New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[CPUWIZ]

Well, "kickstarter" is becoming a generic term like kleenex for facial tissues. Or "Atari", as in "Let's go play Atari!" for having a videogame night.

 

I guess, if you are a sheep, I don't Xerox Kleenex Kickstarter projects.

[BiffsGamingVideos]

The ataribox is basically a mintbox. It's a box that runs linux. So yeah, they do have a system. They just need to finish the support/release of games so they can make money. This means SDK tools or Unity and some sort of download like steam. It'll happen. But just remember they won't sell millions like Nintendo. Then 200k-500k a year.

[MrMaddog]

The ataribox is basically a mintbox. It's a box that runs linux. So yeah, they do have a system. They just need to finish the support/release of games so they can make money. This means SDK tools or Unity and some sort of download like steam. It'll happen. But just remember they won't sell millions like Nintendo. Then 200k-500k a year.

 

Yep, it's basically a console for indie games they want to publish...something more powerful than Android based systems and makes it easier for devs to make for than going through Sony/MS/Nintendo (high barriers of entry) and minus the current drama of Steam.

 

Fergie said there's no plans for Triple-A games on Ataribox so it'll be a niche product like the Shield.

[CPUWIZ]

 

Fergie said there's no plans for Triple-A games on Ataribox so it'll be a niche product like the Shield.

 

Because you can't run "AAA" games on a calculator.

[BiffsGamingVideos]

 

Yep, it's basically a console for indie games they want to publish...something more powerful than Android based systems and makes it easier for devs to make for than going through Sony/MS/Nintendo (high barriers of entry) and minus the current drama of Steam.

 

Fergie said there's no plans for Triple-A games on Ataribox so it'll be a niche product like the Shield.

 

Not really. You write a game in Unity, then export it out to where you want: IOS, Android, Windows 10, Linux..... So Anyone that writes a game either indie (like me) or AAA++++AA+++++++ games can export to Linux. The key is that it's done in Unity. Most Android games are done in unity. They have quite a lot of big companies (NASA to EA).

 

I would expect it's just a MintBox installed with Linux. So you'd be able to get other Linux games or install windows 10 on it. The key for Atari would be some sort of download store so they can get their 30% like Google or Apple. I would also assume it will have emulators pre-installed running Atari Roms. What they need to do is get with Unity and have a SDK. That way the AtariMintBox would only play Linux games with their SDK handshake. The money is in the software, not hardware. So they sell the AtariMintBox at cost and then get 30% off of sales from their download store.

Edited November 4, 2017 by BiffsGamingVideos

[Keatah]

Because you can't run "AAA" games on a calculator.

 

Those calculator games of the 1970's were cool. Especially from the Boggle Book.

[leech]

Not really. You write a game in Unity, then export it out to where you want: IOS, Android, Windows 10, Linux..... So Anyone that writes a game either indie (like me) or AAA++++AA+++++++ games can export to Linux. The key is that it's done in Unity. Most Android games are done in unity. They have quite a lot of big companies (NASA to EA).

 

I would expect it's just a MintBox installed with Linux. So you'd be able to get other Linux games or install windows 10 on it. The key for Atari would be some sort of download store so they can get their 30% like Google or Apple. I would also assume it will have emulators pre-installed running Atari Roms. What they need to do is get with Unity and have a SDK. That way the AtariMintBox would only play Linux games with their SDK handshake. The money is in the software, not hardware. So they sell the AtariMintBox at cost and then get 30% off of sales from their download store.

I doubt it would be Linux Mint on there. More than likely they will just throw SteamOS with a custom steam skin. It would be far less work. Include AtariVault key and a link to their own store... that could even sell steam keys. Hell, most PC games sold in walmart just come woth a piece of paper with a steam key these days. I even saw one of the Battlefront games say on the front that it only included an origin key and had no disk inside.

[JBerel]

http://www.seco.com/prods/usa/sbc-992-pitx.html

 

There's another potential supplier of the boards they will likely use, if they're going to provide anything of value for the $300 they'll be asking. You can register and buy a sample board yourself for $250. I would hope quantity purchases would bring that down quite a bit.

[+x=usr(1536)]

That's not what I remember. I thought they would begin the panhandling campaign in the fall (which has another 45 days or so remaining), and ship in early 2018. Not that there's any great rush.

 

I dunno about the lack of urgency - after all, the lawyers would undoubtedly like to be compensated for their recent efforts

[SignGuy81]

http://www.seco.com/prods/usa/sbc-992-pitx.html

 

There's another potential supplier of the boards they will likely use, if they're going to provide anything of value for the $300 they'll be asking. You can register and buy a sample board yourself for $250. I would hope quantity purchases would bring that down quite a bit.

 

Just looked. That would be a great board for home projects too if it weren't so darn high. By the specs of the board it should run SteamOS. I would something like that to put in a flashback shell or something.

Edited November 4, 2017 by SignGuy81

[BiffsGamingVideos]

 

I guess, if you are a sheep, I don't Xerox Kleenex Kickstarter projects.

 

I think you are looking for the phrase 'public domain". here's some trademarks that were lost to generilaztion:

 

aspirin

heroin

cellophane

escalator

trampoline

kerosene

laundromat

zip code

tv dinner

flip phone

teleprompter

app

zipper

 

star wars (was lost in the 80s as regan refererred to it for SDI)

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Yep, it's basically a console for indie games they want to publish...something more powerful than Android based systems and makes it easier for devs to make for than going through Sony/MS/Nintendo (high barriers of entry) and minus the current drama of Steam.

 

Fergie said there's no plans for Triple-A games on Ataribox so it'll be a niche product like the Shield.

 

Is it really all that difficult to get indie games published on Xbox One, PS4, and Switch, not to mention Android, iOS, and PC? I really don't think so. On Xbox One, they even have that self-published indie games section for that tier just below the types of indie games that are generally of commercial quality. I just don't see a lack of platforms, regardless of indie "tier". I also don't know how much demand there is to play games that are in that lower tier of relative quality.

[+x=usr(1536)]

The ataribox is basically a mintbox. It's a box that runs linux. So yeah, they do have a system.

While I think you're pretty much right on the money with the MintBox analogy, I disagree that they have a system at this time.

 

At this point, all that AtariBoxCorp, Inc. really has is a hardware spec that they would like to run Linux on. Until industrial design, hardware design, software platform development, and FCC and other compliance testing is complete, though, they don't have an actual product.

 

As a side note to that, this is why I seriously doubt that they'll be using an off-the-shelf SBC or similar. Sure, it's entirely possible to purchase a pre-existing SBC design from <insert manufacturer here> and slap it into a case of their own making. However (and I'm basing this on the renderings of the Ataribox that we've seen so far), there is a very specific aesthetic that they're going for. A pre-rolled SBC may not physically fit that aesthetic, requiring redesign of things like the case (both internally and externally), power supplies, peripherals, etc. These are not small changes, and ones that AtariBoxCorp, Inc. is unlikely - from a financial perspective - to be able to shoulder.

 

Regarding the FCC and a ready-to-go SBC design: even if an off-the-shelf SBC could be made to fit inside the case and the desired aesthetic could be achieved through using things like internal USB and power breakout cables to reach ports on the outside of the case, every one of those cables is going to reduce the chances of a successful pass in FCC labs.

 

Let's be really generous and say that AtariBoxCorp, Inc. has sunk $10M into the development and marketing of this device. They're not going to want to risk inflating that number (particularly when their ability to raise capital is apparently highly-dependent on crowdfunding) by needing after-the-fact redesigns of their product. One of the ways of reducing that risk is to design their own PCB. Populate it with off-the-shelf components purchased in volume, sure. But there's too much risk in using someone else's design without knowing how it will behave before it's even approved for sale.

 

Or maybe they'll just line the whole thing with tinfoil and call it good

 

They just need to finish the support/release of games so they can make money. This means SDK tools or Unity and some sort of download like steam. It'll happen. But just remember they won't sell millions like Nintendo. Then 200k-500k a year.

They need to also develop a platform for delivery of those titles and other content. Perhaps this has already happened and we're just unaware of it, but given that meaningful details of those considerations haven't really been covered in that company's press releases, I'm not positive that they've really considered this aspect of the device in a comprehensive way. They know that they need it, to be certain - but how that's being implemented (and what it will cost them both to do so as well as moving forward) is vague at best.

 

Doing some very much off-the-cuff and not-at-all-precise maths for a moment: sticking with the $10M development cost number and a $300 MSRP, we can relatively safely estimate that the wholesale cost of the device to a retailer is somewhere in the $200 range. $10M divided by $200 gives us a total of 50,000 shipped and purchased units for a break-even point that only covers development costs, not the other historic or ongoing operational costs of the company. That's fairly achievable over one Christmas launch season, which, at this point, they've missed.

 

The thing is, they need to sell 150,000 units (minimum) in the first three months on the market to stabilise financially and support the platforms the device relies on moving forward, not to mention beginning development of future product(s) as well as just keeping the company running for the rest of the year.

 

That's not an unrealistic goal - if the company actually has boxes on shelves (literally or figuratively) that people can buy. I'd even be willing to stretch to a quarter-of-a-million units being doable in the first 90 to 120 days. But they'd better hope that once those first 90 to 120 days are over, they haven't sold one to everyone who actually wants one. And, in a way, missing the Christmas retail season may actually have helped them dodge a bullet in this regard: they're not going to see returns en masse to retailers of Atariboxes that went unopened on Christmas morning whose owners want the $300 credit to apply against the PS4, Xbox One, or Switch that they see as being a better long-term value proposition.

 

Finally: I'll be the first to admit that I am not in any way, shape, or form a business analyst - but having had to live through this type of product development lifecycle before, Ataribox appears to be treading a path they're not competent to walk while wearing clown shoes. I could be wrong, and - as I've said before, would like to be wrong about them - but their actions too closely parallel ones that I've seen lead to failure in the past to be able to place faith in their ability to execute. Then again, maybe they will actually get a product to market and it will be a success despite the company's best efforts, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Is it really all that difficult to get indie games published on Xbox One, PS4, and Switch, not to mention Android, iOS, and PC? I really don't think so. On Xbox One, they even have that self-published indie games section for that tier just below the types of indie games that are generally of commercial quality. I just don't see a lack of platforms, regardless of indie "tier". I also don't know how much demand there is to play games that are in that lower tier of relative quality.

The real killer tends to be the terms of the publishing contract between the indie developer and the app store on <insert platform here>. For one-guy-in-a-bedroom developers, getting the exposure on the self-published tier may be sufficient motivation to take a financial loss on the development of a title if it means that his name is at least gaining recognition - but that only really works if the self-published title is polished enough to build confidence in his ability to develop an A-rank indie title that could put him in the higher indie tier.

 

There is one other value proposition for developers in the self-published tier: building a portfolio to use as demonstration of ability for entry into a career in the game industry. However, I really have no idea how much of a carrot that may be for the majority of developers behind self-published indie titles.

 

Unfortunately, the returns on the self-published tier for both the developer and content provider are generally pretty small and the publishing contracts are typically (and understandably) written in such a way as to minimise risk on behalf of the content provider. For every Flappy Bird that rakes in a ton of money, there's a million other self-published titles out there eating up cloud resources that cost money even (or particularly) when someone isn't buying them. The content providers are well aware of this, and this is part of the reason the self-published tier exists: it lessens distraction from the A-rank indie titles that actually do make them money - and which, to a certain extent, subsidise the existence of the self-published tier.

[leech]

There is also the fallacy repeated here often enough that is missed. Linux has games already. A rather large amount in fact. This is why they can just push out a console and instantly have more games in their library than the Xbox One, PS4 and Switch. While this idea wasn't advertised very well for the Steam Machines, Atari would be morons not to push that out there. Besides all the potential for emulators and such.

 

Games are easy, the trick is most people want to be able consume all media from their systems now, and getting video playback and such is expensive to license. Also, not seeing a bluray player included for those who still prefer physical media is a minus. Not that it is easy to play blurays on Linux.

[Flojomojo]

I won't name any names, but those of you who have been throwing numbers around seem to have added a **few extra zeroes** more than what the market will likely bear.

 

Just my opinion, two pennies, grain of salt, wait and see, etc.

[Bill Loguidice]

There is also the fallacy repeated here often enough that is missed. Linux has games already. A rather large amount in fact. This is why they can just push out a console and instantly have more games in their library than the Xbox One, PS4 and Switch. While this idea wasn't advertised very well for the Steam Machines, Atari would be morons not to push that out there. Besides all the potential for emulators and such.

 

Sure, it should have a quantity advantage, even with not being able to run everything due to power limitations, but does that mean it has a quality advantage? The hottest titles, from indie to AAA, are on Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and PC. It's hit or miss whether they'll be on Linux (and whether or not Ataribox will be able to run it well if it is). So advertising the quantity thing is kind of the equivalent to saying your console has 64-bits and is better because of that raw number. Anyway, this all again speaks to exactly what market would find the Ataribox desirable and why.

[leech]

Sure, it should have a quantity advantage, even with not being able to run everything due to power limitations, but does that mean it has a quality advantage? The hottest titles, from indie to AAA, are on Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and PC. It's hit or miss whether they'll be on Linux (and whether or not Ataribox will be able to run it well if it is). So advertising the quantity thing is kind of the equivalent to saying your console has 64-bits and is better because of that raw number. Anyway, this all again speaks to exactly what market would find the Ataribox desirable and why.

 

Unfortunately Quality is entirely subjective. I recently got Diablo 3 for the PS4. I am so bored to tears with it I would consider just ignoring it, but it passes the time. Blizzard used to be good at balancing games, but playing the necomancer is ridiculously easy. On the other hand, I have put in a lot of hours on games like Sundered, Bro Force, etc. Both of which have Linux versions.

 

I stated to my younger brother the other day that with very few exceptions, we cn remember games from the 8bit era (especially the music!) More than we can duing the 16 and 32bit. Creativity was stomped out by the AAA publishers long ago, which is why the "Indie" scene is so popular now.

 

We can't speak to performance at all yet for the Ataribox, since we don't even know the specs, but of course I would be amazed if it could handle Mad Max in 1080p with no frames dropped. Until they added Vulkan support, my PC could barely handle the last area on max settings. But they have repeatedly stated that isn't what theyare going for. We should face the fact that there was no such thing as AAA games back when Atari was making their own.. they were a blast and we still remember how fun and challenging they were/are. That is why the Dark Souls games are so popular, because they don't hold your hand. I was thinking of getting the Call of Duty WWII game (about time they went back to killing nazis) but even it had mixed reviews on Steam.

[Osgeld]

One of the ways of reducing that risk is to design their own PCB. Populate it with off-the-shelf components purchased in volume, sure. But there's too much risk in using someone else's design without knowing how it will behave before it's even approved for sale.

 

 

so a company with 10 people, a couple 3d renders and a indigogo have a better chance of designing their own motherboard and passing EMC requirements than one that's already passed, on the market and designed by a company that does nothing but design motherboards

 

seems plausible

[JBerel]

As a side note to that, this is why I seriously doubt that they'll be using an off-the-shelf SBC or similar. Sure, it's entirely possible to purchase a pre-existing SBC design from <insert manufacturer here> and slap it into a case of their own making. However (and I'm basing this on the renderings of the Ataribox that we've seen so far), there is a very specific aesthetic that they're going for. A pre-rolled SBC may not physically fit that aesthetic, requiring redesign of things like the case (both internally and externally), power supplies, peripherals, etc. These are not small changes, and ones that AtariBoxCorp, Inc. is unlikely - from a financial perspective - to be able to shoulder.

 

Regarding the FCC and a ready-to-go SBC design: even if an off-the-shelf SBC could be made to fit inside the case and the desired aesthetic could be achieved through using things like internal USB and power breakout cables to reach ports on the outside of the case, every one of those cables is going to reduce the chances of a successful pass in FCC labs.

 

Me thinks you give them way, way too much credit. If they produce anything, I feel certain it will be on a pico ATX board at 3.94" x 2.83". That rendered box they keep showing is designed to accommodate that. Pico ATX is a standard form factor now, so they have breakouts and headers for USB, video, audio etc. The board wouldn't need an RF shield any more than any other motherboard slapped in a generic ATX case except for maybe a plate on the back. There's just no way they are designing a board to their specs, nor would they need to. It's possible AMD is actually putting something together for them for a specific quantity order, but that would just be a minor tweak to their assembly run. Honestly, I don't believe they are doing that much, and it's doubtful you'll ever see a board from them as powerful as the ones I mentioned.

 

Today's Atari is using their boy Fraggle Mac to do this, so true to form, he will buy an obscure Chinese cheapo board, slap a brand on it and mark it up, if he can do that much.

[Keatah]

If they already spent 10,000,000 on marketing and research, they don't need an extra 200,000 from kickstarters.

[BiffsGamingVideos]

 

Sure, it should have a quantity advantage, even with not being able to run everything due to power limitations, but does that mean it has a quality advantage? The hottest titles, from indie to AAA, are on Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and PC. It's hit or miss whether they'll be on Linux (and whether or not Ataribox will be able to run it well if it is). So advertising the quantity thing is kind of the equivalent to saying your console has 64-bits and is better because of that raw number. Anyway, this all again speaks to exactly what market would find the Ataribox desirable and why.

 

Bill, those games were NOT made with Unity3d. Unity can export to all of those systems and they run fine. It's not hit or miss.

[leech]

Bill, those games were NOT made with Unity3d. Unity can export to all of those systems and they run fine. It's not hit or miss.

 

That is partially true, sometimes they have weird bugs, other times the developer doesn't push the right button for an export.

[BiffsGamingVideos]

That is partially true, sometimes they have weird bugs, other times the developer doesn't push the right button for an export.

 

This is how you export using Unity3d for windows, Linux, Ios or Android. You choose the OS and build it. For windows it'll give you an exe (but you need to get another program to make it an executable for Amazon to post it), for android it'll give you a APK (ready to go). For Windows 10 store you have to load up Visual Studio and do stuff. A pain in the butt however it does do a lot like run compatibility checks and allows you to publish right to their site. As far as the consoles, you need a license to export to them.

[leech]

Yeah, the killer is when you include some 3rd party plugin that isn't supported in all the operating system. Or the developer simply doesn't want to support multiple platforms.

 

There are tons of examples of this, not only with Unity, but Unreal Engine as well.