New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[JBerel]

It's pretty certain their various "nightlight" versions were 3D printed plastic slugs like their "sample controllers", or simply laminated plastic. Probably with drilled out cavities to insert one or more LEDs with a connector to a DC supply. Glue on a piece of woodgrain paper laminate and a hunk of orange plastic to cover the sloppy holes and wiring, and you've got an Atari VCS. They're only very recently at a point where they can even do an injection mold hobby enclosure, and it looks exactly like you would expect. shiny cheap plastic. 

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if their first "demo" units were simply CNC routed cuts of sheet plastic glued together just like their hair brained construction concept that never would have allowed the installation or ventilation of actual electronics. A proper routing bit and a wheel polish on each piece would give you the matte look which they don't appear to know how to accomplish now.

 

 

Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM)

This is a rapid prototyping system. In this process, layers of material coated with adhesive are fused together with heat and pressure and then cut into shape using a laser cutter or knife.    More specifically, a foil coated with adhesive is overlaid on the previous layer and a heated roller heats the adhesive for adhesion between the two layers.  Layers can be made of paper, plastic or metal laminates. The process can include post-processing steps that include machining and drilling.  This is a fast and inexpensive method of 3D printing.  With the use of an adhesion process, no chemical process is necessary and relatively large parts can be made.

 

 

[Tavi]

1 hour ago, tschak909 said:

I will reiterate:

 

Atari has had flattening growth in their post-Infogrames licensing model of trumping out their brand at $500,000 a pop, for years.

 

They wanted to dump their penny stock.

 

They decided to generate hype over a console, to inflate interest enough for a bigger fish to buy them.

 

They pull a favor someone from someone at Sonos to fabricate a case, they did not ask him to make something that was mass-producible.

 

They contract a company to make controllers. Do not pay them. This later causes one of the production delays.

 

They hit upon the idea to crowd-fund this thing, brought in a guy who had experience doing this multiple times, never-mind that he's a serial crowdscammer...

 

Crowd-scammer leaves over non-payment, sues, they settle.

 

They find an experienced system designer in Rob Wyatt/Tin Giant. Who DOES have shipping hardware under his belt. He works for 6 months, non-payment. Left in October. Law suit probably coming.

 

Emergency shareholders meeting took place two days ago over the fact that nobody is signed on as a third party developer (and specifically how Unity is not supporting them as an explicit target), to basically beg for their support.

 

There is no indication that the board that was shown even boots.

 

There is no Atari branded operating system, they're saying "load your own."

 

Two distinctly different system configurations.

 

And they're delaying yet again.

 

Atari never intended to actually go through with any of this, and are currently trying to find a way to do the least amount of effort as humanly possible while running away with as much of the crowd-funded money as humanly possible.

 

-Thom

I was having very similar thoughts about this recently.

It would almost seem that Atari was banking on another Oculus-type buyout to occur. Raise a few million through crowdfunding, get some product hype going and catch the attention of one of the big industry players who then buys you out for an obscene amount of money. Either because they think your project will make money, or just to cut out some competition.

It does appear Atari was caught completely flat-footed in that they might actually have to design and produce their new promoted VCS. They keep pushing back their deadlines, and have yet to release any real advancements to a deliverable product other then creating a handful of prototype shells (apparently subject to change). The actual hardware and the software/operating system is almost a complete mystery.

When the only thing you have to show for a year and a half of work so far is a few plastic shells that you are not even 100% sure you are going to use, it does not look good at all for Atari to have the VCS units designed, debugged, produced, assembled and out for delivery in 3 months time.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Tavi
Spelling corrections

[Lodmot]

4 minutes ago, Tavi said:

I was having very similar thoughts about this recently.

It would almost seem that Atari was banking on another Oculus-trype buyout to occur. Raise a few million through crowdfunding, get some product hype going and catch the attention of one of the big industry players who then buys you out for an obscene amount of money. Either because they think your project will make money, or just to cut out some competition.

It does appear Atari was caught completely flat-footed in that they might actually have to design and produce their new promoted VCS. They keep pushing back their deadlines, and have yet to release any real advancements to a deliverable product other then creating a handful of prototype shells (apparently subject to change). The actual hardware and the software/operating system is almost a complete mystery.

When the only thing you have to show for a year and a half of work so far is a few plastic shells that you are not even 100% sure you are going to use, it does not look good at all for Atari to have the VCS units designed, debugged, produced, assembled and out for delivery in 3 months time.

I will say, they still did more than Coleco Chameleon. Instead of one shell, they produced 6 shells. xD

 

To give them credit though, they did come up with their own original casing. And the vast majority of people responded well to it. So, there's that. o u o 

[JBerel]

Not to perpetuate more fraud, but one of their pics does seem to show the front and underside of this shiny plastic delight. I bet they have a stack of sticky laser-cut wood grain paper labels laying around to stick on the front. That would seem to suggest these are in fact what they hope to send to backers, despite calling them pre-production testing samples. So ya gotta give them credit for at least getting someone to make injection molds finally. Having any functional electronics to put inside, let alone content to run on it is a different matter. I sure hope they get Ackky the Sloth, Official Atari Mascot to sign each of these highly collectible units.

 

[PlaysWithWolves]

2 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

Did they ever post a picture of the so-called newly designed case looks like from the front? Is it now double cheeseburger thick instead of single patty delicious?

 

Two shots from this year's E3.  The first comes from CNET's video, and shows a decent view (if you zoom in):

 

 

The second is a the best shot yet and comes from Atari's Medium.com post:

 

[Flojomojo]

2 hours ago, Lodmot said:

I will say, they still did more than Coleco Chameleon. Instead of one shell, they produced 6 shells. xD

This is very funny, but is factually incorrect. 

 

Mike Kennedy (RetroVGS/Coleco Chameleon) never delivered a working system, but he made bunches of custom Atari Jaguar-style console shells from the original molds. They were done in multiple plastic colors including a translucent version. I don't know about their quality, but others on this board could speak to that. I wouldn't call it mass production (no way he could turn out 6,000 units) but he took orders, and as far as I know, he fulfilled them in a timely fashion. I've seen pictures of them and others have seen them in person. 

 

Mike Kennedy never took any customer money for RetroVGS/Coleco Chameleon.

"Atari" hasn't distributed any physical objects to their Indiegogo backers except for T-shirts and empty promises, despite collecting that oft-cited three million dollars in mid-2018.

 

 

They're arguably way behind Chameleon in terms of actual delivery and follow-through. 

 

In that last Medium advertorial, Mike Arzt ("Atari" COO) made a point of saying this

Quote

We decided to close our active Indiegogo campaign after 30 days when we hit the $3 million mark so we could focus on product development.

Can someone explain to me how keeping a crowdfunding campaign (run by someone else, with an uninformed hired hand answering questions) would interfere with "focus on product development?"

1. Did he mean to say that it was clear that there was a ceiling to the number of suckers who would pay in advance for their scheme, and it was embarrassing how it was no longer growing?
2. And that removing it from IndieGogo would obscure the fact that they weren't selling any more?
3. And they didn't want to pay a percentage to IndieGogo anymore?
4. Or that it was unseemly for a publicly traded company on international stock exchanges to be e-begging for development money?
5. Or that this was really just a scheme to test the waters, that they didn't intend to actually have to make anything, and were hoping to pass along the project as part of a business acquisition/selloff?
6. Or they needed to show Walmart/Gamestop that somebody, anybody, actually wanted their stupidbox?
7. Something else? I have trouble accepting that anything went down like Mike Arzt said it did, because he has no credibility. 

 

[godslabrat]

6 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

This is very funny, but is factually incorrect. 

 

Mike Kennedy (RetroVGS/Coleco Chameleon) never delivered a working system, but he made bunches of custom Atari Jaguar-style console shells from the original molds. They were done in multiple plastic colors including a translucent version. I don't know about their quality, but others on this board could speak to that. I wouldn't call it mass production (no way he could turn out 6,000 units) but he took orders, and as far as I know, he fulfilled them in a timely fashion. I've seen pictures of them and others have seen them in person. 

 

Mike Kennedy never took any customer money for RetroVGS/Coleco Chameleon.

"Atari" hasn't distributed any physical objects to their Indiegogo backers except for T-shirts and empty promises, despite collecting that oft-cited three million dollars in mid-2018.

 

 

They're arguably way behind Chameleon in terms of actual delivery and follow-through. 

 

In that last Medium advertorial, Mike Arzt ("Atari" COO) made a point of saying this

Can someone explain to me how keeping a crowdfunding campaign (run by someone else, with an uninformed hired hand answering questions) would interfere with "focus on product development?"

1. Did he mean to say that it was clear that there was a ceiling to the number of suckers who would pay in advance for their scheme, and it was embarrassing how it was no longer growing?
2. And that removing it from IndieGogo would obscure the fact that they weren't selling any more?
3. And they didn't want to pay a percentage to IndieGogo anymore?
4. Or that it was unseemly for a publicly traded company on international stock exchanges to be e-begging for development money?
5. Or that this was really just a scheme to test the waters, that they didn't intend to actually have to make anything, and were hoping to pass along the project as part of a business acquisition/selloff?
6. Or they needed to show Walmart/Gamestop that somebody, anybody, actually wanted their stupidbox?
7. Something else? I have trouble accepting that anything went down like Mike Arzt said it did, because he has no credibility. 

 

Slight correction: Mike Kennedy DID take money for the RVGS, but that money was returned when the crowdfunding failed.  Returning the money doesn't negate taking it in the first place.

 

Anyway, how long will it be until the molds for the AtariBox fall into Kennedy's hands, and he gets the idea to try again?

[Lodmot]

29 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

This is very funny, but is factually incorrect. 

 

Mike Kennedy (RetroVGS/Coleco Chameleon) never delivered a working system, but he made bunches of custom Atari Jaguar-style console shells from the original molds. They were done in multiple plastic colors including a translucent version. I don't know about their quality, but others on this board could speak to that. I wouldn't call it mass production (no way he could turn out 6,000 units) but he took orders, and as far as I know, he fulfilled them in a timely fashion. I've seen pictures of them and others have seen them in person. 

 

Mike Kennedy never took any customer money for RetroVGS/Coleco Chameleon.

"Atari" hasn't distributed any physical objects to their Indiegogo backers except for T-shirts and empty promises, despite collecting that oft-cited three million dollars in mid-2018.

 

 

They're arguably way behind Chameleon in terms of actual delivery and follow-through. 

 

In that last Medium advertorial, Mike Arzt ("Atari" COO) made a point of saying this

Can someone explain to me how keeping a crowdfunding campaign (run by someone else, with an uninformed hired hand answering questions) would interfere with "focus on product development?"

1. Did he mean to say that it was clear that there was a ceiling to the number of suckers who would pay in advance for their scheme, and it was embarrassing how it was no longer growing?
2. And that removing it from IndieGogo would obscure the fact that they weren't selling any more?
3. And they didn't want to pay a percentage to IndieGogo anymore?
4. Or that it was unseemly for a publicly traded company on international stock exchanges to be e-begging for development money?
5. Or that this was really just a scheme to test the waters, that they didn't intend to actually have to make anything, and were hoping to pass along the project as part of a business acquisition/selloff?
6. Or they needed to show Walmart/Gamestop that somebody, anybody, actually wanted their stupidbox?
7. Something else? I have trouble accepting that anything went down like Mike Arzt said it did, because he has no credibility. 

 

Ah, did not know about the different colored moldings. I stand corrected. o u o

Also, that's really good that they returned all their backers' money. For the amount of flack i always see regarding the Coleco Chameleon, that's very commendable of them to do that. 

 

Also also, just out of curiosity: When you say he "fulfilled the orders in a timely fashion", do you mean like he actually shipped the consoles to a few of those that backed it? 

Edited December 5, 2019 by Lodmot

[Flojomojo]

On 6/4/2018 at 7:23 PM, Flojomojo said:

If anyone thinks RetroPie is "computer science stuff," just wait until the "open Linux" AtariBox rolls along.

 

The crowdfunding campaign has LITERALLY been "Hurry Up And Wait." Get your money to them within the first week or pay more -- and either way, once you've given them their interest-free, unsecured loan, wait for a year.

 

If this deal had come out while we were real VCS kids, our parents would have laughed at the idea and forbidden us from taking it. It's like something out of a Johnny Cash song!

 

On 6/4/2018 at 1:08 PM, Flojomojo said:

Atari SA stock has rebounded to its natural state of 60 cents per share, as if they didn't have a "successful" funding campaign just a few days ago ...

 

 

... as if nothing ever happened.

 

 

It's really quite comforting, isn't it?

 

On 6/5/2018 at 7:09 AM, carlsson said:

The dev team probably needs to be a secret so they don't get harrassed from outsiders. I don't think that is a major issue here.

 

On 6/5/2018 at 7:23 AM, Flojomojo said:

Or they haven't actually been hired and no work has begun. It's not like we have seen enough to judge. Not that any of it matters, save for the end result.

 

On 6/5/2018 at 10:34 AM, godslabrat said:

I have never met a man more in need of guacamole.

 

On 6/5/2018 at 12:00 PM, JBerel said:

Let me just say this as to the point of "Scam vs. not Scam." I don't know. That's up to each backer or potential backer to decide ultimately. (Note: I didn't say customer because YOU ARE NOT PRE-ORDERING WHEN YOU GIVE AWAY MONEY ON INDIEGOGO)

The fact that they refer to it as a pre-order, ever, is reason enough for some to call it a scam, and they are more than justified in that opinion just on the basis of the marketing for their crowdfunding project.

 

They clearly want it to happen, and they clearly want to make a name for themselves; any name judging by their other attempts at notoriety. One can easily point out their lack of credibility or capability to do this thing, but that doesn't make it a scam, just a fool's errand.

What does stick out like a soar thumb is the genesis of this thing. I refer you to the Honorable Feargal Mac who got this ball rolling. The guy's M.O. was to lie, cheat and deceive about every step of the process to lead potential backers to believe everything was just going gangbusters. If you want to see his track record just look at the comments on his latest Gameband project or his pitch from his prior projects. The only saving grace for Atari was that they eventually fired him and attempted to distance themselves from him. That doesn't change the fact that they signed off on his tactics in the first place.

 

The problem is they continue the same routine of passing off faked game play videos with inoperable electronics and controls. They keep showing things that don't exist, like games and an interface, to suggest they have these things complete already. They refer to all these great relationships in place, but can't produce any evidence to support any of it. The only thing they can produce is a couple lumps of plastic, but they're ready to take your money now for delivery of something, anything, in a year or more. That's an insult to anyone's intelligence whether you call it a scam or an opportunity.

 

I went looking to see what their original crowdfunding goal was (was it $100,000? I can't remember), and found some fun stuff from a long time ago. It's somewhat comforting to see that not much has changed. It's also disconcerting to see that some things are worse than we thought. 

1. Wait for a year? It's already been more than that. I wouldn't be surprised to see them go 2 years at this rate, assuming they don't end it. 
2. "Atari's" big stock hike was due to tulip fever about cryptocurrency, not consoles. Back then their stock was sixty cents a share. Now it's consistently thirty cents, or less. 
3. Nearly all of their take on "ATARI VCS" was on the very first day, when Arzt says they crashed the servers because people wanted it so badly. It leveled off at near-zero after that. This seems like a more likely reason for stopping the IndieGogo campaign than "so we can focus on development," as Arzt said. 
4. If they had a development team in place, they weren't talking about it or doing much. If Rob "Femur" Wyatt was on board, he did not have a highly visible role. 
5. "I have never met a man more in need of guacamole," said @godslabrat
6. Everything that @JBerel said about fake hardware and gameplay is still true, even after all this time. 
7. Holy shit this is a fiasco, and always has been. 

 

 

[PlaysWithWolves]

25 minutes ago, Lodmot said:

Also, that's really good that they returned all their backers' money. For the amount of flack i always see regarding the Coleco Chameleon, that's very commendable of them to do that. 

Mike Kennedy was lead of both RVGS and Coleco Chameleon (RVGS 2.0).

 

They tried to take money with the RVGS Indiegogo campaign, but didn't make the $1,950,000 fixed goal. So no money would've traded hands until that goal was met.  Or at the very least, Indiegogo would've refunded it (I'm not sure exactly how that works).  The amount raised was a lot higher than it now shows at the campaign page.  Like or hate him, he was ahead of the curve on this retro machine fad.

If memory serves, when Kennedy tried again with the Chameleon it got cancelled just before the second Indiegogo happened.  DVR-card-in-a-Jag-case.

 

1 minute ago, Flojomojo said:

I went looking to see what their original crowdfunding goal was (was it $100,000? I can't remember)

 

I'm pretty sure you're correct.  I think it was even flexible funding, so they'd have kept it even if only $99,000 was raised.

[ColecoJoe]

43 minutes ago, godslabrat said:

 

 

Anyway, how long will it be until the molds for the AtariBox fall into Kennedy's hands, and he gets the idea to try again?

Didn't Albert buy the Jaguar molds from Kennedy? Maybe he can buy the VCS molds when it fails

[Phantom_of_Krankor]

That super shiny case isn’t cheap looking at all and won’t get scratched to hell in no time. Good job!

[PlaysWithWolves]

@Flojomojo

On 5/30/2018 at 9:16 AM, PlaysWithWolves said:

I happened to hit it just before it was supposed to go live. $100,000 goal, flexible.

 

Here's some of it:

 

 

[videos removed]

 

 

 

[packages snip]

 

 

[Flojomojo]

54 minutes ago, godslabrat said:

Slight correction: Mike Kennedy DID take money for the RVGS, but that money was returned when the crowdfunding failed.  Returning the money doesn't negate taking it in the first place.

 

Anyway, how long will it be until the molds for the AtariBox fall into Kennedy's hands, and he gets the idea to try again?

You're right of course. I forgot. The wreckage of the campaign is still at the bottom of the Indiegogo ocean if you want to visit. 241 backers paid in more than $300 each for this blessed awwangement, this dweam within a dweam. 

 

Note that in addition to refunding everyone's money, Mike Kennedy had the decency to run this as a Fixed Goal (give it back if you fail) rather than Flexible Funding (can keep the money no matter what). I can't remember what "Atari" chose. Was it Flexible Funding?

 

The Jaguar shells are now in the hands of the beloved @Albert of AtariAge. I suspect he keeps them in a very safe place, because they're obviously cursed. 

46 minutes ago, Lodmot said:

Ah, did not know about the different colored moldings. I stand corrected. o u o

Also, that's really good that they returned all their backers' money. For the amount of flack i always see regarding the Coleco Chameleon, that's very commendable of them to do that. 

 

Also also, just out of curiosity: When you say he "fulfilled the orders in a timely fashion", do you mean like he actually shipped the consoles to a few of those that backed it? 

He took orders for colored shells. He stamped out some shells, probably in triple digits quantity, but someone else would know better than me.

 

Mike didn't make any consoles, never did. He faked it by sticking a small Super Nintendo into one of these Jaguar shells and fooled people into playing SNES games, running at full speed! Then he put a video capture card under a translucent shell and claimed that was the real deal, and would be coming out soon. His ambition got ahead of his ability to deliver.

 

He was good at running his mouth, though. He shares that skill with these other industry leaders:

 

 

Remember Feargal?

Quote

Fries: You have a history of doing crowdfunding. In fact you have one project out there, Gameband, and people haven’t gotten their Gamebands yet.

Mac: No, they haven’t, but they will.

Fries: So why are you doing something new?

Mac: We do have another project there at the moment, Gameband. It’s on another crowdfunding platform some of you may have heard of. We have a great bunch of backers. We’re running a few months behind until that gets delivered, but it’s been a great experience. When you talk to your backers, it’s amazing. There’s not been one single complaint. We said, “Look, we’re three or four months behind,” and they were all supportive. They’re involved in the process, which is the great part of crowdfunding.

 

 

 

[Tickled_Pink]

I'm a bad person.

 

 

On one of the retro Atari-related FB pages the other day I had to burst someone's bubble over the VCS and what it will be capable of. He was a backer and it gave me some insight into the people who bought into it. He was absolutely delusional over its capabilities. He had the notion that it would be future-proof and capable of playing all the latest and future AAA titles. In fact, I went through some of the minimum specs of some titles off the top of my head and a couple won't even run on it AT ALL. Obviously, many who backed it don't actually have any insight into the PC market or PC hardware.

 

The CPU itself isn't a problem. The problem is the VEGA 3. It should have no problem running Indie titles but that's pretty much it - oh, and Fortnite. I haven't followed this thread for a little while so I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but an Atari press release stated that they'd been working on Unity compatibility. This was something this guy was excited about. The press release didn't say what Atari meant by that. I found it an odd statement to make because Unity already supports Linux deployment. I haven't heard anything from Unity saying that there will be direct deployment to the VCS in a future version of the engine.

And I've just read the VCS Wikipedia page. NOW it makes sense, but this guy still thinks it's an all-singing, all-dancing system. Apparently it came from an idea by Atari's general manager to allow people to play Indie games because he was surprised how many people hook up their laptops to TVs to play certain types of game not usually played on console. That leads to another problem and possibly a future class action lawsuit. It seems that Atari may have oversold its capabilities. They already had a vision of what it was intended for but did not adequately communicate this to backers. They knew it wasn't going to be a machine built with AAA titles in mind from the outset. Because of the way they sold it to backers, many seem to have thought it was Atari's attempt at an Xbox killer.


Damn! I'm not the only bad person.

[Flojomojo]

@PlaysWithWolves thanks for digging that up. Screenshots are great! Enough time has passed that memory fades ... and the web is such that Bad Dudes can erase their misbehavior or bend the truth. 

 

So between Flexible Funding (project keeps everything) and forced arbitration (agreed upon when sending money to known sleaze Indiegogo), seems like "Atari" is well within their legal (not ethical) rights to Cut & Run. 

 

 

Bad Dudes gifs inside. Stupid, not super relevant, but kinda funny looking.

 

[JBerel]

19 minutes ago, Phantom_of_Krankor said:

That super shiny case isn’t cheap looking at all and won’t get scratched to hell in no time. Good job!

[OCAT]

If this thing actually gets sold from WalMarty and Game (please) Stop, I wonder if it is going to have one of those cheap nasty photocopied pieces of paper in the box that reads...

"DO NOT RETURN THIS PRODUCT TO THE STORE"

"We at Atari PROMISE YOU cross our hearts Best Friends Forever, that a software update is in the works! and this system will get better we are working with partners to get games... GAMES.. GAAAAAMES!!!!"

[jaybird3rd]

3 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Mike Kennedy never took any customer money for RetroVGS/Coleco Chameleon.

Let's not forget, though, that it wasn't for lack of trying.  One of the main reasons his crowdfunding campaigns failed to gain traction was because we "Hater Brigaders" here on AtariAge (among many others) spread the word and warned the larger community, at a time when mainstream "game journalists" were doing little more than uncritically regurgitating Mike's press releases.  That probably prevented a debacle on the scale of "that Ataribox?" from happening back in 2016.

 

His Jaguar shells were nice, though; I bought them too, back in the days when he seemed like a credible entrepreneur, because I figured that the money raised would help to directly support his ventures.  I didn't realize at the time how convoluted the "Mikeonomics of Retro Land" really were.

 

 

Speaking of plastic shells ... man, those new VCS shells look like some nasty, cheap, flimsy plastic.  They could have at least gone with a textured surface like the originals.

[PlaysWithWolves]

27 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:

Let's not forget, though, that it wasn't for lack of trying. 

 

Yeah.  Atari's $3 million haul would've been a dream come true for him.

It seems Mike's fatal flaw was not securing an Atari license first. ?

[Matt_B]

3 hours ago, Phantom_of_Krankor said:

That super shiny case isn’t cheap looking at all and won’t get scratched to hell in no time. Good job!

Backers can take heart in the fact that they are probably just proofs, being passed off as the production versions, like everything else has been so far.

 

The real cases probably won't get made until we're well into next year, assuming they can ever make working boards to go in them.

[jaybird3rd]

With all this talk of the Coleco Chameleon, I need to post this again, just because seeing it never fails to make me happy.

 

 

[Shawn]

8 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:

With all this talk of the Coleco Chameleon, I need to post this again, just because seeing it never fails to make me happy.

 

 

 

I still wonder what the exact off the shelf hardware he had sitting under that clear jag shell top was.

[Machine]

7 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:

With all this talk of the Coleco Chameleon, I need to post this again, just because seeing it never fails to make me happy.

 

 

That RetroVGS Lab looks a lot like a kitchen table in an apartment.

 

[OCAT]

^ never know, if a few early pre-production models get into the hands of backers, these could be worth something as a collectors item, it is not like this has never happened before, look at all those NES carts that should not have even been sold (Stadium events, Tetris)
All those prototype systems that say "property of Nintendo/Sony/PC Engine" How are they out on Ebay being sold for big money without them being hunted down and sued?

This happens in the car industry more often than you think, the Audi TT roadster without the spoiler at the back is worth more because it literally IS more dangerous to drive, the Mini Clubvan, it is illegal to sell it anymore (Chicken Tax in USA), the Nissan GTR, the first versions before the Launch Control update to the firmware...

So a shiny ugly Atari VCS might be a crappy videogame system but will be a collector's dream item, I feel bad for encouraging this.