VCS out in the wild? I'd say 10 to 15K.

[SizzleAtari]

How many Atari VCS do you think are out in the wild? I would guess 10 to 15K. If store sales are around 21,000. 

[Djmicklovin]

13 hours ago, SizzleAtari said:

How many Atari VCS do you think are out in the wild? I would guess 10 to 15K. If store sales are around 21,000. 

There’s gotta be more than that by now. The initial Indiegogo run was around 10-15k. Probably another 10-15k for it’s official retail release. So probably 20-30k by now. There seems to be more demand for it over in Europe for whatever reason people seem to love Atari more over there.

[Wizzard]

Yes, and we have to buy it for high prices on ebay

[pacman000]

9 hours ago, Djmicklovin said:

There’s gotta be more than that by now. The initial Indiegogo run was around 10-15k. Probably another 10-15k for it’s official retail release. So probably 20-30k by now. There seems to be more demand for it over in Europe for whatever reason people seem to love Atari more over there.

The ST was more popular over there, so they maintained greater mind share in the late 80's. That gives the brand one extra half-generation of nostalgic adults to appeal to.

[stirrell]

34 minutes ago, pacman000 said:

The ST was more popular over there, so they maintained greater mind share in the late 80's. That gives the brand one extra half-generation of nostalgic adults to appeal to.

I remember being so amazed by the glossy, large magazines for the ST like ST Format from the UK. I would make the pilgrimage to Barnes & Noble as often as possible to grab new issues with the cover disk. I was always jealous of the support European Atari owners had. I had no local source for software or hardware.

[Rick Dangerous]

Why can't they make more of these?

 

I'd probably buy another one if i saw one just sitting on a shelf at best buy. 

[Mockduck]

I think that $99 sale sent a bunch out to the wild, hard to know how many. I too would guess about 30K.

[toiletunes]

I wonder how many are being used vs sitting on ebay or sitting in a closet as an investment etc.

[Mockduck]

3 hours ago, toiletunes said:

I wonder how many are being used vs sitting on ebay or sitting in a closet as an investment etc.

This will be largely impossible to tell due to PC Mode. We know the VCS Store is only getting maybe 50ish sales per day, so you could theorize a number based on that, but that excludes the likely vast majority of users who are using it as a PC. 

[leech]

8 hours ago, Mockduck said:

This will be largely impossible to tell due to PC Mode. We know the VCS Store is only getting maybe 50ish sales per day, so you could theorize a number based on that, but that excludes the likely vast majority of users who are using it as a PC. 

Ha, I generally buy several games at once (as I don't save the CC anywhere and have to type it in manually), and the VCS Store simply doesn't allow this.  Not sure exactly the percentage of sales that hurts, but it definitely prevents me from just buying everything in the store.

[tripled79]

On 6/8/2022 at 7:22 PM, leech said:

Ha, I generally buy several games at once (as I don't save the CC anywhere and have to type it in manually), and the VCS Store simply doesn't allow this.  Not sure exactly the percentage of sales that hurts, but it definitely prevents me from just buying everything in the store.

Huh? My credit card number is saved on my system. I only have to make a few clicks to make a purchase on the Atari Store...

[leech]

20 hours ago, tripled79 said:

Huh? My credit card number is saved on my system. I only have to make a few clicks to make a purchase on the Atari Store...

I think you missed my point   You can't currently buy multiple games at the same time.  You have to click through and buy each one, which each one also prompts to be downloaded / installed.

[Crackers64]

On 6/27/2022 at 8:34 PM, leech said:

I think you missed my point   You can't currently buy multiple games at the same time.  You have to click through and buy each one, which each one also prompts to be downloaded / installed.

I noticed this also and wondered why there isn't a cart function. Every other store I shop at has it. 

[jerseystyle]

On 6/7/2022 at 2:22 PM, Mockduck said:

I think that $99 sale sent a bunch out to the wild, hard to know how many. I too would guess about 30K.

If I could’ve grabbed one for 99, I would’ve. I was totally mocking this system prior to release but have been proven wrong by post release support. I’d probably go up to 200 if the classic controller was included. I love the 7800 game inclusions. Is that Atari at 50 collection gonna have any tweaks for the VCS? That may sway me.

[joeatari1]

13 minutes ago, Crackers64 said:

I noticed this also and wondered why there isn't a cart function. Every other store I shop at has it. 

According to one of the Atari employees on Discord, it is in the works, as well as numerous other enhancements to the OS.  He didn't give specifics on the other enhancements but did specifically mention the cart.

[stirrell]

8 minutes ago, jerseystyle said:

If I could’ve grabbed one for 99, I would’ve. I was totally mocking this system prior to release but have been proven wrong by post release support. I’d probably go up to 200 if the classic controller was included. I love the 7800 game inclusions. Is that Atari at 50 collection gonna have any tweaks for the VCS? That may sway me.

I would imagine (or hope) that at the very least that games in the 50th Anniversary would take advantage of the classic controller's spin functionality where applicable. Since they added Classic controller support to the Vault games it seems likely to me.

[joeatari1]

9 minutes ago, jerseystyle said:

If I could’ve grabbed one for 99, I would’ve. I was totally mocking this system prior to release but have been proven wrong by post release support. I’d probably go up to 200 if the classic controller was included. I love the 7800 game inclusions. Is that Atari at 50 collection gonna have any tweaks for the VCS? That may sway me.

I don't know if there are any VCS tweaks for it or exclusive content.  All anyone got on the Discord was a "you'll have to wait and see".  Typical answer.  However I wouldn't put it past them to have a couple extras on the VCS, judging from their prior releases.  Just my 2p.

[leech]

3 hours ago, joeatari1 said:

I don't know if there are any VCS tweaks for it or exclusive content.  All anyone got on the Discord was a "you'll have to wait and see".  Typical answer.  However I wouldn't put it past them to have a couple extras on the VCS, judging from their prior releases.  Just my 2p.

My understanding is that the VCS versions have leaderboards and some other stuff that is possible due to having it online with their own database.

[Zookeeper]

Yeah, this has turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable little machine. I hope they can dig up some 8bit games to throw out there.

Edited July 15, 2022 by Zookeeper

[GraffitiTavern]

We got a financial report for the fiscal year ending in March. It claims 3 million euros in hardware sales as of then, making just over 20% of a frankly puny sub-15 million annual revenue. Conversion is rather easy since the euro is trading 1:1 with the USD right now. If these are the $300 base units, then that means they have sold a cool 10,000 since public release. If those were all the all-in bundle, that means 7,500 consoles out since public release. Now that doesn't factor in discounts(primarily that would have been fielded by the retailers however, since they had already bought the units from Atari), whatever backstock the remaining retailers have, and any sales since March(probably not huge but I'd imagine there'd be some bump from the 50th anniversary and sale).

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/07/27/2487176/0/en/ATARI-FY-2022-ANNUAL-RESULTS.html

So assuming this does translate to 8,000 to 11,000 units sold since full launch, and 10,000 to 15,000 were preordered, I'd put my chips on 18,000 to 25,000 units out wild at the moment.

 

What new hardware they could be cooking up as per the report is beyond me, as well as what their plans are. They largely seemed to be letting the VCS fade quietly since launch, but there's been more noise the past month so who knows. Hopefully the NFT crash will finally get Atari to stop hedging bets and just commit to games and the system they released.

[Pete5125]

I guess not bad for zero ad support.  I'm still in disbelief that they could launch. Spend nothing on advertising,  their are regular folks that would buy if a advertised, b available in the wild, has a lot of similarities with jag, except Atari would advertise the heck out of it during weird hours of the day. 

[stirrell]

9 minutes ago, Pete5125 said:

I guess not bad for zero ad support.  I'm still in disbelief that they could launch. Spend nothing on advertising,  their are regular folks that would buy if a advertised, b available in the wild, has a lot of similarities with jag, except Atari would advertise the heck out of it during weird hours of the day. 

They did some web ads. They were following me around for some time. Obviously, not as splashy as television or YouTube ads but they did do at least a little bit of advertising.

[GraffitiTavern]

2 hours ago, Pete5125 said:

I guess not bad for zero ad support.  I'm still in disbelief that they could launch. Spend nothing on advertising,  their are regular folks that would buy if a advertised, b available in the wild, has a lot of similarities with jag, except Atari would advertise the heck out of it during weird hours of the day. 

That's actually what got me interested in the system, weirdly enough. I found out it existed last fall and was baffled that there was this console thing out from Atari of all companies and I hadn't heard of it at all, and no one I knew had heard of it either. Its low profile caused me to take a deep dive on how Atari had gotten to this point, learn about the corporate history, etc. I honestly think it would have sold more if COVID and the next-gen launches hadn't stolen what publicity they were getting. Those early VCS videos from 2018 and 2019 were getting several hundred thousand to over a million views, but by the time it actually launched they seemed to have dropped off completely.

[Lord Mushroom]

The Jaguar was a very powerful console at launch. It had potential. The VCS was weak at launch, and it was obvious it was going to have very low support in terms of games. Spending money on advertisement would have increased sales, but not by much, so it would have been a bad idea.

[GraffitiTavern]

32 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

The Jaguar was a very powerful console at launch. It had potential. The VCS was weak at launch, and it was obvious it was going to have very low support in terms of games. Spending money on advertisement would have increased sales, but not by much, so it would have been a bad idea.

VCS hardware is at least in the same ballpark as lower end consoles like the Switch or Xbox Series S, but it was more expensive than both and didn't have any games which could show off what it could actually do. I think that lack of games was the big killer, not the hardware itself. But I agree a huge ad campaign might not have helped much, particularly since they never seemed sure of what the system actually was.