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AtGames 2018 speculation thread


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Sounds to me like Hyperkin has a track record of not finishing what they started. Glad I decided to wait!

 

Yup. What else is new.

 

 

In other fairness, as a former owner of their previous Retron5, I'd be wary of firmware updates. They're only concerned about fixing the stuff people complain the most about, and they feel legally obligated to do. The Retron 5 still has some real problems with certain things including saving with Sega they never tracked down or repaired entirely. I don't know if their idea of QA is to give it 6mo or a year to fix what they can around self imposed stops, but whatever it is, don't ever assume they'll fix something as they've left parts of the R5 a mess depending on your system of choice and interests.

 

Yes. If they don't have to.. why bother? Goddamned lame if you ask me. Consumers must learn to demand better.

 

In comparison, open source emulators are always gaining new features and functions all the time. All by themselves so to speak. It seems like there is a built-in motivation to do better and better. I can get behind that!

 

 

In fairness, the Retron 77 has only been out a few weeks, so there is alot of time to have people make the console be more compatible. They should have waited to release it. With that being said. the SD card slot plays alot more of the games and I have enjoyed it. I am looking forward to see what is released by Atgames and comparing the two.

 

That's right. But people don't really care about whether it works out of the box or not. They are content with waiting for firmware updates and patches. They like updates. Updates are a good thing.. Yadda..yadda..yadda!

 

But. Yes. Hyperkin released it too early, now it's getting a bad rap. Maybe not THAT bad. But at least "meh"! The author of the main emulator had to release what was essential a zero-day patch to fix a few flaws that made the product un-usable OOTB. And to avoid people from calling Emulator Stella junk.

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To be clear, there are no repairs to the emulation itself. The core emulation is exactly the same as before, including the sound. It's extra features on top of that that don't directly impact actual emulation performance.

 

Hi Bill - Was the fix to get the paddles more accurate with Kaboom! based on using ATGames' paddles or something else? Thanks!

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But. Yes. Hyperkin released it too early, now it's getting a bad rap. Maybe not THAT bad. But at least "meh"! The author of the main emulator had to release what was essential a zero-day patch to fix a few flaws that made the product un-usable OOTB. And to avoid people from calling Emulator Stella junk.

 

I did not have the issue with the Stella 3.7.5 release (original SD card image). I think the answer lies in the timing of when you insert and remove carts and when the config file gets saved. Apparently that save happens around cart swap, so I think pulling the cart and turning off the power at about the same time can cause the corrupt config file. Stephena's fix took care of it but, I can kind of see how this didn't show up in testing if there was one or a couple of people testing and they always hot swapped then it wasn't an issue they would encounter. When it went to the field though and people were excited and swapping carts as fast as possible to see which ones worked and which ones didn't then is when the issue popped up. So, on that point I have a hard time faulting Hyperkin. On several others though....

 

Hyperkin knew when they handed that early unit to Metal Jesus Rocks they were having issues with the joystick and yet they went ahead and got the ding in his review and then they went ahead and released it that way!

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Yup. What else is new.

 

 

Nothing, it's normal for them like any lazy pirate operation going back to the 80s out of Hong Kong, which they're out of too (shock.)

 

 

Yes. If they don't have to.. why bother? Goddamned lame if you ask me. Consumers must learn to demand better.

 

In comparison, open source emulators are always gaining new features and functions all the time. All by themselves so to speak. It seems like there is a built-in motivation to do better and better. I can get behind that!

 

There's no reason, and it is lame and people should. Even their own employees demand more but their Hong Kong overlords won't have it. I was facebook friends with the coder for all the firmware/updates on both files the R5 were given and we talked a lot. He was and wasn't a happy camper. When he was earlier on given lots of breathing room a lot of problems were fixed and even special little things were added like the mario paint mouse for the menu, to having a few multicarts even fire up. But eventually they got fed up with the updates, he'd push, they'd push harder, and eventually they kicked him off social media and before that point kicked him off the R5 to work on other then secret projects. They pulled the plug a long while ago before that last update hit and told no one. So yeah, they're a-holes who do the minimum not to get hosed hard by the public, then fix (hardware v1 sucking bad and firmware issues beyond) only the minimum. Open source, which they obviously 'borrowed' from does a lot more and continues to do so, and for those few who hacked the damn thing they got a better device out of it right down to SD card rom loading (like the retrofreak does out of the box) from what I remember. The old fb friend told me it was open to that, if you did a very simple code hack basically on the level of flipping a light switch easy if you knew where to look because then you could use all that internal storage and/or a memory card and I'd believe it.

 

 

That's right. But people don't really care about whether it works out of the box or not. They are content with waiting for firmware updates and patches. They like updates. Updates are a good thing.. Yadda..yadda..yadda!

 

But. Yes. Hyperkin released it too early, now it's getting a bad rap. Maybe not THAT bad. But at least "meh"! The author of the main emulator had to release what was essential a zero-day patch to fix a few flaws that made the product un-usable OOTB. And to avoid people from calling Emulator Stella junk.

 

Exactly as long as what they care about works or want to work when all they think they care about is covered it's fine, overlook it and call others whiners or ignore it. As long as the patches come they're fine if they come long enough to fix their issue(s.) It was released like the 77 both well too early, they're fools and they just let it ride and hope for the best and ignore and not address the worst. I felt sorry for the Stella author having to cover his own reputation and ass fixing up their shoddy work on a 2 whole version number out of date emulator they borrowed (yet again) to get their magic picture box working.

 

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Exactly as long as what they care about works or want to work when all they think they care about is covered it's fine, overlook it and call others whiners or ignore it. As long as the patches come they're fine if they come long enough to fix their issue(s.) It was released like the 77 both well too early, they're fools and they just let it ride and hope for the best and ignore and not address the worst. I felt sorry for the Stella author having to cover his own reputation and ass fixing up their shoddy work on a 2 whole version number out of date emulator they borrowed (yet again) to get their magic picture box working.

 

Yes I sorta did too.

 

Thing is the engineering philosophy is all wrong and backwards. As backwards as kickstarters collecting money for products they didn't make.

 

Back in the day things were thought through. And the things that were missed were kinda-sorta made up for by beefy materials and stuff that didn't break if you looked at the wrong way.

 

Today the designers/progenitors of these consoles say how cheap can I make it? And how can I reach a price point of XX.xx dollars? And NOT $5.00 more. ABSOLUTELY NOT.

 

---

 

Back in the late 70's the design of the VCS was still an art. Designing things with those newfangled black IC circuits for consumers was an art. A little something to be experimented with. While I'm sure profit was involved, it wouldn't have been a hard-fast rule. Not like today.

 

There is no way in hell that the Retron77 would have shipped back in 1977, not with the issues and problems. And it is far from it-just-works.

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The Flashback 8 and portables are on shelves where I live- It's exciting to see them beyond the holiday season! I hope it doesn't cause confusion when the 9 comes out.

attachicon.gifWP_20180612_12_16_14_Pro.jpg

 

 

Wow, wish any and all Walmart's that I've been to over the last 10 years would have a section just like that!

Edited by TrekkiELO
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Have you checked recently? That section is a new addition around here and first popped up no more than two months ago or so.

 

Of course, I go to at least 5-10 separate Walmart's a month for many other different items, often times, one Walmart will carry something another with the exact same warehouse won't, it's all so frustrating/infuriating, they're inventory control is very disorganized!

 

:mad:

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Of course, I go to at least 5-10 separate Walmart's a month for many other different items, often times, one Walmart will carry something another with the exact same warehouse won't, it's all so frustrating/infuriating, they're inventory control is very disorganized!

 

:mad:

 

No it's disorganized at all on the contrary it is highly customized based on the stores sale performance for the same or similar items.

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No it's disorganized at all on the contrary it is highly customized based on the stores sale performance for the same or similar items.

 

Yes it is very disorganized, you haven't been to the Walmart's that I have, they need better inventory control for just basic things let alone a classic video game section in their toy or electronics department!

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When can we expect an update on this?

 

Well, bad news I'm afraid. If any pre-announcements are made for the October releases, it will be in September. Everything is still coming, but I just don't see a big desire for early previews/announcements on the AtGames side for various reasons. It looks like all we may get in terms of announcements in September will be for the new product line, which will be the big push company-wise for this year (they're surprisingly good products for the price point, but I don't know if it will directly appeal to everyone here that's used to the traditional form factors). The updated existing product line (and they're generally very good updates) may just see release without any additional fanfare. I'll continue to give whatever updates I can in the mean-time, and we can freely discuss everything once released, of course.

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Exactly what I was thinking FifthPlayer. AtGames wouldn't want to re-tread another companies previous mistakes <cough>Hyperkin<cough>! I would rather it take a little longer than to hurry up and release something of lower quality full of bugs while leaving it up to the general public to trouble-shoot their product! :roll:

 

While I will try to keep my expectations low, all I really want is to be able to do is play ROMs on a dedicated system that's not a PC or Raspberry Pi with near 100% compatibility of the original games, with some room to play select homebrews. It is my hope that ATGames will be the first to accomplish it this Fall. :)

Edited by atarifan88
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I'd rather wait for real and accurate information just prior to a product's release. Like the old days. A month or two advance notice is fine. This way I don't expend time and energy baggiechasing vaporware. The extreme opposite are products like ataribox or chameleon. Don't need that hype and bs.

 

 

While I will try to keep my expectations low, all I really want is to be able to do is play ROMs on a dedicated system that's not a PC or Raspberry Pi with near 100% compatibility of the original games, with some room to play select homebrews. It is my hope that ATGames will be the first to accomplish it this Fall. :)

 

You should have/demand some good expectations. You want emulator Stella, nothing less. Consider the amount of development time gone into it. Nearly 2 decades. It's going to come in a Linux or Windows or Mac flavor. And that means R-Pi style hardware or PC hardware.

 

Consider the amount of time needed to develop an entirely new emulator and test it and perfect it. AtGames doesn't have those kinds of resources to do what stella does in the short amount of time we're talking about here. And I bet they aren't interested in that route anyways..the "developing a new emu" route.

 

 

Exactly what I was thinking FifthPlayer. AtGames wouldn't want to re-tread another companies previous mistakes <cough>Hyperkin<cough>! I would rather it take a little longer than to hurry up and release something of lower quality full of bugs while leaving it up to the general public to trouble-shoot their product! :roll:

 

Yes. Hyperkin is a joke with the Retron 77. These aren't the pioneering do-it-yourself days of the COSMAC VIP or KIM-1.

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Well, bad news I'm afraid. If any pre-announcements are made for the October releases, it will be in September. Everything is still coming, but I just don't see a big desire for early previews/announcements on the AtGames side for various reasons. It looks like all we may get in terms of announcements in September will be for the new product line, which will be the big push company-wise for this year (they're surprisingly good products for the price point, but I don't know if it will directly appeal to everyone here that's used to the traditional form factors). The updated existing product line (and they're generally very good updates) may just see release without any additional fanfare. I'll continue to give whatever updates I can in the mean-time, and we can freely discuss everything once released, of course.

Is Sega going to promote the Genesis console any? I know they "announced " the Mega Drive mini a few months ago

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Thanks for the update, Bill.

 

I'm just clarifying to make sure I didn't misunderstand you grammatically.

 

The company will have updates for existing products (likely, the Atari and Genesis Flashbacks) etc and those will be coming probably around October, but with very little fanfare or press announcement.

Brand new products (like let's just us a ridiculous hypothetical... an Atari 400 Flashback) will also be coming in October, will receive more press releases, likely next month and might not carry on the tradition of looking like the original console they're emulating.

 

Is that about correct?

Edited by whbinder
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Whatever happened to the whispers/whimpers of a PC DOS emulation station?

 

Seems they could use the same tactic of using free versions of emulation and OS (i.e. Bochs and FreeDOS).

 

Nothing like that was ever mentioned or implied as coming from AtGames. Perhaps it was another company you were thinking of? Either way, there's nothing like that coming or in the planning stages.

 

And every emulator that we use that is not developed in-house is only after contact with the actual developers and abiding by any necessary licenses or open source requirements. That will be evidenced with several of this year's products.

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Thanks for the update, Bill.

 

I'm just clarifying to make sure I didn't misunderstand you grammatically.

 

The company will have updates for existing products (likely, the Atari and Genesis Flashbacks) etc and those will be coming probably around October, but with very little fanfare or press announcement.

Brand new products (like let's just us a ridiculous hypothetical... an Atari 400 Flashback) will also be coming in October, will receive more press releases, likely next month and might not carry on the tradition of looking like the original console they're emulating.

 

Is that about correct?

 

The previous products that were released will all be receiving new versions, some with new names, all with new features, although not everything with different emulation.

 

There will be a new product line that will be the primary focus of advertising and retail space. It's actually rather neat, although there will only be a few variations in this new series that explore truly new territory for AtGames. We can discuss the various tiers of products and what will be available where in detail once they start to come out.

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