Tavi

They certainly seem to have a very optimistic outlook on Atari and the Atari Box. In my personal opinion, Atari made a new division just for the Atari Box so if (when?) things went pear shaped like the Atari Gameband did Atari Corp's money and assets are sheltered from people angrily demanding refunds. Keep in mind both these projects were masterminded by Feargal Mac Conuladh. As to the parent company being in a good financial situation, that depends on how you look at it. It certainly is just a shell of its former self. There is basically no staff, and they build and produce nothing. All income is derived from licensing and lawsuits. It is hard to lose money from that, but equally obvious there is no potential for huge profits either. This is the main reason it is, and will likely remain, a penny stock company. As for crowdfunding showing demand; after a guy on kickstarter had almost 7K backers and raised 55K to help him 'make some potato salad'; I think they only thing we can take away form backers counts and contributions is there are some mighty odd people out there with apparently entirely too much money. I certainly would not gauge product demand from either.

wow.. This one almost flew under my radar, which it would certainly have been a shame to miss out on playing this! The game looks amazing, and you have an excellent review of it.

The Telegames one is a great find! I am certainly no expert, but do believe the Telegames console is a Sears heavy sixer? Which certainly increases its desirability. Even if it is not, they do just look nice :D

This is an absolutely amazing hack! I love my 2600, but have to admit the original Venture was pretty unimpressive. No music, I swear the sound effects were lifted straight from Bezerk, and most annoyingly for some reason the rooms do not fill in once they are completed. The original 2600 version was still fun, but also seriously lacking in several areas. This hack recreates the game as faithfully to the arcade version as possible; doing even more then I would have imagined was possible for the 2600. It is certainly a hack people are going to want to play! It is like a whole new game.

Quite honestly, this probably would be me. If I ever bought an Atari Box; it would likely be to replace my Atari Flashback and just used to play classic Atari games on. Like so many others have said, it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. Everything it offers, chances are you already own something that not already does the exact same thing; but likely also better. An online Atari Flashback has some appeal, but not even close to the point where I would consider dropping 400$ for it.

I like the Tempest one! Though they are all very nicely designed.

You did not miss much. But then when you are basically interviewing yourself you tend not to ask (or answer) the hard questions. I found two things of interest out of the entire thing. One; Arzt made mention of the pricing for Atari Box titles: ranging from 3$ to 25$. The second is at the end Arzt said ' Our long-term vision is to make a full assortment of affordably-priced classic emulators and game ROMs accessible from the Atari VCS store.' and made mention they are working with unspecified partners on this. Which to me sounds like they are looking at emulation and ROM packs for other classic gaming systems, provided this is not just another wishful thinking pipe dream (Atari and Arzt are pretty vague on details concerning what games will be available for the system).

I do see this was re-listed as just a regular auction now. I presume some collector will still pay well for it, but it will go for nowhere near the original asking price.

It might be worth a try to buy one of the 'RCA to HDMI converter' mini boxes off eBay. I bought a few of them, which I used to hook a Blu ray player to an older TV for family members; and they did work surprisingly well. Even the one that was running though two different adapters (RCA to HDMI; and also Coax to RCA) for around 12$ it might be something to try?

Ms. Pac-Man is by far the much better game then Pac-Man. Like you said they certainly decided to take their time and do a proper job of it the second go around. For working with the the 2600's limitations, they made I think quite an accurate arcade port this time.

The problem I think is whatever you want of the Atari Box, you can find something already offering it; and usually better and/or cheaper. You want a retro emulator? Pi can do it all and for a lot cheaper then 400$. You want a Steam box? You can build one for a lot cheaper then the Atari Box (remember a SDD drive and Win 10 licence is extra on top of the units price); and you can likely then also upgrade components to it to extend the systems life. With the Atari Box, other then adding memory nothing is upgradable. A problem when as others have said the Ryzen CPU is already becoming outdated and the unit is not even in production yet. Games are not exclusive. You can play everything demoed so far on the Atari Box on another existing system. So again, why drop 400$ on a new system to replicate the ability of an existing system(s) you most likely already own? At least with the Amico, they know what customers they are going for and carving out a market niche for themselves. Atari seems to be trying to do a little bit of everything, and the problem is it is now doing nothing well enough to justify buying the Atari Box. In my opinion the iconic name brand is pretty much the only thing carrying Atari Box sales, and that won't last long once reviews start coming in I expect.

Honestly, if it were not for it being a subscription service (God I loathe being forced into buying access to a game on a reoccurring monthly basis) a lot of the games they demoed look like things I would enjoy playing. I do sometimes enjoy massive world games like Zelda, Fallout and Skyrim; but sometimes you just want to pop in a game and be playing seconds later. This is exactly why my 2600 is hooked to my TV and still sees a lot of use. The Atari Box also still needs its 'Halo', 'Sonic' or 'Mario' system exclusive game if it is going to be a retail success. This latest announcement is more in my line of gaming interest; but certainly not to the point where I would be considering dropping 400$ on a console for it. Especially when it is locked behind 4.99 a month paywall and once again is something that can be accessed on pretty much any device with internet capabilities.

This was back in 2009, but I am reminded of when Turbine took Atari to court for 30 million in damages. With a rather impressive list of grievances, underhanded dealings and outright contract breaches against Atari. It is sad to see what was once an iconic monolith of gaming reduced to nothing more then a name being passed around between various conmen and scam artists; each one wringing just a little bit more out of the brand, not caring in the least how badly it damages the name 'Atari' in the process. Forty years ago, Atari = Gaming in most peoples minds. Now you mention Atari and the first thing that pops to mind is lawsuits, scams and broken promises. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. https://www.engadget.com/2009-08-26-breaking-turbine-sues-atari-over-dungeons-and-dragons-online.html

It is funny, but when I got this game as a kid I played the hell out of it for quite a while, and loved it. But then I had also never been in an arcade at that time. It was not until some time later after I had seen and played Pac-man on a friends Intellivision and played it in an arcade that I realized how truly awful the 2600 version actually was. It is a shame that Atari seemed to have phoned it in on several of the big arcade hits of the time. I would say expecting the name recognition to carry them in sales, rather then doing their very best at creating a fun and faithful conversion (or at least as faithful as you can get with the 2600's hardware). I still fire it up and play it on occasion, but there are certainly better versions available. Even Ms Pac-man for the 2600 was a huge step up in game quality over Pac-man.

I am suspecting there are a few factors here. One would be that Tin Giant feels it has a strong case and expects to win, so then why settle? Which leads right into the second point. Looking at past Atari lawsuits they seem to offer considerably less then what is owed by them and expect that this offer will be taken rather then dragging things out though court. If Tin Giant expects to win, I doubt they would settle for a partial payment on what is owned. Might as well go for the full amount, plus Atari paying the court costs. I think Atari has pulled this scam once too often, and this time Wyatt is not playing along with them.

Er, even from a purely technical standpoint both the Amico and Atari Box have shown to have at the very least working prototypes. So I am not sure where you are coming up with that the Amico is just now looking for someone to build the system? Both have also made mention of manufacturing delays, due to Covid throwing supply chains and Chinese manufacturing for a loop. Something that is hitting all the console manufacturers, not just these two. But the Amico is the one saying there is 'a possibility of delay' and still hoping to meet their 10/10/2020 release date. Unless Atari has access to a time machine, I just do not think they are going to make their December 2019 release date. Or the March 2020 release date. That is two missed releases well before the Covid problems. With their recent 'Good news Everyone!' announcement that after three months they finally managed to produce 96 units, with another 11,000 to go I expect their latest December 2020 release date is eventually not going to look terribly promising either. While neither system might not offer what you are looking for in a gaming console, they are still both very different from each other in pretty much every conceivable metric.

I would love to be added to this list as well, thanks!

I would probably have a bit more confidence in this guarantee, if only Atari had not missed three shipping dates already. Plus if I recall correctly the pre-order people are pretty far down the Atari Box fulfillment list. It would be almost as quick to wait for Walmart or Gamestop to stock them and pick one up from them. It certainly would be a lot cheaper as well as you would not be shelling out the cash upfront and then be waiting on Atari to decide if and when they will deliver. So waiting for physical stock to be available from stores would reduce a lot of the risk involved as well. As a year and a half behind schedule and just 96 units produced, with another 11,000 or so still needed does not instill a lot of confidence. I would be willing to bet big that if Atari does not find an investor using the 96 units they are passing around right now, they will just walk away. I expect they will remind everyone who backed the Indiegogo project that they were 'investing in a vision, not buying a product'. I expect between the additional year and a half of operation costs and Corona driving up component prices; they do not have the money needed to build the backer units. I would say these 'dev kit' units being produced are Atari's Hail Mary play; desperately hoping to find a ̶s̶u̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ investor so blinded by the Atari name they overlook the last few years of ̶f̶l̶a̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶d̶u̶m̶p̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶e̶s̶ setbacks attached to Atari and to the Atari Box project.

I like this little bit : 'It’s an exciting time, as the units from this pallet are now being prepared with games and apps for business-only purposes, including demos for key retail merchants, regional distributors, the Atari PR team/influencers, late-stage dev kits for game testing and other critical purposes.' It seems a lot of these units are being used by Atari to stump up some interest (and I presume more importantly, investment money) in their Atari Box. Which certainly would explain why they need 500 'Dev Kit' units. I am a little impressed as this is one pallet more of Atari Boxes then I had honestly thought would ever reach US shores. I half expected the few prototype and demo units to be the entire production run before they shut it down. Still it is a long, long way from the 11,000 or so additional units they need for their Indiegogo backers. Chesnais and Atari better be a lot better at pitching this Box to investors then they have been in so far in promoting and demoing it.

Granted I am no lawyer, but I am not sure Atari has much of case here. Atari can talk about iconic video game images and how the Atari brand began the billion dollar a year home gaming industry, but the simple fact is they have not actually manufactured any 2600 hardware themselves (including the Atari joystick) for 30-35 years. So I am thinking it would be a challenge to make a case showing how Hyperkin is stealing business from them, or the possibility of product confusion with original 2600 joysticks. Again not an expert, but 'They are making something obviously inspired by something we quit making over three decades ago' is not a strong legal case. I would be surprised if Atari pulls a win out of this one. For a company that now derives most of their income though various lawsuits, they do not seem to be doing well in court recently at all.

I am convinced that Atari had never intended to build the Atari Box. I imagine the plan was this: Run an Indiegogo for the concept of the Atari Box (keep in mind at the time the Indigogo was running Atari had no prototype, and only a handful of actual staff, none of who had any experience with or the skills required to create a new console) and get the Atari brand trending. If the project failed in its funding goal, then they could at least cash out on the increased stock prices. If the Indiegogo succeeded, then plan B was sit back and wait for one of the big players to notice them and buy Atari out for an obscene amount of cash (we can call this the 'Oculus Rift Effect'.), or just wait a bit of time then put out their 'This is a hard letter to write.... you were buying into a vision, not buying a product....' and ride off into the sunset. I really do not think they ever actually planned for having to build the console themselves. When the Atari Box Indiegogo succeeded, and with a surprising three million plus raised, they were now stuck. That is entirely too much money for them to pull an Atari Gameband and disappear with the cash (The US is now pressing class action lawsuits against high dollar fraud campaigns), and none of the big boys were coming to them with a giant novelty cheque for millions to buy them out. So now with no manufacturing capabilities, no engineers, no programmers, absolutely nothing Atari needed to actually build and design a console; Atari had to start right from square one and design then manufacture 11,000 Atari Boxes and do all this for three million dollars. Which brings up to a point I had mentioned a few weeks ago, the five hundred 'Atari Box 'Dev kits'. I would put my money on that Atari is now nearly out of cash; and that five hundred units is all they could afford to manufacture. 260K to Rob Wyatt, 100K or so for Feargal Mac Conuladh; add on three years worth of of salary and expenses (I bet Arzt pays himself handsomely) and top with considerably increased costs of electronic components need for the Atari box and I would think that the initial three million is now pretty much finished. I would bet that the majority of these five hundred units is their 'Hail Mary' throw, and they are desperately shopping them around as demo units while looking for some investor money to pay for the actual production. Of course this is all 100% conjecture on my part and I could be completely wrong about this. But looking at Atari's 'no news is good news' consistent silence on most aspects of the project, the repeated missed deadlines bringing them to now a year and a half past their initial delivery date with still no real idea when production is even beginning, critical staff quitting and then suing them for delinquent payment and I will certainly believe they are experiencing serious problems over believing everything is perfectly fine, but Atari just doesn't feel like keeping their backers updated.

As the title states, I came across a new listing on eBay this morning for an Intellivision II being sold with computer keyboard and adapter. The listing also includes a spare controller, a few games, and two rather nifty looking joystick adapters. It does not appear to have the original boxes, but all parts do look in excellent condition. According to the listing all parts have been tested and are working. Might be a good deal for someone looking? https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Mattel-Intellivision-2-Console-Keyboard-Computer-Adapter-Games-TESTED/274391741116?hash=item3fe305b2bc:g:y6oAAOSwyB9e3pzH ... as I forgot to mention it somehow, the opening bid is 80 USD.

I do recall seeing 'Afterlife with Archie' and the 'Archie meets The Punisher' crossover, so they do a lot of crossovers! I completely missed seeing this crossover though, looks like quite the interesting idea.

*EDIT* .... and I just realized this was part of the last update; so nothing new here at all.

... well, to myself it means Atari has for a third time recycled the same bit of news concerning the 500 units as fulfilling their 'monthly' (which seems to take an average of 5 weeks now) Indiegogo backer update. Seeing they estimate completion in Mid-June, I do wonder if they are going to go for broke on four; and the end of June update will be some variation of 'We shipped the 500 units'. That it will have taken them three months to assemble 500 units (barring any new and additional delays) is not very encouraging. Granted this is an initial run but still at slightly under 5% completion per 3 months, it would take them a bit over five years to produce the units needed to fulfill their Indiegogo backer obligations. Let's hope they can streamline that timetable a bit. It is nice to see them demoing something other then Antsteam and Atari Vault; it does give hope that there may indeed actually be some development taking place for the Atari box. The addition of a disclaimer "Please also note that everything shown here is for demonstration purposes only and nothing appearing in these videos should be taken as official announcements or promises of any specific content in the Atari VCS store." is a little less encouraging. Seeing that all titles being shown demoed are available on Steam (except Warzone), I am highly suspecting they are playing them in sandbox mode and conveniently neglected to mention this fact. That said, it is impressive to see that they got COD: Warzone to run on the Atari Box. It is a modified unit of course, but still it actually runs it. Which is more then I expected of it. Their 'Escape from New York: Atari Box Edition' part of the dev blog was an entertaining read. I still liked the original better though I think.