’s never been a better time to get in on the fun!

They sneakily hidden their update to the VCStacoBox website in the PS of their announcement underneath that afterthought of a mainboard reveal.

 

Why does this matter? Well it shows the exact specifications and prices of the models of the console, but you have to look both on the retailers' websites and in the FAQ section on the bottom for full details.

 

 

 

The Atari VCS 400 will cost $249.99 USD and have 4 GB of upgradable SoDIMM RAM. The Atari VCS 800 will cost $279.99 for the Onyx model base (no controllers, only the hardware), or $379.99-389.99 depending on model and retailer for the ALL-IN bundle, and have 8 GB of upgradable SoDIMM RAM. This made me curious because I distinctly remember something from a Q&A over a year ago...

https://medium.com/@atarivcs/atari-vcs-product-q-a-1-b2017894c15d

Quote

2) Can you give more details or updates on the Atari VCS hardware specs? Any possibility you and the team might be considering and/or able to share news of any upgrades from the currently published hardware?
The VCS hardware will be powered by an AMD Bristol Ridge family APU with Radeon R7 graphics and is now going to get 8 gigabytes of unified memory. This is a huge upgrade from what was originally specified and unlike other consoles it’s all available, we won’t reserve 25% of hardware resources for system use.

Now obviously, the APU has changed a couple times since this little Q&A session happened on Atari's terms, but the fact remains clear that Atari allowed Rob to clearly convey that the VCS was going to have 8 GB of RAM standard. This is kinda slimy and a bit cheeky that, on top of running the gambit with using a retro game streaming service to both fill the 3rd party launch gap and to dip their toes in the streaming waters, they're also covering their bases with both the original 4 GB planned model and the 8 GB one that Mr. Wyatt probably recommended they upgrade to if they want the console to even run indies and most emulators decently. Making it upgradable is probably their way of not completely pissing off the customers that preordered, because...

 

...Doesn't those aforementioned prices for the base models and all-in package sound eerily familiar to those following this project since inception?

Now, who wants to bet that the Onyx IndieGoGo preorders are getting 400s, and the Woodgrain preorders are getting 800s?

 

This campaign is like a bitter onion, the more we peel back the layers, the worse taste we all get in our mouths. At this time: I would like to remind you that Atari made "Atari GameBox LLC" specifically to run the IndieGoGo campaign. This means that unless there's proper recourse found for a trial that violates the terms in which such a limited liability company is made, Atari bears as little responsibility as possible if you don't get exactly what they accidentally promised with all of the glittery pillowtalk they've been giving to faithful followers. That much should be certain since they also decided to use IndieGoGo in the first place, which we all know only gets used if the hardware a campaign runner is trying to raise funds for hasn't been at least prototyped yet.

[racerx]

They've claimed all the Indiegogo preorders will get the 800.

[OCAT]

Until I see some U-Tuber like Gamester81 or Pat & Ian sit in front of this device with all wires showing playing it, it is still a Cocleco Chameleon.

[DurradonXylles]

23 minutes ago, racerx said:

They've claimed all the Indiegogo preorders will get the 800.

I'm curious, could you show me where that was said? Nevermind, found it on the IndieGoGo page.

Edited September 30, 2019 by DurradonXylles

[Shaggy the Atarian]

Well that wasn't so hard, was it? Oh wait, it took tons of questions, bans, mainstream articles, guys claiming that their wives will leave them, and other assorted outcrying just to get a company show a populated PCB only two months before it's supposed to be shipping. I'm certain that if there was no outcry from here and other parts of the internet, these updates wouldn't have happened and backers would still be left wondering what is going on.

 

Atari still violated the terms of IGG to keep backers up-to-date; lied about various other promises through this whole process. Of course, it shows that terms only mean something for the corporations and not for the individual for violation of the rules ("sorry," no refunds). They've treated their customers with disdain(excepting those that just praise Atari no matter what), which shouldn't be so quickly swept under the rug. It's not "too much" to ask seeing the machine working in the shell, running the software and working with the controllers, but I'm sure the VCShills will revert back to their nonsensical excuse about how Apple handles hardware.

 

Antstream is better than the nothing of the Vault, but in reading that review posted from a few pages back, it's another sad joke in this saga. Google Stadia and Apple Arcade have specially curated content for their services. It's quite apparent at this point that Atari has no one of any consequence working on content for this machine. 

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

3 hours ago, Lodmot said:

It's as if Atari was locked in a 4-wall room with no access to the outside world or the internet, and they absolutely never heard our requests. 

The whole operation with this "iteration" of Atari is just bizarre. The hardware itself looks relatively neat, but that's about it... Everything else about the product is just wrong. The company is completely mismanaged, the product is mis-marketed, and they ignore everyone's feedback. It's probably a family-owned operation that happened to get the opportunity to buy the Atari brand, and they're just riding off the name at this point.

The current ownership of Atari saw a chance to rebrand itself from Infogrames to Atari on the cheap, thought it would give them better name recognition in the marketplace as well as access to some of the Atari IP, bought the name and rebranded themselves, and Atari SA was born.  From that point on, the company's been a cluster-and-a-half - but it's not like Infogrames was exactly a model of brilliant management either, so it's unsurprising that that carried over into Atari SA.

 

One thing re: hardware (and this was brought up back in the earlier days of this thread): there's absolutely nothing that prevented Atari SA from finding a suitable existing x86 board, buying a few thousand, having their logo silkscreened onto them, and tossing them in cases.  If that board they're showing actually is a bespoke design, given the application it's designed for they've basically pissed away development funds on hardware that could have been on the market and generating revenue almost two years ago.

 

I'm increasingly of the opinion that the $3M raised on Indiegogo was used not for development of the VCS, but rather to get Atari SA through some medium-term company crisis by the skin of their teeth.  Speculation, I'll admit, but the idea that they were borrowing from Peter to pay Paul for some time seems reasonable.

[jhd]

5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

 

Let's see:

 

$10 * 12 = $120

 

$8 * 12 = $96

 

Neither of those numbers are $95.88.

 

Atari SA might have a floating point maths issue.

 

Could it be a strange currency conversion issue? Since Antstream Arcade is a British company, they presumably do their accounting in Pounds (or Euros) rather than US Dollars.