TrogdarRobusto
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Posts posted by TrogdarRobusto
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1 hour ago, Zoyous said:
You know since that time, Minter has worked with Atari SA on Tempest 4000 and Akka Arrh?
I mean, Jeff seems cool with us? I talk to him and Giles from time to time. We are having a great time working with him. Akka Arrh was amazing. He is already deep into his next Atari title. I mean yes, we can't change what happened with TxK back in the day, but we can celebrate Jeff's career and continue to work with him now. That is what we are going to do. You want to define Atari's entire, decades long relationship with Llamasoft by one single, albeit dark spot event on the timeline? I mean that seems like a depressing path.
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1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said:
Normies ftw.
Regarding the 2600+ advice, I would love to start seeing unfinished prototypes get finished and distributed. There were a lot of really promising titles out there we never got to see.
We did that with Aquaventure. And I know Saboteur and Yars Return were available first as homebrew carts, but I like that we gave both of those an 'official' Atari release. We do want to do more prototype releases. And every time we discuss one I reach out to Matt Reichert.
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2 minutes ago, zzip said:
Also if you think the VCS sounds like a jet engine, you haven't owned an OG PS4
Don't get me started on the 'fan-less' chip we were promised. I can assure you Atari was just as angry about the need to put a fan in the VCS (the cost, the noise) as the end users were. Ooof.
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10 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:
Given that this is now an Atari site with Atari employees present, what better time or place to ask: It has come to my attention that the Jaguar logo has been trademarked again by Atari Interactive. My question or concern is: Is Atari going to continue to allow us to use the Jaguar logo on independently created releases as we've been doing for the past 20+ years since Hasbro released the rights to the platform as public domain? Alarmingly, I've noticed another developer has recently removed the Jaguar logo from their releases which is why I'm bringing this up.
Honesty is the best course here ... I honestly I don't know the answer. I can say that pretty much all the game hardware brands tend to allow publishers to use platform logos on software products as long as they follow certain guidelines for use. I mean, it is a Jaguar game right? Don't you want to indicate that on the packaging?
Give us time on this, and I am pretty confident it will resolve in a way that makes sense.-
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11 hours ago, Rodney Hester said:
Not AtariAge/merger related, but the good gentleman from Atari said they want to listen to their fans. Very well, I'll speak for myself.
- We WANT you to succeed. Really. Really really. I don't give a crap how many iterations of owners and shenanigans the company has gone through over 50 years, I care about good product that both tickles my nostalgia itch and *makes me believe YOU care about your company and reputation*. That part's kinda big, because (and I'm going to focus now only on things the current iteration of the company has done)...
- Stop goofing around with crypto and hotels. _Immediately_. Don't be That Company(TM) that will slap it's iconic logo on toasters to make a quick buck. Innovate. Captivate. Make us cheer for you. You can do that by...
- Stop letting AtGames abuse your brand. Period, full stop. They are *HORRIBLE*. We don't need another Flashback, EVER. (Yes, that includes the latest two mini iterations, which had the potential for such greatness but ended up in such a bad state due to software that let the whole thing down...well, that, and the older great We Promise Paddles(TM)! No, wait, we lied... debacle. Not your manufacturing, but your name on the box, Atari!) We need QUALITY kit from Atari! What do you think gave them so much staying power in the 70s and 80s? Hint: It wasn't junk. (More on the software thing later) Not saying we don't like minis...they became their own market segment. But YOU make them - or at least get someone qualified and competent to do so!
- Stop doing semi-creative things like the Atari VCS and then effectively abandoning it. Your hardware was good (OK, decent), and I'll forgive the launch price because you're still trying to get your sea legs as a company, but again, the *software*. You can't update to apply bug fixes out of the box because of bugs! HOW did this slip through? EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER experienced this...but the maker didn't notice? WHY did you not put a HUGE banner at the top of your corporate and product home pages warning customers and giving them CLEAR direction on resolution _as soon as you knew_? Does writing HTML cost too much? Poor customer service kills, consistently. Also please don't make the customer apply their own thermal paste to prevent your product from sounding like a jet engine, please and thank you. That's embarrassing. (See my final words)
- Stop assuming that if you don't wall off customers from using things in a manner enjoyable to them that they won't buy anything new. I'm looking at you, 2600+. It's a RetroN 77 in prettier casing and without the micro SD card slot. Why? There's a LOT of 40+ year old games we want to play that _you can't support by definition_ and are COMPLETLY UNOBTANIUM in the real world. You don't even get a dime off cartridge resales, so why block our ability to enjoy the old content by just loading it ourselves? That ONE absence *ruins the product*. As for the cartridge dumper and the front port control code, YOU own it now, not Hyperkin. Fix it! Expand it! Make it work with as many cartridge types as possible - people on THIS VERY FORUM already laid out _exactly how you can achieve this_ in enough detail any engineer could do it in software in minutes! No, it won't be perfect...but it will be _better_, and *we care about that*. Make sure paddles work CORRECTLY, right out of the box, and don't forget keypads and driving controllers! Yes, we know, some of you weren't alive when we were using this stuff...but you're the ones doubling down on your legacy, so grab it in a big bear hug and own it. We WILL notice. It WILL matter to both current _and_ future customers. No more half-assed cash-ins on nostalgia...build a product worth owning. The cost delta of manufacturing is shockingly less than you think. And for that matter, yes, we WILL entertain buying future new cartridge releases for your shiny hardware, _even if_ it has a SD slot! To be fair, again outside the high cost of the XP releases (which again I admit are currently a bit beyond your control being a new-ish commercial concern), the packaging itself is brilliant and lauded! We LIKE it! We WILL buy it! But not at the exclusion of your legacy! If you can't add a card slot to the thing (because I know there are LONG lead times on shipping and stocking), give a day-1 software update that will let us use an OTG adapter with a USB flash drive to run anything Stella or the 7800 emulator will accept. YOU CANNOT LOSE BY DOING THIS!
- Listen to us when we tell you what we want and what's missing from the market space. You OWN THE JAGUAR CODE. Use it to make a mini Jag that will work with new controllers (because others are already making them, you know!) and blow our socks off with the legacy of that library...that will cost you VERY LITTLE. It's not niche! It's iconic and your customers have shown STRONG interest! Tap that market NOBODY has touched before! (Of _course_ there are others...but THIS is a quick win for you at the cost of making plastic molds and a software wrapper. Why aren't you already working on it?
- You've done some very, VERY positive things. You licensed to LEGO. _Very_ smart move...I've yet to read a bad review. The Tiny Arcade VCS was brilliant...but would have been moreso with actual 2600 games, not NES retreads. I'll say it again...it's the _SOFTWARE_! Anyone can make a pretty box. YOU are ATARI. YOU can make a distinguished product! Atari 50...probably one of the most lauded and respected software collections from ANY publisher for years. The beautiful design and presentation mixing history and live gaming was absolutely inspired. Good job on that front! Get the people that put that together to shepherd the software that goes into your physical products!
Overall, the greatest fault lies with poor software and testing, period. Eat your own dog food. Take a manufacturing sample home and, I dunno...PLAY IT. See where the flaws are. Better yet, send a few home with US and let US tell _you_ where things fall short before you commit! It's not hard! Many of us, including YT influencers, would no doubt be willing to sign (and respect) NDAs if necessary to improve the end result product. Use us! We know what we are doing and talking about...most of us have more time in this field than you do!
We want to believe. *I* want to believe. Gone are the days when you can make 60% returns on licensing your name to cheap-assed annual churn products sold at CVS every Christmas. Your customers are adults, with refined tastes and higher levels of disposable income. Treat them with respect and they will give you all you desire and more. Fail to pay attention to them and you will suffer the fate of the many iterations of Atari that came before you. For once, I see a small glimmer of hope that you ARE different. Show us. We will be patient...but not forever.
Welcome back, Atari.
This is a lot, I'll give it a shot and hopefully I don't sound defensive or flippant because I appreciate your passion for Atari and what you want it to be (what we all want it to be).
-- we are making games again, which the community wants and we want. Game development is a big part of what made the Atari brand what it is, and in order to sustain the brand and keep it relevant for another 50 years we need to return to our roots in gaming. So no argument there. We released around 20 games in the last 30 months. Some of them are smaller Recharged games, which I think are really solid and also were a perfect place for us to start (smaller games we knew we could do well). Now the games are getting bigger. Lunar Lander: Beyond, Haunted House and Days of Doom are really interesting, really good games. Mr Run and Jump (just released) is rocking an 81 in opencritic and metacritic. We are working with Jeff Minter again (Akka Arrh released in February and a new title coming next year). And they all go through QA, and the reviews tend to be good to very good. And we play them, a lot, I promise you. Maybe your software QA comment relates to the VCS?
-- I can't litigate the VCS launch after the fact. There were a lot of issues with the OS rollouts. It was a small team, they did their best. So much energy went into dealing the supply chain nightmare during that period and I know it robbed time from software development. You can bang on about that all you want, we can't change the past. And while that project preceded the current management team, we learned a lot from it, I can assure you.
-- We haven't abandoned the VCS, the community that formed around that platform is super passionate and always hungry for more content. If you want to advocate for specific compatibility, I'd do it in the VCS Discord. Not everything we are asked to do make sense for us, but every suggestion made in good faith is considered. The product is what it is. It can only be stretched so far into other use cases. There are a lot of people who wanted the VCS to be the next Switch or PS5, that was not the goal, nor was it a realistic goal. Doesn't mean it cannot find its niche and live on like so many other Atari platforms do.
-- I appreciate that the hard core community wants some new Jaguar hardware. Maybe (not my role in Atari). But hardware projects take time and money and you don't take them on lightly. There is no quick win in hardware development. Our attitude is anything worth doing is worth doing well, so we are going to take a thoughtful approach to these projects and not just fire them out. To your point, do you want a mini-Jaguar or do you want a Jaguar Flashback? I bet I know the answer. We have a roadmap of projects that are going to be done in an order the team thinks makes the most sense, and probably is tied to the relative commercial prospects of each.-- You aren't going to like everything we do. Some of the things we do you would have done differently. We are going to make the decisions we make, and see how it plays out. Right now, the Atari 2600+ is looking like a hit based on preorder volume. Does it have everything you want it to? No. Will we modify it in the future? Maybe. Will we make something else that does have the functionality you want? Maybe. We will discuss it with you and the rest of the community. And that represents positive change I hope.
-- Our licensing team is very, very focused on quality. You referenced some strong partners like Retrocade. The new Atari 50 Arcade1Up is solid, we had it at PAX, and it is selling really well. Lego. Cariuma. Quality is the north star here, so keep an eye on this space because things have changed.
-- We are in dialogue with the community, you can expect that only to increase. We know it is important.
-- We do respect this community. Without this community the brand probably would not have made it through the dark periods in such good shape. So, we owe a debt to the fan and developer community.
---
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12 hours ago, racerx said:
I think most of us that are currently banned from Atari's Facebook, Twitter, and reddit pages for nothing more than asking uncomfortable VCS questions are going to be a tough nut to crack.
I'd love to be won back but I'm not sure a corporate buyout of the preeminent fan community was the sign I was looking for.
Shucks. I was sure that was going to win you back!
I came in about halfway through the VCS era. It took a while to change Atari's posture in social media from block and ban to discuss and engage. We have a much thicker skin now. Anyone who made personal attacks against individuals was typically banned, but that is a universal practice not specific to Atari. If we need to unblock accounts feed them to me and I will make it happen.
The communications around the VCS were ... not to my taste. I think it is a cool retro device that does some neat things. I have one in my living room I use exclusively for streaming tv and movies from all the various things I subscribe to. The one stop shopping via Google Chrome is awesome, for me anyway. I have one in my office I use for gaming, but it gets less use. A really dedicated community has formed around the VCS, and we are doing our best to feed content into the store. I do think it should be a good platform for homebrew games to be sold and showcased, same with indie games. And if we can extend the ecosystem around it to add more utility even better, which is our goal.
The curse of the VCS was timing. It came to market when manufacturing and parts costs kept rising, really the entire supply chain was a nightmare. It is certainly open to criticism. I have my issues with it -- and if we were going to do a VCS mark 2 it would be different (my wish list includes easier access to memory and SSD slots, fan-less performance that we were promised with the Ryzen but was not realistic, better processor).
Really, Atari has a history of creating hardware that tries hard to do something novel, and not all of them hit the mark. But they all make a good faith effort, and even odd ducks like the Jaguar still have a passionate fan and developer base (Jagfest 2023 anyone?).
I am over-responding to your initial post, but ... I do that. My point is that there is nothing wrong with asking tough questions. We are getting all sorts of criticism in this thread about how we implemented the 2600+ ... bring it on. All valid discussion. Sometimes a product is exactly what it was meant to be and also doesn't check the boxes of certain user groups. That may be the case here. This is meant for mass market / retro enthusiasts. The 2600+ is super easy to use, pretty damn affordable, has a solid build quality, and kicks out a crisp, clean HDMI image. You can compare it to a Hyperkin all day long from a functional stand point if you want, but once you get one in your hands you can see that they are very different beasts.
Will we listen to criticism and recommendations and adapt to better meet the needs of the developer community? I bet we will.
We can't win you back in a day, it is going to take a while. I think it is worth the time and the effort.
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13 hours ago, peekb said:
For clarification, would "monetizing our brand" include selling a homebrew title with an Atari/Jaguar/Lynx/etc. logo on the box/manual/etc.?
That is a good question. I don't know the answer, honestly. I'll poke around and see if I can find out.
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9 minutes ago, BIGHMW said:
Will I still be allowed to host The Atari Report with Ray Jackson (myself ...
I don't see why not. If your concern is using "Atari" in the title, as far as I know as long as you aren't monetizing the brand without permission you are good to go.
There is a company we use to scan the interwebs for people who sell counterfeit Atari goods or otherwise monetize our brand in some way. You'd be amazed at the volume of knock-off merch and hardware. Fan/analyst/media content should not be caught in their net, but sometimes it is. And if that happens, we can set it free if we know about it. So if you get a notice, let us know and we will deal with it.
If you decide to sell Atari logo t-shirts on your show or other knock-off merch we send Yorgle, Grundle and Rhindle after you.-
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I'm heading out for dinner ... be back later ...
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2 minutes ago, Matt_B said:
It's not even really Infogrames these days, to be honest.
I'd think that you're best off considering Atari to be a startup who purchased the name, IP and stock listing at a bankruptcy auction around a decade ago.
That's not to say that they can't still do a good job with their legacy, but it'll help set your expectations if you see them that way.
Funny, I have often referred to Atari as a 50 year old start-up. The company has changed hands quite a few times. The question is "are the current hands good ones?" I hope to prove the answer is "yes" over time.
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6 minutes ago, Mikebloke said:
It's fine, I don't expect you to seriously know what atari as a company might do with this forum in 20 years time, but the thing is, many of us will still "be here". There is going to be a lot of gutted people in the future when eventual chopping does happen.
I don't honestly expect Albert to give us a data dump of the entire forums either, I think I'll start a thread elsewhere of threads to be preserved off site.
I wouldn't be so hasty, I think the idea of archiving the forums is an interesting one. Maybe one of the game museum's would want a copy for their collections? It isn't an official answer, but if having a third-party archive of the forums to date is important to the community than we will take that idea seriously -- Al would need to weigh in of course.
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3 minutes ago, carlsson said:
At least when it comes to Colecovision and Intellivision, both have strong communities with plenty of collectors. Commodore 64 is quickly growing bigger, though it is terribly ridden with piracy still to this day. However perhaps series of 100 or 200 boxed cartridges would be worthless for Atari to even consider, even if you can sell them for $50-70 per piece.
Well, we want to commercialize our IP / re-release games we own. Al can help us figure out some of these edge cases, and of course the community can weigh in.
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2 minutes ago, Mikebloke said:
Thanks for the replies. In relation to number 2, I'm thinking more about systems like the 1292, vectrex, PC-50X, and of course other systems such as the Magnavox odyssey, fairchild channel f, bally astrocade etc. I think it's going to have to be a case of individuals like myself copy pasting everything into an archive system but an official copy dump would have been nice and much easier (for everyone but you) I guess.
3) well atari doesn't own the fairchild channel f yet, and some other copyright upstart has now taken it on in the US (though I don't think anyone has bothered to take it seriously given the 6 of us who probably still have a system and develop for it is all here). 😛
I may have misunderstood question number 2 ... if I did my apologies. I'll let Al address it.
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50 minutes ago, AtariLeaf said:
A little off topic but...Berzerk Recharged please 🙂
Um ... who have you been talking to AtariLeaf? I mean, it seems likely, right?
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2 hours ago, Tickled_Pink said:
The Atari site does list worldwide retailers. I don't know where you live but Amazon are the official retailer in the UK. I was surprised at the price. Not been a big fan of retro consoles as they've either been expensive or haven't done anything I can't do on my softmodded PSP. But at under £100, it's probably cheaper than getting a HDMI upscaler that can take an RF input. So, it's definitely tempting.
We really tried to keep the price reasonable while keeping the build quality high. We didn't see the point of bringing out a $600 2600. That just becomes a vanity project. The are hundreds of 2600 and 7800 games out there ... at $129.99 the Atari 2600+ makes those games accessible to a much broader population, folks who jsut want to turn on the power, plug in an HDMI cable and play.
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6 minutes ago, carlsson said:
Maybe you can bring back Atarisoft from where it was left 40 years ago, making official ports of Atari games for non-Atari systems, at least those with some commercial viability.
Almost all the new games and collections we make come out on all the modern consoles and PC ... the idea of porting old Atari games to other legacy hardware systems is an interesting one. Not sure how viable that is commercially, but maybe?
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1 minute ago, BILLYonaire said:
It appears they added more countries since I replied to Tickled_Pink but unfortunately, still none for my country and payment method. Hopefully, it will become available at AtariAge or StoneAgeGamer.
What country? I can find out if distribution is planned for that market ... at least near term.
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1 minute ago, Mikebloke said:
I haven't been around so this is new news to me. I do have a few questions for @Albert and or @TrogdarRobusto
1) what happens to past and any future rom releases of homebrews here on the forum, does Atari have a policy on who owns such content? Can it be made official and public that any binary / other files that we have uploaded / may upload in the future will be still our property and not owned in anyway by Atari? This isn't just about atari systems, but all of them.
2) while there is no plans to remove non atari related material, this forum is a treasure trove of hundreds of threads about the history of systems both post and pre 2600. Some of the only information of systems development is found on this forum from researchers, some of them are sadly no longer with us and the only thing we have is their posts here preserving their precious research. Is there any plans to officially archive some or all of the forum so that this information is preserved just in case? I don't know if any other users are concerned but I'm worried that some of the only stuff on some systems is here and here only.
I think I had a third but I've forgotten.
Albert, congratulations and I respect your decision to be taken in house. I think this is further vindication that there is a place for retro gaming as a modern market and no doubt there will be some doors opening for further technical amazing homebrew experiences (or do they count as official now?!).
I have had my doubts and I was one of those people who mocked the VCS release along with the other mad ideas like hotels. I'm still pretty critical of those things. But even I would say I'm relatively supportive of recent measures such as the 2600+. For what it's worth I still want to say "good luck" to atari.
However the feel of the site will change with time, it's natural. I imagine many of us will migrate and slowly fade away. It's nothing personal, but it will feel different.
Again, good luck to all partners involved.
I think Albert has answered these questions already, and better than I could. But here goes:
1) You own today what you owned yesterday. There is no change to how AtariAge/Atari views homebrew content. We anticipated this question, and we aren't quite sure how else to answer it. If you made the game, it is yours until you decide otherwise.
2) all the information and forum activity for non-Atari hardware are extremely valuable to the community, the industry and to Atari. We own the rights to tons of games published on non-Atari hardware after all.
3) I hope you stick around and help sustain and grow the AtariAge community, and tells us what you think about what Atari is and can be in the future.-
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Just now, tzok said:
The ones who claim to be Atari were formerly known as Infogrames... and I don't know how and why they claim the right to all the Atari heritage.
No one from the infogrames era is involved in the company. I personally don't understand the mentality that the only valid Atari is the original Atari. But if it means anything, Nolan is an advisor to the company, we talk to him all the time. I personally speak with him a few times a year. He is a super interesting guy. We do see a spiritual connection between the original and what we are trying to accomplish. And we are Atari ... plain and simple.
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2 hours ago, retroillucid said:
I was wondering..., will it affect the ColecoVision/ADAM section?
Do they plan to remove non-atari related stuff here?
No chance. that content is super valuable to the community. And remember, Atari owns a ton of games that were released on various systems from the console, handheld and PC eras.
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2 hours ago, BILLYonaire said:
Will the Atari 2600+ be available at the AtariAge store? I don't reside in the US, so I can't place an order at their site.
The Atari 2600+ is available for preorder already in many countries. Here is a list. For the latest look here https://atari.com/products/atari-2600-plus under international Availability.
Australia - EB Games
Austria - Games Only
Benelux - Bol
Canada - Amazon
France - Amazon
Germany - Amazon
Italy - Amazon
New Zealand - EB Games
Poland - RTV Euro AGD
Slovenia - Igabiba
Spain - GAME
Switzerland - CeDe
United Kingdom - Amazon
United States - Amazon
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57 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:
But I got a VCS on sale at Micro Center in 2021, was very impressed by it, and thought, well, maybe they’re not all bad.
Hey. We will take "not all bad" as a starting point and work up from there!
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1 hour ago, ApolloBoy said:
I'd also love to see some rereleases of rare carts if possible.
Part of the XP program's mission is to release carts for prototypes and rare games. Granted, we also release some more common favorites but expect a mix.
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14 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:
One thing that I would add to this: if Atari, SA intends to have physical releases for legacy hardware, the same should apply. Targetting nostalgia is all well and good, but how many ways to play Centipede do we really need? New software is what keeps these systems alive.
We have released a ton of new games over the last two years. About half of them have been from the Recharged series, which modernize classic games without changing the core gameplay. The other ten or so are completely new games, some based on old IP and some new IP. We are making games ... new software. We have also announced a bunch of games that are releasing between now and March. Check them out ... https://atari.com/collections/games
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My taco preference varies with mood. Sometimes I like soft, sometimes I like a hard shell. Big fan of Pollo Asado. Sometimes fish is the right call, especially on a nice spring day. Always have to have cheese. I love cheese. I am basically Wallace from Wallace and Grommet in that regard.
Over time I migrated from Tabasco to Cholula Original Hot Sauce, I mean, I am always open to recommendations. I live in Northeast, not really the hot sauce capital of the world.