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The Atari VCS Controversies Thread


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10 hours ago, digdugnate said:

i hear bacon goes good with word salad.

With enough pounds of lettuce (air) in the salad, a few ounces of shit (anything we say) won't matter.  The prophets will be grateful for the morsel we put out.  The haters will use this for ammo to destroy the project.  Atari name is --- --- wait for it ---.  GOLD DUST!!!!!!!!!!

gold-dust-th-500x329.jpg

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6 hours ago, AlecRob said:

so i have to ask... after the VCS is finally released and people have it in their hands... will atariage add a VCS section to the forums??  it's just as valid of an Atari System as Lynx, Jaguar, or Atari ST

 

Oh no it's not. Not even fuckin' close.

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On 7/29/2020 at 9:43 PM, Stephen said:

With enough pounds of lettuce (air) in the salad, a few ounces of shit (anything we say) won't matter.  The prophets will be grateful for the morsel we put out.  The haters will use this for ammo to destroy the project.  Atari name is --- --- wait for it ---.  GOLD DUST!!!!!!!!!!

gold-dust-th-500x329.jpg

Is it me or does Stardust look like Rebel Wilson?

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On 8/6/2020 at 1:12 AM, Shawn said:

 

Oh no it's not. Not even fuckin' close.

But none of those systems i mentioned were designed by the “original” atari from the 1970s... they were all outsourced.. essentially hardware designed by someone else with an atari logo on them sold by whoever currently owned the company at that time.  Tell me, how is VCS any different?  Somebody rightfully and legally bought the atari brand, and made a piece of hardware.  It doesn’t seem much different to me.

 

but people here absolutely refuse to accept that atari is under new ownership, many times over in fact..  they’d rather atari not exist than someone else have a go at it.. 

 

i think yall are in denial.  Just sayin.

Edited by AlecRob
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Atari 2600 groundbreaking console.

Atari 5200 the same

Atari 7800 the same

Atari Lynx groundbreaking console

Atari XEGS based on old hard ware at the end of its lease of life but was basically an atari 800xl repackaged

Atari Jaguar ground breaking console and the most powerful console in the world when it was released.

 

Atari ST 2nd only to the Amiga.  A really good bit of kit for the time.  You could not get anything as cheap that was as powerful and versatile.

Atari portfolio ground breaking hand held pc/organiser.

 

What do the above all have in common with the exception of the XEGS.  All were the cream of the crop.  

 

Atari nu vcs... a good chip that will be outdated next year.  32gb on the hard drive (miniscule).  No exclusives.  People might criticize cybermorph but it was a console exclusive.  

It is 3 years late.  If it comes out why have a special section for it?It is only going to last for a run of 12 000 pre orders then cease production.  

 

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4 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

The 3DO would like a word.

It would like a word and that word was unreliable.  It came out as the equivalent of the Philips CDi.  A nice idea but was marred by the fact for the most part it did not work.  When the ps1 came out it was dead.  Well as was the Jag.  Though they were in distinguished company as it also sank the Saturn. 

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36 minutes ago, bloodreptile said:

It would like a word and that word was unreliable.  It came out as the equivalent of the Philips CDi.  A nice idea but was marred by the fact for the most part it did not work.  When the ps1 came out it was dead.  Well as was the Jag.  Though they were in distinguished company as it also sank the Saturn. 

For Nu VcS

Xbox 1 X would like a word

PS5

Nintendo switch

any of my pcs.

Xbox 1 X

Xbox 1

Ps4

PS 4 pro

Apple I pad

Apple PC

Raspberry Pi 4 8 GB one

Apple phones

Google Pixel phones

Stadia

Xbox i cloud

Pretty much any Android phone

All the above would like a word... which is entirely the problem for the Nu Atari VCS. 

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On 8/5/2020 at 5:49 PM, AlecRob said:

so i have to ask... after the VCS is finally released and people have it in their hands... will atariage add a VCS section to the forums??  it's just as valid of an Atari System as Lynx, Jaguar, or Atari ST

..they might. But it would very small.

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On 8/7/2020 at 2:32 AM, AlecRob said:

but people here absolutely refuse to accept that atari is under new ownership, many times over in fact..  they’d rather atari not exist than someone else have a go at it.. 

 

i think yall are in denial.  Just sayin.

It's more like a company bought the atari name rather than original Atari migrating upward to today.

 

And that's right, atari has been sold many time over. Enough times that it lost identity with the constant restructuring and branding. The constant decline. Atari's products were exciting up to somewhere around the mid-late 1980's. After that the innovation stopped.

 

It's a fundamental understanding that original Atari from the 70's and early 80's was a product not only of the employees, but a product of the times. A time when consumer electronics and microchip were being born. A time of unbridled creativity. The era of a new canvas for an entirely different form of art.

 

These things don't really exist today. The things that made old Atari great are long long gone. Anything from nu-atari is going to be meh.

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For my future self.. It's worth noting that the this atari vcs thing would not be number one on my list. I expect that to hold firm in the months and years ahead.

 

If I were to buy new gaming hardware I would go with something that inspires me. Something that rises to new heights. Something that has ancient roots from the 70's and early 80's, but has evolved nicely and consistently over the decades. Oh, yes, there are such things! But nu-atari stuff isn't it.

 

There's the PC platform. Beginning in the early 1980's there came a machine that would grow to be fully or nearly fully backwards compatible some 40 years later. Stuff that runs on on the Original 8088 and 8086 models can be run on today's i9 systems just fine. With or without virtualization & emulation, depending on exactly what it is. And V&E can't be discounted. It's a bonafide tool for moving forward, accepted by hobbyists and professionals alike. This enables me to experience the magic of the early days and the modern advancements of today.

 

There's XSX, in combination with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. XBOX goes back 20 years ago. And Flight Simulator goes back to the Bruce Artwick and SubLogic days of the 1970's and 1980's. Both have evolved nicely throughout the decades. And this new combination looks quite impressive. That it raises my eyebrow says a lot about both institutions.

 

It bears mentioning in fairness that early SubLogic has no resemblance to the people producing MSFS 2020. But, yet, there is a familiarity and spirit present. The original A2-FS1 program and concept has grown and changed hands more times than I can count. And it has gotten better and better. Every few years more or less we see the franchise continue. And it remains immediately recognizable in name and real here-today-now content. No fakery required.

 

Then there's Amico, if they can ever get it to market. There are understandable delays, and it's only been their first miss. That can be forgiven in these covid times. They have shown a large variety of software from real people doing real work. So IMHO it's worth paying attention to.

 

Our budget for new 2021 hardware is substantial, but not unlimited, and new hardware for entertainment is going to likely be some mixture like so:

 

XSX for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

PC upgrades for games, bigger NAS, MSFS, and other general goodness

Amico and whatever they are producing

 

..fun times ahead!

 

 

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, bloodreptile said:

It would like a word and that word was unreliable.  It came out as the equivalent of the Philips CDi.  A nice idea but was marred by the fact for the most part it did not work.  When the ps1 came out it was dead.  Well as was the Jag.  Though they were in distinguished company as it also sank the Saturn. 

I don't know where you get your info about the 3DO, but you're way off base about both its capabilities and reliability. In any case, I was merely making the point that the Jaguar wasn't necessarily the most powerful hardware out at the time despite how hard the marketing tried to make it seem to be.

 

And the reality is, being the most powerful today doesn't mean much. You already have PC and the Xbox One X and PS5 coming, and there's no way anyone else has the resources to beat those, let alone come close to matching them. There's nothing inherently wrong with putting out something like the VCS - the market is large enough to support all kinds of niche products - but the point has always been Atari has done a poor job of defining what their niche is. Trying to sell it as a set top box or TV PC at the price they're selling it at and with the power they have packed in at said price is just not going to cut it. They came up with the product before they came up with the justification for said product. At least with the Amico it's easy to get the impression that they defined their product goals before designing the product. It still might not succeed in their targeted niche, but they're set up to do that so much better than the VCS, it's crazy.

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1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I don't know where you get your info about the 3DO, but you're way off base about both its capabilities and reliability. In any case, I was merely making the point that the Jaguar wasn't necessarily the most powerful hardware out at the time despite how hard the marketing tried to make it seem to be.

 

And the reality is, being the most powerful today doesn't mean much. You already have PC and the Xbox One X and PS5 coming, and there's no way anyone else has the resources to beat those, let alone come close to matching them. There's nothing inherently wrong with putting out something like the VCS - the market is large enough to support all kinds of niche products - but the point has always been Atari has done a poor job of defining what their niche is. Trying to sell it as a set top box or TV PC at the price they're selling it at and with the power they have packed in at said price is just not going to cut it. They came up with the product before they came up with the justification for said product. At least with the Amico it's easy to get the impression that they defined their product goals before designing the product. It still might not succeed in their targeted niche, but they're set up to do that so much better than the VCS, it's crazy.

Not personally heard of reliability issues with 3DO hardware, to the same degree the Jaguar CD gets reported on, nor did it suffer the same loading issues and FMV skipping the first generation Playstations suffered due to the plastic lens holders warping. 

 

 

The Jaguar itself suffered in the area of texture mapping compared to the 3DO. 

 

As you say, it was marketed as the most powerful system on the market, but that didn't go anywhere near explaining it's actual shortcomings. 

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3DO and Jaguar and other systems from that time were still like shit being thrown at the wall to see what stuck. That shit-throwing practice was finally broken by PS1.

 

PS1 seemed to highlight that in-house designed hardware was better than a marketing company (which Atari had become by that time) buying or outsourcing the core/base platform.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I don't know where you get your info about the 3DO, but you're way off base about both its capabilities and reliability. In any case, I was merely making the point that the Jaguar wasn't necessarily the most powerful hardware out at the time despite how hard the marketing tried to make it seem to be.

 

And the reality is, being the most powerful today doesn't mean much. You already have PC and the Xbox One X and PS5 coming, and there's no way anyone else has the resources to beat those, let alone come close to matching them. There's nothing inherently wrong with putting out something like the VCS - the market is large enough to support all kinds of niche products - but the point has always been Atari has done a poor job of defining what their niche is. Trying to sell it as a set top box or TV PC at the price they're selling it at and with the power they have packed in at said price is just not going to cut it. They came up with the product before they came up with the justification for said product. At least with the Amico it's easy to get the impression that they defined their product goals before designing the product. It still might not succeed in their targeted niche, but they're set up to do that so much better than the VCS, it's crazy.

Okay, the Atari Jaguar was the most powerful Atari console I owned.   Howzat!!!?!?

We agree on the nu VCS if it ever makes it to market. 

 

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38 minutes ago, Keatah said:

3DO and Jaguar and other systems from that time were still like shit being thrown at the wall to see what stuck. That shit-throwing practice was finally broken by PS1.

 

PS1 seemed to highlight that in-house designed hardware was better than a marketing company (which Atari had become by that time) buying or outsourcing the core/base platform.

 

 

I have to disagree here. I've written about this before and it's easy to overlook now, but at the time, the PS1 WAS a gamble. Sony gambled on 3D polygonal gaming being the future, and of course they were 100% right. They were the first such and best situated console to take advantage of the desire for textured mapped polygons. Every system before it, even the Saturn, was not designed with a 3D-first mindset. 

 

The 3DO had all of the tools to succeed and I'd argue it was a great system with the right type of hardware. If it had come out when it was originally supposed to and they changed up their licensing model where the price for the console would have come in initially at at least $300 less, then I think they would have gotten a lot more traction faster. They still wouldn't have been able to compete with the PS1 after the first year, but then the M2 could have been ready for the PS1's second year. Of course would have/could have/should have is the story of a LOT of past platforms. It's just rare that I think with something like the VCS it seems so obvious what the shortcomings are even before release.

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5 hours ago, AlecRob said:

how capable would an Atari VCS upgraded to 64GB of ram be? how useful would that RAM actually be in terms of gaming?

I'd say it really depends on the game and how it's written. The requirements for Minecraft, which are more CPU heavy, are different from those of Fortnite, which is more GPU heavy, although both obviously benefit with better parts in all areas in general. Generally speaking, the most important factor for game performance is GPU, followed by CPU. You'll also want a minimum of 8GB for RAM. I think where the VCS will suffer the most with modern games will be with its GPU performance. You might be able to mitigate some of those issues by keeping resolution down to 1280x720 to get a decent frame rate, but that's REALLY low from a modern gaming standpoint. Again, even a current gen Xbox One X and PS4 Pro can run some games at a native 3840 x 2160 resolution with HDR and 60FPS.

 

With that said, the Switch does just fine with a native 720p screen as its portable display, and will often, but not always, hit 1080p when docked. What's important to keep in mind there is that those are fair trade-offs for a hybrid device, as well as the fact that these are all Switch-optimized releases. The VCS will be running native PC content, which will not be specifically optimized for its hardware, so there will be little chance every last ounce of power will be utilized. I'll say again that that would be much less of an issue if the VCS was priced $100 lower, but it's not. You're paying a premium for not enough power or to do much beyond, if anything, that you can with lower priced options, be they mini PCs, consoles, or other devices.

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All,

I have been on the fence on this device for some time....I have not ordered it as of yet but may in the coming weeks. Like others at this time the almost $400 pricetag is more steap then usual with this Pandemic/employment situations.

 

Things I acknowledge;

 

Besides the questionable startup (3 years and a colorful startup it has been...) it will receive the ATARI logo\brand and it really now appears more than likely its going to be delivered....Let that sink in...Atari hardware/device in 2020... did you think this was possible a decade or two ago? Also consider even today most people outside this website have no idea that another ATARI is about to be delivered...I believe a lot of the price point is based on that fact don't you want to be the first on your block/work to have it? Also the price proves there is a market to developers to support the device. Keep in mind sales is not the only place where the money is today in software...community support is a major factor in development decisions. Without support devices regardless of Hardware uniqueness (most powerful, smallest, etc) will fail.

 

We can all complain and b!tch that its not the real Atari. Let's be honest hardware outdates the day it is built/conceived but the rights, designs,copyrights, brand, and software decades from now will be all that matters. This fact is not limited to just electronics... its for a large amount of the companies in America. Atari's value due to its age is in a similar situation. Yes there were a lot of mistakes I for one acknowledge this fact but I also blame the time period for much of it.

 

I have supported all the way back to the original Atari VCS and before. Owned when they came out more than one 8 bit computer (Not to mention today a basement full of peripheals/software - currently have 10 8 bits), lived thru the game crash, and even got involved with the STs computers before going to the PC realm. So I honestly lived and breathed Atari, like many of you, through my childhood/adolescence.

 

This "age" actually, like many others, in my opinion started IT careers ( me included - Bachelors/Masters in Computer Science - 22 years as a developer) so I am wanting this device as a "Nod" to memories mostly. Not as the latest and greatest out there machine but an actually playable device for all members of the family. To be honest, today's new controllers are rougher on older audiences and a simple controller (similar to the Atari VCS) may level this playing field for some. If this thing gets off the ground its a step in the right direction for Atari to build upon. If this launch goes well I doubt this will be the only hardware in this decade released by ATARI.

 

Now with that said, we all know we have closets, if not rooms (basements) full of hardware that honestly did not have a chance at being the best. Alot of the hardware filled niches that other harware did not fill. Not to mention the diversity of the hardware was just exciting so the wow factor in some cases was limited...today's hardware to me is mostly Blah. The new Atari VCS Hardware has this same Blah factor but at least it is made by a company we know. Also I know I have hardware in my basement that was rarely used that makes the $400 risk not as risky (HP Parallel 2X CD Burner). With that said many of us use this old hardware for enjoyment even though it by most standards should have been recycled decades ago. Meaning the cost of ownership will be over many years probably with this device as well.

 

The Software model today is great for the developer ($$) but to me most software is repetitive or barely worth the meager cost. 

 

Todays technology, even how software is sold, may I even say "rented" is a about face from what it was like close to 40 years ago. So the experience will be a blend of the two I hope. A open source, publicly supported device and software but also a blend of Retro Gaming. Yes this retro gaming genre has been beaten to death. Can use Retro Pi, can use old hardware, can use emultators, can use new hardware consoles supporting old cartridges....etc, etc, etc. Maybe this device can be another option but possibly cover a larger audience. (Not just the retroGaming community but your standard Joe)

 

We also know that this device, like others out there, will be only successful if it has support. Especially from the Atari folks...Which today seems to be fragmented at best. This fragmentation in my opinion is what really ended Atari.

 

My two cents,

Chris

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 8/8/2020 at 11:50 AM, Bill Loguidice said:

I have to disagree here. I've written about this before and it's easy to overlook now, but at the time, the PS1 WAS a gamble. Sony gambled on 3D polygonal gaming being the future, and of course they were 100% right. They were the first such and best situated console to take advantage of the desire for textured mapped polygons. Every system before it, even the Saturn, was not designed with a 3D-first mindset. 

 

The 3DO had all of the tools to succeed and I'd argue it was a great system with the right type of hardware. If it had come out when it was originally supposed to and they changed up their licensing model where the price for the console would have come in initially at at least $300 less, then I think they would have gotten a lot more traction faster. They still wouldn't have been able to compete with the PS1 after the first year, but then the M2 could have been ready for the PS1's second year. Of course would have/could have/should have is the story of a LOT of past platforms. It's just rare that I think with something like the VCS it seems so obvious what the shortcomings are even before release.

Totally agree with you Bill.  The PS1 was a gamble considering what all Nintendo and Sega had going, not to mention all of the other machines released in the 5th generation.  Also, the 3DO was a machine that was highly anticipated at the time, myself included.  However, that initial $699 price tag (or whatever was the original release price) pretty much killed off the console before it really even got a chance to get started.

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12 minutes ago, Paul Slocum said:

Uh, are we going to get some better explanation as to why the other thread was closed 6 weeks before "it starts shipping"?  Seems odd.

I suppose you can read the last few pages and maybe find your answers.

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