New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[racerx]

5 minutes ago, Lodmot said:

I feel bad for this guy:

If I pay more attention to this mess than a guy that threw actual money at it, I don't feel bad for him.

[Shawn]

That bootup and UI demo looks to be nothing more than a video clip to me. I'd just love to see someone click to the Tempest 4000 icon and see it launch. We all know that ain't happening though.

[MrMaddog]

1 hour ago, Agillig said:

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:

 

And you know what? We, the Atari fans, went through the same exact thing with the Jaguar back in the 90's...and yes I was guilty of doing it also.

 

And before someone says, "At least the Jag actually did come out..." then how many good games came out for it?  Was the Atari brand brought back to the greatness it once had in the previous decade?  People were even saying that Atari will get back into making computers based on the Jag even though the Tramiels admitted they couldn't compete against the Wintel standard.  And what was the final result?  Selling the company out to someone else...  Does any of this sound famuliar?

 

And before anyone says that I'm a "hater" or a "troll" then let me says this...I love all things Atari in spite of the spotty history.  And two years ago, there "was" potiental for the Ataribox as long as Atari SA has a digital storefront for their large IP library (including Infogrames titles) and for retro-inspired indie games.  Since then they sold off all the IP that's not 2600 related, and also Battlezone, and completely ignored all intrested indie developers who could make far more money selling on the Epic Game Launcher.

 

So what is left on the VCS the makes it different from a retro console, like the Atari Flashback, or a NUC PC?  Please I wish someone from Atari would prove us wrong with this, but they're doing the exact opposite.

 

Edit: It's one thing to be an Atari fanboi, but the way the backers are acting is like they're like a reglious cult that await the second/third/fourth coming of Atari after paying their tithes.  Social media really does strange things to people...

 

 

[DurradonXylles]

49 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.

42 minutes ago, Agillig said:

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.

Gonna be that guy, but Sega's issue wasn't the hardware... Not entirely anyways. Sega's hardware philosophy wasn't actually too dissimilar to Nintendo's: use preexisting hardware that's widely used and understood by developers. Their philosophy differs in the fact that they reused most hardware that they first had in arcades, and reused previous components in future hardware. The SG-1000, Master System, Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Gear, CD, 32X and Saturn all shared components found in recently released arcade hardware and all shared similar enough components to one another (mainly the Z80, 68000, Yamaha FM, and Ricoh 32-bit chips).

 

The Sega CD also proved to be very successful, with many of the games we scoff at today actually being seen as major breakthroughs and held in high regard back then. The Saturn was also incredibly well made, and if proven to be more successful could've actually completely altered the course of 3D both in and out video games moving forward because of its unique 3D processor that made square based polygons and not triangular ones.  

 

The issues with Sega during the mid to late 90's was that Sega of Japan and Sega of America couldn't put their heads together to keep a singular game plan moving forward (a problem that has persisted over the years, and can be contributed to many of the more infamous follies of Sega [think Sonic 06]). The Sega 32X was a failed, rather transparent stopgap that was created out of panic caused by competitors (namely the Atari Jaguar, ironically enough), the Sega Saturn was released suddenly during E3 1995 causing many retailers to get rather pissed off at them (the same E3 where Sony's "Price Heard 'Round The World" was said by their then-new president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America), and then only three years on the market in NA they suddenly release a successor to the Saturn with ALL NEW components that had several major flaws in its nearly non-existent DRM.

[Lodmot]

10 minutes ago, DurradonXylles said:

Gonna be that guy, but Sega's issue wasn't the hardware... Not entirely anyways. Sega's hardware philosophy wasn't actually too dissimilar to Nintendo's: use preexisting hardware that's widely used and understood by developers. Their philosophy differs in the fact that they reused most hardware that they first had in arcades, and reused previous components in future hardware. The SG-1000, Master System, Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Gear, CD, 32X and Saturn all shared components found in recently released arcade hardware and all shared similar enough components to one another (mainly the Z80, 68000, Yamaha FM, and Ricoh 32-bit chips).

 

The Sega CD also proved to be very successful, with many of the games we scoff at today actually being seen as major breakthroughs and held in high regard back then. The Saturn was also incredibly well made, and if proven to be more successful could've actually completely altered the course of 3D both in and out video games moving forward because of its unique 3D processor that made square based polygons and not triangular ones.  

 

The issues with Sega during the mid to late 90's was that Sega of Japan and Sega of America couldn't put their heads together to keep a singular game plan moving forward (a problem that has persisted over the years, and can be contributed to many of the more infamous follies of Sega [think Sonic 06]). The Sega 32X was a failed, rather transparent stopgap that was created out of panic caused by competitors (namely the Atari Jaguar, ironically enough), the Sega Saturn was released suddenly during E3 1995 causing many retailers to get rather pissed off at them (the same E3 where Sony's "Price Heard 'Round The World" was said by their then-new president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America), and then only three years on the market in NA they suddenly release a successor to the Saturn with ALL NEW components that had several major flaws in its nearly non-existent DRM.

Despite all that happening, I'm actually pretty happy with how Sega's turned out up till this point. They're even back in the hardware game again at some level with the Genesis Mini-- and that system is awesome. ;D

[Lodmot]

21 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

And you know what? We, the Atari fans, went through the same exact thing with the Jaguar back in the 90's...and yes I was guilty of doing it also.

 

And before someone says, "At least the Jag actually did come out..." then how many good games came out for it?  Was the Atari brand brought back to the greatness it once had in the previous decade?  People were even saying that Atari will get back into making computers based on the Jag even though the Tramiels admitted they couldn't compete against the Wintel standard.  And what was the final result?  Selling the company out to someone else...  Does any of this sound famuliar?

 

And before anyone says that I'm a "hater" or a "troll" then let me says this...I love all things Atari in spite of the spotty history.  And two years ago, there "was" potiental for the Ataribox as long as Atari SA has a digital storefront for their large IP library (including Infogrames titles) and for retro-inspired indie games.  Since then they sold off all the IP that's not 2600 related, and also Battlezone, and completely ignored all intrested indie developers who could make far more money selling on the Epic Game Launcher.

 

So what is left on the VCS the makes it different from a retro console, like the Atari Flashback, or a NUC PC?  Please I wish someone from Atari would prove us wrong with this, but they're doing the exact opposite.

 

Edit: It's one thing to be an Atari fanboi, but the way the backers are acting is like they're like a reglious cult that await the second/third/fourth coming of Atari after paying their tithes.  Social media really does strange things to people...

 

 

Yeah, it's pretty saddening to see Atari reduced to this frankly. I'm hoping they at least manage to pull through with this system and at least deliver something to the backers. If I get mine, I have my own use case scenario for it, and I'm sure I'll have fun with it. The controllers also look cool, and I've actually had good luck with PowerA controllers in the past anyway, so I'll be happy to try those out. 

[PlaysWithWolves]

On 1/7/2020 at 2:50 PM, Flojomojo said:

It means their thing is at CES, even if they are only there as attendees. Kingston is the RAM company. I wonder if "Atari" made a bulk order with them in exchange for promotional consideration?

 

"Easter eggs" are typically hidden, not announced and then revealed mere hours later. 

 

It would be sad if that really was the bomb-diggety 32GB/SSD "Easter egg".  Even worse with that 4GB RAM/16GB eMMC sign.

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, DurradonXylles said:

The Saturn was also incredibly well made, and if proven to be more successful could've actually completely altered the course of 3D both in and out video games moving forward because of its unique 3D processor that made square based polygons and not triangular ones.

From what I've understood, the Saturn's GPUs were not made for 3D but were very good for 2D, so these square polygons are just skewed sprites. But I guess it's a lot more complex to program a 3D engine with that, so even if the Saturn was sucessful, I really doubt it would have "altered  the course of 3D". I'm not criticizing it though, it's one of my three favorite consoles ever. I even prefer Saturn's transparency.

[PlaysWithWolves]

 

Semi-annual financial report: Atari: Results of the first half of 2019-2020

 

I'm sure there are other things of interest, but one stuck out to me:

 

"September 2019 : Atari Interactive has concluded an agreement with Legalist, where the latter has agreed to pay 0.9 M€ to Atari Interactive in exchange for a share of future profits to be received by Atari in its ongoing copyright infringement lawsuits. This amount, which has been recognized as a financial debt, will be deducted from any potential proceeds of the lawsuits. Should the lawsuits be unsuccessful, the amount will not be recoverable from the Group under the terms of the agreement."

 

 

 

[JBerel]

So they have ambulance chasing attorneys looking for any place they can squeeze money out of businesses and they profit based on the amount of settlements they can get. So spread the word, make those weasels work for it and they'll probably go away because their default stance will be to threaten and hope for a settlement.

[5x7]

21 hours ago, Inky said:

Here's a sneak peek of the revolutionary new VCS (2600) game, Asteroid...

Oh my that needs to be their store!  It’s the friggin launch title! (Ship missing due to flicker)

Edited January 9, 2020 by 5x7

[racerx]

[Flojomojo]

That's sad and gross. An all-you-can-sue buffet. I really didn't think they would sink any lower. 

 

I see that they have a lot less cash on hand than the first half of the year. The optimistic view would be that they're reinvesting more into the company than before. 

 

These negotiations and renegotiations should be interesting. I smell GameBand. 

Quote

ATARI VCS

• Preparations for the commercial launch and negotiation of content partnership agreements with first shipments expected in March 2020 in the United States;
• Revenues for the Atari VCS will contribute from the time of the first shipments.

ATARI PARTNERS

• Renegotiation to come with INL due to the delays experienced by INL in its fundraising and development of the Atari Token project;
• Tests in an operating environment for the Pong Token, a crypto-currency for real-money gaming; the Atari Group as sole responsible for this second project has successfully implemented the technical platform on the blockchain allowing the issuance and management of this crypto-currency.

 

[DurradonXylles]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

From what I've understood, the Saturn's GPUs were not made for 3D but were very good for 2D, so these square polygons are just skewed sprites. But I guess it's a lot more complex to program a 3D engine with that, so even if the Saturn was sucessful, I really doubt it would have "altered  the course of 3D". I'm not criticizing it though, it's one of my three favorite consoles ever. I even prefer Saturn's transparency.

Okay, maybe I was being a bit over-the-top with the GPU inside of the Saturn itself, but Sega did work with Nvidia and Diamond Multimedia on the Diamond Edge 3D: a couple of Windows 95 PC graphics cards based on the Saturn GPU's specifications. They were actually purpose built for 3D, did quadratic rendering (square based polygons), and were very capable for PCs at the time of their release. They the first family of consumer PC 3D accelerated graphics cards, and were also the first GPUs to use Nvidia's chips (using the Nvidia NV1 chipset). Those cards were more what I was referring to since I would imagine if the Saturn did better they probably would've worked with companies like Diamond and Nvidia more, but that's more baseless speculation more than anything. From what I've read and heard: while games that came out right at 1994-95 worked great on these cards, they had difficulty running 3D accelerated games from late 1995 onwards, especially those that used 3Dfx's Glide API or Microsoft's then quite new Direct3D (which both came into existence after this card went to market). So maybe my statement is just completely full of it to begin with.

 

For those curious, here's a video of one of the very graphics cards being shown off by the wonderful Lazy Game Reviews:

 

 

Anyways, I think I'll end it here since some of us tend to get our tacos taken away if we stray away from the TacoBox conversation for too long.

 

[JBerel]

8 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

That's sad and gross. An all-you-can-sue buffet. I really didn't think they would sink any lower. 

It would also seem Atari is setting the arrangement up with their legal weasels to avoid paying .9M in legal fees they owed.

 

On their financial report, it's obfuscated by design, but I get the distinct impression they are betting their last cow on the magic beans of a commercially successful Ataribox launch.  Did you also catch the part about officially acknowledging that no boxes wouldn't ship before March, and maybe later than that?

Edited January 9, 2020 by JBerel

[Flojomojo]

5 minutes ago, JBerel said:

Did you also catch the part about officially acknowledging that no boxes wouldn't ship before March, and maybe later than that?

It says "first shipments expected in March 2020 in the United States." I'm not sure what that's worth since they previously expected to ship in Q1 2019. March 2020 just happens to be when they have their next big financial disclosure. 

 

Can we assume "trade payables" mostly consists of the money from copyright lawsuits against the infringing T-shirt printers? 

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

4 hours ago, DurradonXylles said:

Gonna be that guy, but Sega's issue wasn't the hardware... Not entirely anyways.

The 32x was a pretty dumb move on their part, because it did anger retailers and some gamers, if they hadn't passed up on what would become the N64 chipset in favor of the Saturn design, that could have caused an even longer delay for the N64 launch and given them plenty of power to compete with the PSX. But as mentioned, your hardware doesn't matter all that much if your software sucks...just like the VCS.

 

4 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

And you know what? We, the Atari fans, went through the same exact thing with the Jaguar back in the 90's...and yes I was guilty of doing it also.

 

And before anyone says that I'm a "hater" or a "troll" then let me says this...I love all things Atari in spite of the spotty history.  And two years ago, there "was" potiental for the Ataribox as long as Atari SA has a digital storefront for their large IP library (including Infogrames titles) and for retro-inspired indie games.  Since then they sold off all the IP that's not 2600 related, and also Battlezone, and completely ignored all intrested indie developers who could make far more money selling on the Epic Game Launcher.

 

Edit: It's one thing to be an Atari fanboi, but the way the backers are acting is like they're like a reglious cult that await the second/third/fourth coming of Atari after paying their tithes.  Social media really does strange things to people...

 I was shilling hard for the Jaguar back in the day, even in '98, because I wanted to see Atari return to the glory days. I saw the Telegames releases and the NUON as ways for Atari to come back. But then I realized that I was just into underdogs  Overall it was pretty shortsighted of me. But did I want there to be a Jaguar 2 and see Atari dominate the gaming scene? Oh yeah.

 

When I first heard about the VCS, I took a pause from jumping on the bandwagon, as I recalled seeing their full line of Atari branded tablets & phablets at E32015 that never came into being; Then I learned about the Gameband and looked into a variety of practices that they were doing in recent years leading up to 2017 (bashing journalists that gave their games poor scores, not really releasing anything worth writing home about, seeing a pattern of general douchbaggery where they just morphed into an IP troll, etc.). 

 

It's nice of them to finally show a menu working and getting their partners to setup untouchable displays, but as mentioned, for a system that is supposed to have already been delivered to backers and is supposedly going to be available in March, it's quite underwhelming. And hilarious that the UI they threw together is so rushed that they have glaring typos on two of their key IPs. 

 

Like has been said, if they manage to get it out to the public, there is nothing appealing about it that is going to drive sales beyond the initial 11k backer base. The current shills keep pretending like they really just wanted an Atari-like computer to use, but that's not how this whole thing started - it was supposed to be some kind of glorious return to console gaming. 

[Agillig]

14 minutes ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

The 32x was a pretty dumb move on their part, because it did anger retailers and some gamers, if they hadn't passed up on what would become the N64 chipset in favor of the Saturn design, that could have caused an even longer delay for the N64 launch and given them plenty of power to compete with the PSX. But as mentioned, your hardware doesn't matter all that much if your software sucks...just like the VCS.

 

 I was shilling hard for the Jaguar back in the day, even in '98, because I wanted to see Atari return to the glory days. I saw the Telegames releases and the NUON as ways for Atari to come back. But then I realized that I was just into underdogs  Overall it was pretty shortsighted of me. But did I want there to be a Jaguar 2 and see Atari dominate the gaming scene? Oh yeah.

 

When I first heard about the VCS, I took a pause from jumping on the bandwagon, as I recalled seeing their full line of Atari branded tablets & phablets at E32015 that never came into being; Then I learned about the Gameband and looked into a variety of practices that they were doing in recent years leading up to 2017 (bashing journalists that gave their games poor scores, not really releasing anything worth writing home about, seeing a pattern of general douchbaggery where they just morphed into an IP troll, etc.). 

 

It's nice of them to finally show a menu working and getting their partners to setup untouchable displays, but as mentioned, for a system that is supposed to have already been delivered to backers and is supposedly going to be available in March, it's quite underwhelming. And hilarious that the UI they threw together is so rushed that they have glaring typos on two of their key IPs. 

 

Like has been said, if they manage to get it out to the public, there is nothing appealing about it that is going to drive sales beyond the initial 11k backer base. The current shills keep pretending like they really just wanted an Atari-like computer to use, but that's not how this whole thing started - it was supposed to be some kind of glorious return to console gaming. 

And on that note:

 

No, I'm sure Sony won't put Windows 10 on PS5, nor Microsoft for their console.   I don't think there's really a huge demand for it.  This backer actually seems to dismiss the criticism that VCS needs games to compete because instead the system gives you "control"?

 

"I don't care about the new Halo or Uncharted games.  I want a Linux box that lets me do my budget on Excel using a CX40 style joystick. "   My friend, I have just the console for you.

[Flojomojo]

The whole purpose of a modern games console is to provide access to the software ecosystem. Publishers create a lot of content for this purpose. No software = no reason to exist. 

 

"Freedom" and "control" can be had elsewhere, but even the most open computing environment isn't much fun without software. 

 

Obvious statements are obvious. 

[Agillig]

49 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

The whole purpose of a modern games console is to provide access to the software ecosystem. Publishers create a lot of content for this purpose. No software = no reason to exist. 

 

"Freedom" and "control" can be had elsewhere, but even the most open computing environment isn't much fun without software. 

 

Obvious statements are obvious. 

Well, Wednesday is over, and no revelations from CES.  Not even a CNET fluff piece like E3.  Is this one of those "No news is good news." things?

 

Has Atari said when they're going to make their presentation to whoever they invited to their hotel room?

Edited January 9, 2020 by Agillig
Made less snarky

[bmadgames]

11 minutes ago, Agillig said:

Well, Wednesday is over, and no revelations from CES.  Not even a CNET fluff piece like E3.  Is this one of those "No news is good news." things?

 

Has Atari said when they're going to make their presentation to whoever they invited to their hotel room?

I would expect the articles to be released shortly after CES--that would align with Atari's previous strategy for media events and embargos

[Agillig]

8 minutes ago, bmadgames said:

I would expect the articles to be released shortly after CES--that would align with Atari's previous strategy for media events and embargos

Interesting, thanks.  I didn't remember the time line for the E3 CNET article.   I wonder if there's some reason behind that.

[TankedThomas]

7 hours ago, frankodragon said:

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

 

 

I can't believe I missed this. How embarrassing... They can't even spell their own damn company name correctly. 

6 hours ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

It would be sad if that really was the bomb-diggety 32GB/SSD "Easter egg".  Even worse with that 4GB RAM/16GB eMMC sign.

Well, Kingston also gave them a 240GB SSD to put in it, according to a close-up photo. So that they could run Windows. And it's on the lock screen so we don't know how stable the hardware and drivers are. 

 

Maybe their Easter Egg is Mike Farzt cowering in a bathroom stall. 

9 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

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.

Honestly, I hope you're right, because if I'm right, then we have an even bigger mess on our hands. Surely they're not that incompetent... is what we all keep thinking and are then proven wrong. Here's hoping, I suppose. 

Edited January 9, 2020 by TankedThomas
Clarification

[Paul Slocum]

It's still maybe a little early for articles to be written and published for smaller stuff like the Atari VCS, although I don't know how Atari can be at CES promoting a new product without finding one interesting/related thing to post to social media today.  At this point I bet Atari is really struggling to find tech writers who are likely to write positively about the Atari VCS.  I wouldn't be surprised if they were networking around today trying to find the right kind of naive person to write favorably about it.

[toiletunes]