The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[m.o.terra kaesi]

6 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said:

I kept writing and rewriting a long response, but I'll hold back and say...

 

Well you have your consumer right

to return the product. For sure I'm very disappointed to hear your outcome still. I hope you get to regret your decision in the future 😜

 

 

Or do it like I do: wait for "Revision B" and therefore no regrets needed 😝

[donjn]

6 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said:

I kept writing and rewriting a long response, but I'll hold back and say...

 

Well you have your consumer right

to return the product. For sure I'm very disappointed to hear your outcome still. I hope you get to regret your decision in the future 😜

Now I am dying to hear what you wrote. Go for it!

Just as you are great and handling constructive criticism, if I am being too harsh, I would love to hear it, might change my mind.

 

[Brad_from_the_80s]

12 minutes ago, donjn said:

The irony is, if the 2600+ gets SUPER popular, cartridges become more scarce, devaluing the 2600+!
Unless you want to pay $30 for Outlaw, etc, etc....
I'm not a tin foil hat guy but....

 

Yep.  Anything is possible.  There may be a slowly building rush on carts as we speak and Atari 2600 is the next new frontier in inflated retro cartridge bubbles.  After being treated like unwanted discards for 30+ years.

[Ben from Plaion]

3 minutes ago, m.o.terra kaesi said:

Or do it like I do: wait for "Revision B" and therefore no regrets needed 😝

Might never be one, checkmate 😉

[+littaum]

18 minutes ago, donjn said:

The irony is, if the 2600+ gets SUPER popular, cartridges become more scarce, devaluing the 2600+!
Unless you want to pay $30 for Outlaw, etc, etc....
I'm not a tin foil hat guy but....

 

 

Considering the Atari 2600 sold over 30 million units over its lifetime, I doubt the most common games will ever be priced out of reach.  But if they do, that sounds like a golden opportunity for Atari to put out more dip-switched multi-carts so that you can play Basic Math off of a fresh brand new cartridge. 

 

[m.o.terra kaesi]

7 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Might never be one, checkmate 😉

I accept for "Revision B status" a firmware updated hardware out of the box which solves all problems found at this very place 😙

[Ben from Plaion]

4 minutes ago, donjn said:

Now I am dying to hear what you wrote. Go for it!

Just as you are great and handling constructive criticism, if I am being too harsh, I would love to hear it, might change my mind.

 

Some railing like....

 

Oh the balls on this guy, buys a machine, then sends it back cause it's not got features on it that were never even offered!

 

To top it off hes replacing it by just playing dumped roms on a PC through Stella!

 

Worse thing that very machine will likely end up in landfill, unloved and never ever booted up again. That last time you played it and turned it off was its last breath of life.

[Ben from Plaion]

Just now, m.o.terra kaesi said:

I accept for "Revision B status" a firmware updated hardware out of the box which solves all problems found at this very place 😙

I'll take it!

[zzip]

40 minutes ago, Brad_from_the_80s said:

It's possible this console just isn't for everybody.  It closely recreates a 2600, so the lack of menus, USB, wireless, digital delivery, flash storage, drm, etc, should not be a surprise.  And I like the controller we got WAY better than the modern controller - a nice looking piece of kit that I otherwise don't enjoy that much.  An entirely different product option came to market with wireless controllers and easy rom support.  I feel like the VCS is the most realistic platform for some of the rest.

Yeah some people just want to plug their cartridges into something and have them play.  The 2600+ is for those people.   If you want to mess with roms on SD cards, networking, expandability, have the latest emulators, etc-   I have to wonder why you'd bother with the 2600+ at all since the VCS is a much more powerful and open platform for all that,  and currently only $50 more

[Ben from Plaion]

11 minutes ago, littaum said:

 

Considering the Atari 2600 sold over 30 million units over its lifetime, I doubt the most common games will ever be priced out of reach.  But if they do, that sounds like a golden opportunity for Atari to put out more dip-switched multi-carts so that you can play Basic Math off of a fresh brand new cartridge. 

 

Look at the response online to the machine, the reach of eyes on a 2600+ video, article or social media post is way way higher then expected.

 

Wades already commented publicly on the legs of 2600+. There is more to come.

 

Consensus internally I can feel is building that it's been a great start and I can see the chances of Basic Math being on a fresh cart being a possibility!

[donjn]

20 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Some railing like....

 

Oh the balls on this guy, buys a machine, then sends it back cause it's not got features on it that were never even offered!

 

To top it off hes replacing it by just playing dumped roms on a PC through Stella!

 

Worse thing that very machine will likely end up in landfill, unloved and never ever booted up again. That last time you played it and turned it off was its last breath of life.

Ouch!

God ones, and mostly right!

 

I will say I was aware of all the features it could and could not do before purchase however there were other things like:

• The CX40 was amazing and I always preferred it over the looser CX10 but man, this thing is tight. I got cramping in my hands after a play session of about 20 minutes. At 8 years old cramping is welcome, at 53, it hits different. I thought the feel of it would replace by beloved https://atari.com/products/classic-joystick but it just did not happen.
• I assumed the novelty of manually plugging in of cartridge would hit me the way vinyl records do but it didn't, not sure how else to explain.
• Somewhere along the line the past week I lost a bit of confidence that we will ever be able to do much with the built-in Stella (such as roms, and more importantly and legally.. scanlines, phosphor settings, etc)
• I am not privy to what happens with most Amazon electronic returns. If the one I returned ends up in a dumpster that would truly suck, and I would have had second thoughts. You hit me with this one because I am weird. My wife threw out my old floor lamp and I kept saying he is in the dumpster and is sad....

Edited November 28, 2023 by donjn

[Thomas Jentzsch]

19 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Worse thing that very machine will likely end up in landfill

That's something which should be forbidden. Period.

[Ben from Plaion]

1 minute ago, donjn said:

Ouch!

God ones, and mostly right!

 

I will say I was aware of all the features it could and could not do before purchase however there were other things like:

• The CX40 was amazing and I always preferred it over the looser CX10 but man, this thing is tight. I got cramping in my hands after a play session of about 20 minutes. At 8 years old cramping is welcome, at 53, it hits different. I thought the feel of it would replace by beloved https://atari.com/products/classic-joystick but it just did not happen.
• I assumed the novelty of manually plugging in of cartridge would hit me the way vinyl records do but it didn't, not sure how else to explain.
• Somewhere along the line the past week I lost a bit of confidence that we will ever be able to do much with Stella (such as roms, scanlines, phosphor settings, etc)
• I am not privy to what happens with most Amazon electronic returns. If the one I returned ends up in a dumpster that would truly suck, and would have had second thoughts. You hit me with this one because I am weird. My wife through out my old floor lamp and I kept saying he is in the dumpster and is sad....

You're not weird dude, that's a very commendable emotion of regret!!

 

Anyway, we're just all playing the human races finest art form - videogames.

 

By hook or by crook though, I'm going to get you to regret that decision you made!

[82-T/A]

2 hours ago, donjn said:

I also think any new Atari 2600+ products should have offered support for Atari USB joysticks like the one below which is my favorite classic Atari joystick ever.

 

 

I've ordered a few of these for my Atari VCS (I have a couple VCSs). I'll say that while I do also like the newer VCS controllers (the Playstation looking ones), these classic Atari controllers that were released with the VCS have been fantastic. I have an Atari Gamestation Pro also... it never even occurred to me, but I guess these will probably ALSO work with my Gamestation Pro? I do agree with you, this controller (the one you posted above) is awesome... hands-down, a fantastic revision of the classic joystick.

 

 

2 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

This is a little unfair - very few Atari 2600 games are in this price range and it is very easy to assemble a solid collection locally from game stores, flea markets, Facebook Marketplace, garage sales, etc. Admittedly HERO is an amazing game that I do not personally own for the 2600 (I have it on SG-1000 though). Saboteur is a great game that is only available as a modern reproduction although if you watch the buy/sell/trade here you might find one cheaper. But I agree lack of rom/flashcart support is all that is holding me back from buying one.

 

For what it's worth, I used to hit flea markets and local game shows back in the day... and Atari 2600 carts were super easy to come by. But that's largely changed. You can still get large lots on eBay, but it doesn't seem like most flea markets really have them anymore. The system is so old now that you don't really get the usual people cleaning out their attic / garage and selling at the $wap $hop or donating to the local Goodwill. I honestly have not seen an Atari 2600 cartridge in the wild in over 5 years. I'm OK with the fact that the 2600+ does not have ROM support... that's what the Gamestation Pro is for!

 

 

20 minutes ago, littaum said:

Considering the Atari 2600 sold over 30 million units over its lifetime, I doubt the most common games will ever be priced out of reach.  But if they do, that sounds like a golden opportunity for Atari to put out more dip-switched multi-carts so that you can play Basic Math off of a fresh brand new cartridge.

 

Out of curiosity, I've been checking eBay every couple of days to see if Atari 2600 games are going up in price. I can say I've noticed a slight up-tick, but that could just be more that people aren't willing to waste their time selling 1 game for a buck... so they all seem to be going around $5-8 bucks a single game, unless it's something special.

 

I've bought some of the homebrews from Atari Age over the years... a few of which I've never even been able to play, but I do suspect within the next month or so we're going to see the "big lots" on eBay disappear as people buy them up to support the 2600+ system. About 10-12 years ago, I bought as many Atari 2600 carts as I could (and eliminated all my duplicates). When I sold off or gave away about 3/4ths of my video game collection (as I didn't really want a "collection"), the only thing I didn't get rid of was my Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 games... so that's convenient. I don't ever plan on selling them (I have about ~220 cartridges with no duplicates)... so I'll let you guys know... whenever I eventually get my Atari 2600+ that I ordered back in August 22nd. 

 

 

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

9 minutes ago, zzip said:

Yeah some people just want to plug their cartridges into something and have them play.  The 2600+ is for those people.   If you want to mess with roms on SD cards, networking, expandability, have the latest emulators, etc-   I have to wonder why you'd bother with the 2600+ at all since the VCS is a much more powerful and open platform for all that,  and currently only $50 more

Or get a R77 for $70 and ignore its cart port.

[donjn]

7 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said:

By hook or by crook though, I'm going to get you to regret that decision you made!

Okay I will hold you to that, I follow this thread so I will be up to date on all the news!

[82-T/A]

3 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Or get a R77 for $70 and ignore its cart port.

Would the Atari Gamestation Pro not be a better option? I didn't want to buy the Retron 77 because I felt like I'd be cheating on Atari.

[PacManPlus]

20 minutes ago, donjn said:

• I am not privy to what happens with most Amazon electronic returns. If the one I returned ends up in a dumpster that would truly suck, and I would have had second thoughts. You hit me with this one because I am weird. My wife threw out my old floor lamp and I kept saying he is in the dumpster and is sad....

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by PacManPlus

[Recycled]

2 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

I didn't want to buy the Retron 77 because I felt like I'd be cheating on Atari.

Guess I've been doing alot of cheating and not even realizing it!!

[Dbug]

6 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Or get a R77 for $70 and ignore its cart port.

Honestly, I would not have bought the 2600+ if it did not look the way it did.
There are many devices that provide more, can support more devices, have more options, are globally more advanced, but they don't look the part.

If you have a MiSTer, a R77, etc... on a shelf, nobody will comment on them.

If you have a 2600+, people will recognize it and it will trigger some "oh, I played on one just like that when I was a kid!" reactions.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

Would the Atari Gamestation Pro not be a better option? I didn't want to buy the Retron 77 because I felt like I'd be cheating on Atari.

No idea. How are 2600 games emulated? No mention of Stella as far as I can tell. Is that a 2600+ without the port?

Edited November 28, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Ben from Plaion]

6 minutes ago, PacManPlus said:

 

*Chef's kiss*

[insertclevernamehere]

I mentioned a few days ago that I asked my wife for a 2600+ for Christmas but I wasn't sure she'd get one for me.  Well now I know she came through and there will be one waiting for me under the tree on Christmas morning, along with new paddles.  
 

I dare say there will be a few butterflies in my tummy that morning, not too dissimilar to the excited feeling we all had when we were kids.  Only Atari has the power to do this to me at my age.  It is quite bizarre.  But I love it.

[82-T/A]

24 minutes ago, Recycled said:

Guess I've been doing alot of cheating and not even realizing it!!

 

Lol, it seems to be a theme for me. I am NOT a hoarder, to be clear, because it will sound like I keep tons of shit, which I don't. I try to live a very minimalist lifestyle... I have entire walls in my home that have no furniture up against them, and no pictures on them. But I have my first computer, a Kay Pro 8088 PC which I saved from my parents throwing out. I have my first car, a 1987 Pontiac Fiero SE / V6. I have my very first Atari 2600, still sitting in the wood-grained plastic cabinet that hides the controllers and some games. I have my first wife, she's awesome, will never get rid of her, hahah. So there's some loyalty. I'd only ever bought Pontiacs until GM killed them, and then had to reluctantly switch to Ford.

 

 

22 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

No idea. How are 2600 games emulated? No mention of Stella as far as I can tell. Is that a 2600+ without the port?

 

I "think" the Gamestation Pro uses Stella... but I'm not sure. It's actually a VERY well put together system... like, I don't say that sparingly. It has an Atari-themed menu that almost feels more like an operating system that allows you to select between several genre of games. For several Atari titles, they have all the games available and in order (when you click the list all button), so for example, Centipede... you'll see the Atari 2600 version, the Atari 5200 version, the Atari 7800 version, and even the Atari Arcade version.

 

The joystick too is actually very well built. They are wireless and connect almost immediately. Like, there's no pairing that even needs to be done, they just work. The Atari VCS (which I like a lot too), requires me to have to pair the controllers and whatnot, but you literally just turn on the controller with the switch, and it magically pairs within 3 seconds to the Atari Gamestation Pro. It's a 3-button joystick with a built in pot / rotary control. I guess you can hook them up via USB-C, but I've never had to do that since I bought it.

 

 

The three buttons are the primary fire (A) button where it normally is on the old school Atari joystick, then the secondary button (B) which is at the TOP of the joystick, and then a fire button which is the third button (C)... and then for games like Tempest or Breakout, the rotary knob in the upper right is for that.

 

The system and joysticks are actually look to be of a higher quality than this render above even portrays. It has weight to it (the system) and it's not cheap looking. Absolutely worth the $99 that I paid for it.

 

It uses a USB-C power connector in the back, and incidentally... it does not come with a power block. I purchased a power block ahead of time for my Atari 2600+ which I ordered on August 22nd and hasn't yet arrived (did I mention that yet), so when I got the Gamestation Pro, I just used that and it works well.

 

It also has a micro-SD card slot on the side which you can load thousands of games onto it into a Games folder, and then it just works... though I haven't done that yet because I've been more than satisfied with what's on there already. I've spent a ton of time playing Combat, Maze Craze, and Centipede with my daughter.

[Ben from Plaion]

7 minutes ago, insertclevernamehere said:

I mentioned a few days ago that I asked my wife for a 2600+ for Christmas but I wasn't sure she'd get one for me.  Well now I know she came through and there will be one waiting for me under the tree on Christmas morning, along with new paddles.  
 

I dare say there will be a few butterflies in my tummy that morning, not too dissimilar to the excited feeling we all had when we were kids.  Only Atari has the power to do this to me at my age.  It is quite bizarre.  But I love it.

Hoo boy, we spent so much time thinking about the box opening experience. The opening it from the front, which reveals a clear unimpeded view of the machine, tantalizing you with it's metal levers, after the joy of taking it out and looking around it in all its glory you have the pleasure of unboxing a couple of hidden gems - the 10 in 1 cart and the CX40+ Joystick all freshly pressed out on a modern production line.

 

Then the real treat, you satisfyingly clunk a cart into the 2600+ look up at your huge widescreen TV and are instantly transported back to your childhood.