The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, desiv said:

Although, would that just be the SegaCD/32X model and back to a bad idea commercially? 

Such things would depend on questions like whats supposed to be the main-source(s) for revenue?

Console or games or equipment or a mix?

Its also a question about what modern retro-gaming looks like, and how invested Atari is in pushing forward in that area contra doing a mere minimum.

 

The situation of the 2600+ and Genesis/MD, as to comparison, is not the same.

The 32X was to provide new game-possibilites for a successful console beginning to show age, but at the time it wasn’t in the area of retrogaming.

With the 2600+ and its customers; many of the best games for the 2600 and 7800 are already made, and since Atari cannot feasibly license all these titles and stuff them into a pre-loaded retro-unit, they can provide modern ways to play old games, homebrews, aftermarket-games.

 

They could with some deals and cooperations with the atari-retro-community and other companies, provide a solid line-up of new titles and re-releases of 2600 and 7800 games. 
Since it takes mostly 2-4 skilled gamecreators to produce quality-stuff here, they could do some things in the retro-communities not quite like what other companies do.

Like having someone make an outstanding MotorPsycho version for the 2600, or an exceptionally well-made Solaris or Radar Lock for the 7800.

Ok, - perhaps they’d want to pick held or licensed IP’s (much) more famous than my from-the-top-of-ny-head examples, but the idea to partly resurrect the game-production-line for 2600 and 7800, with officially held IPs, offically obtained license-runs, would anyway make it different than ‘just more’ indie-developers-games (but, I’m suggesting both, not this contra that, - and by extending the retrogaming production categories, competing in the retrogame-market, simply by doing more & different, than what others do).

- - -

 

But an additional feature for a 2600+ Expansion-Module, besides improved cart dumper, improved emulation-software, LCD-lightgun compatibility, additional 7800 sound-chip emulation/compatibility, on could hope for some sort of emulation-tweaker (s switch) making anything run at 60 fps, leaving it to the player if the gaming-experience feels improved.

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Giles N

[e1will]

I apologize if this has been mentioned already elsewhere, but does anyone know if the Harmony cart will work with the 2600+ if its SD card has a single game on it? (I understand it won't work if there are multiple games on the card.)

 

Being able to use the Harmony cart to test WIP games for 2600+ compatibility would sure be handy.

[+batari]

20 minutes ago, e1will said:

I apologize if this has been mentioned already elsewhere, but does anyone know if the Harmony cart will work with the 2600+ if its SD card has a single game on it? (I understand it won't work if there are multiple games on the card.)

 

Being able to use the Harmony cart to test WIP games for 2600+ compatibility would sure be handy.

If you program the cartridge itself via USB with a single game (using developer mode in the software) you should be able to play the game on the 2600+. I've not tried it, but I expect that it should work.

[e1will]

8 minutes ago, batari said:

If you program the cartridge itself via USB with a single game (using developer mode in the software) you should be able to play the game on the 2600+. I've not tried it, but I expect that it should work.

Excellent! Thank you for the info.

[Albert]

20 minutes ago, batari said:

If you program the cartridge itself via USB with a single game (using developer mode in the software) you should be able to play the game on the 2600+. I've not tried it, but I expect that it should work.

I'll try this tomorrow. 
 

  ..Al

[desiv]

1 hour ago, Giles N said:

The situation of the 2600+ and Genesis/MD, as to comparison, is not the same.

 

I was only meaning the comparison of products with an add-on.  That's all. 

Not that the functionality of the add-on would be similar.  I totally agree they would be totally different in that area...

[donjn]

This is potentially an amazing product.

 

I think Atari needs to not make a mistake here. Id hate to bring up Amico but their mistake (among MANY mind you) was thinking their product was going to get new users.

 

Yes, some new users might be curious, but lets be honest, this product is going to be extremely niche, so it should try to cater to the hardcore Atari audience as much as possible. If they could figure out a way to get Harmony Cart working or add an SD card or some sort of way to add roms via USB I am going to put my money where my mouth is and purchase two of these units.

 

You aren't going to get new users when they have to purchase, dirty, overpriced cartioridges from Ebay that might or might not work. Im telling you right now, in its current form, this is not going to explode like some people think it is. 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by donjn

[Giles N]

29 minutes ago, desiv said:

I totally agree they would be totally different in that area...

Yes, and I’d guess also how such things would be calculated to be successful in the market.

 

What I mean is: when the Sega 32X came out, Sega would still need for games to be made for it, that did much more than what the Genesis/MD could pull off.

 

But with the Atari 2600 and 7800, its more like - now tons of quality-games are made for the systems (including originals, aftermarket, original homebrews and homebrew-ports), and Atari can (re-)release and (re-)sell titles they own or license rights for doing so, yet the number of quality games or just interesting games for these systems are much larger than whats realistic for Atari to license.

So providing a solid, modern, easily accessible method to play these games for common gamers, could be just the sort of stuff they can do, and which make them different than just another Mini-console with preloaded games.

And accessibility and providing ways to play retro-games retro-style can be good ways to compete in the retro-industry.

 

The games are there. Many top notch.

 

Not everyone would like to get s full setup of crt-tvs and original controllers, adapters, crt-tvs, light-guns etc.

 

Still, perhaps many would like to collect the games, if ways to play them was made easy, affordable and with quality.

 

It’s the lack of game-compatibility that by now seems to be the greatest potential for the 2600+ to have get a unnecessarily short lifespan.

 

And since paddle-controllers already makes up for 1 category of add-ons, why not make another add-on that ‘fixes’ the remaining problems…?

 

- - -

 If most can be done by a handful of firmware-updates; fine!

 

I’m still none the wiser as to the 7800 games.

Not even remaining top-2600 games am I certain will be enabled in the future (will Tunnel Runner and Robot Tank get to work simply by firmware updates, or is better cart-dumper absolutely necessary?)

 

A question is what Atari can do to expand the interest in what they sell contra remain in more or less static position.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Giles N

[LatchKeyKid]

Speaking as an 80's NES kid who really didn't appreciate the 2600 console and programmers fully until coming to this forum, I think the biggest potential hope for growth would be to fully embrace homebrew but that would require embracing the cartridge tech that has developed since. 

[Spriggy]

12 hours ago, hizzy said:

 I'm now going to order a Raspberry pi kit, install Stella and make a donation to the Stella team. I've never done anything with a Pi but I don't think it will be worse than the Atari +.

Raspberry pi + Retropie = fantastic little retro gaming option.  

https://retropie.org.uk/

Sorry for the hijack.

[+jgkspsx]

7 hours ago, donjn said:

I cant imagine anyone greenlighting this without Pitfall 2. That would need to be the first thing that is asked. If Pitfall 2 is not working, whats the point?

Hardly anybody owns a copy of Pitfall II, hardly anybody is going to buy Pitfall II for the price it goes for, and there is virtually no chance of Activision stooping to pick up the pennies of retro rereleases of their ancient games.
 

While I would love it if it worked, this is a much smaller problem for me than the inability to download new homebrew from here and run it. Most of the target market wants to play regular Pitfall and Combat and Adventure and a few other games, and they will probably be perfectly happy with it.

[donjn]

18 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Hardly anybody owns a copy of Pitfall II, hardly anybody is going to buy Pitfall II for the price it goes for, and there is virtually no chance of Activision stooping to pick up the pennies of retro rereleases of their ancient games.
 

While I would love it if it worked, this is a much smaller problem for me than the inability to download new homebrew from here and run it. Most of the target market wants to play regular Pitfall and Combat and Adventure and a few other games, and they will probably be perfectly happy with it.

I was being more vague. In other words, if it can run Pitfall 2, it can run almost anything else. I however do not know much about bank switching and all that stuff. I just know that Pitfall 2 used some wizardy when it was released.

 

But your comments about hardly anybody is going to buy Pitfall 2 it is exaclty my issue with the 2600+ relying on cartridges ONLY. There are a ton of cartirdge games that go for a lot on Ebay which makes the 2600+ almost dead before it begins. It needs to have the ability to either run a Harmony Cart solution, SD card or USB sticks or whatever for longer term success. They cannot say this is for new users as well and expect them to go Ebay hunting for overpriced 40 year old cartridges. Heck, release an "Atari Cart" solution, like Harmony Cart. Id buy that. Something, anything.

 

This model only makes sense to a lot of you because you all have a ton of 2600 cartirdges laying around. 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by donjn

[+jgkspsx]

13 minutes ago, donjn said:

They cannot say this is for new users as well and expect them to go Ebay hunting for overpriced 40 year old cartridges. Heck, release an "Atari Cart" solution, like Harmony Cart. Id buy that.

Most people are happy with a few games. I guarantee that normal people are going to bounce right off the Harmony cart solution. Atari would need to release a really stupid easy flashcart for it to be a viable product for the average consumer.

[SIO2]

49 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Most people are happy with a few games. I guarantee that normal people are going to bounce right off the Harmony cart solution. Atari would need to release a really stupid easy flashcart for it to be a viable product for the average consumer.

Yeah and there has to be a cell phone involved.  Modern people can't take their hand off the phone so, you would have to order and load the games from the phone at least.

[Bitsized]

Hi, I'm new here, but not new to Atari.  Like many, I got excited about the new 2600+ but then I found out about this site and then about homebrews, and now I'm in the wormhole.   I tried scanning this thread late last night and didn't find a definite answer, so I'm sorry if it was already addressed.  Since the announcement has it been tested and confirmed that the 2600+ will be able to use homebrew cartridges?

[Crimson Cross]

9 hours ago, donjn said:

This is potentially an amazing product.

 

I think Atari needs to not make a mistake here. Id hate to bring up Amico but their mistake (among MANY mind you) was thinking their product was going to get new users.

 

Yes, some new users might be curious, but lets be honest, this product is going to be extremely niche, so it should try to cater to the hardcore Atari audience as much as possible. If they could figure out a way to get Harmony Cart working or add an SD card or some sort of way to add roms via USB I am going to put my money where my mouth is and purchase two of these units.

 

You aren't going to get new users when they have to purchase, dirty, overpriced cartioridges from Ebay that might or might not work. Im telling you right now, in its current form, this is not going to explode like some people think it is. 

 

 

Growing up the 2600 was our first system and so the 2600+ had me on the fence, I thought do I want to get old carts and hope they work. Well I'm in on the 2600+ and bought 8 old games and 7 of them are listed able to play with Commando Raid untested being the 8th. I also bought 6 homebrews from AA, plus I'll most likely buy what new games come out next from Atari that'll work on the 2600+. My only gaming systems I have are Evercade and I love that, but Atari with games not on the Evercade has my interest and so that is another reason I'm in on it, I am a old customer of the original Atari company, but I am a new customer of this Atari and I'm excited for this new system and what new stuff will come out for it...

[Crimson Cross]

1 hour ago, Bitsized said:

Hi, I'm new here, but not new to Atari.  Like many, I got excited about the new 2600+ but then I found out about this site and then about homebrews, and now I'm in the wormhole.   I tried scanning this thread late last night and didn't find a definite answer, so I'm sorry if it was already addressed.  Since the announcement has it been tested and confirmed that the 2600+ will be able to use homebrew cartridges?

Al posted these are working on the 2600+ and there are more that he tested...

• Spies in the Night (8K - F8)
• Medieval Mayhem (32K - F4)
• Dungeon II (4K)
• Incoming! (4K)
• Dungeon (32K - F4)
• Reindeer Rescue (16K - F6)
• Thrust+ Platinum (16K - F6)
• Go Fish (NTSC, 8K - F8)
• Toyshop Trouble (8K - F8)
• A Roach in Space (32K - F4)
• Bee-Ball (4K)
• Seaweed Assault (32K - F4SC)

I believe a list will be posted on the forum in the future of all homebrews that'll work on the 2600+...

[Giles N]

9 hours ago, donjn said:

 

This is potentially an amazing product.

 

I think Atari needs to not make a mistake here. Id hate to bring up Amico but their mistake (among MANY mind you) was thinking their product was going to get new users.

 

Yes, some new users might be curious, but lets be honest,

 

There seems to be a universal key to what a game-company needs to do to stay around and grow:

 

  in one way or another, deliver 

  quality gaming experiences

  
as experienced by the gamers.

 

 

This is a sure winner, whether you do hardware or software or both.

 

If you drop quality or gaming or the experience, you’ll miss something.

 
If you make sure you provide:

- quality

- gaming

&

- the experience

 

you can get really far even with little.

 

This is why people still play Super Mario Bros (like with NES graphics), why Tetris is fun even with almost zero ‘spectacle’.

 

Quality gaming experience is why the 2600 was a winner back 1977 and PS2 is regarded the most successful console in history.

 
Whatever a gaming company do, they cannot skip quality gaming experience.

 

If you want to do retro-emulation or retro hardware or retro-carts, one needs to make sure its quality retro-gaming experience.

 

You need to actively weed out flaws, and actively provide quality retro-hardware, quality retro-emulation, quality-carts, quality-titles, make quality-space for the other quality-providers that may use it.

 

This means of course investing time in quality-testing stuff, which is why one want constructive feedback both prior to launch, but also prior to further production. 

This is why,sometimes, some companies should not have thrown out only beta-versions, as much as getting a gamma-tester-team or delta-concept-reviewers first.

 

Even asking them: are we asking you the right questions? When we asked you is this good or bad, should we rather have asked - how and in what ways should this be better?

 

I think its important for companies to be honest about all sorts of things: what they can pull of, what they cannot do at this time etc.

But also honestly engage with quite straightforward stuff like: what do our users really like? why did they buy this or that back then but don’t this or that now? why do these game-titles get so much playtime, while others just don’t get played even though we put so much effort into it? 
 

I think that avoiding mistakes may come in many fashions: not redo the errors of the past over and over, but also just making sure that if you set out to do something as to gaming, whatever it is, it must do that with quality, leaving the gamers with  satisfying gaming experience.

 

Whether or not such a thing as this will grab the attention of new users, few, some, many… or none, it shouid anyway provide a quality gaming experience within the scope of the project its sets out to do.

[+jgkspsx]

1 hour ago, Bitsized said:

Since the announcement has it been tested and confirmed that the 2600+ will be able to use homebrew cartridges?

Most are fine. Albert has posted a list of some 20 that work.

 

The only ones that will have trouble are those that have some kind of coprocessor like an ARM processor for DPC+. These games mostly run on the Melody board (although many games that run on the Melody board should be fine). Relatively few games use the additional processor power but those that do are usually pretty impressive.

 

Does anybody have a list of DPC+ games and other games that use coprocessors? That would be really helpful for people thinking about the 2600+.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

19 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Does anybody have a list of DPC+ games and other games that use coprocessors? That would be really helpful for people thinking about the 2600+.

In the store these games are marked as "Melody-enhanced".

Edit: I don't think that's gives the complete list. E.g. Loderunner will not work too and is not marked.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+jgkspsx]

7 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

In the store these games are marked as "Melody-enhanced".

That’s true. You just have to click into each game and then scroll down to see it.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

After the purge, the list if affected games has become quite a lot smaller. From the purged homebrew games, ~50% were Melody enhanced:

• Galagon
• Draconian
• Scramble
• Wizard of Wor
• Mappy
• Super Cobra Arcade
• Zoo Keeper
• Lady Bug Arcade
• RobotWar: 2684
• Gorf Arcade
• QIX
• rubyQ
• The End
• Stratovox

[john_q_atari]

11 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Hardly anybody owns a copy of Pitfall II, hardly anybody is going to buy Pitfall II for the price it goes for, 

You freaked me out a little with this comment so I hopped onto Ebay and checked. There is no shortage of either cartridge on Ebay as of today at least with Pitfall II currently available for around $27 after shipping in the US and Pitfall for around $12 after shipping. Going from memory I think the prices on both have been stable for years.

[LatchKeyKid]

So what you're saying is the price per kb is astronomical compared with modern games!?!!  

[desiv]

11 hours ago, donjn said:

This model only makes sense to a lot of you because you all have a ton of 2600 cartridges laying around. 

First off, something happened with your font there...  Might want to get that checked out... 

Secondly, not really.  The system comes with a multicart.  They sell other carts.  AA will be selling carts.  Carts are pretty easily available still on certain sites.

And I think some people still have carts in their closets, etc...

 

And you also make the assumption that it requires "a ton" of carts to be enjoyable.

Really, the right selection of carts could be enough to make people happy...

 

I found out when I got into RetroPie that there were just too many games.  So I started setting up mine with 20 games max per system, and only a handful of systems.

Having thousands or even hundreds of games is silly when I only really play a few...

 

Now, is having an SD card option a good thing?  Yes.  Would it make this product more appealing?  Yes.

But, it is required to be successful?  I don't think so...    Of course, time will tell... 

Edited September 20, 2023 by desiv