New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[zzip]

 

They will need to explain why their "PC experience" is better than, say, your own PC.

 

 

That's easy, my PC has a rather large mini-tower case which isn't a great form-factor for the living room, it's loaded with fans to make noise (1 on the CPU, 3 on the GPU, 2 on the case, one on the power supply-- 7 in total) - so it's noisy, and blows out lots of heat. Runs an OS that assumes keyboard and mouse by default -- not great for the sofa.

[leech]

 

 

The article with Feargal mentions him working with "FMTwo Game Inc." which is Atari Gameband. Which did have AMD Reps in vids.

 

The images in the latest newsletter are not renders, but physical.

Weren't other people discussing some article about AMD making some great deal with some unnamed company? Anyhow, it seems all the current consoles use some sort of embedded AMD CPU/GPU. Though I'm not sure about the Switch.

 

Also makes sense to have a custom Big Picture skin for their interface. I'm betting they're taking SteamOS, adding some graphical tweaks / theming and then rolling in some Mame functionality for their old classic games they're going to bundle.

 

One thing that definitely makes or breaks ANY game console though is the controller, and if Atari paid any attention to their history they'd know they should market what controller is going to be included. While if it's a Linux based system most any controller will work, they still should package one or two with the system. Consoles are all about the 'out of box' experience.

 

One downside of doing SteamOS is that it doesn't have any built in way to watch Netflix, HBO Now, etc. So for the 'theater' part it's stuck with videos you can buy through Steam. But who knows if Atari will add some of this. Would be cool though if they worked WITH Valve on all of this.

[Keatah]

If that is the case I think I will just get a similar device at a 3rd of the cost and simply slap on some woodgrain MAKtac, install my own emulated Atari games and call it a day. Sure it may not be "official" but it will be something likely almost as good if not better.

 

I feel that a $350 NUC or other small form factor PC, running select emulators, can be more "Atari" than anything a company is going to produce today. Equip it with a fast gaming monitor and custom arcade controls if you like and you will be playing the games in style. Your style, and not "atari lifestyle" - whatever it's supposed to mean. For bonus points play some 80's music, and visit a real arcade if that's your gig. You can't beat that! Visit the arcade, then bring the games home on that little SFF PC.

 

 

TRY TO REMEMBER FOLKS THIS IS NOT REALLY "ATARI" IT IS SIMPLY A NAME / LICENSE / IP acquired by people looking to bank on your love and nostalgia for the original company. Some, actually many people always seem to want to believe that it is something more, it really isn't. And hey that is fine, even I would buy into something like this merely for that Atari logo if it were priced at an impulse buy level but it does not look like that will be the case so imho buying into and supporting such crap tells these companies how gullible and accepting we are to buy into ANYTHING and ANY PRICE, vote with your dollars folks and send the proper message.

 

I believe newcomers and neophytes don't actually care if it's real Atari or fake atari. It just isn't that important. And atari marketing departments know that. They know they have to program a whole new generation of kids with "atari".

 

Back in the day it just kinda sorta happened as an outgrowth or natural progression of the new electronic medium and the microchip. It was organic and there were no rules.

Edited September 26, 2017 by Keatah

[Keatah]

That's easy, my PC has a rather large mini-tower case which isn't a great form-factor for the living room, it's loaded with fans to make noise (1 on the CPU, 3 on the GPU, 2 on the case, one on the power supply-- 7 in total) - so it's noisy, and blows out lots of heat. Runs an OS that assumes keyboard and mouse by default -- not great for the sofa.

 

Ohh dear..

 

If I win the lottery I'll build you a fanless STB with convective Peltier cooling. It'll come with an i9 as the base processor and a graphics board of your choice. Fanless too. That's elegant computing there, son.

 

Fans are so "Maximum PC'ish"!

[leech]

 

That's easy, my PC has a rather large mini-tower case which isn't a great form-factor for the living room, it's loaded with fans to make noise (1 on the CPU, 3 on the GPU, 2 on the case, one on the power supply-- 7 in total) - so it's noisy, and blows out lots of heat. Runs an OS that assumes keyboard and mouse by default -- not great for the sofa.

Steam Controller helps a lot... but yeah I said the same thing, anyone who has tried to build a small form-factor computer for living room use knows it's a real pain to balance between noise, power and size. Most HTPC cases are basically the size of a full tower on it's side. A lot of the Mini-ITX Power Supplies have incredibly high RPM fans in them which cause loud whiny noises. Companies never put in the best fans either, some of the really silent running fans are skipped over. PS3 and PS4 are terrible, as soon as any game starts to push the hardware, they sound like wolves are being tortured.

 

First mini-PC I bought had a really loud PSU fan which I replaced with one with the rubber grommets instead of screws and even that bit of change was a huge improvement. After that it was a tolerable system to use, unfortunately it was too slow for almost anything.. (I think it was a second generation Atom with nvidia built in).

[leech]

 

Ohh dear..

 

If I win the lottery I'll build you a fanless STB with convective Peltier cooling. It'll come with an i9 as the base processor and a graphics board of your choice. Fanless too. That's elegant computing there, son.

 

Fans are so "Maximum PC'ish"!

How big is that? Ha, I remember when everyone was all about Peltier coolers... .then they stopped being mentioned everywhere. When I was looking for a HS/F for my Falcon's CT60e I considered getting one for it, but ended up just using the heat sink from my A4000s 040 with a awesome silent fan that I had laying around for a similar purpose (that was for replacing the stock fan in the Falcon, but it was too high to fit in the weird compartment under the memory.)

 

I was actually shocked to see the Peltier coolers still being sold, wasn't there some serious issue with using those back in the day and that's why people stopped using them in general?

[JBerel]

 

The images in the latest newsletter are not renders, but physical.

 

I don't believe that for a second, but I'll bite. What makes you say that?

 

I think the legitimacy of the images is the key question at the moment. Since they are claiming they have even a single prototype and those images are all they have to show for it, something is seriously fubar.

[zzip]

TRY TO REMEMBER FOLKS THIS IS NOT REALLY "ATARI" IT IS SIMPLY A NAME / LICENSE / IP acquired by people looking to bank on your love and nostalgia for the original company. Some, actually many people always seem to want to believe that it is something more, it really isn't. And hey that is fine, even I would buy into something like this merely for that Atari logo if it were priced at an impulse buy level but it does not look like that will be the case so imho buying into and supporting such crap tells these companies how gullible and accepting we are to buy into ANYTHING and ANY PRICE, vote with your dollars folks and send the proper message.

 

 

But which is the real Atari? The Bushnell Atari? Warner? Tramiel? Atari Games? All three had different focuses and changed the company significantly.

 

Why is anyone who owned the name after Tramiel not legit?

[leech]

 

But which is the real Atari? The Bushnell Atari? Warner? Tramiel? Atari Games? All three had different focuses and changed the company significantly.

 

Why is anyone who owned the name after Tramiel not legit?

Ha, I was thinking this too. I mean the one that was probably most successful was the Bushnell era, Time Warner was initially then... E.T. and other factors happened... I think once they merged with JTS it became an IP rather than a company. That's why most people don't consider it 'real' Atari. Current Atari is just as much Infogrames as they are anything else. Drakkhen was awesome.

[Keatah]

How big is that? Ha, I remember when everyone was all about Peltier coolers... .then they stopped being mentioned everywhere. When I was looking for a HS/F for my Falcon's CT60e I considered getting one for it, but ended up just using the heat sink from my A4000s 040 with a awesome silent fan that I had laying around for a similar purpose (that was for replacing the stock fan in the Falcon, but it was too high to fit in the weird compartment under the memory.)

 

I was actually shocked to see the Peltier coolers still being sold, wasn't there some serious issue with using those back in the day and that's why people stopped using them in general?

 

Peltier coolers had a serious condensation problem, they'd refrigerate the chip alright, refrigerate it mind you. And condensation would build up. And water and electronics, not so good. Chalk it up to the overclockers of the era. Overclocking is like so dumb.

 

So the trick (and common sense is to run the cooling unit at around room temperature and connect the "output" side to a fluid heatpipe, vertically oriented for convection. A radiator about the size of a 1-liter bottle. And it sits out of sight on the back the box. This way you don't freeze any parts, no condensation, makes sense?

 

Alternately you can get 1-single-fan, a 100mm sized fan and run it at like 500 RPM. It'll be silent and you can hear paper rustle across the room. You can position it on top of some horizontal STBs that have perforated top covers. There's really a ton of things you can do. Why not start a thread on silent ITX computers?

Edited September 26, 2017 by Keatah

[spacecadet]

I believe newcomers and neophytes don't actually care if it's real Atari or fake atari.

 

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."

 

The full weight of that quote is on Atari here. I agree that it doesn't really matter what's "real" or "fake" at this point. Atari's Atari. Every company that's around long enough has a lineage that's a series of fits and starts, under different management, different leadership, in different places. Present-day Atari is no more real or fake than any other iteration of it would have been. If it's got all the IP, and it's calling itself Atari, it's Atari.

 

That said, that does bring with it certain expectations, not just from longtime fans but from everyone else too. If you're thinking of buying one of these things, presumably you've heard of Atari in some fashion. You probably know they made video games a long time ago and that this box looks like an updated version of one of their old consoles. So you're going to be surprised at something about this news dump today, whether it's the price, the fact that it's basically a streaming/gaming PC, or whatever. And probably not surprised in a good way, because I think most people would have expected it to be cheaper, even at the expense of features/capability, and not what seems like an overpriced nVidia Shield competitor.

[Keatah]

One thing that definitely makes or breaks ANY game console though is the controller, and if Atari paid any attention to their history they'd know they should market what controller is going to be included. While if it's a Linux based system most any controller will work, they still should package one or two with the system. Consoles are all about the 'out of box' experience.

I never considered the OOB experience to be a big stink or anything. I mean yeh I want to play some games and enjoy the system right away. But I also look forward to what will be developed for the system down the road. IDK, maybe that's a "computer mentality" kinda thing.

[leech]

I never considered the OOB experience to be a big stink or anything. I mean yeh I want to play some games and enjoy the system right away. But I also look forward to what will be developed for the system down the road. IDK, maybe that's a "computer mentality" kinda thing.

Well yeah, totally. I mean a console comes out and... well that's it, it either gets support or it doesn't from developers and could last years or 6 months. A computer can be pretty much infinitely expanded upon (well at least modern ones, and of course much later even the earlier ones could be (can't wait for my modded 130XE to make itself back home!)).

[Keatah]

 

But which is the real Atari? The Bushnell Atari? Warner? Tramiel? Atari Games? All three had different focuses and changed the company significantly.

 

Why is anyone who owned the name after Tramiel not legit?

 

I'm content to just say Old Atari and new atari. The definition is going to change as time rolls on and as atari switches hands again and again. It's also going to be different for each personal experience.

 

Old Atari for me is 1970's and 1980's, anything else after that is new atari. And being kids back in the day we didn't give a shit who owned it. We didn't even know it could be owned. Atari was simply Atari.

 

Let me ask this, "Is new atari giving you the dynamic, creative, and inspiring experience you want?" I know Old Atari did that for me. Does new atari do the same thing for you?

[Keatah]

Let me say two more things before I get back to hauling boxes around. Not atariboxes, but big-ass cardboard boxes..
I believe AtariAge is more "Atari" than anything else to date. Years in the making. So if anyone is looking to get into Old Atari, I would send them here first, in conjunction with some other select sites.

 

---

 

And anyone wanting to turn a plain-jain STB into "Atari", get an Atari emblem and some woodgrain sticky paper. It'll cost you $10 and be your own creation. It'll be as "atari" as anything else these days.

[Good_Times]

 

But which is the real Atari? The Bushnell Atari? Warner? Tramiel? Atari Games?

 

The Bushnell Atari, naturally. The Warner acquisition was a direct causal link to the downfall, the beginning of the end....

 

“I got a call from Nolan, and he was in the throes of getting terminated by Warner Bros,” says Larry Calof, a lawyer based in Los Angeles at the time. “I ended up negotiating Nolan’s termination package from Atari. That’s how he and I got to know each other.”

After a showdown with Warner management over the future of the then poor-selling Atari VCS console–which Bushnell wanted to ditch and replace with a more advanced system–Warner forced Bushnell out of the firm in November 1978. He was 35 years old.

Just think of what might have been, had artistic and engineering genius NOT been suffocated by soulless corporate filth.

[Keatah]

Ohh I'm thinking alright. I dare not post about it however. I remember when I got laughed out of McDonald's back in the early 1980's when I described a suitcase-sized computer with a new technology flat screen that could be self-contained and play every arcade, console, and computer game ever made. The IBM engineer's me and my dad were having lunch with laughed me right out of the establishment.

 

And today, we have surpassed that with netbooks, tablet/convertibles, with processors doing billions of ops per second and crystalline memory modules the size of a quarter that not only hold the games, but documentation, videos, commentary, programming manuals, interviews, boxes, paperwork, scans, photos, and a whole lot more. One modern removable storage device or a couple of hi-capacity SD cards easily exceed that of a semi tractor-trailer full of vintage floppies.

 

Put it another way, that comes to be about 20,000 half-height RubberMaid tubs full of floppies. Would that even fit in a semi? So yeh, proposing that all fit in a handheld storage device would have been beyond preposterous.

 

Back to moving boxes now. For real!

[Bill Loguidice]

 

 

The Bushnell Atari, naturally. The Warner acquisition was a direct causal link to the downfall, the beginning of the end....

 

“I got a call from Nolan, and he was in the throes of getting terminated by Warner Bros,” says Larry Calof, a lawyer based in Los Angeles at the time. “I ended up negotiating Nolan’s termination package from Atari. That’s how he and I got to know each other.”

After a showdown with Warner management over the future of the then poor-selling Atari VCS console–which Bushnell wanted to ditch and replace with a more advanced system–Warner forced Bushnell out of the firm in November 1978. He was 35 years old.

Just think of what might have been, had artistic and engineering genius NOT been suffocated by soulless corporate filth.

 

 

Even disregarding the fact that Atari needed the Warner money, let's be careful with deifying Bushnell's business acumen. He's a brilliant guy with good instincts, but he's also had a lot of failed business ventures. There's no reason to think that if Warner was more hands-off (or not involved at all - although a financial infusion would have still had to have come from SOMEWHERE), that Bushnell's vision would have been correct or sustainable.

 

(and before you say I'm bashing him, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bushnell for the Gameplay movie several years back and he was nothing but a stand-up guy (and in fact was retrospectively humble whereas in years past he wasn't necessarily; an old Bushnell probably would have the wisdom to lead Atari back then through the rough times, but not necessarily a cocky, younger one (one could argue the same of Steve Jobs and Apple)))

 

Anyway, we can discuss how today's Atari is not the real Atari ad nauseum (and no doubt we'll continue to see it daily), but facts are facts... It's the only Atari we presently have.

[G-type]

 

I don't believe that for a second, but I'll bite. What makes you say that?

 

I think the legitimacy of the images is the key question at the moment. Since they are claiming they have even a single prototype and those images are all they have to show for it, something is seriously fubar.

 

because they said so? Because its normal to have your totally not rendered prototype, on a featureless table with a short depth of field so that the background is all in artfully composed soft focus.

[+Nathan Strum]

I don't believe that for a second, but I'll bite. What makes you say that?

 

I think the legitimacy of the images is the key question at the moment. Since they are claiming they have even a single prototype and those images are all they have to show for it, something is seriously fubar.

 

 

They're totally rendered.

 

Nowhere near enough electrical tape to be real.

[zzip]

 

The Bushnell Atari, naturally. The Warner acquisition was a direct causal link to the downfall, the beginning of the end....

 

 

Ahh, but a lot of us kids didn't discover the VCS until after 1978, So to us, the "Warner Atari" we remember as the "real Atari". Before that, Atari was a scrappy startup that admittedly had trouble making payroll. The real rise of Atari was under Warner, as was the fall..

[SabertoothRetro]

It looks like AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, has claimed the Atari partnership as another "gaming win."

 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2017/09/26/amd-scores-another-custom-chip-design-win-with-the-upcoming-ataribox-game-console/

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Just to add for those wondering about the integrity / history of those currently involved with "ATARIBOX" here is something to consider posted now by Larry Bundy on Facebook - Pasted exactly from his original post

CREDIT / THANKS to Larry Bundy!

Larry Bundy

2 hrs ·

Anyone who is thinking in investing in that AtariBox, I seriously recommend you have a long, hard think about doing so.

The project is run by a man with a track record of abandoned kickstarters and using either Chinese knock-offs or over the counter items you could easily build yourself.He screwed up his USB memory wristband Kickstarter so much, he ended up sending all the backers an email on how to build them themselves >.>

Anyhoo, here's a video on his previous projects:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujKxVNEHVS0

[leech]

 

 

The Bushnell Atari, naturally. The Warner acquisition was a direct causal link to the downfall, the beginning of the end....

 

“I got a call from Nolan, and he was in the throes of getting terminated by Warner Bros,” says Larry Calof, a lawyer based in Los Angeles at the time. “I ended up negotiating Nolan’s termination package from Atari. That’s how he and I got to know each other.”

After a showdown with Warner management over the future of the then poor-selling Atari VCS console–which Bushnell wanted to ditch and replace with a more advanced system–Warner forced Bushnell out of the firm in November 1978. He was 35 years old.

Just think of what might have been, had artistic and engineering genius NOT been suffocated by soulless corporate filth.

 

To be fair, I think that happened to everything Jay Miner worked on. The Amiga was also crushed by the soulless stupidity of greedy corporate hounds. Pretty terrible that Warner thought that the 2600 could sell well past 1978, had Bushnell had his way, maybe we could have gotten the 5200 and then 7800 sooner and with more direct support because it would have beaten the NES to market. Plus on top of that, a huge reason the video game crash happened (at least from what I'd read long after the fact) the plethora of crappy 2600 versions that were released. They probably would have been less crappy 5200 games (well, they did mess up with the controller). Anyhow, yeah we could discuss this forever (and pretty much already have).

 

Question is, is anyone for sure going to back the ataribox? Someone commented that nothing good was ever successfully backed from Indigogo, but that's not true.. Super Troopers 2 was! Totally looking forward to that one!

[Good_Times]

 

Even disregarding the fact that Atari needed the Warner money, let's be careful with deifying Bushnell's business acumen. He's a brilliant guy with good instincts, but he's also had a lot of failed business ventures. There's no reason to think that if Warner was more hands-off (or not involved at all - although a financial infusion would have still had to have come from SOMEWHERE), that Bushnell's vision would have been correct or sustainable.

 

(and before you say I'm bashing him, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bushnell for the Gameplay movie several years back and he was nothing but a stand-up guy (and in fact was retrospectively humble whereas in years past he wasn't necessarily; an old Bushnell probably would have the wisdom to lead Atari back then through the rough times, but not necessarily a cocky, younger one (one could argue the same of Steve Jobs and Apple)))

 

Anyway, we can discuss how today's Atari is not the real Atari ad nauseum (and no doubt we'll continue to see it daily), but facts are facts... It's the only Atari we presently have.

 

That's just it, though; I'm not talking about business acumen, I'm talking about full artistic and creative freedom. Oftentimes this sort of open environment allows for unprecedented creativity, as history has shown us. It's not always about 'the bottom line' at the end of the day, which very few CEOs and number crunching droids are able to fully comprehend. Breakthrough ideas ~ testing and application of said ideas ~ development of target base ~ profits....an alien concept to many boardroom dwellers, who seem to willfully 'forget' a step or two.

 

Plus, there is no way in HELL the Jaguar would have been released with Nolan running the show!