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The Atari VCS Controversies Thread


Mockduck

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2 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Yep, totally not a douchebag, as evidenced by your participation on the Indiegogo comments page.

 

ANoSwWD.jpg

 

Something something glass houses and stones.

 

✌️?✌️?✌️?✌️?✌️?✌️

Imagine being wound that tight about a video game system.   That post isn't going to age very well when November gets here.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again.  The bullshit surrounding this "un-console" has provided countless hours more entertainment than the physical product ever will.  Best part is that I also didn't drop $400 for the privilege.  Winning!

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1 hour ago, Stephen said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  The bullshit surrounding this "un-console" has provided countless hours more entertainment than the physical product ever will.  Best part is that I also didn't drop $400 for the privilege.  Winning!

They could install their own OS and browser to revisit greatest hits of why watching this has been fun/sad/however you classify it. So it has that going for it.

Edited by MrBeefy
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6 hours ago, Chopsus said:

Poor old RivetGun seems to have a real problem understanding global logistics ? 

Some of those comments just leave you scratching your head.  It's possible Atari is well into the shipping process, we just don't know about it. 

 

But the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.  My money is on another delay. 

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12 minutes ago, Agillig said:

But the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.  My money is on another delay.

Well said, completely agree. Usually long periods of radio silence, and specially close to a critical date, means that they are trying to phrase another delay in a way it doesn't sound as utter incompetence.

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1 hour ago, Oscar Manuel Rojas Maillo said:

Well said, completely agree. Usually long periods of radio silence, and specially close to a critical date, means that they are trying to phrase another delay in a way it doesn't sound as utter incompetence.

I am sure they have been hoping for some further global disaster to use as an excuse ... 

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4 hours ago, Chopsus said:

I am sure they have been hoping for some further global disaster to use as an excuse ... 

Can't wait to see a certain fanatical backer call people "entitled" because they have the audacity to expect to receive a product they paid for, when they were told they would receive it.

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If "atari" is shipping,  I'll eat my tacohat.

 

39 minutes ago, zzip said:

Products that don't release on time with questionable development decisions is an Atari tradition going back decades, why would we expect any different here?  ?

 

Old Atari (Do I have to call them Atari Classic?) released Game Consoles to Stores...Actual Consoles With Actual Games,...Consoles they supported...Consoles with an actual lifespan that were supported with game releases.  They were innovative; They had developers;  They had hardware guys;  They had software guys;  They cared what was inside the shell;  They Created IPs;  They had more than a dozen employees on the books;  They paid their employees...

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16 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

Consoles they supported...Consoles with an actual lifespan

Atari 5200 late 1982 - early 1984

Atari Jaguar  1994-1995

 

16 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

They were innovative

Early on.  But later they did a lot of me-too stuff, and play catch-up with the rest of the industry.

 

20 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

They were innovative; They had developers;  They had hardware guys;  They had software guys; 

until they axed most of them in 1984

 

20 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

They paid their employees...

Nolan Bushnell told stories about struggling to make payroll

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4 minutes ago, zzip said:

Atari 5200 late 1982 - early 1984

Atari Jaguar  1994-1995

 

Early on.  But later they did a lot of me-too stuff, and play catch-up with the rest of the industry.

 

until they axed most of them in 1984

 

Nolan Bushnell told stories about struggling to make payroll

Why does any of that matter?  It has nothing to do with the current company masquerading as "Atari", which is an entirely different entity.

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8 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:

Why does any of that matter?  It has nothing to do with the current company masquerading as "Atari", which is an entirely different entity.

They legally own the name

Was Warner Masquerading as Atari?

Tramiel? - it was literally a different company after he bought it!

Infogrames? 

 

This is just the latest in a long line of owners.  I don't see them as any less or more Atari than anyone else since the Tramiels.

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5 minutes ago, zzip said:

They legally own the name

Was Warner Masquerading as Atari?

Tramiel? - it was literally a different company after he bought it!

Infogrames? 

 

This is just the latest in a long line of owners.  I don't see them as any less or more Atari than anyone else since the Tramiels.

I agree. This is Atari by any objective metric. Whether you like how they're operating as Atari is a separate issue, i.e., it might not be the Atari you want, but it's the Atari we got.

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2 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I agree. This is Atari by any objective metric. Whether you like how they're operating as Atari is a separate issue, i.e., it might not be the Atari you want, but it's the Atari we got.

Yeah, I've been fairly critical of the Tramiel Atari, and sometimes wish it never happened,  but I don't see them as "not Atari"

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4 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I agree. This is Atari by any objective metric. Whether you like how they're operating as Atari is a separate issue, i.e., it might not be the Atari you want, but it's the Atari we got.

And that was really my point.  Whatever it was that any previous Atari incarnations may have done, whether or to whatever extent one considers them to be the "real Atari", it doesn't excuse anything that the current incarnation is doing.  To respond to the assertion that "Atari is doing X!" by saying "... but Warner did X too, so there!" is to say nothing.

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18 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:

And that was really my point.  Whatever it was that any previous Atari incarnations may have done, whether or to whatever extent one considers them to be the "real Atari", it doesn't excuse anything that the current incarnation is doing.  To respond to the assertion that "Atari is doing X!" by saying "... but Warner did X too, so there!" is to say nothing.

Product development is a messy process.  Requirements are in flux, corners are cut, deadlines are missed,  end result is often not what was originally specced.   But typically this all happened behind closed doors, and the consumer is none the wiser until the tell-all interviews/books/documentaries years later.

 

The crowdfunding process puts all that front-and-center.  People who've never worked on a product development cycle see things to get outraged about.   I've been through such cycles.  I'm not going to judge them on the process, I'm going to judge them on the end result, assuming it ships.   Anything else is meaningless internet drama.

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1 hour ago, zzip said:

They legally own the name

Was Warner Masquerading as Atari?

Tramiel? - it was literally a different company after he bought it!

Infogrames? 

 

This is just the latest in a long line of owners.  I don't see them as any less or more Atari than anyone else since the Tramiels.

Every transaction through Tramiel was just a change in ownership of the existing company. Granted, Tramiel just got the consumer half, but it was personnel, it was engineering, it was offices. It was a real company, that had a running line of continuity through the death throes of the JTS merger.

 

Yes, this iteration is legally "Atari," but to equate the transfer of musty four-decade-old branding and IP with the buyout of an active company is silly. Moreover, the "masquerading" charge is because this is largely Infogrames with a name change. Is that "more Atari" than a sub-brand of Hasbro? Maybe, but it's certainly not enough to spark any kind of misplaced loyalty.

 

It's literally a company completely unrelated to the Bushnell,  Warner, and Tramiel led Atari(s), which draws us all the way back to one of the original Ataribox questions...would this fare well as an Infogrames GameBox with the exact same specs, with the exact same price, with the exact same streaming partners?

 

I think the answer to that is clear, and it's why it's destined to sell poorly, and it's why it tends to get mocked here (and elsewhere).

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11 minutes ago, racerx said:

Every transaction through Tramiel was just a change in ownership of the existing company. Granted, Tramiel just got the consumer half, but it was personnel, it was engineering, it was offices. It was a real company, that had a running line of continuity through the death throes of the JTS merger.

 

Yes, this iteration is legally "Atari," but to equate the transfer of musty four-decade-old branding and IP with the buyout of an active company is silly. Moreover, the "masquerading" charge is because this is largely Infogrames with a name change. Is that "more Atari" than a sub-brand of Hasbro? Maybe, but it's certainly not enough to spark any kind of misplaced loyalty.

 

It's literally a company completely unrelated to the Bushnell,  Warner, and Tramiel led Atari(s), which draws us all the way back to one of the original Ataribox questions...would this fare well as an Infogrames GameBox with the exact same specs, with the exact same price, with the exact same streaming partners?

 

I think the answer to that is clear, and it's why it's destined to sell poorly, and it's why it tends to get mocked here (and elsewhere).

Tramiel bought the assets, not the employees.   He hired a few of the legacy employees, but not most of them.   It was essentially a completely new company.  And as a consumer you could tell.   They handled things completely differently than Warner did.   They did not have a lot of product engineers and many of the things they promised took longer to release than they predicted, and some did not release at all.

 

Jack formed a company named Tramiel Technologies to create and sell the ST.   They basically went after Atari for the name, because they knew it would sell much better with the Atari name than it would as "Tramiel Technologies ST".

 

This is no different than the question of "Infogrames Box" vs "Atari VCS".  Yes of course the Atari brand is going to sell better, it's better known.   But Infogrames didn't change their name to sell this hardware,  they changed their name to Atari way back in 2003! 

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5 hours ago, zzip said:

Tramiel bought the assets, not the employees.   He hired a few of the legacy employees, but not most of them.   It was essentially a completely new company.  And as a consumer you could tell.   They handled things completely differently than Warner did.   They did not have a lot of product engineers and many of the things they promised took longer to release than they predicted, and some did not release at all.

 

Jack formed a company named Tramiel Technologies to create and sell the ST.   They basically went after Atari for the name, because they knew it would sell much better with the Atari name than it would as "Tramiel Technologies ST".

 

This is no different than the question of "Infogrames Box" vs "Atari VCS".  Yes of course the Atari brand is going to sell better, it's better known.   But Infogrames didn't change their name to sell this hardware,  they changed their name to Atari way back in 2003! 

The Tramiels also had actual experience in launching hardware products, something that no one at Atari SA or Ataribox LLC can claim so far. 

 

No they weren't perfect, but they managed the brand far better than Infogrames has, IMO. They actually created things that kept some semblance of the Atari spirit and brand alive until the Jaguar died. They may not have had a lot of product engineers, but they had some, along with some coders. Atari SA has zero. 

 

As for their product delays, apples and oranges with the VCS. The Tramiels didn't take consumer money with nothing more than an idea on paper, then play the game of moving goal posts for three years. They either invested their own money, got investors on-board, or generated revenue with their other products. Atari SA mainly gets revenue from lawsuits, licensing deals, and the latest crowdfunding scheme-of-the-week. Delays that did take place, with things like the 7800, were due to disputes over who should pay GCC for the development (Warner or Tramiel, took a while to settle). Regardless, the Tramiels did deliver on plenty - the XE, ST, STe, TT, Falcon, 7800, XEGS, Lynx, Jaguar, and getting games made for those systems. Atari SA once teased a whole line of Atari branded tablets, phablets and phones, which they never delivered on; they never delivered on the Game Band watch, and as of this writing, still haven't delivered on the VCS. Scoreboard as it stands: Tramiels=9, Atari SA= -3

 

(I suppose you could hold things like the Mirai, Panther and Jaguar 2 against them, although I also don't think that'd be a fair comparison. The Panther eventually morphed into the Jaguar; Jag 2 just didn't happen because the company failed. Atari SA only had to have their logo slapped on pre-existing Chinese tablets and they couldn't even bring that to fruition)

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14 hours ago, zzip said:

Product development is a messy process.  Requirements are in flux, corners are cut, deadlines are missed,  end result is often not what was originally specced.   But typically this all happened behind closed doors, and the consumer is none the wiser until the tell-all interviews/books/documentaries years later.

 

The crowdfunding process puts all that front-and-center.  People who've never worked on a product development cycle see things to get outraged about.   I've been through such cycles.  I'm not going to judge them on the process, I'm going to judge them on the end result, assuming it ships.   Anything else is meaningless internet drama.

Sure, product development can be messy, but there's no requirement to launch a crowdfunding campaign when all you've got to show is a few lumps of plastic and some mocked-up footage.

 

Rather, most people serious about making hardware would construct a working prototype first - using their own money and behind closed doors like you say - and the fact that Atari didn't do this is what shows them to be a bunch of chancers.

 

As such, it's entirely down to their mismanagement that we've had such a good view of its underbelly and even then one of the most common complaints is that they rarely put out substantive updates about the true status of the project which is why it's still a matter of guesswork as to whether they'll be able to ship or not in a few weeks.

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