Guess I Joined the VCS club

[Lord Thag]

My good friend swlovinist got me, to my complete surprise, a VCS for xmas this year (thanks again, man!)

 

My initial experience wasn't the best: the thing refused to download updates or connect to the store, and I had to download the latest OS from a reddit thread, install it to a USB stick, boot the console to BIOS, and install it manually. Once I did, everything worked as designed. This is obviously a big problem. And the fact that Atari isn't including an instruction sheet, help desk article, or a download to the latest OS version on their website is pretty poor customer service for a new user. If I wasn't a computer person, this would probably have been a deal breaker. But I got it sorted and got some games. 

 

Once I got it working though, I am very much enjoying this thing. I ended up playing it all weekend. There are quite a lot of fun games on this thing, not even counting the recharged series, which is excellent. This thing looks to be a permanent fixture next to my Evercade Vs, and I find myself playing both consoles far more than I anticipated when I want to scratch that arcade/retro itch. 

 

Fun times. I'm particularly impressed with the recharged games, Syndey Hunter, Thrustlander, Donut Dodo, Jetpack joust and (of all things) Pixel Cup Soccer.

 

If anyone has tried the multiplayer, I'm curious if it's just as janky as the setup process. PM me if you'd like to add me as a friend. There's got to be at least eight of us right? 😁

 

 

[+swlovinist]

I am glad you like it and well deserved friend.   We can try some Multiplayer this weekend.    

[+MrZarniwoop]

10 hours ago, Lord Thag said:

This is obviously a big problem. And the fact that Atari isn't including an instruction sheet, help desk article, or a download to the latest OS version on their website is pretty poor customer service for a new user. If I wasn't a computer person, this would probably have been a deal breaker.

Yeah, it seems somewhere they unintentionally broke the upgrade chain between versions. Perhaps they're working on re-factoring the upgrade chain behind the scenes to make it easy for new users?

 

The best source for the fix is @davpa's post with the latest version of the AtariOS with the bios upgrade 24 option here on AtariAge. I cannot imagine most of the Atari VCS buyers are AtariAge users, and even then, digging through a complaint thread here. It'd be a much better to be some type of highlighted article on the front page of the Atari support site and their social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

[zzip]

16 hours ago, Lord Thag said:

My initial experience wasn't the best: the thing refused to download updates or connect to the store, and I had to download the latest OS from a reddit thread, install it to a USB stick, boot the console to BIOS, and install it manually. Once I did, everything worked as designed. This is obviously a big problem. And the fact that Atari isn't including an instruction sheet, help desk article, or a download to the latest OS version on their website is pretty poor customer service for a new user. If I wasn't a computer person, this would probably have been a deal breaker. But I got it sorted and got some games. 

Yeah this seems to be a problem with newer units.   They didn't get flashed properly in manufacturing or something.   I do have to wonder how many get one and assume it's defective.

 

 

[Lord Thag]

5 hours ago, MrZarniwoop said:

Yeah, it seems somewhere they unintentionally broke the upgrade chain between versions. Perhaps they're working on re-factoring the upgrade chain behind the scenes to make it easy for new users?

 

The best source for the fix is @davpa's post with the latest version of the AtariOS with the bios upgrade 24 option here on AtariAge. I cannot imagine most of the Atari VCS buyers are AtariAge users, and even then, digging through a complaint thread here. It'd be a much better to be some type of highlighted article on the front page of the Atari support site and their social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Yeah it's a shame, because once you get past this, the console is a pretty fun little unit. It's a bit like some of the classic consoles we all collect where the library is small, but the ratio of good to bad games is very much skewed in favor of the good ones. The fact that there's nothing but some AA and Reddit links for new users facing this is really, really dumb. They need to get a helpdesk article up ASAP while they address the update issues, and provide a link to the latest firmware. That's pretty basic stuff.