New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[toiletunes]

2 hours ago, toneinblack said:

In the photo showing the white object behind the right hand side grill , it looks like a piece of plyboard to me with the different layers .

It looks like a DVR capture card to me...

[Matt_B]

I'm inclined to be a bit suspicious of the project's finances. Sure, it shouldn't have cost a lot to develop - there has been more impressive crowdfunded hardware made on a few hundred thousand - but when Atari don't have the in-house skills to do anything more technical than flush a toilet, they're going to be contracting everything out to people who are probably charging them a fortune.

 

 

[Shawn]

39 minutes ago, Zoyx said:

Nintendo sells their consoles for a profit, but you are right... Sony and Microsoft sell their hardware for a loss. Atari VCS's goal was to make a profit off the hardware, but that is going to be really tough. For the most part, they are hitting their goals. I suspect they will have a disappointing software selection at launch, but they will have a store and some games and apps. The ecosystem grow.

 

FYI, You are not supposed to inhale those fumes coming out the back side of the Atari VCS. Your participation in the last 24hrs of this thread says you need to stop and see a doctor immediately.

[TankedThomas]

48 minutes ago, toiletunes said:

It looks like a DVR capture card to me...

You jest, but the backers won't be laughing when they unwrap capture cards next year. 

 

In all seriousness though, I'm still not even convinced that what's inside the plastic shell is a motherboard.

If they were doing assembly and spent months in China overseeing the "pre-production", surely we would have a photo of a system being assembled. Instead, we have a bunch of photos showing the same thing over and over again.

Why? Did they forget to take photos until the last minute? Or is a plastic shell and some ports on the back (which may not even be attached to anything inside) all they had to show?

[lingyi]

Between the posts on the Indiegogo page complaining about the shells being shiny plastic and not matte, is this gem:

 

[CPUWIZ]

1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:

Give away the razor, sell the blades.

 

Or, practically give away the printer and milk you for the ink.

[MrBeefy]

4 minutes ago, TankedThomas said:

You jest, but the backers won't be laughing when they unwrap capture cards next year. 

 

In all seriousness though, I'm still not even convinced that what's inside the plastic shell is a motherboard.

If they were doing assembly and spent months in China overseeing the "pre-production", surely we would have a photo of a system being assembled. Instead, we have a bunch of photos showing the same thing over and over again.

Why? Did they forget to take photos until the last minute? Or is a plastic shell and some ports on the back (which may not even be attached to anything inside) all they had to show?

I'm sure they only showed the back because they didn't have any of the front wood, carbon, etc installed. 

[Agillig]

2 hours ago, Zoyx said:

Well, to continue with the Occam's Razor theme, the rational explanation is, they are making mistakes. No grand conspiracy needed. Releasing your first console is hard. Just look at the gaffs that Google is making with Stadia.

I don't think it's too much of a conspiracy to talk about pictures of obviously photoshopped controllers, pictures of people playing a game when there's clearly no wires coming out of the system.  To say nothing  of the Tempest 4K deception.  These were efforts to mislead. 

 

Let me ask you something.   Atari allegedly let some journalists play the Atari VCS at E3.  However, they didn't even have a board ready until October.   So...what were they showing off back in June?  I know releasing hardware is a difficult endeavor.   Even the big dogs like Nintendo and Microsoft drop the ball every once in a while.   The biggest issue I have  isn't that the VCS is a substandard product.   That's all in the eye of the beholder.   My problem with the VCS is that Atari has lied about their progress the entire time, and there's no reason to give these hucksters the benefit of the doubt, especially when they've admitted they're in the market for a buyout. 

Edited November 29, 2019 by Agillig

[MrBeefy]

21 minutes ago, Agillig said:

I don't think it's too much of a conspiracy to talk about pictures of obviously photoshopped controllers, pictures of people playing a game when there's clearly no wires coming out of the system.  To say nothing  of the Tempest 4K deception.  These were efforts to mislead. 

 

Let me ask you something.   Atari allegedly let some journalists play the Atari VCS ar E3.  However, they didn't even have a board ready until October.   So...what were they showing off back in June?  I know releasing hardware is a difficult endeavor.   Even the big dogs like Nintendo and Microsoft drop the ball every once in a while.   The biggest issue I have  isn't that the VCS is a substandard product.   That's all in the eye of the beholder.   My problem with the VCS is that Atari has lied about their progress the entire time, and there's no reason to give these hucksters the benefit of the doubt, especially when they've admitted they're in the market for a buyout. 

You know I think if they were more transparent and stuff they would be doing better. Heck even saying we don't currently have Tempest 4000 but are hoping to get it working would be okay. You have shown a board, you have shown a case, how about you show it boot up. There are no industry partner BS needed to 'keep secret' to just even show us that.

[Zoyx]

40 minutes ago, Agillig said:

I don't think it's too much of a conspiracy to talk about pictures of obviously photoshopped controllers, pictures of people playing a game when there's clearly no wires coming out of the system.  To say nothing  of the Tempest 4K deception.  These were efforts to mislead. 

 

Let me ask you something.   Atari allegedly let some journalists play the Atari VCS at E3.  However, they didn't even have a board ready until October.   So...what were they showing off back in June?  I know releasing hardware is a difficult endeavor.   Even the big dogs like Nintendo and Microsoft drop the ball every once in a while.   The biggest issue I have  isn't that the VCS is a substandard product.   That's all in the eye of the beholder.   My problem with the VCS is that Atari has lied about their progress the entire time, and there's no reason to give these hucksters the benefit of the doubt, especially when they've admitted they're in the market for a buyout. 

Think it through, there are simple explanations for everything. AMD boards are not hard to come by.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

5 hours ago, Zoyx said:

I just discovered this long-ass thread. So many conspiracy theories. The Atari VCS will come to market, it is the only way Atari will make money off of this.

It's not a conspiracy theory or mistake on the following:

 

-Losing two of the system's architects because of non-payment

-Being required per your end of the agreement on IGG to update backers on a monthly basis, then not doing so

-Implying that you have a working prototype in original videos, but it turns out it was green screens and a photoshopped Xbox One controller

- Assuming that a developer behind one of your star titles (Tempest 4000) is working on a game, but not paying for said development so that the dev was surprised

-Showing journalists nothing more than a prop, being incapable of answering very basic questions then calling said journalists liars when Atari gets called out on it (only to have the journalist produce the recording of the conversation to show that Atari lied themselves about the whole encounter and that their favorite catchphrase is: "I don't know")

-Providing an email address for developers to contact Atari if they are interested in creating something for the VCS, then not actually setting up an email so it just goes to a black hole (then lying about it)

-Promising a development SDK for months and never producing said SDK

-Promising updates by the end of a fixed period (summer), never producing it

 

We're two years into this and it's been another delay; they still haven't shown what exclusive games will be had on the platform. They claim that their unnamed partners keep them from sharing the good news, but to anyone with a partially function brain stem, that's pure bullshit. It's Atari's platform. They can go ahead and say which game titles are headed to it whenever they want, they don't even have to show something, just provide a list, but that is apparently outside of their paygrade (or per Atari, no announcements are good announcements!).  Nintendo/Sony/MS always show their line-ups months in advance because they know that's how you hook buyers. The Intellivision Amico has done so a year out, while all Atari has done is managed to get Antstream on board. It's not that difficult to get one of your partners to show a working beta either, but if you were to talk with someone who has been a partner with Atari, you'd find out very quickly that they are a nightmare to work for. They don't complete payments, and convert some of your payment into French stocks (I know someone who worked at Human Head Studios on Minimum and that came from him. He said it was a joke working with Atari).

 

They haven't even said if their star IP, Rollercoaster Tycoon will be available for it. We also have seen them promote it as your very own super emulation machine and to go download ROMs (that's something you see Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft do, right?) and show a piss poor 10FPS operation of Borderlands 2 running on it. Yeah, that'll move units!

 

But the people who believe in everything Atari says still think that Ray Kassar or Nolan Bushnell is at the helm and are going to grant all of their childhood wishes. Us detractors are merely pointing out that if you believe what they're selling, you'll end up disappointed, that there are better options out there you can spend $300 on, such as tacos.   

Edited November 29, 2019 by Shaggy the Atarian

[Zoyx]

This is how you handle a delay. This probably wouldn't work with you folks.

 

 

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

4 minutes ago, Zoyx said:

This is how you handle a delay. This probably wouldn't work with you folks.

 

 

Lol, defend the indefensible by ignoring all of the other issues. Just focus on delays, not the lies, lack of payments to beloved "partners" and no content, that'll win the day!

[Flojomojo]

"For the most part, they are hitting their goals."

 

I can't even. 

[Zoyx]

1 minute ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Lol, defend the indefensible by ignoring all of the other issues. Just focus on delays, not the lies, lack of payments to beloved "partners" and no content, that'll win the day!

The reason for the delay last June was probably not due to the move to Ryzen, but the contractor not hitting their checkpoints. If you don't hit your milestones, you don't get paid.

[+Nathan Strum]

12 minutes ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Just focus on delays, not the lies, lack of payments to beloved "partners" and no content, that'll win the day!

The no content is the biggest issue to date.

 

Consoles should play games. This has never been shown playing games. Ever. Period. It's all been s'moak and mirrors. This should be their focus. Not spinning their "delays" into "announcements". Show some games working on the actual hardware, even if it's a shoddily assembled prototype board held together with electrical tape. Show one game. One. Boot the system, run a game. No hidden PCs in black boxes, no wires disappearing off a desk. If they aren't that far by now being just "weeks" away, then they aren't "weeks" away.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

1 minute ago, Zoyx said:

The reason for the delay last June was probably not due to the move to Ryzen, but the contractor not hitting their checkpoints. If you don't hit your milestones, you don't get paid.

Except that Michael Artz repeatedly insisted that it was. Try again.

 

Atari has been sued multiple times for breach of contract and refusing to pay. They've been sued by the rights holders of Rollercoaster Tycoon because of this. They're in court with Fergal Mac because of it. Human Head complained about it. Rob Wyatt complained about it. None of these entities are connected with each other, apart from having done "business" with Atari.  

 

https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi/status/1181594093329104896

 

Perhaps you have no problem with Atari essentially stealing people's time and effort, but in my book if you refuse to pay for work that you've hired, you are a company that deserves to fail and no one should have anything to do with you.

 

Now how about the rest, like the content, and the fact that you're far better off buying a Switch/PS4/XB1 than wasting it on the VCS?

 

[JBerel]

Okay, once more for the special people...

Which is more likely?

 

A. Atari is holding back all the best evidence of their colossal progress and only showing a tiny bit of progress in non functional plastic shells for 2 years because...partners.

 

B. Atari is presenting anything and everything they possibly can take a picture of or talk about to try and justify progress they can't prove and their actual progress or tangible results are a fraction of what they claim.

[Paul Slocum]

18 minutes ago, Zoyx said:

The reason for the delay last June was probably not due to the move to Ryzen, but the contractor not hitting their checkpoints. If you don't hit your milestones, you don't get paid.

If Rob was simply fired for failing to do his job, he would be setting himself up to be sued into the dirt by going to the press and telling them that he left because of non-payment.

[JBerel]

[Zoyx]

41 minutes ago, Paul Slocum said:

If Rob was simply fired for failing to do his job, he would be setting himself up to be sued into the dirt by going to the press and telling them that he left because of non-payment.

I read the quotes by Rob, they sounded like excuses, and covering his ass. Rob was really stupid by going to the press. When it goes to court, those quotes won't look good.

[Zoyx]

58 minutes ago, Nathan Strum said:

The no content is the biggest issue to date.

 

Consoles should play games. This has never been shown playing games. Ever. Period. It's all been s'moak and mirrors. This should be their focus. Not spinning their "delays" into "announcements". Show some games working on the actual hardware, even if it's a shoddily assembled prototype board held together with electrical tape. Show one game. One. Boot the system, run a game. No hidden PCs in black boxes, no wires disappearing off a desk. If they aren't that far by now being just "weeks" away, then they aren't "weeks" away.

The tech press during E3 saw it play Borderlands 2 and other games. If they saw something fishy, they would of pointed it out. They knew the reputation going in.

[Zoyx]

Why do I have this suspicion that this has been argued before. Do you people enjoy this?

[digdugnate]

[MrBeefy]

7 minutes ago, Zoyx said:

I read the quotes by Rob, they sounded like excuses, and covering his ass. Rob was really stupid by going to the press. When it goes to court, those quotes won't look good.

Um, knowing how sue happy Atari is it would already be in court if it wasn't true. Suing him would probably just out themselves for dumb behavior.

 

Don't get me wrong I'm not a Rob fan. The die hards were getting their rocks off on him working on Xbox. Yet he didn't finish the project. Much like his skydiving he has problems sticking his landing.

 

So, Atari probably made a crappy choice in Rob, stopped paying him, he did a shitty job because that's his norm, now we are here.

 

2 minutes ago, Zoyx said:

The tech press during E3 saw it play Borderlands 2 and other games. If they saw something fishy, they would of pointed it out. They knew the reputation going in.

They did not see an actual VCS playing. They saw a black box that was the size or bigger than an Xbox playing Boarderlands. The actual VCS case has yet to be shown to play something that doesn't also come with the tag, "for illustrative purposes".

 

If they were hitting their goals backers would have their systems and they would be shipped by now to the public. They would also be showing it off. They are still ONLY showing off the case.