TrogdarRobusto

I don't want to speak out of turn on this, but as I understand it one of the reason's Nightdive was looking to get acquired was so that they could do more with the titles they are releasing, and this would include bringing the games to more platforms (and markets). Their proprietary Kex engine is awesome, but some of the iterations predate the modern consoles so there is probably work that needs to be done on some of the older releases to bring them to the current gen. The public stance on System Shock has not changed: console ports are still in the plans, but were delayed past the originally planned release date. I'd say there is a desire to make all of their games broadly accessible in digital and physical format.

Agree with you. We want to see these stay in the market for quite a while, and I would think the demand for controllers would sustain long after demand for the 2600+ waned.

Agree it could be perceived as stifling discussion which we don't want to do (as if we could anyway). I am interested in channeling the discussions so that they remain on topic within the forums that are appropriate for them. Also not in a rush. Nothing will happen abruptly. Just thinking out loud and looking for feedback (which you have provided, thank you.)

Also, the community wants answers to the Stella question(s). Hear loud and clear. I don't want to get ahead of our hardware team or our partners at Plaion. We will address this ... just give me some time, I do not want to shoot from the hip.

This is the kind of conjecture around our motivation for business decisions that should probably live elsewhere. I disagree with this idea of "who" the Atari 2600+ was developed for, and I think I've explained my POV a few times in this thread (93 posts in this thread and counting!) Read my analogy to vinyl records. You could also think of the 2600+ as a prosumer device. It is both for the retro core and the general public who cares enough to get the good stuff. At PAX West I spoke with a lot of people who own OG hardware but also placed an order for the 2600+. They want an option for physical cartridges that is clean and easy ... direct output to that nice HD TV in their living room. Doesn't mean they are going to toss their CRT TV into the trash, or permanently mothball their original 2600. You can have both and they serve different purposes to their owners. I also spoke to a ton of people who don't own an original 2600 but preordered the 2600+ .... both core and casual. I hope we do produce things that generate a profit and provide value to customers. That is how we survive and ideally thrive.

hah ... poking my with a stick we have always wanted to make the VCS available in Europe and we have never found a clean way of doing it. It would take a while to explain and it involve sharing a lot of inside information I cannot share. At this point you are talking about taking a product that was imported into the US and re-exporting it for sale in Europe .. messy. Why none were ever shipped directly to Europe ... long story I cannot tell. Maybe I'll write a book some day. I'm not saying it won't happen, but I am also telling you I don't think it is likely. Anything new we make should really be available worldwide (like the 2600+ is).

This thread has largely headed waaaaaay off topic and it is getting very repetitive. I looks to me like we have exhausted the discussion around "what does this mean for AtariAge" and it has shifted into a lot of questions about the Atari 2600+, what hardware and games we might re-introduce in the future, what licensing partners we should and should not work with, etc. I'll speak with Al, but I am starting to think we should read through this and make sure we elevate the main questions and answers into the Q&A, and then lock the thread. That is going to be up to Al of course. One question that I see unanswered related to the deal is "will Atari archive a copy of the site/forums with a neutral third party." We are discussing that internally and I will come back with an answer (eventually). The other unanswered questions is "what if some trillion dollar hedge fund pays $800 billion for Atari or something else happens that fundamentally changes Atari's ownership structure and/or management team. Are there any assurances that AtariAge will remain perpetually unchanged if that happens?" We all know the answer to that is "no" ... that is just the reality of it for now. What could such a plan look like? Maybe start a thread about that? I think the discussion around the 2600+ should go into a 2600+ forum. All the discussion of what Atari should and should not do, what business decisions we should be making, who we should be partnering with, etc. Not sure how to parse that ... where it lives. Up to Al and the community. We are listening, and will continue to listen and engage. At the same time, as I have said before we are going to do what we think is best and not everyone here is going to agree with all of our decisions.

I can't really speak to what we MIGHT want to acquire in the future ... all sorts of issues around that kind of thing. Sorry I know that is not very satisfying as an answer.

I'm just speaking for myself here ...

I handle PR and also game distribution ... those two are my day-to-day.

I think the 8-bit and ST platforms are going to get some love. The team wanted to do more with those platforms on Atari 50 ... for whatever reason it wasn't practical at the time. We can't do it all at once, we'd love to, but if we try we won't do it as well as if we take our time.

It is kind of a tweener I suppose. It IS meant as a mass market product, but even within that market it is still a bit of a niche product. You are not going to see the 2600+ chasing the PS5 in unit sales (I mean, it would be nice). But it is also meant to appeal to core enthusiasts. That is why you have the attention to detail on the build, the resistance on the toggles, the effort put into the rubber gasket and red elastolin on the joystick, etc. The controller cross compatibility with the original hardware. The cart slot is a little wider because we know that a lot of third-party carts can stick because they wre made a little too big. The people working at Atari are the audience for this product, to be honest. I think in many ways we made what we wanted AND what we thought would do well in the marketplace. A lot of us have an OG 2600, but we wanted something we could easily plug into a modern monitor using HDMI. Just like I have two beautiful B&O turntables, but I bought a Rega Planar 1 to listen to records. The B&O's are amazing, but keeping them going is a lot of work. If you were to draw a circle around retro enthusiasts it would overlap with mass market ... retro gaming has gotten that big. I think it is very analogous to the revival of vinyl in music.

It is going to be interesting. I'd agree that the 2600 has the most nostalgic appeal and it was the most logical platform to revive. But retro gaming overall is a solid market right now. There are so many good games that were sort of lost as the console wars heated up and new and more powerful became much more important than backwards compatibility. Older games will continue to come back into circulation. Some will be ported to PC and modern console. Some will be rereleased in their original physical form. And I expect you will see more retro hardware that accepts original media coming to market as well. Commercial viability will always be an issue for more obscure platforms, but it you are realistic about the size of the market and can right size your development and distribution costs ... I mean we all want to get our hands on new versions of these classic legacy platforms for Atari and other brands. Unfortunately some games are owned by very big players who are unlikely to want to revisit them because they are always chasing much higher-dollar opportunities. The rerelease of some classic games on the first party platforms subscription services is cool, but I doubt they will go very deep into their catalog. So unless they license their tier 2 and tier 3 titles out to someone else to commercialize I think a lot of games are just not going to see the ight of day. Let's hope I am wrong.

The 2600 games may be the most iconic / well-known. That is probably true. The 2600 was in market for so long that there are way more games tied to the platform. A lot of those other platforms had a shorter lifespan. Plus there were fewer developers in the early years. The explosion of the game development industry was a good thing, and yes, that means Atari doesn't own/have rights to as high a percentage of later platform games. But we do own or have access to a good amount of titles across ST and Lynx, even Jaguar. And don't forget we own a lot of PC titles from the 90s and 00s, and a lot of early handheld era games that have value. A lot of work ahead of us bringing titles back into circulation.

These are all really solid questions and I will find out next week as much as I can abut 7800 compatibility and controller requirements. All may know more as well, we will dig.

As I understand it they are methodically testing games, one by one. Why they are testing some titles and not others, I admit I have no idea. The testing is ongoing so ... ideally we work through them all. But there are what, 500+ ....gonna take a while.

I would not call it a "crypto thing" 🙃. There were three items in the collection that were made available jointly with Coinbase ... so there was a web3 element. I'd describe it as a themed merch drop and also the initial launch of the new Atari Club. The majority of the collection was just what it was, clothing items with an Atari Summer Camp theme that anyone could buy using old fashioned money.

Technically this iteration of Atari has existed for a while, but in many ways it is a pretty new organization. Some of the team members have been around for six or seven years, but the majority have joined within the last three after Wade become CEO. The energy within the company is pretty amazing. Maybe it is best described as a very new chapter?

The early popularity of the 2600+ opens the door to making more controller types. I can't promise anything, but the desire is there.

I am not seeing what you are not seeing, but they should be there. I bet they appear next week, we are pushing hard to get all the markets to catch up.

Seemed like a pretty sober, balanced article. Coverage overall has been pretty consistent.

Hey I got quoted ...

Digital Eclipse is super busy actually, but that does not preclude dropping some DLC. I'd stayed tuned ...

https://www.amazon.ca/Plaion-Atari-2600-Hardware/dp/B0CG7LMFKY viola .. Canada is online. Firmware updates I can't speak to, but maximizing compatibility is the goal so ... seems likely.

No intentions to restrict discussion to Atari platforms only ... none at all. Been discussed a bit, but I realize the thread is quite long.