My list of Atari 5200 games I’d like to see on the Evercade (and which I think will work just fine)

[Giles N]

1.Pengo

2.Buck Rogers

3.Gremlins

4.Pitfall

5.Pitfall II

6.H.E.R.O

7.Mr Do’s Castle

8.Keystone Kapers

9.Pac Man (Arcade if they’re into homebrews, which they are)

10. Ballblazer

11. Frogger

12. Frogger II - threedeep

13. Gyruss

14. Defender

15. Moon Patrol

16. Montezumas Revenge

17. River Raid

18. Vanguard

19. Dreadnought Factor

20. Stargate

21. Track and Field

22. Decathlon

23. Pac Man Jr.

24. Super Pac Man

25.Xaxxon

 

- - -

 

Let me hear your opinions!

 

- - -

 

Note:

I’m not so sure it would be overtly difficult to make slight changes to 5200 games that uses analogue input, to make work fine with a digital pad.

[Giles N]

No-one interested in seeing 5200-games on the Evercade…

 

… only me…?

[roots.genoa]

I'm not sure if you imagine this as one compilation but it would be a licensing nightmare.

1.Pengo > SEGA

2.Buck Rogers > arcade game by SEGA but the license doesn't belong to them

3.Gremlins > Warner Bros.

4.Pitfall > Activision

6.H.E.R.O > Activision

8.Keystone Kapers > Activision

9.Pac Man > Namco

11. Frogger > Konami

14. Defender > Warner Bros. probably

15. Moon Patrol > Irem

18. Vanguard > SNK
 

etc.

[Giles N]

Good point.

 

But how much money would it take for Atari to cash out, since these titles are so darned old?

[Giles N]

@roots.genoa

So which titles for 5200 are Atari’s own property, and which could work with a digital direction-pad?

[toiletunes]

Asteroids, 

 

asteroids 

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, toiletunes said:

Asteroids, 

 

asteroids 

And thats it… with the 5200 being Ataris own machine…?

 

Or do you just think this will work on Evercade?

[toiletunes]

I looked through the 5200 library, then  removed the 3rd party stuff and the licensed arcade ports. What was left was Asteroids, the Realsports games, and Star Raiders.

 

Star Raiders without analog controls and extra buttons would just be the 2600 version. I don't care for 8 bit sports, so all that's left is asteroids. 

 

I wish they hadn't sold off Battlezone.

[roots.genoa]

Yeah, if there are no 5200 games on the current Atari Evercade carts, I really doubt they'll make another one.

[Giles N]

Sorry if I seem stubborn on this, but if I’m not utterly mistaken, the 2 Atari Lynx Collections were compiled by a (third party) company buying the licenses of all these Lynx-games from a ton of different production-companies, and still went with releasing them for the Evercade.

 

So why couldn’t at least a couple or handful of companies come together, buy the necessary licences and release 2-3 5200-compilations?

[8th lutz]

18 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Yeah, if there are no 5200 games on the current Atari Evercade carts, I really doubt they'll make another one.

I thought back in May that one of the employees of Blaze mentioned one of the Youtube live streams  that they have no plans on having 5200 games on Evercade.

[8th lutz]

6 hours ago, Giles N said:

Sorry if I seem stubborn on this, but if I’m not utterly mistaken, the 2 Atari Lynx Collections were compiled by a (third party) company buying the licenses of all these Lynx-games from a ton of different production-companies, and still went with releasing them for the Evercade.

 

So why couldn’t at least a couple or handful of companies come together, buy the necessary licences and release 2-3 5200-compilations?

The Lynx Collections had games Atari has rights, Songbird has rights to, and the company that owns the rights Epyx games. The 5200 is not that simple.

 

 Blaze wants the rights to Activision 2600 games, but the asking price appears to be an issue according the May 2021 youtube interviews with people that are part of Blaze Entertainment.  They did not come out and say price is an issue, but the comments seem to indicate it is a problem at the time with the price. I am sure that is true with the Activision Intellivision and Activision 5200 games also.

 

Frogger II is an unknown to me for the rights of the game. Konami does own the rights to Frogger, but Parker Brothers developed and published the sequel.

 

Blaze and Namco has some issues that need to be worked out and doing any 5200 games is out the question at this point. The 2 Namco Collections can't work on the Evercade vs due to agreement. Blaze back in May mentioned they wanted to work it out with Namco.

 

Ballblazer is currently owned by Disney due to them buying Lucasfilms. I think Disney is really not aware of the games Lucas did that are not Indiana Jones or Star Wars. If Disney finds out, I have a bad feel about the asking price. I have experience with Disney for theme park vacations and the hotel costs are insane there. If  Blaze is able to contact Disney and make an agreement, Ballblazer would be part of a Lucas Collection in terms of game console and computer games instead of a collection that only has 5200 games.

 

Konami and Sega are unknowns at this point. I know people want those companies games on Evercade, but hasn't happen unless there is stuff behind the scenes that is not announced yet.

 

Since the 2 Lynx Collections came out, something big did happen. Evercade announced 4 arcade collections for the Evercade. This is a big deal for 2 reasons. Atari Collection 1 & 2, and Atari Arcade Collection 1 has some of  the same games. I would be guessing there would a Atari Arcade collection 2 at some point. The Atari 5200 would cause stuff like 4 different versions of Centipede on the Evercade. Some people would view stuff like that as overkill. Atari 5200 is better off with the non arcade titles, but there is not a lot of those that Atari published for the 5200.

 

The 2nd reason this is a big deal for  Evercade having Arcade collections is due to people want the arcade versions of the game, not the console ports. There had been comments about the Data East, Technos and Namco Collections back in 2020 that want the arcade versions of the games instead of the SNES, Genesis, and Nes versions. Having a 5200 version of Moon Patrol would cause the same complain unless Moon Patrol the arcade game has emulation problems for Evercade.

Edited July 23, 2021 by 8th lutz

[Giles N]

@8th lutz

@roots.genoa

 

Ok, I think you have some good points here that would make 5200 ports a licencing nigthmare… of sorts.

 

Pity though, as I’d just (personally) like to see them

on the Evercade…

[+x=usr(1536)]

10 hours ago, Giles N said:

So why couldn’t at least a couple or handful of companies come together, buy the necessary licences and release 2-3 5200-compilations?

Because doing so would never break even on the costs necessary to do so, never mind turn even a modest profit.  The 5200 just doesn't have the following that the 2600 does - or Intellivision, or ColecoVision, for that matter.

[Giles N]

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

Because doing so would never break even on the costs necessary to do so, never mind turn even a modest profit.  The 5200 just doesn't have the following that the 2600 does - or Intellivision, or ColecoVision, for that matter.

Ok, I’m beginning to see there are some good points here concerning economics.

 

[Giles N]

I think the practical solution here is to glue a 14 inch CRT TV to a 5200-console-unit, with a dangling joystick and bring it with me wherever I’d like to play while on the move… ?

[Hwlngmad]

I would be down for a 5200 collection on the Evercade or any other platform for that matter.  However, the interest in doing such a collection seems to be low due to licensing issues and/or lack of interest.

[edladdin]

I love my Evercade and the 5200, so I would be down with this if all the practical/licensing issues were solved.

 

A few comments about the game list:

 

1. I have found the maze games to be really hard to play with the D-pad.

2. Could you play Dreadnaught Factor without an analog stick?  I guess its possible, since the game was ported to other non-analog systems.

3. Qix seems like an easy add for the Evercade.

[+bhall408]

On 7/31/2021 at 7:49 PM, edladdin said:

2. Could you play Dreadnaught Factor without an analog stick?  I guess its possible, since the game was ported to other non-analog systems.

It is possible to support analog on modern systems... We're doing that for Argon... We have an analog version of the stick for mobile/on-screen control (you move a dot within a larger circle for proportional input) and then support the analog controls on modern bluetooth controllers.

 

That being said, there are some 5200 games that play far better with digital controls, and we're working on setting the default for each game based on which one makes the most sense for the game.