The Atari VCS Controversies Thread

[dj_convoy]

It shouldn't need to be said, but you can be a fan of Atari without being a fan of this proposed unit or Atari SA.

[Andromeda Stardust]

You know how web advertising works, right? Your cookies (based on your browsing history) are driving those ad views, not big spending by Atari SA.

 

I have never seen any ads for this catbox, personally.

 

They still paid money for advertising. If it's only going to people who already know about it, who have viewed the campaign and made thrir decision to back or not, how much will it help? How many minds will this banner ad change?

 

I made a fairly small risk on the joystick, compared to those who backed the actual console. It may be an awesome piece of tech, a barely functional conversation piece, or I may get nothing in return. Like any investment, you are taking a gamble and must accept whatever payout you get, or lack thereof. I think too many people fail to understand the difference between a purchase and an investment.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Amen brother! About storage, I thought you could hook up an external hard drive to the VCS?

My Android Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7" has a paltry 8Gb internal memory. I use it primarily for web browsing though I did download a few games. Most of them can be transfered to an sd card. So I also bought a 64gb card to go in it. Any web service or site that can be accessed through the browser, I don't need to download dedicated apps for.

 

So 8gb is sufficient. I assume if the actual console gets any meaningful content, it will be possible to expand the internal storage via an external hdd or flash stick.

[Flojomojo]

They still paid money for advertising. If it's only going to people who already know about it, who have viewed the campaign and made thrir decision to back or not, how much will it help? How many minds will this banner ad change?

 

[racerx]

 

Let me ask you... are you an Atari fan? Do you enjoy Atari and are you a fan of the franchise?

 

 

I know this the the "official" thread or whatever, but I can't just leave this hanging here.

 

I'm a fan of Atari, the original pioneering company that brought us innovative arcade games, the first wildly successful console, and a culture of freewheeling fun and creativity. I'm a fan of their products.

 

I'm not a fan of the brand, or the name, or the logo. I have no slavish devotion to any of that. So no...I guess I'm not a fan of the "franchise," whatever that means. I don't care that a company completely unrelated to the one I admired is currently legally entitled to call themselves "Atari." If they're producing amazing works of art and science like the original company, great...I'll likely be interested. If they're releasing another compilation of 35-40 year old games, or ballcaps with speakers, or t-shirts, or basic Linux boxes, I don't care.

 

If anything, yes...I'd love to see the new VCS fail. It has no relation at all to the company I dig, and Chesnais is a sleazeball who specializes in making money on the reputation and work of that older company that I actually do like. When he isn't whoring out the brand to anyone that pays up (Gameband, anyone?) his company is releasing crappy, unfinished abandonware like Asteroids: Outpost or Haunted House: Cryptic Caves.

 

tl:dr...Yes, I'm a fan of Atari, Inc. No, I don't give a shit about Atari SA.

[PowerDubs]

I'm a fan of Atari, the original pioneering company that brought us .... the first wildly successful console...... whoring out the brand to anyone that pays up

Which is it? You cant like only original Atari (72-76) and then refer to the console and games produced and sold by a different company that paid up for the name only 4 years after Atari was founded.

 

So stupid to keep hearing this crap regurgitated. The real Atari everyone remembers or played wasnt the original. Money talked even back then and business was business. Old Atari was lucky to be in the right place and time is all. No pedestal needed.

[PlaysWithWolves]

Only we skeptics are the true followers of goddess Atari, as we revere the old ways and warn against following the NuTari charlatans. It is they who are blasphemers selling a fake religion and using trickery to deceive. Indeed, they have fooled many into believing they are the True Way with promises of Nutopia but show us only empty vessels. Oh, they're pretty vessels--ribbed for your pleasure--but empty nonetheless.

 

Clearly the only way to resolve this is to travel to Mount Fuji for a fight to the death through our ancient ritual of Blood Pong, to be followed by the traditional meal of tacos.

[racerx]

Which is it? You cant like only original Atari (72-76) and then refer to the console and games produced and sold by a different company that paid up for the name only 4 years after Atari was founded.

 

 

Much as it pains me to explain anything to you, Warner bought the whole company lock, stock, and Bushnell. The VCS was conceived and developed before the buyout. Atari simply had a corporate overlord after that point, for better (financial muscle) and for worse (stifled product development).

 

That isn't even remotely the same as buying the rights to a defunct brand and renaming your existing company.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Actually Jeff Minter I think his name is never said anything about it. It was Giles. The other partner. So one of two members of Llamasoft said it. Again we don't know enough.

 

I think I have assumed that you're more familiar with Llamasoft (and, by association, Jeff Minter) than it appears you may be. Some background:

 

Jeff Minter (Yak) and Ivan Zorzin (Gilesgoat) live in the same house. They're both the team behind Llamasoft and a couple that has been together for many years. The chances of one not telling the other about there being an AtariVCS port of Tempest 4000 are pretty slim as a result.

 

Either way, it doesn't change the fact that Atari SA misrepresented its availability for their platform.

 

This is as far as I am willing to take this part of the conversation. I'm really not thrilled with having to bring the developers' personal lives into it, and am not going to discuss anything that may cross into that territory any further.

[Keatah]

I mean, I have no delusions of what I've put my money into. But I know these people aren't wasting their time either... and I truly do want them to succeed. I don't foresee a massive Atari resurgence of any kind, but I do recognize I'm buying a piece of Atari hardware that's not static... IE: something that can grow with my interests. Part of the reason why I've largely been uninterested (or lost interest) in the Atari Flashbacks. This new system will be an actual computer, with a decent loader. For whatever that comes out to be... I have the ability to put new games on it, and that's cool. Still, I'd love to see the ability for external storage. There are a lot of games that I have on Steam and GOG that are not resource intensive, and I'd love to be able to play them on the TV with my daughter.

 

I think that the Dreamcade Replay is much closer to reality than ataribox right now. It has a nice front-end and supports growth by being an actual Intel computer. Not second-rate AMD stuff.

[Keatah]

We are in a new "era" today. 3D printing and the internet have brought an end to corporate monopolies as it applies to the video game industry. That means ventures like this one CAN succeed, with very little overhead. They don't need brick and mortar, they don't need a distribution network, and they don't need the financial backing of a major corporation.

 

Let me ask you... are you an Atari fan? Do you enjoy Atari and are you a fan of the franchise?

 

But they do need to make a product first. And does it really take 2-3 years to build a housing for a standard mini-ITX style motherboard?

 

I am a fan of "Innovative Leisure" and what the original Atari represented and produced.

 

 

 

 

[jwhyrock]

I think I have assumed that you're more familiar with Llamasoft (and, by association, Jeff Minter) than it appears you may be. Some background:

 

Jeff Minter (Yak) and Ivan Zorzin (Gilesgoat) live in the same house. They're both the team behind Llamasoft and a couple that has been together for many years. The chances of one not telling the other about there being an AtariVCS port of Tempest 4000 are pretty slim as a result.

 

Either way, it doesn't change the fact that Atari SA misrepresented its availability for their platform.

 

This is as far as I am willing to take this part of the conversation. I'm really not thrilled with having to bring the developers' personal lives into it, and am not going to discuss anything that may cross into that territory any further.

Yes, crazy I don't know the relationship status of game developers... And I agree sharing that information was in poor taste even if your logic was sound. For perspective I've been married 17 years and often no idea what my wife is up to. We're independent and happy. Possible Jeff talked to Atari and since it wasn't final didn't discuss with Giles. Or you're right. Who knows?

[Keatah]

Which is it? You cant like only original Atari (72-76) and then refer to the console and games produced and sold by a different company that paid up for the name only 4 years after Atari was founded.

So stupid to keep hearing this crap regurgitated. The real Atari everyone remembers or played wasnt the original. Money talked even back then and business was business. Old Atari was lucky to be in the right place and time is all. No pedestal needed.

Pray tell why can't one dislike atari sa and like Original Real Atari?

 

Old Atari produced innovative products . The old brand produced innovative products. The old parent company produced innovative products. New atari sa isn't doing any of that.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Keatah

[jwhyrock]

Only we skeptics are the true followers of goddess Atari, as we revere the old ways and warn against following the NuTari charlatans. It is they who are blasphemers selling a fake religion and using trickery to deceive. Indeed, they have fooled many into believing they are the True Way with promises of Nutopia but show us only empty vessels. Oh, they're pretty vessels--ribbed for your pleasure--but empty nonetheless.

 

Clearly the only way to resolve this is to travel to Mount Fuji for a fight to the death through our ancient ritual of Blood Pong, to be followed by the traditional meal of tacos.

Best post ever in the history of all posts!

[BiffsGamingVideos]

Actually Jeff Minter I think his name is never said anything about it. It was Giles. The other partner. So one of two members of Llamasoft said it. Again we don't know enough.

 

Yeah, I didn't see any messages from Jeff Minter. I think it was from his husband or someone.

[BiffsGamingVideos]

For those that are following.

$2,780,956 USD raised by 10590 backers which is #84 all-time in crowdfunding (higher is you forgot the 28 or so bitcoin ones). Take that you opal nugget ice maker thingee! Next up some real estate thing.

 

 

 

 

83 Växande hyresbestånd i centrala lägen Other Tessin 2016-08-01 $2,835,482 Real estate

 

 

 

84 Opal Nugget Ice Maker Computing hardware Indiegogo Aug 27, 2015 $150K $2,778,019 Opal is an icemaker designed for the enthusiasts: people who drop by their favorite restaurant on the weekend to pick up a bag of that special soft ice

[82-T/A]

Amen brother! About storage, I thought you could hook up an external hard drive to the VCS?

 

 

I think it should. Since it has multiple USB ports in the back, it should be as easy as mounting a drive as one would with Linux anyway. Hopefully it's open or configurable enough. One thing I wanted to make sure of though, is that I'd always be able to reload the base Atari software, just in case I screwed everything up. But I do hope to be able to use it somewhat as a mini computer.

 

 

 

I mean with delivery of the AtariBox, not the color commentary.

 

It's your money and the weaknesses are clear (as I think you know).

 

I'd prefer it fail as an example to other cynical, content-free, brand-based cash grabs.

 

 

Yeah, I know... the delivery. I do know what I'm getting into... I'm just being positive about it. I want them to do well. If I'm wrong... I'll say "You told me so!" hehe...

[zzip]

What "effort" if you don't mind me asking? The Tempest 4K issue to me seems to border on fraud and at a minimum is an intentional misrepresentation to garner financial gain. The fact that they are trying to attack the critics rather than admitting that what they did was a mistake and attempting to be more transparent is very distressing.

 

It isn't fraud unless they fail to deliver the box, or the box they deliver isn't capable of what was shown.

 

I mean this is common. It's E3 season now, and a common complaint historically is at E3 reveals, they misrepresented console gameplay by showing PC footage pretending it was console footage. Sometimes they show outright doctored footage. So much so that many trailers now have a disclaimer saying "The following footage was captured in-engine running on a PS4/Xbox"

 

Thing is in all these cases you are trying to show something that is still under heavy development, and you have to cut corners to make a presentation on a certain date. If it's capable of doing everything promised today then it would be released already.

[JBerel]

 

It isn't fraud unless they fail to deliver the box, or the box they deliver isn't capable of what was shown.

 

 

I'm not sure the bar is even that high. This is crowdfunding, so despite using the term "pre-order", all the backers are agreeing to give over their money just to "support" it. They are not customers, and if they end up getting nothing, they got what they paid for; the opportunity to support it.

 

I don't see it any different than a guy walking up to you in a parking lot asking for a hand out to buy beer. He says he'll split the six pack with you, but if he drinks it all, are you expecting a refund? Do you think you'll get it? Are you going to complain when/if it happens? Will you be smarter next time?

Edited June 11, 2018 by JBerel

[PlaysWithWolves]

It isn't fraud unless they fail to deliver the box, or the box they deliver isn't capable of what was shown.

 

I think you should research what fraud means.

[Mockduck]

I noticed Sony put a disclaimer before their presentation last night saying that all footage was "Using either a PS4 Pro, PS4 Dev Kit, or PC." My guess is almost all of it, if not all of it, was from a PC. That's pretty common during development, which is why I wasn't too fussed about the Tempest 4000 thing. Llamasoft not knowing it was being used by Atari is a bit concerning, but the display probably not being from the prototype VCS isn't particularly surprising.

[Flojomojo]

Their demo of Tempest with 2 "Atari VCS" units on the table reminded me of John Carlsen's kitchen table "lab" for the RetroVGS. The performance was unprofessional enough that it hardly seems worth arguing about, but only explaining themselves after "getting caught" doesn't seem right for a campaign that is taking people's money.

[JBerel]

I noticed Sony put a disclaimer before their presentation last night saying that all footage was "Using either a PS4 Pro, PS4 Dev Kit, or PC." My guess is almost all of it, if not all of it, was from a PC. That's pretty common during development, which is why I wasn't too fussed about the Tempest 4000 thing. Llamasoft not knowing it was being used by Atari is a bit concerning, but the display probably not being from the prototype VCS isn't particularly surprising.

 

There's so many differences though. The PS4 exists, and they're not asking you to pay them for one a year before it's hoped to be ready for shipment. That makes the video gymnastics to look like it's running on a functional device all the more misleading. I don't think anyone was impressed by the look or performance of Tempest 4000 like they would be a new PS4 title. The intent was to impress with a working Ataribox that played it. As usual, it's just smoke and mirrors, but everybody does it, so it's not at all sleazy while they're in the middle of a funding drive.

[82-T/A]

I'm offended.

[TheClassyGamer]

Just on an aside. Every Indiegogo I've backed, I've got burned on in one form or another. The fact that they are using that platform to fund raise is enough for me to refuse having anything to do with it. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that line of thinking.