The Atari VCS Controversies Thread

[dark-aleph]

Quote

 

Atari's Hubris is bigger than anyone can imagine, for example;

at my Local Dollar store I can get a PlayStation T-shirt for $4 Canadian Pesos, but if I want an Atari T-shirt $20? WTF????

 

 

Maybe it's just NOS. Those shirts were $4 when they were used to promote the home version of Pong

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(checks...)

 

Yep, $4 in late 1975 = $20 today.

Edited November 17, 2020 by dark-aleph

[OCAT]

^
Actually I made an error, I was looking at US prices for the Atari shirts, so after conversion from CAD the Playstation T-shirts cost $3.04 in USD ? ?

Not to mention that these are heavy cotton! ?

[IntelliMission]

It looks like this game will only appear on Steam AND the Atari VCS:

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

13 minutes ago, IntelliMission said:

It looks like this game will only appear on Steam AND the Atari VCS:

 

So it's a PC-platform exclusive. Nifty!

[Matt_B]

Yeah, you can't even call it a console exclusive.

 

An un-console exclusive, maybe? ?

[Chopsus]

It has been pointed out that SNK own the rights to the title “Spirit of the Samurai”

 

buys popcorn,

 

sits back and waits for another FArtari sh1tshow to start

 

LOL!

[+Stephen]

33 minutes ago, Chopsus said:

It has been pointed out that SNK own the rights to the title “Spirit of the Samurai”

 

buys popcorn,

 

sits back and waits for another FArtari sh1tshow to start

 

LOL!

Oh let's pray that the most litigious shit show of a company gets to taste their own medicine for this one.

[orange808]

From the look of it, Digital Mind is not Atari.  They deserve the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

10 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

It looks like this game will only appear on Steam AND the Atari VCS:

 

 

Looks interesting, although the ghost looking like Casper instead of your dude at the beginning could use some tweaking. I'd be curious to set this up on my gaming PC and a VCS, crank it to max settings and see how they compare. 

 

I wonder why they don't have these guys make a Ninja Golf remake in this vein to have as an actual exclusive, although it seems like they really just don't care (it's all too little too late to make a difference in that regard though). 

[Matt_B]

Jani Penttinen has another video up:

 

 

There's nothing earth-shattering in there but he's telling us more about this than Atari themselves are.

 

Did they stop paying their PR people, or something? ?

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

39 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

Jani Penttinen has another video up:

 

 

There's nothing earth-shattering in there but he's telling us more about this than Atari themselves are.

 

Did they stop paying their PR people, or something? ?

Ugh, that video thumbnail is discouraging me from watching......................betting this will be the face of any backer that actually receives this garbage ?

[youxia]

39 minutes ago, OldSchoolRetroGamer said:

Ugh, that video thumbnail is discouraging me from watching

Hah, for me it's the case with most of these vids. Why do these old farts always feel its necessary to make a "zany" face and channel their inner Pewdepie? 

[Classic Pac]

There is no way a game developer is going to even make a VCS game. For one simple reason sales, they would do better making a mobile game. 

[Mikebloke]

48 minutes ago, OldSchoolRetroGamer said:

Ugh, that video thumbnail is discouraging me from watching......................betting this will be the face of any backer that actually receives this garbage ?

Haha, its not as bad as that image makes out. Jani is possibly the most reasonable person talking about the device. While I still doubt the use and point of the Ataribox, I can see Jani has enthusiasm for developing the device. His video also shows the classic controller and it does light up directionally, so they did keep that feature. I asked about the configuration of the lights and Jani replied in comments there does seem to be some documentation. I know some people mock the use of a lit up controller but as someone who has a customised keyboard for games I do find it useful and I am able to look at input devices while playing a game. If Terraria can have a dynamic keyboard lighting setup then surely the classic controller can have a use if it is configurable. 

 

Jani is possibly on the fan boy side for the vcs, but given possibly seems to be the most high profile developer for it so far (and it isn't the only device the games is developed for - so eggs aren't all in one basket) it's provided more insight than anyone else has into the system. Jani shows the system working, and the two controllers in the two videos so it's something we've never really got before. 

 

The device works, if nothing else. 

[OCAT]

Hmm, He transfers the game from the MAC to the VCS, Now that the M1 macs are out it seems weird to transfer the game from the Mac to the VCS, The new Macs has some insane benchmarks, why bother running it from the VCS ?



even FROGGER agrees...



 




??????????????????????????????

Edited November 18, 2020 by OCAT

[jhd]

6 hours ago, Matt_B said:

Did they stop paying their PR people, or something? ?

 

Agreed! I am interested in these videos as they are addressing (some of) the questions that have been asked, but it seems very odd that Atari is relying upon third parties to do this rather than producing their own content. If nothing else, they would want to have full control over the message. 

[OCAT]

^ Why pay for something you can get for free!, Atari has finally gotten to step 3 -Admit defeat and know that in a month everyone will see what a dumster fire this is. If Chesnais cannot save face at least he can save dollars!
I bet he is  member of Dollar Shave club as well ????



If Atari did not want to pay people they should have at LEAST teamed up with Atari Youtube "Influencers" ??
What about that guy "The Atari Creep", TV-Games and the others that cover retro goods, Big names like ASHENS and LGR...

Edited November 18, 2020 by OCAT

[Mockduck]

Spirit of the Samurai is being developed independently if they are successfully funded by a Kickstarter currently underway. The game has no actual direct connection to Atari. Atari is giving them a small bit of press for their Kickstarter in exchange for the game also coming to the VCS if funded. That's it. I get people love to blame Atari for things they aren't actually involved in, but maybe just let the indie developer make their game or not without harassing them?

[+x=usr(1536)]

10 minutes ago, Mockduck said:

Spirit of the Samurai is being developed independently if they are successfully funded by a Kickstarter currently underway. The game has no actual direct connection to Atari. Atari is giving them a small bit of press for their Kickstarter in exchange for the game also coming to the VCS if funded. That's it. I get people love to blame Atari for things they aren't actually involved in, but maybe just let the indie developer make their game or not without harassing them?

Or, y'know, Atari could not be disingenuous enough to make it look as though it's somehow a major title for their platform when it actually runs under Steam.  The same Steam that runs on nearly every x86/x64 machine out there regardless of platform or OS, including the Ataribollocks(tm).

 

This has nothing to do with the developer and everything to do with Fauxtari once again trying to make their platform look way more relevant than it is.

 

The irony of Fauxtari vaunting an unwritten, unreleased game for their platform that's being funded through Kickstarter is pretty amusing, however.

Edited November 18, 2020 by x=usr(1536)

[+x=usr(1536)]

Actually, since I'm already poking around in the cesspool that is Kickstarter, let's take a quick look at the Spirit of the Samurai crowdfunding campaign:

 

 

The goal is $35,605 (€30,000 at today's exchange rates).  In the first 72 hours of their campaign barely 6% of the goal has been raised.  This is in the period when pledges for a new project are typically the most active, and usually accounts for the greatest single period of steady funding.  But, hey, maybe they're a dark horse that'll come up from the back of the pack before the 16th of December.

 

What's really telling is that €30K is chump change for developing a game.  If Atari really had the hots for this, they'd contract the developers to make the game for them, giving them milestones, deliverables, and deadlines to work with.  The problem is that this iteration of Atari doesn't consider €30K to be chump change like the rest of the video game industry does because they have no money, and so can't afford to just bring them on board to write an exclusive.  But they can sure let people think they've got something special lined up!

[AlecRob]

Apparently VCS is “quite a bit more powerful than a nintendo switch”

[Shaggy the Atarian]

8 hours ago, Matt_B said:

Did they stop paying their PR people, or something? ?

Are we sure that they paid them in the first place (in something other than worthless French stocks or Atari Tokens)?  

 

48 minutes ago, Mockduck said:

Spirit of the Samurai is being developed independently if they are successfully funded by a Kickstarter currently underway. The game has no actual direct connection to Atari. Atari is giving them a small bit of press for their Kickstarter in exchange for the game also coming to the VCS if funded. That's it. I get people love to blame Atari for things they aren't actually involved in, but maybe just let the indie developer make their game or not without harassing them?

I'm not bashing on them for their effort. If it comes to fruition and gets more polish, I may check this out on Steam. But I did notice that their preview video features the Atari logo prominently, which implies that Atari is publishing or funding the game in some manner. Thus it's odd that they'd still be asking for Kickstarter money, although I guess it's still hip to use KS as a way to get a few extra bucks. 

 

2 minutes ago, AlecRob said:

Apparently VCS is “quite a bit more powerful than a nintendo switch”

Lol, I'd take that with a grain of salt until some benchmarks or comparisons are done...but even if it holds true, the Switch's game library and support infrastructure far outweighs anything Atari can manage to do, especially if the best they can come up with on software are Kickstarted games that will also be available on Steam. 

[Matt_B]

Yeah, the Switch never sold itself on raw power. It's barely OK as a TV console, even; the selling point is that you can pick it up, take it with you and keep playing your game. Also, with an install base of 60 million it's an attractive platform to make games for.

 

The machines you probably should be comparing the VCS against, i.e. the next generation consoles in the same price bracket that just came out, would both absolutely beat it to a bloody pulp. Benchmarks might not be out yet, but when they're packing around twenty times more compute power it's a foregone conclusion. Except in a few contrived scenarios, e.g. games that bottleneck on a single CPU thread, the VCS probably couldn't even come close to the Xbox One and PS4.

[racerx]

43 minutes ago, AlecRob said:

Apparently VCS is “quite a bit more powerful than a nintendo switch”

Apparently Nintendo realizes that software sells hardware.

 

Atari SA remains blissfully ignorant of this.

[youxia]

1 hour ago, Mockduck said:

I get people love to blame Atari for things they aren't actually involved in, but maybe just let the indie developer make their game or not without harassing them?

People here on AtariAGE probably remember when the word "harassment"  actually carried some weight and meant what it meant, but these days... I think "mocking" would be much more appropiate in this case (no pun intended btw).

 

Anyway, an unfunded game with a peanut budget being hailed as an important exclusive fits this ongoing farce perfectly