New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[TankedThomas]

Speaking of Kieren McCarthy, I really hope he writes another article about this disaster of an event.

 

As for the "Atari VCS 3200 Crystal Ghost" (what are they, school children?), that thing looks like a disaster. Even if it works (which it appears to, to my surprise), that fan won't do jack. It's pointing upwards into a solid block of plastic, and the fan is piddly to begin with.

[MrBeefy]

2 hours ago, TankedThomas said:

I'm still doing some digging, but I can't wait to post this.

 

Atari's faking it again.

 

I know, I know, what a shock.

 

But let's have a look:

What's this? It has a power cable plugged in, but the HDMI cable... doesn't plug into the system. It loops around and then goes down the left side. Hmmm...

 

Oh, I know, it's actually attached to the VCS and the other cable is just a network cable! Maybe, but the angle that the HDMI cable goes in at makes no sense, and keep in mind that the HDMI cable would plug in where the supposed network cable is (i.e., if that was a network cable and not a single, looped HDMI cable, the middle and right-hand cables would have to have their positions swapped).

Notice where the HDMI and Ethernet jacks are. The wrong way around for this CES video to be legit.

 

Okay, so the VCS unit isn't the one display the video on the GAEMS portable display (seriously, fire whoever came up with that name).

 

What about the rest we've seen?

 

Ohohoho, you haven't seen ANYTHING yet. I was surprised just how every bloody frame of their Twitter video gets shadier as it goes. Here we go:

Sandbox being its own app? A bit weird, since it's meant to boot into it when an SSD is plugged in, but it's technically possible to do it this way. Apparently they have a YouTube app though! Nobody tell Google. It's a secret from them.

Wait a minute, once they scroll across twice, they get back to the same screen, but with... a slightly different arrangement? Is this a poor man's copy-and-paste job?

As others have pointed out, Breakout's image is just the Google "Image Breakout". Come on Atari, why haven't you sued Google over this yet? Surely your lawyers can win THIS case!

 

Next up, we have...

repetition...? Sandbox, YouTube, Chromium (at least they got this part of their fake demo right), Redbox and Facebook. Wait, Redbox and Facebook have VCS apps too? Hot damn, this sounds amazing! Just don't tell Redbox and Facebook about them! They're also secrets. Or... wait, are these the secret partnerships that they couldn't talk about but quietly revealed in this video? AND they've got the first Redbox Linux app ever? Say it ain't so, Atari!

 

But wait, there's more!

Centipede is FREE, guys! FREE! Just in case you weren't happy with the copy that comes with Atari Vault. This one's just the regular Atari Vault though, not the Mega Vault (I thought Mega Atari Vault was previously something else, but I can't find reference to the previous name they gave their "enhanced" version, so I'm not sure on that one).

Apparently, Asteroid and Antstream are free, too (I guess the Anstream app being free would make sense, but still).

Not only that, but we also get Tempest 4000 for free! And... Hoops Clash? Which I earlier confused with Basketball Classics, the game they've been using in promo images, because I'm dumb. FYI, they're not the same game. Just in case anyone else was confused. Different basketball game. This one (Hoops Clash) is exclusive to iOS (there's not even an Android version - well, okay, there was, but it seems to have been removed). But it's now on the VCS too, guys! From the same company that brought you hot diarrhoea such as Star Trek Trexels (if you haven't played it and you love Star Trek, save yourself the trouble - it's another piss-poor mobile game and an insult to the franchise).

Oh, oh, I know who the camera man is! It's MIKE KENNEDY!

 

You can download Windows, Ubuntu AND Debian for free, as apps. Sure, the last two are free, Windows 10 is sort of free, and you could theoretically run them on this hardware (if this was actually running on the VCS hardware, which it isn't), but... Well, you get the idea.

 

If there aren't at least a dozen red flags that have been risen by now, well, I'm sure we'll find more amongst these disaster to discuss. And with that, I'm going back to scrutinising all their photos and videos again, because I have nothing better to do.

 

EDIT: Forgot to add this one. Apologies that it's crappy - it's the best I could do with the toaster-quality videos and images they've given us (probably on purpose) so that the cables can be "clearly" seen. It's hard to tell, but considering the HDMI cable is the "thick" cable, it looks like it might be connecting to something inside the cabinet instead of the machine itself.

Like I said, hard to tell, but given the GAEMS one is BS, this probably is too.

 

I think the cord placement looks fine. The cord going away from the unit would probably be a usb controller cord.

[TankedThomas]

18 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

I think the cord placement looks fine. The cord going away from the unit would probably be a usb controller cord.

Which one are you talking about? The first one is more than likely just a looped cable. It doesn't look like two separate cables, especially since that'd be an extremely short HDMI cable (not that such cables don't exist, but they're not as common, and if you look at Atari's drug smuggling table, you can see the length of the HDMI cables they brought). It's also thicker than USB cables tend to be. Of course, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

 

The second one already has two USB cables plugged into the front, so I doubt that one either.

 

Besides, the controllers are meant to be wireless, so it shouldn't matter either way.

[PlaysWithWolves]

Keep in mind we still have a couple more days to go and presumably some closed-door interviews.  Atari may yet pull a rabbit out of their hat.  Or, may have actually made a UI with the ease @CPUWIZ suggested.

 

Plenty of taco-flavored popcorn yet to be eaten.

 

Edited to add: 

As I told someone in a PM, there's still a naive part of me who thinks that Not even Atari could be so brazen as to come empty-handed just a few months before alleged commercial release.

 

I fully expect to be disappointed. ?

 

[TheVgaTv]

Nothing instills confidence in a company like them misspelling two of their flagship titles on the only display screen they've put forth.  No "s" on Asteroids, and instead of Yars' Revenge, they put Yar's Revenge.  So I guess Yar is Revenge now.....

Edited January 8, 2020 by TheVgaTv

[Flojomojo]

26 minutes ago, TheVgaTv said:

Nothing instills confidence in a company like them misspelling two of their flagship titles on the only display screen they've put forth.  No "s" on Asteroids, and instead of Yars' Revenge, they put Yar's Revenge.  So I guess Yar is Revenge now.....

Speaking of spelling errors, I think you meant to say "flagshit." ? 

[OCAT]

^ Everyone chillout on the "'s"
i know why they did that, see thier first language is not English it is Francais, so they were unsure of the correct spelling and just went with what they saw on Steam, and indeed Steam does spell it incorrectly as "Yar's"
To bad they did not make a typo on Asteroids and forgot the "A", then there would be some serious drug raids for them :D

https://store.steampowered.com/app/99120/Yars_Revenge/

ABOUT THIS GAME
In Yar’s Revenge, take flight as you explore exotic alien worlds and seek to avenge your fallen race. Gain experience to upgrade and expand your armor and weapon capabilities as you fight off the evil Qotiles. But remember to take care in the choices you make – as the fate of your species and home world hangs in the balance.

But this is not the retro game so... candy taco anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udozXwInrv8

Edited January 8, 2020 by OCAT

[TheVgaTv]

2 minutes ago, OCAT said:

^ Everyone chillout on the "'s"
i know why they did that, see thier first language is not English it is Francais, so they were unsure of the correct spelling and just went with what they saw on Steam, and indeed Steam does spell it incorrectly as "Yar's"

https://store.steampowered.com/app/99120/Yars_Revenge/

ABOUT THIS GAME
In Yar’s Revenge, take flight as you explore exotic alien worlds and seek to avenge your fallen race. Gain experience to upgrade and expand your armor and weapon capabilities as you fight off the evil Qotiles. But remember to take care in the choices you make – as the fate of your species and home world hangs in the balance.

But this is not the retro game so... candy taco anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udozXwInrv8

 

If only something like Google existed.  Or a page like Atari Age.  Or any one of a million Yars' Revenge carts and boxes out there.....

[Flojomojo]

Remember when "Coleco Chameleon" misspelled ColecoVision in their shiny brochure? And "Coleco" in their initial press release? 
 

"They call it hardware because it's hard!"

[bonehead]

42 minutes ago, TheVgaTv said:

Nothing instills confidence in a company like them misspelling two of their flagship titles on the only display screen they've put forth.  No "s" on Asteroids, and instead of Yars' Revenge, they put Yar's Revenge.  So I guess Yar is Revenge now.....

If nothing else, this is a purely fascinating study of the power of "brand loyalty."  This so-called 'Atari' has managed to gather up a rabid cult-like base of fans drooling over this thing,which still apparently does absolutely nothing except boot to a "menu."  Out of curiosity...has anyone actually 'clicked' on one of those menu items? 

 

And...all of this despite: photoshopping Xbox controllers with Atari logos, faking Tempest gameplay footage (for demonstrative purposes, of course), stiffing their lead architect out of a paycheck, announcing multiple delays (because...reasons), misspelling the names of two of their most iconic games, and not least of all - bringing their s**t to a hotel room in Vegas wrapped in freakin bubble paper.  Am I missing something here?

 

Imagine if Microsoft's first public shots of actual mnaufactured Xbox units back in 2001 was on a hotel bed layered in bubble wrap. This is the sort of stuff I'd expect from the seedy vendor at the local flea market down the street.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by bonehead

[OCAT]

^ That is Anti-Static Bubble Wrap, they really want to protect it from ESD Zaps from assasins paid to walk around the hotel rubbing thier feet then poking fingers at the competition units, hence the "Do Not Touch" sign

'(But that is not how anti static materials work, it just prevents buildup of a charge and slowly dissipates it)

I think it is just for mecahnical and physical protection, these guys are just worried about thier little baby calf (^.^), they want them to grow up and turn into cash cows. mooooo!

Edited January 8, 2020 by OCAT

[Flojomojo]

1 minute ago, OCAT said:

little baby calf (^.^), they want them to grow up and turn into cash cows. mooooo!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_in_a_poke

[TankedThomas]

21 minutes ago, bonehead said:

If nothing else, this is a purely fascinating study of the power of "brand loyalty."  This so-called 'Atari' has managed to gather up a rabid cult-like base of fans drooling over this thing,which still apparently does absolutely nothing except boot to a "menu."  Out of curiosity...has anyone actually 'clicked' on one of those menu items? 

 

And...all of this despite: photoshopping Xbox controllers with Atari logos, faking Tempest gameplay footage (for demonstrative purposes, of course), stiffing their lead architect out of a paycheck, announcing multiple delays (because...reasons), misspelling the names of two of their most iconic games, and not least of all - bringing their s**t to a hotel room in Vegas wrapped in freakin bubble paper.  Am I missing something here?

 

Imagine if Microsoft's first public shots of actual mnaufactured Xbox units back in 2001 was on a hotel bed layered in bubble wrap. This is the sort of stuff I'd expect from the seedy vendor at the local flea market down the street.

 

 

You forgot Feargal Mac, multiple fake prototypes, the big summer update we never got, no game announcements, about a dozen lawsuits at any given time, and tacos. 

 

HOW COULD YOU FORGET THE TACOS, MAN?!

[DurradonXylles]

7 minutes ago, OCAT said:

^ Everyone chillout on the "'s"
i know why they did that, see thier first language is not English it is Francais, so they were unsure of the correct spelling and just went with what they saw on Steam, and indeed Steam does spell it incorrectly as "Yar's"
To bad they did not make a typo on Asteroids and forgot the "A", then there would be some serious drug raids for them

https://store.steampowered.com/app/99120/Yars_Revenge/

ABOUT THIS GAME
In Yar’s Revenge, take flight as you explore exotic alien worlds and seek to avenge your fallen race. Gain experience to upgrade and expand your armor and weapon capabilities as you fight off the evil Qotiles. But remember to take care in the choices you make – as the fate of your species and home world hangs in the balance.

But this is not the retro game so... candy taco anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udozXwInrv8

4 minutes ago, TheVgaTv said:

 

If only something like Google existed.  Or a page like Atari Age.  Or any one of a million Yars' Revenge carts and boxes out there.....

The reason most of us are on "Atari's" ass about this is because of the fact that this, on top of the hotel room "invite only" display and crap UX, heavily suggests how quickly slap-dashed this entire "booth" looks. They kept promising backers that they'd go to CES, yet they didn't get a booth (if it isn't for financial reasons, it's for transparency reasons as @PlaysWithWolves suggested), so they have this outboard, selectively suitcased showcase of the system that is barely better than a Notel Motel "cash for gold" transaction, with production costs akin to the handful of pornos being shot in neighboring rooms at that hotel. I think @StopDrop&Retro said it best in his second video on Aido: "This is a 'Fuck You' update," and it has all of the hallmarks of such an update as SDR has described; to summarize the below video it's pretty much stringing along backers, and giving a half-assed showing of progress, because they already have the backers' money.

 

 

Think about this for a moment: despite all of the snark back when this saga started, Atari had better production values faking footage and having stand-in mockups "For Illustration Purposes Only" back when they launched the IGG campaign; they actually put in a lot of effort to make it appear as if proper R&D of the TacoBox was well underway. Mind you, they did a poor job of showing this off, but they did rope in over $3 mil on IGG because of their little displays. Ever noticed how slightly worse most of the updates have gotten since then? We've been shown a revolving door of the same level of progress for well over two years now, with barely little glimmers of hope being pulled out of Atari Gamebox LLC's collective ass whenever bad press starts drumming up again (because of course it always does). Now we have an invitation-only hotel room display that actively looks worse, and far more rushed, than the initial mockups promised. It's Atari's own "Fuck You Update", with the little twist they want to make sure that any press they get paints as positive of a picture for this display as possible.

 

What separates Atari from Aido, however, is the intent behind this FUU: Aido appears to be taking the money and running as that video shows, while Atari wants to give off an err of actual professionalism and progress on this project. This is likely because, as we've previously discussed, they are more than likely trying to find a bigger company to buy them out. This update and outboraded CES booth isn't for the benefits of the backers and potential consumers, it's entirely for the bigger companies that are at CES proper or staying tuned at news coming from the event.

 

I could be wrong about all of this, but I've had enough experience seeing how these IGG and KS campaigns go down to see the methods of madness and where this is likely going. Stealing this from @Flojomojo because I wholeheartedly believe...

[MrBeefy]

7 hours ago, TankedThomas said:

Which one are you talking about? The first one is more than likely just a looped cable. It doesn't look like two separate cables, especially since that'd be an extremely short HDMI cable (not that such cables don't exist, but they're not as common, and if you look at Atari's drug smuggling table, you can see the length of the HDMI cables they brought). It's also thicker than USB cables tend to be. Of course, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

 

The second one already has two USB cables plugged into the front, so I doubt that one either.

 

Besides, the controllers are meant to be wireless, so it shouldn't matter either way.

Just calling it how I saw it. I think the messed up titles is a bigger issue. Usb cord could also be for keyboard, mouse, etc. Or could be the controller because it wasn't charged or currently doesn't connect to the bluetooth.

 

3 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Remember when "Coleco Chameleon" misspelled ColecoVision in their shiny brochure? And "Coleco" in their initial press release? 
 

"They call it hardware because it's hard!"

Well the game lineup is quite flaccid....

[Agillig]

3 hours ago, bonehead said:

If nothing else, this is a purely fascinating study of the power of "brand loyalty."  This so-called 'Atari' has managed to gather up a rabid cult-like base of fans drooling over this thing,which still apparently does absolutely nothing except boot to a "menu."  Out of curiosity...has anyone actually 'clicked' on one of those menu items? 

 

And...all of this despite: photoshopping Xbox controllers with Atari logos, faking Tempest gameplay footage (for demonstrative purposes, of course), stiffing their lead architect out of a paycheck, announcing multiple delays (because...reasons), misspelling the names of two of their most iconic games, and not least of all - bringing their s**t to a hotel room in Vegas wrapped in freakin bubble paper.  Am I missing something here?

 

Imagine if Microsoft's first public shots of actual mnaufactured Xbox units back in 2001 was on a hotel bed layered in bubble wrap. This is the sort of stuff I'd expect from the seedy vendor at the local flea market down the street.

 

 

I've been watching the Facebook page where us haters can't post.   It's interesting that there are a few backers who actually understand how precarious the situation is.   You had Karl questioning whether Atari was actually at CES, and you had the usual white knight come to the rescue, that clearly Atari was at CES...despite all the evidence to believe otherwise. 

 

On a certain level, I get it.  I was a huge Sega fan throughout the 90's.  When Saturn was crashing and burning in the US, I still expected Sega would stick with it, despite the obvious.   When Dreamcast came out, I bought it on launch day, and was a staunch supporter.  Truthfully, I don't regret it.  It was a great system.  On the Usenet there was this troll who constantly posted about how Sega was a dead man walking, and as soon as PS2 came out, it was lights out for Sega.  We pulled out out troll repellent, and white knighted for Sega.  But deep down, despite our love of the company, we, knew he was right.  Sega's chickens were coming home to roost, and the die was cast.

 

I think it's probably the same way for most VCS supporters.   They got super excited about the resurrection of a brand they loved, and invested time, money, and emotions into it.  I'd venture to say though, that despite all of the internet posturing, most of them know something's horribly wrong with this system.   It's CES, and no real announcements or people getting to play a system that comes out it weeks?  C'mon. It's the same pattern of behavior from the backers:

 

1. "X is coming!  Certainly there will be a huge announcement!"

 

2.  X passes and nothing happens.

 

3.  "Well, there was no reason to expect Atari to make an announcement here.  E3/CES/Fill in the blank isn't a big deal anyway. "

 

And so forth.  For crying out loud, they are amped up over a loading sequence we're seen before, and a menu.  Even if by chance, they do manage to let a journalist play an Atari VCS, if it's nothing more than an Atari Vault game, so what?  The thing is dead on impact without good exclusives. People aren't going to buy a $300 box with the promise that if enough systems are sold, exclusives will come.  That's not how this works.

[JBerel]

Quick reality check. Some folks have said all they had was a functioning demo showing a menu with misspelled games. They don't get credit for that much. I'd bet any of your children on the fact that whatever they are running, whether it be in the project box or hidden under the desk, is not a board of their making. They pulled somebody else's hardware to run the little they have like they did last year with their black box demo machines that had nothing to do with functional hardware. Them saying they are still tweaking the paddle function on the classic sticks would also seem to confirm that they have no clue how to make an Xbox thumbstick with a chapstick tube glued to it twist like a paddle.

[PlaysWithWolves]

2 minutes ago, JBerel said:

They don't get credit for that much. I'd bet any of your children on the fact that whatever they are running, whether it be in the project box or hidden under the desk, is not a board of their making.

 

Yeah.  They've put out far too many fakes photos and videos for me to just trust that this time it's really, really real.

 

Also weird how these videos look like they were shot by the same potato cameras that took any given Bigfoot or UFO video.  

[ColecoJoe]

2 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

Also weird how these videos look like they were shot by the same potato cameras that took any given Bigfoot or UFO video.  

And why are they so quiet??? Wouldn't it be much better if Fred was talking you through the menu system?

 

By the way I haven't noticed any chatter on Twitter regarding invitees reactions to whatever they are showing. 

[OCAT]

^^ The problem with SEEEEGAAAAAAA! (sorry, I hear that in my head) was that they let idiots at the top run wild, they needed someone to say "HEY!" we are going to concentrate on 1 console and 1 handheld. Instead you had the idiots that were obsessed with ADD-Ons, making console after console so no one wanted to buy anything, resourses were stretched too far and money was wasted on failed projects, Sega CD, Sega 32-X, SEGA+CD+32X, Sega Saturn, Sega Neptune, Sega Pluto, all these things should have been given the golden axe at stage -1, a complete waste of resources. They should have just went straight from Genesis to Dreamcast. It is not just money wasted on development, but also you are doing damage to your cusomers, every time you release a console that fails, you inevitably will lose Sega fans, they do not have $$$ to buy everything.

[JaqenHghar]

15 minutes ago, JBerel said:

Quick reality check. Some folks have said all they had was a functioning demo showing a menu with misspelled games. They don't get credit for that much. I'd bet any of your children on the fact that whatever they are running, whether it be in the project box or hidden under the desk, is not a board of their making. They pulled somebody else's hardware to run the little they have like they did last year with their black box demo machines that had nothing to do with functional hardware. Them saying they are still tweaking the paddle function on the classic sticks would also seem to confirm that they have no clue how to make an Xbox thumbstick with a chapstick tube glued to it twist like a paddle.

I dunno. We all agree that the single board PC is not a revolutionary thing. They've got some other company to make a board. They've got the timelapse on Medium of the thing being assembled. We're all having great fun over their incompetence but I gotta believe that unless they run out of steam they'll eventually get somewhere. Once you've got that far, installing Windows or Ubuntu or whatever on the hardware doesn't seem a big deal assuming it functions. 

 

So either that timelapse was of nonfunctional hardware or they've managed to find a competent outsourcer to reinvent the single board PC by now.

 

The UI on the other hand... plenty to still mock there... (I guess that's why it's called a mockup..) How rushed do you have to be to use Google images and not spellcheck? So I'd say the UI is some sort of interactive mockup made in Unity over the weekend. They're zipping around boxes but it doesn't launch anything. It looks like something a kid in a video game design program would get as an assignment in their Unity course. Whether it's running in Windows or Linux really doesn't make much of a difference at this point. If it runs one stock operating system it'll run another.

 

So I'm willing to believe they've got hardware now. So half way there! Only two and half more years to go...

Edited January 8, 2020 by JaqenHghar

[Agillig]

5 minutes ago, OCAT said:

^^ The problem with SEEEEGAAAAAAA! (sorry, I hear that in my head) was that they let idiots at the top run wild, they needed someone to say "HEY!" we are going to concentrate on 1 console and 1 handheld. Instead you had the idiots that were obsessed with ADD-Ons, making console after console so no one wanted to buy anything, resourses were stretched too far and money was wasted on failed projects, Sega CD, Sega 32-X, SEGA+CD+32X, Sega Saturn, Sega Neptune, Sega Pluto, all these things should have been given the golden axe at stage -1, a complete waste of resources. They should have just went straight from Genesis to Dreamcast. It is not just money wasted on development, but also you are doing damage to your cusomers, every time you release a console that fails, you inevitably will lose Sega fans, they do not have $$$ to buy everything.

Sega always seemed to think hardware was the answer, while Nintendo just worked wonders with their software.  I really think Nintendo squeezed every drop of life they could out of the SNES. 

 

Sega's infatuation with being first with hardware was a pain.  They got a CD drive, but most of the games sucked.   Nobody wanted that FMV garbage.   They completely killed off the Genesis to focus on the Saturn, which was a mistake, because Genesis sales were still pretty good in 1995.  They put all their eggs in one basket, and then dropped it.

 

On a positive note, Sega and Arcade 1Up are partnering up to bring a cabinet that includes Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder.   That might be worth a pick up.

[PlaysWithWolves]

29 minutes ago, JaqenHghar said:

So I'm willing to believe they've got hardware now. So half way there! Only two and half more years to go...

 

They said in the latest medium.com post they're redoing it to "make it better" (paraphrased, maybe). If you didn't see @kevtris' post, you might find his analysis informative.

 

It seems we're looking at months, not weeks.  I don't recall the time lapse gif you mentioned, but I sometimes have memory lapses. ?

[+frankodragon]

Maybe it's not "Atari" after all.  Instead, it's "Atati."

 

 

[Lodmot]

I feel bad for this guy: