New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[ColecoJoe]

19 minutes ago, bonehead said:

Immortally Taco...

 

 

If they made 100 of them, they surely do...something?  They wouldnt manufacture 100 non-functioning units...would they?  

What makes you think they made 100? We've only ever seen about 8 and what makes you think those 8 weren't empty shells?????

[Flojomojo]

4 hours ago, ColecoJoe said:

It is now "bleeding edge technology" 

 

The thing about living on the bleeding edge ... you can cut yourself. They're a year late as it is. The fact that they're using brand new embedded technology isn't necessarily a good thing for anyone. 

1. It hasn't been shaken down by the marketplace. You know how movie studios don't pre-screen stuff that they aren't proud of? This could well be the same kind of thing. Maybe it's good for "Atari" if there aren't performance benchmarks out there, but that will change soon enough if/when they launch.
2. It's unproven from a technical standpoint. There could be bugs or flaws that haven't been fixed, and it could take a while for the manufacturer to get that right. Sometimes they can't get it right, and a revision comes out. It's not smart to be first with consumer electronics. The little blurb about 4K video is just the tip of the iceberg that we know about. 
3. Who's to say that Intel won't scoop them on performance and price, which happens all the time?

As for "we found some opportunities to improve the the <sic> all-new Classic Joystick's paddle functionality," that implies to me that it's broken and hasn't been fixed yet. ?

3 hours ago, Tidus79001 said:

Whether it has wide mainstream potential or not is besides the point.  Let the market and individual contributor/backer and consumers decide what the value is to them.  This console should be allowed to succeed or fail on it's own merits.  The problem is many here in this thread are acting like children and essentially saying that they don't enjoy something and don't want anyone else to enjoy it either.

I disagree with that characterization of what is happening here. We are seeing a laughable failure of project management, communication, and product development. Those of us who know a thing or two about these subject areas are entitled to our opinion. In MY humble but learned opinion, Mr. Arzt steps in dog shit every single time he speaks in public about this thing. Of course "this console should be allowed to succeed or fail on its own merits," but that doesn't change that it's poorly conceived, poorly designed, poorly communicated, and poorly delivered. It's over a year delayed from the original, overly optimistic timeline, they've changed key aspects of the original pitch, and they have yet to show anything resembling a software ecosystem.

 

There's nothing to get excited about and everything to mock. So, we mock. If you or "Atari" don't like that, maybe they should pitch a better product. With their own money this time, thanksverymuch. 

 

Nobody is telling you or anyone else how to feel about this or what to do with your money. I for one think it's foolish to front an unproven, untalented team with a nonrefundable deposit based on their brand name. I'm also keeping an open mind about what they actually deliver. It doesn't look good, never has, probably won't. 

 

Stay tuned, simple as that, so much more than video games, no news is good news, and they call it hardware because it's hard. 

[Matt_B]

Its also worth asking what are they getting for this 'bleeding edge' tech other than a low power SOC that would get its arse kicked in any benchmark you care to mention by a $50 off-the-shelf GPU from a couple of years back?

 

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

By what I see in some other posts of his, Mr. Warner is convinced that because it has the AMD Ryzen name attached to it, that it's automatically top-of-the-line. But his approach seems to treat all Ryzen processors as equals, which is an ignorant take as he's gaslighting the followers into thinking that it's going to be kicking the crap out of the PS4Pro and XBX. It ignores the performance of not just the CPU, but the Vega 3 GPU. Of course, we can only make assumptions on performance, but this looks like it will be close. You'll be be able to play CounterStrike at 64 fps in 720p at least, although no serious CS player will bother to game on a VCS. I noticed that with all of the benchmark tests for Vega 3 on YouTube, everyone plays the games at 720p and low settings. I have a hunch that a lot of VCS fans think they'll be gaming in 4k still, which will be a rude awakening if they try it.

 

 

That's why we mock and criticize at times, as a lot of people buying into the BS are going to be shocked when they find that the performance isn't going to be what the hypesters make it out to be.

[H.Hannig]

Even the Vega11 iGPU you get with an Ryzen3400G Desktop APU is only slightly better than a entry level Nvidia 1030 Card

Edited December 10, 2019 by H.Hannig
spelling

[PlaysWithWolves]

1 hour ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

By what I see in some other posts of his, Mr. Warner is convinced that because it has the AMD Ryzen name attached to it, that it's automatically top-of-the-line.

 

I think he read the following excerpt and ran with it.  Of course, Atari's self-aggrandizing is partially to fault:

 

[jaybird3rd]

For what it's worth, I think this is why @Tommy Tallarico and Intellivision Entertainment were wise to refrain from releasing the technical specifications of the Amico hardware up front.  If they had done so, they would only have invited unfavorable (and irrelevant) comparisons to mainstream consoles and computers, and then the whole discussion around it would have deteriorated into a debate over the theoretical capabilities of the hardware and other diversions.  By keeping the Amico specs under wraps—at least for now—they kept the focus where it should be and needs to be, which is on the games.  They've received very good notices for the games they've announced and shown so far, and they're still ten months away from their projected release date.

 

"Atari"—or, rather, the clown car of incompetents who are currently operating under that exalted name, adding insult to injury for those of us who still love it and care about it—went and did the exact opposite.  Not only did they announce their hardware specs, but they announced them too early and had to subsequently change them, further delaying the delivery and adding even more uncertainty to a project that had already strained the limits of credibility.  They have also failed to say or show anything substantive and verifiable about the games; to this day, we have not yet seen indisputable footage of the final hardware running a single game, or even plugged into a TV and turned on.  For a console that is supposed to be shipping in "weeks, not months," that is unacceptable.

[+Nathan Strum]

17 hours ago, JaqenHghar said:

In fact, FYI, Tommy Tallarico is an anagram of Totally Mr. Amico. So I think that settles it.

 

And Frederic Chesnais is an anagram of... uh...

 

I scarf cheese rind.

 

So, there's that.

[OCAT]

^^^

ooh! did someone say cheese rind? Mmmmmmmmm.. Cheese rinds.. uuugh (_8^(1)

As for holding back on specs, only Apple can get away with that, because Apple is focused on the "user experience" and not brute force power.. or whatever they say to get the Android people of thier backs for not having dual octa cores... 128GB ram... whatever...

But Atari had no choice, it was to sell the system and give an excuse for the massive delays. Atari could not keep saying.. uuum, you put internet in here and then the games, she comes out here, backers would be livid! they would be getting out the pitch forks and torches! xD

Edited December 11, 2019 by OCAT

[ColecoJoe]

 

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

 

[Agillig]

27 minutes ago, ColecoJoe said:

 

In my opinion, that was actually kinda cool.

[Woulfe]

Did someone mention a funnel ?

 

Again for those who missed it... Money goes in top... Nothing comes out of the bottom...

 

[Flojomojo]

20 minutes ago, Agillig said:

In my opinion, that was actually kinda cool.

Yeah, this is the right approach:

 

That said, they left out a very important Atari adjective: BANKRUPT. 

 

In the interest of keeping an open mind, I'll watch this with the sound on, tomorrow. 

[toiletunes]

1 hour ago, Nathan Strum said:

 

And Frederic Chesnais is an anagram of... uh...

 

I scarf cheese rind.

 

So, there's that.

 

Franchise? Cede, sir!

 

 

[MrBeefy]

10 hours ago, Tidus79001 said:

The problem is many here in this thread are acting like children and essentially saying that they don't enjoy something and don't want anyone else to enjoy it either.

I am glad you have taken the time to realize that you don't enjoy tacos and don't want us to enjoy them either. That is insightful of you. Like the tag on this thread says, this is a thread about tacos.

 

If you don't like tacos maybe you should try something less traditional. Maybe you could try some fruit taco? There was an awesome picture of some probably like 60 pages back. 

 

Oh and fun. We like having fun, which I guess you don't enjoy and don't want us having either? Wait....maybe that is why people want a VCS. They don't enjoy having fun! That explains so much about the die hards. Wow, glad we finally cracked that one.

[MrBeefy]

14 hours ago, OCAT said:

^^^

Perhaps the atari crew are terrified that some enterprising individual in China will knock out a clone of this system for $50 shipped in less than 1 week like they did with the NES mini, thus if they show the splash startup screen it will be copied, if you dont show anything they cannot copy.

You might try Atari Dude on YouTube. I think he beat them to it. Maybe if you give something to charity he will help you get the Converse Edition?

[jaybird3rd]

8 hours ago, ColecoJoe said:

What makes you think they made 100? We've only ever seen about 8 and what makes you think those 8 weren't empty shells?????

[+thanatos]

On 12/9/2019 at 5:56 PM, frankodragon said:

 

I didn't get the reason for this post until I saw the other topic I just replied to.  I hope my life is never that sad.

 

[Agillig]

15 minutes ago, thanatos said:

 

I didn't get the reason for this post until I saw the other topic I just replied to.  I hope my life is never that sad.

 

Got a link?

[+frankodragon]

It's funny when "Atari" puts out that light test (this one)--->

 

 

Then deletes it from the Medium posts later.  "Bleeding edge" technology for them when the eight un-consoles light up..and..and that's it. ("Atari" can deny left and right they posted this animated gif but now it's here for proof.)

 

 

[JBerel]

6 hours ago, ColecoJoe said:

 

So that explains where Atari got their Atari OS sample vid/demo they've been touting. This company did a conceptual UX for them ages ago which amounts to a few video clips. They probably did the concept on spec, and there's likely no actual menu system resembling that in existence. It will be interesting to see if they even make anything that resembles the concept, and if they somehow did, will they have stolen the concept or bounced a check for it?

[TankedThomas]

12 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

1. It hasn't been shaken down by the marketplace. You know how movie studios don't pre-screen stuff that they aren't proud of? This could well be the same kind of thing. Maybe it's good for "Atari" if there aren't performance benchmarks out there, but that will change soon enough if/when they launch.
2. It's unproven from a technical standpoint. There could be bugs or flaws that haven't been fixed, and it could take a while for the manufacturer to get that right. Sometimes they can't get it right, and a revision comes out. It's not smart to be first with consumer electronics. The little blurb about 4K video is just the tip of the iceberg that we know about. 
3. Who's to say that Intel won't scoop them on performance and price, which happens all the time?

Just a few things I wanted to point out which we know:

1. Technically, since it's just based on AMD's 12nm Zen+ revision of their 14nm Zen architecture, and this is offset by a year from their desktop chips (i.e. Zen was 2017, Zen+ was 2018, Zen 2 was 2019, but Embedded and Mobile are 2018 for Zen and 2019 for Zen+), this shouldn't matter as much, but I agree in general. Regardless, there's a reason it "hasn't been shaken down by the marketplace", which leads me to...
2. There ARE issues with the AMD Embedded series of processors. I won't claim to be an expert (because, surprise, I'm not), but as was discussed a couple of months ago, even AMD doesn't have much support (nor documentation) for their Embedded chips. The 4K bug they mentioned? Undoubtedly, as you pointed out, just the tip of the iceberg. It appears that Ryzen Embedded is notorious for these sort of problems.
   Frankly, these processors just aren't designed for what Atari wants to use them for, and very few other companies have used them for a damn good reason. Sure, ASrock is making their own ITX PC with Ryzen Embedded, but as far as I'm concerned, that's also a bad investment (nothing against ASrock though but it's doubtful that box will be any good for much more than Netflix - so, the VCS audience).
   Keep in mind, they also said they had an issue getting Bluetooth and WiFi to work. Theoretically, that should be easy - their WiFi cards are separate pieces (surely not the most cost-effective method for an SOC PC, but Atari clearly doesn't care at this point). Unless they motherboard was poorly designed (which, to be fair, it sounds like it was), this would point to the processor being an issue. Though really, it could be multiple things, but the point is: RYZEN EMBEDDED IS UNRELIABLE. They should have picked a 2200G. Cheap, effective, not amazing but will do the job. Runs on the same architecture but actually proven hardware.
3. Not happening. Intel is basically just standing in the corner pissing themselves at the moment. AMD's been walking all over them lately, and the only ones at fault for that are Intel. Though, Intel's mobile chips are still better than AMD's (for now - that will likely change next year), but it's too little, too late. Plus there are enough architectural changes that it would be financial suicide to change to Intel chips at this point.

Anyway, shitty update is shitty (big surprise) - I'm going to break down at least some of what they said because they said a lot of stuff, told us some interesting things, but what they actually told us is quite different to what the fanboys think they told us, and that's important.

10 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

By what I see in some other posts of his, Mr. Warner is convinced that because it has the AMD Ryzen name attached to it, that it's automatically top-of-the-line. But his approach seems to treat all Ryzen processors as equals, which is an ignorant take as he's gaslighting the followers into thinking that it's going to be kicking the crap out of the PS4Pro and XBX. It ignores the performance of not just the CPU, but the Vega 3 GPU. Of course, we can only make assumptions on performance, but this looks like it will be close. You'll be be able to play CounterStrike at 64 fps in 720p at least, although no serious CS player will bother to game on a VCS. I noticed that with all of the benchmark tests for Vega 3 on YouTube, everyone plays the games at 720p and low settings. I have a hunch that a lot of VCS fans think they'll be gaming in 4k still, which will be a rude awakening if they try it.

 

 

That's why we mock and criticize at times, as a lot of people buying into the BS are going to be shocked when they find that the performance isn't going to be what the hypesters make it out to be.

Though it's hard to get exact specifications on the 1606G relative to other processors, we do know it's significantly less powerful than the 3200G, at least in the CPU department (though the GPU part probably has worse performance too). Point is, it won't even be in the same league as the 3200G. Hell, I doubt it's as powerful as last year's 2200G either.

5 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

If you don't like tacos maybe you should try something less traditional. Maybe you could try some fruit taco? There was an awesome picture of some probably like 60 pages back.

I'm STILL envious of those berry tacos. Absolutely mouth-watering...

Edited December 11, 2019 by TankedThomas

[+Andrew Davie]

7 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

I am glad you have taken the time to realize that you don't enjoy tacos and don't want us to enjoy them either. That is insightful of you. Like the tag on this thread says, this is a thread about tacos.

 

If you don't like tacos maybe you should try something less traditional. Maybe you could try some fruit taco? There was an awesome picture of some probably like 60 pages back. 

 

Oh and fun. We like having fun, which I guess you don't enjoy and don't want us having either? Wait....maybe that is why people want a VCS. They don't enjoy having fun! That explains so much about the die hards. Wow, glad we finally cracked that one.

Don't like tacos...?  Howdy doodly doo.... Would you like some toast....?
 

 

[Tommy Tallarico]

11 hours ago, jaybird3rd said:

For what it's worth, I think this is why @Tommy Tallarico and Intellivision Entertainment were wise to refrain from releasing the technical specifications of the Amico hardware up front.  If they had done so, they would only have invited unfavorable (and irrelevant) comparisons to mainstream consoles and computers, and then the whole discussion around it would have deteriorated into a debate over the theoretical capabilities of the hardware and other diversions.  By keeping the Amico specs under wraps—at least for now—they kept the focus where it should be and needs to be, which is on the games.  They've received very good notices for the games they've announced and shown so far, and they're still ten months away from their projected release date.

 

"Atari"—or, rather, the clown car of incompetents who are currently operating under that exalted name, adding insult to injury for those of us who still love it and care about it—went and did the exact opposite.  Not only did they announce their hardware specs, but they announced them too early and had to subsequently change them, further delaying the delivery and adding even more uncertainty to a project that had already strained the limits of credibility.  They have also failed to say or show anything substantive and verifiable about the games; to this day, we have not yet seen indisputable footage of the final hardware running a single game, or even plugged into a TV and turned on.  For a console that is supposed to be shipping in "weeks, not months," that is unacceptable.

You are so correct.  The reality is that our "chip" specs are nowhere near things like the PS5, Scarlett or even the AtariVCS.  And we don't care. 

The industry (and hardcores) have become so caught up in processing power, graphic capability, etc. that the MOST important part of what makes a game fun is the FUN FACTOR/DESIGN/PLAYABILITY and the STYLE.  Graphics don't need to be photo realistic in order to have a nice style.  Our Breakout footage is a perfect example.  Completely 2D but modern yet retro looking at the same time.  That exact game and style would run the same on the PS5 as it does on Amico.  If the Wii proved anything, it showed that the "mainstream" doesn't care about graphics as much as hardcores.  And having simple "stylized graphics" can be just as pleasing as photo realistic stuff.  And for casual and non-gamers (i.e. the mass majority of people who engage and spend money on video games every day), they would rather play a simplistic stylized easy on the eyes soccer game then the complexity of the latest photo realistic FIFA.  So while many folks like ourselves marvel at the incredible visuals and technology used to create these current next gen masterpieces... the "average" and "majority" finds it off-putting, scary, intimidating and too complex.  Maybe fun for them to watch others... but not partake themselves. 

So yes... getting back to the roots of simple and affordable games and gameplay with friends and family (no matter what your skill level of gaming is) has always been our #1 focus. 

This is what personally perplexes me about the VCS.  I don't want to "pile on", but it seems like they don't understand (or at least communicate to their audience) that it's not the technology or hardware that make a new game system appealing (just ask Trip Hawkins and 3DO!).  It's the GAMES, the playability and the unique user experience.  Unfortunately over the past year or so they have not shown either of those things.  I've been in the industry over 30 years and I've never seen a game console not show games months before the release of the console.  By this summer (E3 in June) you'll see a TON of PS5 footage, Scarlett footage, more Amico of course, etc.  And they will all still be about 6 months from launch.  This is very typical. 

My simple advice to Atari would be this...

If AtariVCS wants to win over folks (including most of the folks in here!) all they need to do is show a bunch of unique games playing on their system.  It would go a VERY LONG way and win over a bunch of naysayers if the footage was epic and exciting.  It's pretty obvious.  But because they are not doing that... you need to ask yourself a question.  Why?  I think a lot of folks assume to know the answer.  Because it probably doesn't exist.  The $3M was put into creating the machine (no idea how they are going to pay to manufacture the 10K units for the backers... but that is another story I suppose).  They were probably hoping that game studios would be excited and start porting games and creating games for their new system.  That would have been a huge mistake and very naive.  Not showing games a month or so before launch (yet taking pre-orders) would tend to signal that the folks in charge may not know the best way to launch a console. 

I honestly hope they succeed to some extent.  I really do.  If for nothing else... for the backers to feel somewhat satisfied for taking a chance.  I'd love to see a friendly "tongue in cheek" old school rivalry between our companies come back.  But not having a clear vision as to what the machine is (I still don't get it) and the exclusive games that will run on it (still not announced or shown) would give anyone slight pause as to the success of the product on launch.  Look at Google... they have all the money and marketing in the world... and they didn't get it right either.  Intellivision is not by any means perfect.  We will stumble along the way, make mistakes, come across major barriers... but behind the scenes are hundreds of passionate people dedicated to finding solutions for any encountered problem (no matter what) and bashing through (or under or around or over) any barrier put in our way.  We are all super passionate about what we do.  And a bunch of folks are going to HATE the machine and the direction we've taken.  And that's okay.  We have a mission and a vision and we will not stray until our goal is reached.

 

Edited December 11, 2019 by Tommy Tallarico