New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[racerx]

27 minutes ago, TACODON said:

How much is it to finance my VCS? I heading to my Credit Union to find out!

They're partnering with Klarna.

 

A sleazy "videogame company" partnering with and even sleazier credit/financing company.

 

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

[JeffVav]

2 hours ago, Downland1983 said:

The N64 and Gamecube were not the weakest consoles on the market.  Their chosen software formats (cartridge for N64 and mini-disc for GC) handicapped them, but as far as specs go, they were actually more powerful than their PlayStation counterparts.

FWIW when we were developing 3-platform games for those generations back in the day, extra optimisation was needed on both N64 and GameCube over what it took on PlayStation. They may have been more powerful by some metrics, but there were trade offs. 

[flickertail]

4 hours ago, TACODON said:

They apparently haven't sold enough systems yet to make their legal botnet network big enough for Atari Token to be profitable.

[TACODON]

Is there such a thing as bomb-diggity financing? 

 

Maybe P-dubs can loan me some token to get this preorder done!

 

Game, stream, scam like never before!

[Shaggy the Atarian]

10 minutes ago, TACODON said:

Game, stream, scam like never before!

We have a new slogan! 

[+frankodragon]

Atari: We're partnering with the worst, unreliable companies because we said so.

[roots.genoa]

2 hours ago, JeffVav said:

FWIW when we were developing 3-platform games for those generations back in the day, extra optimisation was needed on both N64 and GameCube over what it took on PlayStation. They may have been more powerful by some metrics, but there were trade offs. 

Sure, but what he meant is Nintendo started to consciously release 'underpowered' consoles with the Wii. N64 and GameCube were clearly designed to be on par with the competition.

[OCAT]

I see they are still using rendered images, I thought this thing was finished?
C'mon show it to us in all it's faux woodgrain glory. Entice people with pics ?
Oh I cannot wait until shipping dates are missed, not only missed but the barfed all over. I cannot under any circumstance imagine Cheesehead parting with 3 million dollars when he has NO obligation, he just needs a very plausible reason why he cannot produce and ship the other 3 million units and that 3 million (minus fees to make 96) are his for the keeping. ??????????? C'mon cheesehead you KNOW who your dark master is.

(Allegedly)

Edited August 7, 2020 by OCAT

[jamm]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

Sure, but what he meant is Nintendo started to consciously release 'underpowered' consoles with the Wii. N64 and GameCube were clearly designed to be on par with the competition.

The N64 and GameCube were underpowered compared to the competition.  The difference is, by the time the Wii came around, it was clear that Nintendo had made a conscious decision to not try to fight Sony and Microsoft on the hardware front.  You might say the same thing about the GameCube, but I think with N64 it was just a case of underestimating how Sony was going to shake up the market.

 

The N64 was released in mid-1996, while the PlayStation was out late-1995.  It couldn't be designed to be "on par" with PlayStation because there was not enough time to make significant changes to the N64 and the PlayStation represented a new direction for console gaming.

 

Edit: I got the date wrong on the PS release - it was out in late 1994 in Japan.  So I don't know what Nintendo's excuse was for not doing better than they did with the N64 other than they were the undefeatable market leader at the time.    (Though you could still argue that they didn't have a lot of time to react to PS.)

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by jamm

[DragonGrafx-16]

30 minutes ago, jamm said:

The N64 and GameCube were underpowered compared to the competition.  The difference is, by the time the Wii came around, it was clear that Nintendo had made a conscious decision to not try to fight Sony and Microsoft on the hardware front.  You might say the same thing about the GameCube, but I think with N64 it was just a case of underestimating how Sony was going to shake up the market.

 

The N64 was released in mid-1996, while the PlayStation was out late-1995.  It couldn't be designed to be "on par" with PlayStation because there was not enough time to make significant changes to the N64 and the PlayStation represented a new direction for console gaming.

 

Edit: I got the date wrong on the PS release - it was out in late 1994 in Japan.  So I don't know what Nintendo's excuse was for not doing better than they did with the N64 other than they were the undefeatable market leader at the time.    (Though you could still argue that they didn't have a lot of time to react to PS.)

 

The N64 wasn't underpowered in it's generation... in fact it beats the PS1 in pretty much all areas besides sound and textures.

 

N64: 

Processor: 93.75 MHz NEC VR4300, based on MIPS R4300i-series 64-bit RISC CPU.

RAM: 4 MiB RDRAM (upgradeable to 8 MiB with 4 MiB Expansion Pak) 

Graphics: SGI 62.5 MHz 64-bit RCP (Reality Coprocessor) contains two sub-processors

 

PS1:

CPU: 32-bit RISC MIPS R3000A-compatible MIPS R3051 (33.8688 MHz)

MDEC (motion decoder) for FMV playback.

RAM: 2 MB main, 1 MB video.

Graphics: GPU and Geometry Transformation Engine (GTE), with 2D rotation, scaling (2.5D), transparency and fading, and 3D affine texture mapping and shading.

 

Saturn:

CPU: Two 32-bit SH–2 (28.6MHz) RISC processors.

RAM: 2MB, Video RAM: 1.5MB.

Graphics: VDP1 and VDP2 with texturing, lighting, transparency.

VDP1 – objects (quadrilateral sprites and polygons): 200,000 textured polygons per second, 140,000 with added gouraud shading.

 

 

On pure hardware specs alone the N64 kills it until the Dreamcast came along.

Edited August 7, 2020 by DragonGrafx-16

[godslabrat]

1 hour ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

The N64 wasn't underpowered in it's generation... in fact it beats the PS1 in pretty much all areas besides sound and textures.

 

N64: 

Processor: 93.75 MHz NEC VR4300, based on MIPS R4300i-series 64-bit RISC CPU.

RAM: 4 MiB RDRAM (upgradeable to 8 MiB with 4 MiB Expansion Pak) 

Graphics: SGI 62.5 MHz 64-bit RCP (Reality Coprocessor) contains two sub-processors

 

PS1:

CPU: 32-bit RISC MIPS R3000A-compatible MIPS R3051 (33.8688 MHz)

MDEC (motion decoder) for FMV playback.

RAM: 2 MB main, 1 MB video.

Graphics: GPU and Geometry Transformation Engine (GTE), with 2D rotation, scaling (2.5D), transparency and fading, and 3D affine texture mapping and shading.

 

Saturn:

CPU: Two 32-bit SH–2 (28.6MHz) RISC processors.

RAM: 2MB, Video RAM: 1.5MB.

Graphics: VDP1 and VDP2 with texturing, lighting, transparency.

VDP1 – objects (quadrilateral sprites and polygons): 200,000 textured polygons per second, 140,000 with added gouraud shading.

 

 

On pure hardware specs alone the N64 kills it until the Dreamcast came along.

OT: Now that flashcarts have made the storage limitations of carts irrelevant, I wonder if someone would make a CD-sized game for the N64.  Would be an interesting technical experiment.

 

taco.

[OCAT]

Please stop mentioning Dreamcast... such a hot name for a videogame system ???

Atari's choice to regurgitate the VCS name makes me wanna ?? also.

[+frankodragon]

According to this on Wikipedia:

 

Quote

The Nintendo 64 was released in 1996. At the time, The Economist described the system as "horrendously complex".^[1] The difficulties were said to be a combination of oversight on the part of the hardware designers, limitations on 3D graphics, technology limits of that time, and manufacturing issues.

As the Nintendo 64 reached the end of its lifecycle, hardware development chief Genyo Takeda referred to its programming challenges using the word hansei (Japanese: 反省 "reflective regret"). Takeda said, "When we made Nintendo 64, we thought it was logical that if you want to make advanced games, it becomes technically more difficult. We were wrong. We now understand it's the cruising speed that matters, not the momentary flash of peak power."

 

[Osgeld]

2 hours ago, frankodragon said:

According to this on Wikipedia:

 

 

yea that is what I was thinking, its complex, doesnt matter if you have a 16TB hard drive, its a hard system to deal with considering its from the ground up design ... not saying its the hardest system do develop for, its just the least understood and its defiantly like driving a pro dragster on the highway 

[roots.genoa]

8 hours ago, jamm said:

The N64 and GameCube were underpowered compared to the competition.

Then the Saturn is underpowered compared to the PlayStation, the PS2 is underpowered compared to the Xbox, the PS3 is underpowered to the Xbox 360, etc. What I meant is the Wii clearly doesn't even belong to the same hardware 'generation' (even though that concept can be very subjective) as its competition. Claiming the same thing for the N64 and the GameCube doesn't make sense to me, but I feel this debate won't go anywhere. -_-

[Mikebloke]

Whoops I started something off with my Nintendo baiting, but it does feel like we're all playing different Nintendo consoles. Anyway...

 

My point was more the fact that there is a market for weaker consoles but marketing and exclusivity is everything. Nintendo has survived with this sense of 1st and 2nd party (eg: old Rare titles, Nintendo exclusive companies) exclusive titles and ease of movement, something they have been trying to push since Gamecube to merge its very successful handheld business which they had a virtual monopoly to even after Sony joined it, into the living room.

 

Atari in comparison has none of these things, Amico whatever the strength of its games, does. Its merely a reliteration of the point that anything I can play on the ataribox, I can play elsewhere now anyway. If the "netflix mum" element is also being removed, my PS3 still serves a better purpose as a multi-media device because it can still run Netflix and Amazon Video.

 

Edit: Just want to say, I usually have at least two of the following out: SNES, Gamecube or Wii U which is my fav nintendo consoles out on the TV, this is because exclusive titles is FUN to play, regardless of how the games match up compared to the competition. I'm never going to be wowed by the graphics of a Nintendo company, but that doesn't mean they don't have good games.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Mikebloke

[OCAT]

I have never seen a promotion for a SCAM extended. (smh)

If I was a consumer I would be asking many, many questions.

So your console is only available for pre-order and ships in months not weeks?
-YES!!! $389.99 you save $10

You have demo models available yes?
-No only for friends, bribes and alleged Devs and Merchants.

May I at least see the finished product?
-No

Can you post pictures and a video of the product?
-No

Can I see the box?
-Nope

Is there any evidence that this product exists other that hearsay?
-yes, Conjecture and the the previously mentioned Hearsay.

Why do you have your passport and a sack of money in your hand?
-This interview is over!!!

(Allegedly)

Edited August 8, 2020 by OCAT

[Matt_B]

22 hours ago, godslabrat said:

OT: Now that flashcarts have made the storage limitations of carts irrelevant, I wonder if someone would make a CD-sized game for the N64.  Would be an interesting technical experiment.

You could, but it's not like it'd open up any radical new gameplay possibilities. The main advantage of CD media at the time was the ability to store a large amount of pre-rendered video and audio tracks and even back in the day it was possible, if a bit complex technically, to deliver these on the N64 if your publisher was prepared to pay for a large enough cartridge.

 

Few were, although here's a good article about how Resident Evil 2 was ported over:

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-retro-why-resident-evil-2-n64-is-one-of-the-most-ambitious-ports-of-all-time

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

Interesting to see the discussion go in terms of power...since the N64 is being mentioned, not many know that Sega had a chance to use the N64 chipset for the Saturn, but they decided to pass on it where they had the Saturn hardware far along. Eventually Silicon Graphics found a buyer with Nintendo. 

 

But that minutiae aside, power only takes you so far. If you are spending millions of dollars on making a video game, you want it to sell on a platform with millions of customers (or potentially millions). Not 10,000. The sticking point for the VCS and the Amico in today's market, which is significantly different from the 1990's(a time where DVD players were new, the internet was new and mostly via dial-up, no social media, no smartphones or tablets or App Stores, etc.), is that they don't have the same resources as Sony/MS/Nintendo have for producing games. Atari even less so than Intellivision it seems. 

 

If the VCS were 10x more powerful than the PS5, would that change anything? No. Microsoft has been playing the power game since the original Xbox, and it's only gotten them so far; Devs have hopped on because they know there will be sales. They made stuff for the Wii in abundance because Nintendo created enough value for it that led to everyone and their grandparents wanting one. With sales like that, developers were eager to get on board as it was apparent that the system would be a success. They did not jump onto the WiiU as eagerly, as they saw that it was not as hot an item for consumers and it had confused messaging.

 

I know certain shills want to continue believing that the Atari name still has that same kind of value as it did in 1981 - it doesn't. Not even close. That's why no AAA, AA or A studio has signed on to the VCS so far (I just don't see it happening at all). For a highly publicized crowdfunding campaign, they only managed to make $3m. That's also nothing in a business where most top-of-the-line games would spend more than $3m on marketing alone.  

 

The VCS has some of the most confusing messaging ever seen in the console business, and they've managed to botch all of their "good will first impressions" that every gets to enjoy or fail out when you unveil a product. On top of that, they have no money (and a terrible reputation) to fund a bunch of AAA "2nd party" devs (like Nintendo did with Platinum Games) that could help make up for it. I see no possible way for them to "right the ship," which is why we have tacos to keep us fed during the entertainment.

 

Edited August 8, 2020 by Shaggy the Atarian
added a paragraph because I talk too much

[Chopsus]

Agree, despite all the recent hype giving the impression of progress, there have been no reports from fATARI (or elsewhere) that production is actually underway.  If it was, they would be crowing alongside the recent PS5 production announcements.

 

At this point it is still marketing hype and wishful thinking ... scam when the presales continue to be open and pushed in the way they are.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Chopsus

[orange808]

Nintendo is a software house first and a hardware company second.  Content is king and it always has been. They don't just "survive", they thrive. 

 

That's because  Nintendo committed to their developers early and never stopped.  Nintendo's talent stays put.  Nintendo invented the business model.  

 

Atari is a joke and has been for decades.  Atari was on life support from the moment they allowed Activision to happen.  

 

Atari's disdain for devs killed the company long ago.  It's too late for a comeback. 

 

Nintendo did it right and that's why they succeed.  On the other hand, Atari execs were and are lazy grifters.

 

Every generation, some kid with a fancy new Xbone or PlayStation declares Nintendo's "lame kiddie" business dead.  They're (supposed) "luck" is always about to run out.  lmao

 

It's not luck.  It's a consistent commitment to content.

 

Atari can't replicate that.

 

[OCAT]

Looking at all the comments on what Nintendo does right and Atari did wrong should hit home to everyone shilling for Atari.
I will try to put together some points that I observe in a subjective way.
Now take this with a shake of salt on your Taco, this is what has been said in the last few hundred pages from memory.

1- People who have shown interest to develop games for Atari have reported no reply from Atari. Very very bad.

2- There will be very small number of consoles. Atari themselves are touting Sandbox Mode, meaning the hardware will never be put onto the streaming platform and none of them will be buying games, Just like the Playstation Debacle where people were buying the PS3 to use as a super-computer with the Other OS function.
Many people have said they just want to use the Ataribox as a streaming box and lounge PC. No reveneu for Atari and partners from the Sandbox mode consoles. That leaves even less consoles generating revenue.

3- Advertising is non-existant, not only that but if you TRY to find information on the system, you just cant.

4- In a battered worldwide economy, no one other than niche buyers are going to spend money on this thing.

5-Atari never had any intention to actually go through with the plan to build anything, they are stalling because they know it will be a massive failure. They are looking to mitigate any negative costs to the company. This was all aplan to make Atari more attraactive for a buyout. They are taking off the shelf "parts" for every aspect of the system. Games are from a streaming service they do not have to maintain in any way. There is nothing stopping these games from being played on a computer using the josystick or controller, making the VCS unnecessary.

(Allegedly)

[Yarzzz]

2 hours ago, orange808 said:

 

Atari can't replicate that.

 

They are not even trying. They are just milking the brand all they can until its dry and meaningless.

[+Andrew Davie]

10 hours ago, OCAT said:

(Allegedly)

 

That's not going to protect you in any courts of law, you know.

Allegedly.

 

[godslabrat]

2 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

 

That's not going to protect you in any courts of law, you know.

Allegedly.

 

I have a legal defense for everything I've said in this forum.  I believe the Latin terminology is "Come at me, bro."