+jgkspsx Posted April 4, 2022 Share Posted April 4, 2022 Not related to recent posts (though anything with custom silicon seems to be really delayed these days), but I've been meaning to elaborate on an earlier post. I understand the frustration with Atari SA but man, they are so much better than so many IP holders. Nintendo shuts down homebrew productions of Super Mario Bros ports. Joust is still not available on the Switch, and most of the Williams/Midway/Atari Games lineup is unplayable except on old disk based systems. EA, ActivisionBlizzardMicrosoft, Sony, etc. are all entirely uninterested in letting people play the IPs in their dragon's hoards. (Though at least they mostly don't seem to care about people distributing their old games online.) But Atari SA both makes their back catalog games, even the obscurities, legitimately available on every platform in existence AND publishes some really great updates to their old games like Tempest 4k and the Recharged series AND makes custom hardware like the VCS classic joystick that makes old games nice to play on modern hardware AND lets everybody who wants to make arcade machine replicas have the license AND seems to let fans do whatever they want with the old games and with the IPs. At least at this point, I have warmer feelings towards them than I have since Infogrames bought out the name. The casino and hotel and crypto/NFT and speakerhats were admittedly humiliating, but at least there haven't been any new bad ideas like that lately. I guess I don't see what the haters would rather see them do than what they're doing in the gaming space, other than stop existing. If EA or Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo were to buy them out, things would get a lot worse in a hurry. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted April 4, 2022 Share Posted April 4, 2022 14 hours ago, jgkspsx said: Not related to recent posts (though anything with custom silicon seems to be really delayed these days), but I've been meaning to elaborate on an earlier post. I understand the frustration with Atari SA but man, they are so much better than so many IP holders. Nintendo shuts down homebrew productions of Super Mario Bros ports. Joust is still not available on the Switch, and most of the Williams/Midway/Atari Games lineup is unplayable except on old disk based systems. EA, ActivisionBlizzardMicrosoft, Sony, etc. are all entirely uninterested in letting people play the IPs in their dragon's hoards. (Though at least they mostly don't seem to care about people distributing their old games online.) But Atari SA both makes their back catalog games, even the obscurities, legitimately available on every platform in existence AND publishes some really great updates to their old games like Tempest 4k and the Recharged series AND makes custom hardware like the VCS classic joystick that makes old games nice to play on modern hardware AND lets everybody who wants to make arcade machine replicas have the license AND seems to let fans do whatever they want with the old games and with the IPs. At least at this point, I have warmer feelings towards them than I have since Infogrames bought out the name. The casino and hotel and NFTs and speakerhats were admittedly humiliating, but at least there haven't been any new bad ideas like that lately. I guess I don't see what the haters would rather see them do than what they're doing in the gaming space, other than stop existing. If EA or Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo were to buy them out, things would get a lot worse in a hurry. I get where you are coming from. 3 cheers for Atari SA! However, I don't think Sony and Microsoft really fit that description do they? I guess if you are talking purely about piracy they go after you, but both companies have done work to make their older libraries available. Microsoft even "allows" the sale of a Halo homebrew right here on AtariAge. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted April 4, 2022 Share Posted April 4, 2022 Just now, wongojack said: However, I don't think Sony and Microsoft really fit that description do they? Both Microsoft and Sony own an immense quantity of IP inherited from the studios they bought that is not legitimately available. Microsoft now owns all of Activision Blizzard’s IP (which itself includes Imagic and dozens of other small studios) in addition to Rare (which admittedly got an awesome if incomplete collection on Xbone), id, Double Fine, Bethesda, and so on. At least they’ve let Double Fine and id release some multi-platform stuff. Sony owns Psygnosis, Bungie, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and tons of other ip stretching back to the eight bit era. What was the last new Lemmings game you played, or the last new Colony Wars or Barbarian or wipEout or Shadow of the Beast game, much less on a non-Sony system? EA has a similarly sized IP collection. Nintendo has bought fewer developers and mostly just owns stuff they and HAL developed. Square owns Enix and Taito and Eidos and Core. Warner Bros owns Williams, Midway, Atari Games, and others, and barely is interested in letting arcade cabinets be made for a handful of the same games over and over again. Nobody comes close to Nintendo about being jerks to fans who are trying to do something cool and basically non-commercial, but Atari SA is better than any of these companies about making their old games widely available without being jerks to indie folks. They’re far from perfect (I wish pieces of the Recharged games would stop breaking, I wish the VCS didn’t sound like it was going to go airborne when I switched home menu screens, I wish they would have been nicer to Jeff Minter all along) but man are they far from as bad as they could be. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Defender_2600 Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 (edited) On 3/31/2022 at 10:24 PM, Gunther said: Also, ATARI XP are taking pre-orders for a 50th Anniversary Edition of Adventure: https://atarixp.com/products/adventure Page not found. Edited April 9, 2022 by Defender_2600 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunther Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 (edited) The site, and the first three games are still there though. Maybe the initial feedback wasn't great. Who knows? We could always just specualte, only to be proven wrong later down the road... Edited April 9, 2022 by Gunther Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunther Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 I'm in agreement that Adventure just re-released when it's so easy to find would be an absolute cash-grab. For this to be successful for ATARI XP then any games they re-release should be enhanced in some way with additional game content. They could then have the enhanced version, and the original, selectable to the player. ATARI XP does talk about this sort of thing on the website, so maybe ATARI will be adding some kind of enhancement to it. I'm hoping that ATARI XP doesn't become just a 'quick-buck' opportunity, and adds to the retro-gaming scene. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 It's my opinion that nu-Atari has done nothing but 'quick-buck' opportunities with everything they touch. They're not adding any value with this kind of stuff. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeatari1 Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 6 hours ago, Defender_2600 said: Page not found. I asked on the XP Discord server. Hopefully someone from Atari will see it and answer. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Defender_2600 Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 2 hours ago, Gunther said: I'm in agreement that Adventure just re-released when it's so easy to find would be an absolute cash-grab. A used Adventure cartridge without box and instructions is quite cheap and easy to find but a CIB cartridge is starting to get very expensive and you will have to spend a fortune to get an NIB cartridge. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 1 hour ago, Defender_2600 said: A used Adventure cartridge without box and instructions is quite cheap and easy to find but a CIB cartridge is starting to get very expensive and you will have to spend a fortune to get an NIB cartridge. Boxed Adventure carts have been pricey since Ready Player One came out and they never really went down. It's one of those iconic titles so you pay more even though it's not rare. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Defender_2600 Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 Several years ago, it took me many months to find a NIB copy of Adventure and the price wasn't cheap. I think we can agree that it is currently not easy to find Adventure in NIB condition at a reasonable price, plus these things are starting to get quite old and you might buy a non-working NIB version. So I think today there are good reasons to propose a reprint if it is sold at a reasonable market price. Regarding adding exclusive software content, I think it is a delicate choice, which requires case-by-case evaluations. If I think of a re-release of titles such as Pitfall! o H.E.R.O. I don't want a single pixel to be edited. It is important to understand when the historical value of a masterpiece must be preserved in its entirety. Instead, some improvements may be welcome for an arcade port. So, again, these are decisions that require case-by-case evaluations. Just my opinion. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 On 4/2/2022 at 3:59 PM, nadir said: It is a little confusing since Adventure came out in 1979... Which is also confusing since Adventure came out in 1980. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 If nobody else will say making a boxed repro of Adventure is a shameless cash grab, I will. It would have been more lucrative if they had done it when RP1 was in theaters, but I bet they know people will overpay just because it made a rather common game have some cultural cachet. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Defender_2600 Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 The price should be in line with the market price. That said, I think legitimate, high-quality reproductions are welcome for those wishing to preserve hardware in the closest form to the original (as far as possible). Otherwise, we'll just leave our kids with a bunch of old, dusty, non-working plastic, all of these things are getting too old and won't work forever. While no one is forced to buy, it is no surprise the supply and demand for FPGA systems and re-release of cartridges. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunther Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 https://atarixp.com/blogs/discover/star-castle 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nadir Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 Huh, I have no idea where I got 1979 from. I grabbed my cart and checked, sure enough, 1980... Are there any home platforms that Star Castle came out for? Sounds interesting, wouldn't mind trying it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 Just now, nadir said: Are there any home platforms that Star Castle came out for? Sounds interesting, wouldn't mind trying it. Well, there are two excellent versions (developed independently) for the Atari 2600. ..Al 6 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nadir Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 1 hour ago, Albert said: Well, there are two excellent versions (developed independently) for the Atari 2600. ...and order has been placed for one of them, plus a few other carts as long as I'm placing an order anyways... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Yurkie Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 1 hour ago, nadir said: Huh, I have no idea where I got 1979 from. I grabbed my cart and checked, sure enough, 1980... Are there any home platforms that Star Castle came out for? Sounds interesting, wouldn't mind trying it. how about 1978. I have 2 carts like this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nadir Posted April 10, 2022 Share Posted April 10, 2022 1 minute ago, Yurkie said: how about 1978. I have 2 carts like this. Now that is really interesting. I thought the picture label version was later... Clearly it was earlier than my yellow text Adventure cart. Double checked and the manual that came with my yellow text cart also says 1980. Always learning something new on here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted April 11, 2022 Share Posted April 11, 2022 On 4/10/2022 at 5:28 PM, nadir said: Huh, I have no idea where I got 1979 from. I grabbed my cart and checked, sure enough, 1980... Are there any home platforms that Star Castle came out for? Sounds interesting, wouldn't mind trying it. Aside from the aforementioned 2600 versions, the Vectrex. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Yurkie Posted April 11, 2022 Share Posted April 11, 2022 On 4/4/2022 at 1:39 AM, jgkspsx said: Not related to recent posts (though anything with custom silicon seems to be really delayed these days), but I've been meaning to elaborate on an earlier post. I understand the frustration with Atari SA but man, they are so much better than so many IP holders. Nintendo shuts down homebrew productions of Super Mario Bros ports. Joust is still not available on the Switch, and most of the Williams/Midway/Atari Games lineup is unplayable except on old disk based systems. EA, ActivisionBlizzardMicrosoft, Sony, etc. are all entirely uninterested in letting people play the IPs in their dragon's hoards. (Though at least they mostly don't seem to care about people distributing their old games online.) But Atari SA both makes their back catalog games, even the obscurities, legitimately available on every platform in existence AND publishes some really great updates to their old games like Tempest 4k and the Recharged series AND makes custom hardware like the VCS classic joystick that makes old games nice to play on modern hardware AND lets everybody who wants to make arcade machine replicas have the license AND seems to let fans do whatever they want with the old games and with the IPs. At least at this point, I have warmer feelings towards them than I have since Infogrames bought out the name. The casino and hotel and crypto/NFT and speakerhats were admittedly humiliating, but at least there haven't been any new bad ideas like that lately. I guess I don't see what the haters would rather see them do than what they're doing in the gaming space, other than stop existing. If EA or Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo were to buy them out, things would get a lot worse in a hurry. This is so well said and I agree. I enjoyed this article https://atarixp.com/blogs/discover/pcb-board 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hizzy Posted April 12, 2022 Share Posted April 12, 2022 The limited version carts look really funky! https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-unveils-their-line-of-xp-limited-edition-cartridges/ The top label is different! What a weird look. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted April 12, 2022 Share Posted April 12, 2022 Those look funky, but pretty cool. I could see them winning some purchases from people who like weird 2600 shell designs. I really like the art design even if it’s more early 70s-ish than the familiar Atari 2600 art classics. 4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+groundtrooper Posted April 12, 2022 Share Posted April 12, 2022 All along I said this was an easy money grab. Now these limited edition carts are actually pretty cool and kind of innovative, and now slightly tempting to this naysayer. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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