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New Atari Console that Ataribox?


Goochman

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1 minute ago, Lodmot said:

So I found what probably could be considered the least sketchy picture of the Atari VCS running. The image below is from Kingston's official Twitter (so finally, a different source besides Atari themselves :P). You can see the system running the Atari Vault, and there are only two cables in the shot-- one running out the back of the console up to the TV, and the other coming out the front for the game controller. 

 

I know it's just a photo, which can easily be tampered with, but this is the best we have to go by. Also, it's comforting that it's finally NOT from Atari...

 

Image may contain: screen and indoor

That actually looks alright.  Why didn't Atari show this up and running?  Looks like news is still trickling out, shame I'll be completely without internet from this Wednesday until next Monday. 

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7 minutes ago, ColecoJoe said:

Is it amazing if they run atari vault on Windows though? I would rather see proof it's running on their "OS" .

I agree, I would too. It sucks it isn't an actual video..

Looking up the Atari Vault on a quick Google search though, it does appear they have a Linux version for it. So it should've been pretty easy for them to do.

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45 minutes ago, Lodmot said:

So I found what probably could be considered the least sketchy picture of the Atari VCS running. The image below is from Kingston's official Twitter (so finally, a different source besides Atari themselves :P). You can see the system running the Atari Vault, and there are only two cables in the shot-- one running out the back of the console up to the TV, and the other coming out the front for the game controller. 

 

I know it's just a photo, which can easily be tampered with, but this is the best we have to go by. Also, it's comforting that it's finally NOT from Atari...

 

Image may contain: screen and indoor

 

I realized that probably the best way to fake it would just be to put a different board in the AtariVCS case, like an Udoo Bolt Ryzen board.  Considering how ambiguous the wording of their CES Twitter posts CES Medium update is, and considering what they've done in the past like with Tempest 4000, it is completely plausible that they've put in another x86 board or crammed their Ryzen development board inside.  You could also fake it with another computer and wireless HDMI extenders.

 

Also, notice that when Atari is doing that demo video in the same room, there's a second cable going to the TV that's not in that photo.  That Lunar Lander launch screen in the photo could be a JPEG shown off a USB stick plugged in the back of the TV for all we know ("Please Do Not Touch")

 

Ultimately the best proof would have been to let journalists see it.  They went to Vegas and set up a demo suite during an event that boasts 6000 members of the media, and only one journalist was interested in seeing and writing about a new Atari console!?  Their NDA must be absurd and/or they're hiding so much that they literally just wanted one journalist to see it to minimize exposure.


On Indiegogo and Reddit I asked Atari if it's the actual AtariVCS board driving these demos, and they've avoided answering.  And while Atari is bad about answering questions, they usually do answer polite questions on their subreddit that look bad to not answer when they have an easy answer that looks good.  Atari's answer should basically just be "yes" unless we've been misled.  But yesterday Atari deleted an adjacent post on the subreddit and responded to question on Indiegogo without responding to mine.   Maybe they're just being slow or unresponsive, but it doesn't look good to me.  The last question on their subreddit they didn't directly answer was about whether they'd have an official booth on the CES floor.

 

328962341_Screenshot2020-01-1408_48_28.thumb.png.b190219d0e8e1f59ec5039cbddcc7b19.png

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24 minutes ago, Paul Slocum said:

 

I realized that probably the best way to fake it would just be to put a different board in the AtariVCS case, like an Udoo Bolt Ryzen board.  Considering how ambiguous the wording of their CES Twitter posts CES Medium update is, and considering what they've done in the past like with Tempest 4000, it is completely plausible that they've put in another x86 board or crammed their Ryzen development board inside.  You could also fake it with another computer and wireless HDMI extenders.

 

Also, notice that when Atari is doing that demo video in the same room, there's a second cable going to the TV that's not in that photo.  That Lunar Lander launch screen in the photo could be a JPEG shown off a USB stick plugged in the back of the TV for all we know ("Please Do Not Touch")

 

Ultimately the best proof would have been to let journalists see it.  They went to Vegas and set up a demo suite during an event that boasts 6000 members of the media, and only one journalist was interested in seeing and writing about a new Atari console!?  Their NDA must be absurd and/or they're hiding so much that they literally just wanted one journalist to see it to minimize exposure.


On Indiegogo and Reddit I asked Atari if it's the actual AtariVCS board driving these demos, and they've avoided answering.  And while Atari is bad about answering questions, they usually do answer polite questions on their subreddit that look bad to not answer when they have an easy answer that looks good.  Atari's answer should basically just be "yes" unless we've been misled.  But yesterday Atari deleted an adjacent post on the subreddit and responded to question on Indiegogo without responding to mine.   Maybe they're just being slow or unresponsive, but it doesn't look good to me.  The last question on their subreddit they didn't directly answer was about whether they'd have an official booth on the CES floor.

 

328962341_Screenshot2020-01-1408_48_28.thumb.png.b190219d0e8e1f59ec5039cbddcc7b19.png

If it is indeed faked like you're suggesting, then Atari's going to have a big problem on their shoulders with lawsuits and everything. At this point, I frankly doubt it's fake anymore-- just poorly poorly presented to us (it's clear at this point their PR team is socially awkward). 

 

Also, if they indeed crammed a different x86 board into the VCS shell, then why not just have that produced as part of the real console? It would technically work. Lol.

 

Kingston and PowerA are third party companies with real products on the market. I imagine if they associated their name with Atari, and it turned out Atari scammed backers of $3 million, their companies will lose a lot of stock value.

 

I'm not saying anyone calling this fake is wrong, but if it is indeed a fake-out, and a scam, then this is probably going to put a few companies in the toilet, in effect making this to be one of the absolute worst money-making schemes in video game history. At that point, I would find it hard to believe Atari is being ran by actual people, and not just some pre-programmed cloud-based AI system. Lol...

Edited by Lodmot
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I'm not sure why you would think it's actually running Atari's board they intend to manufacture. They just said in their latest update that they were redesigning their board to remove resistors and some other nonsense. Why on Earth would they have a fully functional 1st version board if that's their story now? It's definitely another x86 board taped inside their shell at best. Probably why they have Windows running on it because it moved over with the board. Instant demo unit. Honestly, do you need to bother calling it a fake at this point. It's supposedly a garden variety PC running in their plastic box for illustration purposes only, so fake, real, doesn't matter what you call it. It's not looking any closer to being shipped.

Edited by JBerel
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22 minutes ago, Lodmot said:

At this point, I frankly doubt it's fake anymore-- just poorly poorly presented to us (it's clear at this point their PR team is socially awkward). 

 

I do keep asking myself whether it's the worst publicity ever or if they really don't have anything, but I'm now leaning towards fake.

 

22 minutes ago, Lodmot said:

Kingston and PowerA are third party companies with real products on the market. I imagine if they associated their name with Atari, and it turned out Atari scammed backers of $3 million, their companies will lose a lot of stock value.

 

PowerA seems to have distanced themselves from the project from what I've seen.  The last time I can find that they tweeted about it was July 2018.  Plus even if the AtariVCS fails, I could see the controllers still possibly being delivered.

 

And I'm wondering how much of a real partnership that was with Kingston.  I suspect that Atari just sought out whatever vendors they already had any loose connection to and then proposed Atari social media promotion in exchange for a little table space.  Kingston is the perfect target because it makes a really boring booth a little more interesting.

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7 minutes ago, JBerel said:

I'm not sure why you would think it's actually running Atari's board they intend to manufacture. They just said in their latest update that they were redesigning their board to remove resistors and some other nonsense. Why on Earth would they have a fully functional 1st version board if that's their story now? It's definitely another x86 board taped inside their shell at best. Probably why they have Windows running on it because it moved over with the board. Instant demo unit. Honestly, do you need to bother calling it a fake at this point. It's supposedly a garden variety PC running in their plastic box for illustration purposes only, so fake, real, doesn't matter what you call it. It's not looking any closer to being shipped.

I dunno, that just sounds kinda odd to me... If Atari was able to figure out how to seamlessly install a completely different x86-compatible board in the VCS, why not just ship the console with that board instead, rather than going through all the trouble to make a new board with the help of Rob Wyatt (whom they now owe money to)? Just seems like a hell of a lot of trouble just so they can trick people... They can only keep going with this schpeel for so long before they either run out of money or get sued, etc.

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1 hour ago, Lodmot said:

If it is indeed faked like you're suggesting, then Atari's going to have a big problem on their shoulders with lawsuits and everything. At this point, I frankly doubt it's fake anymore-- just poorly poorly presented to us (it's clear at this point their PR team is socially awkward). 

 

Also, if they indeed crammed a different x86 board into the VCS shell, then why not just have that produced as part of the real console? It would technically work. Lol.

 

Kingston and PowerA are third party companies with real products on the market. I imagine if they associated their name with Atari, and it turned out Atari scammed backers of $3 million, their companies will lose a lot of stock value.

 

I'm not saying anyone calling this fake is wrong, but if it is indeed a fake-out, and a scam, then this is probably going to put a few companies in the toilet, in effect making this to be one of the absolute worst money-making schemes in video game history. At that point, I would find it hard to believe Atari is being ran by actual people, and not just some pre-programmed cloud-based AI system. Lol...

 

Perhaps the reason they didn't answer the question about how their display was running was because no one asked if it was just a different computer running Atari Vault, with all hardware/software action occurring off screen "For Illustrative Purposes Only".

 

As far as stock values,  I don't think Kingston nor Power A are publicly traded companies.  They are probably privately owned businesses just making deals.  I plugged them into the search engine on my brokerage account and got no hits, though maybe I'd need to know (the names of) their parent companies...

 

Or you may have just meant it would make them look bad,  and yes it would...

 

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3 minutes ago, Lodmot said:

If Atari was able to figure out how to seamlessly install a completely different x86-compatible board in the VCS, why not just ship the console with that board instead, rather than going through all the trouble to make a new board with the help of Rob Wyatt (whom they now owe money to)?

I didn't mean that they would necessarily install it seamlessly for CES, just good enough for a demonstration.  In the videos we never saw the back, the cables could just be hanging out the back or attached with short extensions.

 

But I've actually thought a lot about your question (why didn't they just partner with Udoo to make a board?) and I think it's that they wanted to say their board was designed by the guy who made the XBox to call attention away from the fact that it's just an x86 PC.

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12 minutes ago, Lodmot said:

I dunno, that just sounds kinda odd to me... If Atari was able to figure out how to seamlessly install a completely different x86-compatible board in the VCS, why not just ship the console with that board instead, rather than going through all the trouble to make a new board with the help of Rob Wyatt (whom they now owe money to)? Just seems like a hell of a lot of trouble just so they can trick people... They can only keep going with this schpeel for so long before they either run out of money or get sued, etc.

 

C'mon guys!  There's a huge difference between a thoroughly-tested-and-proven board and one being designed by a company new to the field.  Hardware is hard!  That's why they're on version 2.0 already (and more to come?). What I saw was great, and spoke well of fantastic things on the way.  Atari is amazing and will change the world.  

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48 minutes ago, JBerel said:

I'm not sure why you would think it's actually running Atari's board they intend to manufacture. They just said in their latest update that they were redesigning their board to remove resistors and some other nonsense.

To deliver in the next few months it seems like they'd have to have some kind of working custom AtariVCS board by now.  There's a big difference between a board that can't be demonstrated at all and a board that just needs adjustments to improve thermals and meet electrical certification.  I think most people initially thought it was the latter, including me.

 

If they actually have an AtariVCS board that can at least boot and run the stuff they showed, then even though the project is still a mess because of the state of the software, backers will probably get something that at least runs Windows and Retropie.

 

If they were running the demos on the Ryzen developer board for the processor that they're using and actually have their bootloaders and drivers working reasonably well, then they could still deliver but it may be a long way off.

 

If they were running it off an Udoo or other PC, then the project may be doomed.

Edited by Paul Slocum
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9 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

 

C'mon guys!  There's a huge difference between a thoroughly-tested-and-proven board and one being designed by a company new to the field.  Hardware is hard!  That's why they're on version 2.0 already (and more to come?). What I saw was great, and spoke well of fantastic things on the way.  Atari is amazing and will change the world.  

Hey, welcome back. o u o

How was your long break from the taco thread? ;D

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13 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

 

I'm just so excited from the trip that I can't help myself.

Great things are yet to come!

 

Damnit PlaysWithWolves!

 

My Sarcasm Detector is in the shop and even in the past it didn't work too well....So when I read your earlier post before 2 swigs of coffee with my morning eyes ...Let's just say I was only looking for one speakerhat mention,   some kind of Paddle type functionality, or the words Atari Tacos that would tell me I was just being played with...And maybe I prefer to play with myself OK?  Wait that didn't come out right! (That's what she said) ...

 

Now...What was I talking about?  ummm nevermind...Awww   Hell,   there's gotta be a meme around here somewhere...

 

293ui3.jpg

 

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2 hours ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

 

Dan Ackerman played Missile Command on the E3 CNET video (about ~2:58).  Just wait and see!

 

 

 

Ah yes, the video showing it running Borderlands 2 (released in 2012) at a brisk 12 frames a second with low res graphics settings.  Cutting edge!

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28 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

My Sarcasm Detector is in the shop and even in the past it didn't work too well....So when I read your earlier post before 2 swigs of coffee with my morning eyes ...Let's just say I was only looking for one speakerhat mention,   some kind of Paddle type functionality, or the words Atari Tacos that would tell me I was just being played with...And maybe I prefer to play with myself OK?  Wait that didn't come out right! (That's what she said) ...

 

They're paying attention to this thread and we've helped improve the Atari VCS!

It'll be great for families and a real way to change the world.  

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12 hours ago, Lodmot said:

I was referring to the backer units, which there will probably need to be between 6,000-10,000 of. For any other company, that number makes no sense, but for Atari-- thats a MASSIVE undertaking. xD

 

I actually have a couple of PowerA's controllers-- they're honestly pretty good, and they look cool too. I think I might be the only one that actually likes their stuff, lol

Nah, I've been using PowerA controllers for my switch for months... they feel solid and comfortable.  So far I don't get the hate.

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My gripe with PowerA Switch controllers is that they are missing a lot of functionality compared to Nintendo ones. For three obvious examples, there's no Amiibo, no HD Rumble, and you can't just pop one on the USB lead to keep it charged. That makes them OK for some games, but sub-optimal for others.

 

That's fair enough, I suppose, when you consider that they're a realively small company and can't afford to throw the tens of millions at designing a new controller that Nintendo would, but that means that the only way they can compete is by offering controllers that generally aren't as good for a lower price. Presumably the same goes for their Sony/Microsoft alternates, although I suspect they're working to much tighter margins with those.

 

Still, props to them for managing to find a niche where they can survive alongside the big boys, which is something that Atari merely aspires to do with the new VCS, and in all likelihood will not succeed at. 

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