New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[CPUWIZ]

Same is probably true for most embedded systems' apps (PS4, xbox, etc.)

 

 

No.

[leech]

No.

And why not? Make an API call, keyboard input is another API call. Done. I recall when Meego/Moblin was dropped and Samsung/Intel decided on doing Tizen instead, everone complained about applications all being done in html5. Pretty much all that is needed for any of the streaming services is to be a nice little API wrapped in an app.

Edited November 25, 2018 by leech

[CPUWIZ]

And why not? Make an API call, keyboard input is another API call. Done. I recall when Meego/Moblin was dropped and Samsung/Intel decided on doing Tizen instead, everone complained about applications all being done in html5. Pretty much all that is needed for any of the streaming services is to be a nice little API wrapped in an app.

 

Because I work on those systems, it is actually a pain in the ass to get a "browser" open. All of it is custom software running on custom hardware.

[+frankodragon]

At least I got my fill of tacos today after two days of turkey.

[toiletunes]

[Matt_B]

 

Because I work on those systems, it is actually a pain in the ass to get a "browser" open. All of it is custom software running on custom hardware.

 

I'd add that things are now moving in that direction, in that a lot of cross-platform tools will now let you develop apps for web browsers along with all the usual targets.

 

However, most of what's currently out there wasn't built with them, and a lot of people have had to re-invent the wheel just to get something that looks like a website.

[leech]

 

Because I work on those systems, it is actually a pain in the ass to get a "browser" open. All of it is custom software running on custom hardware.

Ha, well in that case, that's shitty for them (and you). That's the way most mobile operating systems do it these days.

 

For what it's worth, I tested it with Epiphany's 'Install Site as Web Application' option on Netflix, but unfortunately Epiphany does not have the DRM plugin to work with netflix, so as soon as you start a video, it then opens Firefox and tells me DRM is not available (yeah weird that it opens a different browser to tell me that... a browser which works fine with Netflix...)

 

Shame that Sony / Xbox doesn't understand the usefulness of having open APIs. Then again iOS certainly has some weird rules for doing things as well.

[ColecoJoe]

Meanwhile at the AtariGarage

[+frankodragon]

What everyone needs is a taco vending machine.

 

[digdugnate]

i did tacos last night- but i never have pictures, lol. here's what i use for quick-and-dirty 'get it on the table for my monsters' taco seasoning:

 

* 1 or 1.5 lbs of ground beef (or turkey)

* chili powder

* seasoned salt

* pepper (i prefer the McCormick Hot Shot red/black blend)

* garlic powder

 

my wife likes cumin, too, but i don't tend to add it often. the seasoning really is a 'season to taste' type deal, i don't ever measure it while putting it on the cooking meat.

 

i use a cast iron pan for the burger and also have a flat top cast iron pan for heating tortillas. i like mine warm and the microwave makes em gross and soggy.

 

i'll use other meats (sliced chicken, shrimp, etc) as well, but the seasoning will vary according to the kind of meat i'm using.

[+Spriggy]

i did tacos last night- but i never have pictures, lol. here's what i use for quick-and-dirty 'get it on the table for my monsters' taco seasoning:

 

* 1 or 1.5 lbs of ground beef (or turkey)

* chili powder

* seasoned salt

* pepper (i prefer the McCormick Hot Shot red/black blend)

* garlic powder

 

my wife likes cumin, too, but i don't tend to add it often. the seasoning really is a 'season to taste' type deal, i don't ever measure it while putting it on the cooking meat.

 

i use a cast iron pan for the burger and also have a flat top cast iron pan for heating tortillas. i like mine warm and the microwave makes em gross and soggy.

 

i'll use other meats (sliced chicken, shrimp, etc) as well, but the seasoning will vary according to the kind of meat i'm using.

 

Nice. For additions to your Q&D recipe ... play with some Onion Powder as well. Try half beef half pork mince. Game On!

[digdugnate]

cool! the boss likes the Boston Burger type stuff so I'll definitely check that out for tacos!

[Lodmot]

Someone should just change the topic name to "TACO".

[+frankodragon]

Someone should just change the topic name to "TACO".

CPUWIZ did in fact change it to 'Atacobox' for a short time but then Al then told him to change it back.

[Lodmot]

CPUWIZ did in fact change it to 'Atacobox' for a short time but then Al then told him to change it back.

 

Oh wow.... Oopsie, lol.

[Flojomojo]

Via one of the commenters on the IGG project: Fred at VentureBeat

 

GamesBeat: I noticed that you have a lawsuit with Feargal Mac. Is that going to impact the VCS in any way?

Chesnais: If you’ve looked into the lawsuit, to use his own words, he withdrew from the project on December 14, 2017. We’re sad about that, but we’ll be able to deliver on the Indiegogo campaign. It should have no impact.

GamesBeat: You’ve reset the project, and you’re still going forward, then?

Chesnais: We did reset in December, after Feargal withdrew. We launched the Indiegogo campaign in May. We’ve been operating without Feargal since December of 2017.

 

GamesBeat: The approach for the hardware — I see there are different kinds of solutions out there. The Intellivision is a new one. They seem to be focused on reproducing the old games, mostly. But I wonder, do you still feel like the best strategy is to go for both modern games and old games?

Chesnais: Our strategy and criteria are a little different from that. We want to go with an open platform. Everything you find on the Internet that meets our criteria, meets our specs, you can play on our platform. It’s not really about content. It’s about making sure we provide an open platform. We don’t want to dictate content. We want to be as open as possible. It’s a streaming box, at the end of the day. It’s not a prop console. If it’s on the Internet, you can access it, whether it’s modern, old, antique, or futuristic.

GamesBeat: The Ready Player One deal, did you wind up making much money from something like that?

Chesnais: We don’t disclose the details of negotiations or deals like that. But it’s great for the image. It brought us a lot of awareness. It’s indirect. Blade Runner was the same way. We’re very proud to be the only games available in Teslas. How much it’s worth, well, who knows? Dwayne Johnson is apparently charging a million bucks for a tweet these days. Most of these deals are deals whereby we benefit indirectly from the interaction. We don’t necessarily just do it for a check. We do it because it will put the brand on a different level. I think that’s what happened with Tesla.

 

 

GamesBeat: The question still seems to be, just how powerful is the Atari brand?

Chesnais: You might look at it the other way around, which is — without the brand, would we have been able to make it back out of bankruptcy? I don’t think so. Remember where we’re coming from. You’ve seen the deck, the table that shows we started in 2013 with €1 million in revenue and more than €30 million in debt. Today, we have €18 million in revenue and no debt. We’re profitable. Without the brand, that would have been very difficult.

The brand helps us in two different ways. One, it helps to be able to contact someone by saying, “We’re Atari. We’d like to do this. Would you like to have a meeting?” Most people will say, “Wow, you guys are still alive? Sure, just stop by.” It opens doors. Second, it still has a lot of awareness, a lot of following. We’ve been able to make licensing arrangements with advances and minimum guarantees. It helps a lot there. When you have a product like Atari Flashback, it’s good to have the brand going with it. It’s helped us make licensing agreements and get cash when we needed it. Let’s get this license signed and get $600,000. Maybe it’s not the best deal ever, but we need $600,000. Let’s swallow that and move on. I’m grateful for that.

The third advantage of the brand — we want to create some great projects and pull together a lot of partners. We’ve been able to gather a lot of resources and expertise for our new projects like the Atari VCS. If you look at the VCS, you can ask yourself: Without the Atari brand, would that have been possible? I’m not sure. The brand provided the design, some cool elements there. The brand has a lot of strength in that area.

 

I have so many followup questions. The first one is, "you're trying to sell off the company, right? Because that's how it looks."

[godslabrat]

Via one of the commenters on the IGG project: Fred at VentureBeat

 

 

 

 

 

I have so many followup questions. The first one is, "you're trying to sell off the company, right? Because that's how it looks."

 

 

Indeed. My first thought is, can we substantiate the claim that Feargal was out as of December 2017? The trend for Atari SA is that, the more they insist something is fact, the less reliable it tends to be in reality.

[thetick1]

Via one of the commenters on the IGG project: Fred at VentureBeat

 

I have so many followup questions. The first one is, "you're trying to sell off the company, right? Because that's how it looks."

 

Actually not much more to ask..

 

Clearly the ONLY profitable assist is the Atari logo. Atari SA can't even afford to pay for their own developers as any physical device or even software development has to be farmed out. He even said the only reason Atari SA is not bankrupted is they suckered Hollywood into paying to use the Atari logo.

[Curt Vendel]

I hope everyone's having a nice Thanksgiving. This situation reminds me of the Xmas updates about Retro Chameleon.

 

There's a link to a new Medium post in addition to that T-shirt offer. Highlights: Rob Wyatt had a nasty skydiving accident. The Ataribox is nowhere near playable or working prototype state. Any prior imagery of them playing games, even simple things like Centipede, can now be confirmed as fakes/lies, er ah, "for illustration purposes only."

 

https://medium.com/@atarivcs/the-birth-of-the-atari-vcs-operating-system-part-1-d8f43bfa0290

 

Why don't they just use Ubuntu, as it seemed they would be? Shouldn't we be further along by now?

 

Let's hope he remembers to code in support for all those sexy, sexy "Classic Style" controllers they've shown and pre-sold.

 

Game, stream, and connect like never before! Because most game and stream boxes have working graphics.

 

Greengrocer's apostrophe aside, is this a cry for help?

 

Seriously, I hope Rob makes a full recovery. It would be nice (for him) if AtariBox paid for his hospital costs from his risky hobby, but questionable if funding came from the IGG campaign contributions.

 

But, wow. This doesn't seem like enough progress for what they promised, on the schedule they implied they'd meet.

Wait... what?!??!

 

So the dev boards with what was supposed to already be Ubuntu are just starting to see basic HID devices on the USB and oh boy, golly gee.... they got it to boot.... on the same vanilla AMD dev boards I was shown pics of back in oh.... hey, last November - 1 year later and (ZERO) accomplished. Jeeez, I fought through 7 heart surgeries for 8 years and at least I have an almost 80% working piece of hardware to show for it that is already in a real custom case, custom motherboard, custom PLD, etc... I only had $16K to work with, spent $18k on the plastic tooling, $2k on the aluminum tooling and labels and $2k on the cartridge guides and I've lost track of how much I've spent on board runs, and parts. But hey, Atari has $3mill and they can even get basic Linux, which runs on a ball of lint with little effort and hey yeah... still running on the same AMD boards from 1 years ago with not a $$$ spent on developing a custom one that'll fit into that case (good luck with that!) and they are having graphics problems... 5 months wasted and only 7+ left to go, looks to be right on schedule

[Curt Vendel]

 

 

Indeed. My first thought is, can we substantiate the claim that Feargal was out as of December 2017? The trend for Atari SA is that, the more they insist something is fact, the less reliable it tends to be in reality.

I told everyone this over 6 months ago. The Atari VCS was NEVER about making an actual product, its about putting a nice pretty bow on Atari so it can be sold and Chesnais can get something out of his 18% stock shares.

 

Atari's stock has been tumbling down none stop since February of last year, its market cap is down to $97 Mill now, its stock hit a low of .27 cents last week, the Venturebeat article gave it a bump today, but I'd expect to see it hovering back at .30-.29 cents again by Friday... So much for the pretty bow.

[Curt Vendel]

Actually Tesla wanted Pole Position.... they didn't realize its owned by Namco, not Atari.

 

 

Via one of the commenters on the IGG project: Fred at VentureBeat

 

 

 

 

 

I have so many followup questions. The first one is, "you're trying to sell off the company, right? Because that's how it looks."

[JBerel]

We don’t disclose the details of negotiations or deals like that.

Making movies is a business that is about making money. The licensing and rights management offices know how to monetize the appearance of corporate logos in film. The reason AtariSA doesn’t talk about negotiations like that is because they want the keep an illusion out there that they are making money from it, or have any control over those negotiations. The reality is Atari SA paid for their logo to appear in Bladerunner, and if the movie company for Ready Player One had any obligation to pay anything for appearance of Atari games in their movie, I’m sure it was in exchange for a courtesy credit. More than likely, if money exchanged hands on that flick, it was Atari SA paying again. If Atari SA even had a say, it would have been to agree and say thank you. If they took any other position, the producers would move to another property to use in the flick and let another company reap the benefits. Often times, the movie house will create a bidding war for the product placement. For a movie that big, Atari SA would be damn lucky to have any licenses they own get a passing mention. They didn’t get paid for it.

[+x=usr(1536)]

I have so many followup questions. The first one is, "you're trying to sell off the company, right? Because that's how it looks."

 

Here's the comment that I think reveals the most about the likely state of Atari SA:

 

The brand helps us in two different ways. One, it helps to be able to contact someone by saying, “We’re Atari. We’d like to do this. Would you like to have a meeting?” Most people will say, “Wow, you guys are still alive? Sure, just stop by.” It opens doors. Second, it still has a lot of awareness, a lot of following. We’ve been able to make licensing arrangements with advances and minimum guarantees. It helps a lot there. When you have a product like Atari Flashback, it’s good to have the brand going with it. It’s helped us make licensing agreements and get cash when we needed it. Let’s get this license signed and get $600,000. Maybe it’s not the best deal ever, but we need $600,000. Let’s swallow that and move on. I’m grateful for that.

 

Emphasis above is mine, but those two comments really say a lot about how Atari is externally-perceived today (a has-been) and how they operate internally (searching for change down the back of the sofa).

If I were a potential investor and read that, I'd be having an, "oh, hell no," moment, and taking my money with me - and as I tend to agree that Chesnais' ultimate motive is to sell the company and bail, this would be the last way that I'd want to be presenting the company to anyone likely to have an interest in acquiring it.

[godslabrat]

Should we invite back all the people who were threadbanned to explain how AA is an echo chamber and the company is really just weeks away from being the next Apple?

[+Nathan Strum]

Via one of the commenters on the IGG project: Fred at VentureBeat

 

Our strategy and criteria are a little different from that. We want to go with an open platform. Everything you find on the Internet that meets our criteria, meets our specs, you can play on our platform. It’s not really about content. It’s about making sure we provide an open platform. We don’t want to dictate content. We want to be as open as possible. It’s a streaming box, at the end of the day. It’s not a prop console. If it’s on the Internet, you can access it, whether it’s modern, old, antique, or futuristic.

 

"We have no idea how to actually make games, nor do we want to. We're making a box for other people to support. Good luck, haters!"