News article possible end of VCS

[THX-1138]

6 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

It's true although I did like using the Tramiel era computers like the ST & XE...but the overall marketing in the States was so terrible.

I know they were massive in Germany and here in the UK people either bought an Amiga or ST.  Personally, everyone I knew, all my friends were all ST users and many owned an XE or XL too.  After the Berlin Wall came down, they sold ST and XE computers like crazy in places like Poland and other eastern European countries.  For many of us here, the late 80's to early 90's were some of the best Atari years.  I did visit the US during those times but it didn't feel that way over there.

[Cyprian]

On 12/23/2022 at 5:13 PM, leech said:

I would say 'the real Atari' became Commodore, and died in 1994.

nah, the real Atari - Nolan Bushnell was never part of Commodore.

But that's true that ex-Atari employees were part of Apple, Commodore and other companies

 

 

 

[zzip]

14 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Your argument was that it's a niche console and that "no one" thought otherwise. Atari marketing thought otherwise as how they promoted the machine - they also regularly were posting self-congratulatory "ATARI IS BACK" articles over and over. Sure you need some hubris in marketing but there's a line you can cross where it becomes tone deaf; Ultimately Atari's way of how they handled the machine is what matters to the VCS and its expectations, not what a couple of guys arguing on a forum think.

What do expect marketing to say?    Any company is going to tout their product as the greatest thing since sliced bread and not list the negatives.   Yes it can stream, but if that's where marketing focused then they don't understand what they built and who the target audience is.   It's obviously not netflix moms when they can get what they need from a cheap roku or firestick.

 

At any rate I'm not Atari marketing, so take your beef up with them

 

15 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Proprietary closed systems are working out pretty well for the Switch; Amico never launched so we won't know how it would've fared but on the smaller company scale the Playdate is doing well going into next year from the sounds of it, while again,

*bangs head*   Nintendo is a much bigger company with tons of resources and valuable IP.   All they have to do is release a new Mario or Zelda and they'll sell tons of consoles.  Atari no longer has IPs with that much pull.    Switch also isn't based around custom chips, it has an nVidia gPU and ARM CPU.  

 

Amico was never going to succeed.   They didn't even have the resources to get it out the door,  but even if they did, how many $5 games do they need to sell to keep it afloat?   What other revenue streams do they have?   When the games stop coming, unless a homebrew scene forms the hardware is useless.

 

Playdate has lost a lot of its hype,  that article lists a number of issues its facing doesn't exactly sound like it's doing well.   At any rate it too is a niche product and remains to be seen if they can make it successful.

 

We know Atari is going to stop releasing VCS games at some point.   But the fact that you can load Steam on it and obtain games from many other sources means your investment is protected.   For Amico or Playdate, you can't do they, you'd have to hope some homebrew developer keeps providing games.

 

15 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I've long argued that the VCS was pointless and they would be better off right now if they had just done a Flashback 11 or whatever number they were at instead of trying to compete in a space they were woefully unable to compete in. 

How many flashbacks does the market need?  At some point they provide diminishing returns

 

14 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I think this is another Ouya in that it had explosive initial success, but I don't see that sustaining itself once it's actually in people's hands

Yeah it's exactly like the Ouya in that people on social media love the IDEA of it and think it's cute, but it doesn't translate into all of them rushing out to buy one when it does arrive.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

28 minutes ago, zzip said:

What do expect marketing to say?    Any company is going to tout their product as the greatest thing since sliced bread and not list the negatives.   Yes it can stream, but if that's where marketing focused then they don't understand what they built and who the target audience is.   It's obviously not netflix moms when they can get what they need from a cheap roku or firestick.

 

At any rate I'm not Atari marketing, so take your beef up with them

 YOU said it was a niche system. YOU make these proclamations like YOU are Atari then when someone like me tells you you're wrong, you act like "of course Atari's not treating it like a niche but they should be because some rando like me on the internet says so"

28 minutes ago, zzip said:

*bangs head*   Nintendo is a much bigger company with tons of resources and valuable IP.   All they have to do is release a new Mario or Zelda and they'll sell tons of consoles.  Atari no longer has IPs with that much pull.    Switch also isn't based around custom chips, it has an nVidia gPU and ARM CPU.  

 

Amico was never going to succeed.   They didn't even have the resources to get it out the door,  but even if they did, how many $5 games do they need to sell to keep it afloat?   What other revenue streams do they have?   When the games stop coming, unless a homebrew scene forms the hardware is useless.

 If anyone is banging their head here, it's me. Try reading and comprehending the whole sentence instead of giving it a quick pass and spouting off. I was responding to you talking about closed vs. open. I wasn't saying a thing about company resources. The Switch is as great an example of that as the Playdate in that regard; this should be easy to understand, unless you're being intentionally obtuse. 

 

The Switch is a proprietary design and it sure sounds like "the heavily customized Tegra processor" uses custom chips. They didn't just hit up Newegg and slap some parts together

28 minutes ago, zzip said:

Playdate has lost a lot of its hype,  that article lists a number of issues its facing doesn't exactly sound like it's doing well.   At any rate it too is a niche product and remains to be seen if they can make it successful.

 

I didn't claim it was a perfect system nor that it would become the next Nintendo Switch but since YOU brought up closed proprietary systems vs. open ones(remember that or did you forget already?), it's a perfect example of someone coming along with no name, no money, no fanbase and outperforming a piece of open hardware that comes from the oldest company in the video game business. The fact that the Playdate more than doubled Atari's hardware purchases in 20 minutes already tells you that Atari is so bad at this that they NEVER SHOULD HAVE DONE THE VCS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Does typing all in caps help get the point across?

 

Quote

We know Atari is going to stop releasing VCS games at some point.   But the fact that you can load Steam on it and obtain games from many other sources means your investment is protected.   For Amico or Playdate, you can't do they, you'd have to hope some homebrew developer keeps providing games.

 

Which is great for the tiny handful of people who bought one. For the Playdate, it's like 99% of other consoles out there and yet you still have homebrews being made for those platforms despite being unable to load up Steam on them.

 

Quote

How many flashbacks does the market need?  At some point they provide diminishing returns

How many VCS'es does the market need? Clearly it was zero. 

 

I'll clarify to say I don't think another new Flashback is worth it either, I agree it's beyond diminished returns at 10. They shouldn't be in hardware at all. I was just pointing out that if they are going to do something in hardware when they have no competence in that field, smarter to stick with what you know until you can afford to hire the talent that can come along with something more interesting. But since Atari was run by morons who aren't leaders in anything but chasing fads, we got the VCS. They saw all these projects getting funded or start-ups being bought and they needed a way to inflate the value of their company so they could sell it off for more than peanuts and retire to a beach somewhere with a gold-plated umbrella and busty waitresses. 

 

The overall lesson of the VCS is: Just because a company was in hardware decades ago doesn't mean that they *should* still be there.

[leech]

2 hours ago, Cyprian said:

nah, the real Atari - Nolan Bushnell was never part of Commodore.

But that's true that ex-Atari employees were part of Apple, Commodore and other companies

 

 

 

Yeah, but key engineers like Jay Miner, who worked on the 2600 and 8bit machines went on to make the Amiga, which was bought by Commodore.  Hence if you follow the engineering side, that's where it ended up.  Nolan Bushnell is part of the Atari Arcade legacy as far as I look at it, and that wasn't sold off to Tramiel anyhow.

[Cyprian]

20 hours ago, leech said:

Yeah, but key engineers like Jay Miner, who worked on the 2600 and 8bit machines went on to make the Amiga, which was bought by Commodore.  Hence if you follow the engineering side, that's where it ended up.  Nolan Bushnell is part of the Atari Arcade legacy as far as I look at it, and that wasn't sold off to Tramiel anyhow.

 

I appreciate Miner work (and also other great Atari engineers like Shivaz/GCC team/Brennan/Mathieson/Mical/Needle etc), but A8 is only part of Atari portfolio (e.g. best Atari 8bit machine - A7800 was designed by someone else - GCC) . He  was just an Atari employee, and for a while. For me the real Atari is the boss Bushnell (and maybe later Tramiel)

And actually TIA - the  heart of A2600 was designed by Steve Mayer and Ron Milner not by Miner.

His (and other mentioned earlier engineers) work done for other companies is not part of Atari's history.

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Cyprian

[leech]

1 hour ago, Cyprian said:

 

I appreciate Miner work (and also other great Atari engineers like Shivaz/GCC team/Brennan/Mathieson/Mical/Needle etc), but A8 is only part of Atari portfolio (e.g. best Atari 8bit machine - A7800 was designed by someone else - GCC) . He  was just an Atari employee, and for a while. For me the real Atari is the boss Bushnell (and maybe later Tramiel)

And actually TIA - the  heart of A2600 was designed by Steve Mayer and Ron Milner not by Miner.

His (and other mentioned earlier engineers) work done for other companies is not part of Atari's history.

 

Fair, which is also why I say Atari did not die in 1984, as Atari is a brand name.  Atari basically disappeared in 1996, and then resurfaced later as Atari Interactive, which was essentially just a publisher / IP holder.  It was after this point that they didn't basically make anything until the Atari VCS.  Which I consider a resurrection.

[Cebus Capucinis]

I've never understood why most VCS threads turn into some No True Scotsman sort of thing with respect to "real" Atari. Whether real Atari in someone's mind or not, the VCS exists and while it has warts, at least it's a thing and you can play games on it! Here's to hoping 2023 for VCS sees some positive motion in certain areas and some more great games!

[+joeatari1]

That was the most beautiful thing I've ever read from you Cebus!  You deserve a prize:

 

[Cebus Capucinis]

What can I say, Amico sets a really low bar for everything else these days.

 

Do I like my VCS? Meh.

Do I think it's great? Meh.

Do I think there's ways it kinda sucks? Yeah.

Could it get better? Sure.

Does my opinion matter? Nope!

[+davidcalgary29]

On 12/23/2022 at 4:58 AM, THX-1138 said:

They've got to overcome this insane BS about not being able to sell the VCS outside the US.  That is the most short sighted, dumb move they could have made and there is NO excuse for it.  If Atari want to lose money and want to fail, then leaving stock in a warehouse and denying sales to the 95% who live outside the US is a surefire way of doing that.

You're telling me! I finally broke down and bought one when they went on sale a few weeks ago...and had to use AmForward to ship it to Canada. That service is fairly reasonable, and very professional, but it still forced me to take a couple of extra steps that didn't have to happen.

[+davidcalgary29]

1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

What can I say, Amico sets a really low bar for everything else these days.

 

 

I haven't been following anything lately. What happened here?

[Cebus Capucinis]

It's a whole thing, but suffice it to say, it is incredibly likely it won't come out, that it wasn't ever close to ready, and that the company will go under, with zero refunds or reimbursement to investors.

[leech]

21 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

I've never understood why most VCS threads turn into some No True Scotsman sort of thing with respect to "real" Atari. Whether real Atari in someone's mind or not, the VCS exists and while it has warts, at least it's a thing and you can play games on it! Here's to hoping 2023 for VCS sees some positive motion in certain areas and some more great games!

Seriously!  Also, I miss John Candy's face.  Watched Summer Rental a few weeks back.  There also seems to be a lack of movies where someone has to win a boat race to put it to the snobby rich people in the area.  Also Rip Torn should have played a Pirate more.

 

It's amusing, for those of us who remember that the big names in gaming were Atari, Sega and Nintendo, we know there were many types of games, a whole lot of unique ideas would come around, and games mostly consisted of stuff you could start up right away, play for a bit, then put down and do something else.  Modern game players mostly only know Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.  Nintendo really is only successful still due to it's own child-like franchises like Mario.  Sony has some here and there that are known to be exclusive to them, and Microsoft has Halo.  But gone are the days when you can start up a console, and just play a game for a few minutes.  Even the Atari VCS has that 'choose your user, and probably find an update'. 

There have been many times where I'll start up a console to play a game... (or even the computer) and then because I have to wait for a patch either to the game or the OS, that I'll just give up and watch something as that takes less time to start.

This is where something like the Evercade is awesome, and where Atari, if they wanted to make the VCS awesome, should have included, or at least create an add-on, that'd let one plug in old carts, and just boot straight off of that.

 

Imagine a USB device that has a cart slot for the 2600/7800, 8bit, 5200 and Jaguar, that also comes with a controller adapter, so you could just use the VCS to boot directly to all of the old library... Perfectly possible, and would be amazing.

[leech]

On 12/25/2022 at 8:41 AM, Cyprian said:

And actually TIA - the  heart of A2600 was designed by Steve Mayer and Ron Milner not by Miner.

Ha, you should update the Wikipedia article for Jay Miner, as it simply states he was the lead engineer for the TIA, making it sound like it was at least designed partially by him.

[zzip]

On 12/25/2022 at 12:22 PM, leech said:

Fair, which is also why I say Atari did not die in 1984, as Atari is a brand name.  Atari basically disappeared in 1996, and then resurfaced later as Atari Interactive, which was essentially just a publisher / IP holder.  It was after this point that they didn't basically make anything until the Atari VCS.  Which I consider a resurrection.

It was bought by Hasbro and just released licensed games (similar to now).   But then Infrogrames got the name, started releasing new IPs under the IP name and eventually changed the name of the entire company to Atari before going bankrupt,  at some point Microprose got merged in too which is how Rollercoaster Tycoon and other games became Atari IPs

 

Infrogrames was going quite a lot with the name compared to now I think.

[zzip]

On 12/25/2022 at 8:15 PM, davidcalgary29 said:

On 12/25/2022 at 6:51 PM, Cebus Capucinis said:

What can I say, Amico sets a really low bar for everything else these days.

 

 

I haven't been following anything lately. What happened here?

We'd tell you, but don't want to see this thread devolve into a 30,000 post dumpster fire,  so go with your best guess, it's probably right

[zzip]

On 12/24/2022 at 1:22 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

YOU said it was a niche system. YOU make these proclamations like YOU are Atari then when someone like me tells you you're wrong, you act like "of course Atari's not treating it like a niche but they should be because some rando like me on the internet says so"

How are they not treating VCS as niche?   When did Atari say they were going head to head against Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft?     Best estimate for production is in the tens of thousands of units, not millions.   They only sold it through three retailers as an online only item.     Do you even know what Niche means?

 

On 12/24/2022 at 1:22 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

If anyone is banging their head here, it's me. Try reading and comprehending the whole sentence instead of giving it a quick pass and spouting off. I was responding to you talking about closed vs. open. I wasn't saying a thing about company resources. The Switch is as great an example of that as the Playdate in that regard; this should be easy to understand, unless you're being intentionally obtuse. 

 

The Switch is a proprietary design and it sure sounds like "the heavily customized Tegra processor" uses custom chips. They didn't just hit up Newegg and slap some parts together

Because the implicit argument in what you are saying is Atari should've done what Nintendo did.   Nintendo is a company with highly valuable IPs.   Switch hardware is kind of crap, but people buy it in droves to play those games.  Atari doesn't have IPs with that kind of pull.   They don't even have the rights to some of their best-known games.   

 

To get to that level, they would need major investment, Like a billionaire with a desire to see the Atari brand resurrected to its former glory and willing to dump millions to make that happen.  Atari would then need to go on a spending spree snatching up well-know games studios and strike exclusive deals with major games.   They would need enough well-know and compelling games to give Nintendo, Xbox and Playstation fans a reason to buy an Atari console (Atari's burned many bridges with gamers and developers over the years, so they would face a lot of resistance and skepticism in the process)   That's a longshot obviously and realistically Atari has to work with the resources and IPs they have.

 

The Switch Tegra is customized to reduce the size and power requirements to fit a mobile profile,  it is not custom in the sense that needs it's own API.   https://www.nintendo-insider.com/custom-nvidia-tegra-processor-powers-nintendo-switch/    Nintendo emphasizes that it's the same architecture as GeForce cards.   That's important for developers to know their existing tools will work.

 

That's the same reason it's smart for Atari to go with a well known architecture rather than custom.   That way they can tell developers they can write their games in Unity and create VCS builds with little effort,  vs the old Atari way of using custom Video/Sound/game controllers and then handing developers half-written hardware documentation and a buggy developer kit.   It would be much harder to recruit developers in this day and age doing things that way.   You'd end up with a piece of hardware capable of running "Recharged" games, The Atari Vault compilations and not much else.   

 

On 12/24/2022 at 1:22 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I didn't claim it was a perfect system nor that it would become the next Nintendo Switch but since YOU brought up closed proprietary systems vs. open ones(remember that or did you forget already?), it's a perfect example of someone coming along with no name, no money, no fanbase and outperforming a piece of open hardware that comes from the oldest company in the video game business. 

It didn't sell all that many units in the scheme of things, and based on what?  Social Media hype?   I'm still waiting for a compelling reason to buy one,  more than "BUT IT HAS A CRANK!!!"    If Atari produced the Playdate I wouldn't buy it either.    Just because it has a proprietary design doesn't mean it will succeed,  that design works against it since it will be harder to attract developers, and it's extremely underpowered so limits what content it can have.

 

On 12/24/2022 at 1:22 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

tells you that Atari is so bad at this that they NEVER SHOULD HAVE DONE THE VCS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Does typing all in caps help get the point across?

No it tells me the VCS is not the product for you.  And that's fine.   Why do you feel the need the convince others it's not for them or it shoudln't exist?

 

On 12/24/2022 at 1:22 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I'll clarify to say I don't think another new Flashback is worth it either, I agree it's beyond diminished returns at 10. They shouldn't be in hardware at all. I was just pointing out that if they are going to do something in hardware when they have no competence in that field, smarter to stick with what you know until you can afford to hire the talent that can come along with something more interesting.

And what were the doing since 2014 exactly?  Not a whole hell of a lot,  recovering from bankruptcy,  trying to figure out how to monetize what IP they have left.  No wonder they were getting into hotels, gambling and crypto, anything to bring in some revenue.

 

This past year I've seen more excitement around the Atari name than I have in a long long time, with the Recharged series, Atari 50 and yes even the VCS among its fans.   If that isn't a step up from what they were doing, I don't know what you expect from them

[Nall3k]

People, please. It's a product like most others will depreciate in value over time -- don't waste your lives arguing over it. If you find enjoyment from what you bought, that's all that matters. If you didn't buy it or don't own it, why are you here arguing about it?

[leech]

24 minutes ago, Nall3k said:

People, please. It's a product like most others will depreciate in value over time -- don't waste your lives arguing over it. If you find enjoyment from what you bought, that's all that matters. If you didn't buy it or don't own it, why are you here arguing about it?

https://xkcd.com/386

[Shaggy the Atarian]

21 minutes ago, Nall3k said:

People, please. It's a product like most others will depreciate in value over time -- don't waste your lives arguing over it. If you find enjoyment from what you bought, that's all that matters. If you didn't buy it or don't own it, why are you here arguing about it?

I only argue with zzip because he makes stupid arguments and claims about it but sure, there are better things to do. Otherwise, the VCS doesn't even enter into my mind.

 

32 minutes ago, zzip said:

How are they not treating VCS as niche? 

I already laid that out, why should I continue to rehash it and rephrase it since you don't seem to understand whatever it is that I write.

33 minutes ago, zzip said:

They don't even have the rights to some of their best-known games. 

Lol, what? Once again you show you don't know what you're talking about - the ONLY IP they no longer own from the 1972-84 era is BattleZone, everything else people know Atari for apart from games they never owned so yeah, best to leave it at that. Go ahead and get the last word in. 

 

 

 

[leech]

8 minutes ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I only argue with zzip because he makes stupid arguments and claims about it but sure, there are better things to do. Otherwise, the VCS doesn't even enter into my mind.

 

I already laid that out, why should I continue to rehash it and rephrase it since you don't seem to understand whatever it is that I write.

Lol, what? Once again you show you don't know what you're talking about - the ONLY IP they no longer own from the 1972-84 era is BattleZone, everything else people know Atari for apart from games they never owned so yeah, best to leave it at that. Go ahead and get the last word in. 

 

 

 

I think Alone in the Dark was another, somewhat successful, franchise they had.  At one point in time they had the D&D license as well to publish.  I am sure one could think of others.

[leech]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Microprose got merged in too which is how Rollercoaster Tycoon and other games became Atari IPs

Wonder how many of Microprose's classics could be revitalized.  I would love to see an Ancient Art of War series.

[Bill Loguidice]

3 minutes ago, leech said:

Wonder how many of Microprose's classics could be revitalized.  I would love to see an Ancient Art of War series.

It seems like the rights reverted back to the developer, Evryware, after publishing through Broderbund and then Microprose. Evryware published the last game themselves, Ancient Art of War 2, in 2014. As much I'm personally a fan and own all the 80s versions, I don't think there's any cache with the brand in the modern era.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

1 hour ago, leech said:

I think Alone in the Dark was another, somewhat successful, franchise they had.  At one point in time they had the D&D license as well to publish.  I am sure one could think of others.

I was meaning just the original Atari IP but yeah, they do have some of those Infogrames IPs left but did sell off others. I never thought of it as Atari so never paid much attention to it. 

 

RollerCoaster Tycoon is definitely their biggest one that they still have around but apparently I'm dumb for suggesting that they should have leveraged that to provide software value to the VCS.