AtariAge + Atari Q&A

[Lostdragon]

On 9/12/2023 at 10:20 AM, x=usr(1536) said:

Not to mention that architectural similarities between the two systems eventually encouraged lazy ports, something that affected both platforms and in some ways started a race to the bottom in terms of software quality later on in the systems' lives.

How do you propose to overcome the issues behind licensing them?  The majority of software for the ST was third-party, like pretty much every other system in existence.

 

Personally, I'm not really itching to play the ST versions of Star Raiders, Moon Patrol, Super Breakout, etc.  Thing is, those are the ones most likely to see a first-party release since they were first-party titles to begin with.  Everything else has a (possibly significant) cost attached to it just to get it to market.

Pretty much my feelings exactly. 

 

The ST versions of Star Raiders and Moon Patrol aren't versions i would be looking to play in this day and age. 

[+jgkspsx]

13 minutes ago, Crazy Climber said:

I think the 2600+ guys should strike a deal/publish a Ricki and Vicki re release...

It won’t work on the 2600+ because it has custom sound hardware.

[Lostdragon]

On 9/12/2023 at 2:50 PM, marakatti said:

Why not let ST fans decide that? The games reflect their time and place. It's natural that they don't look as attractive today, but does ZX Spectrum or 2600 games? No and they still can playable and fun if programmed well. Retro gaming is not all about eye candy.

 

According to professional journalists up to summer 1989 Amiga games were rarely seen that much superior, because it was playability that counted. I've compiled hundreds of review scores for that subject. Sometimes leading magazines even gave worse score for Amiga versions, because they didn't use the extra hardware. Not to mention Amiga games by Ocean were usually 5 pounds more expensive making them even less worth the asking price until things changed in the 89/90 when it became the lead platform and got cheap enough that people actually had money to buy one with a Ram expansion.

 

Someone had to lead the way in the early 16bit days to make "next gen" games like Dungeon Master, Carrier Command or Universal Military Simulator. It happened to be Atari's hardware which still is a tough bite for some people to swallow.

Sure it didn't perform well in arcade conversions due to lack of gaming hardware, but there were lot of great games for the older audience.

 

Even Retro Gamer mentioned Atari three times in their article of 50 things that changed gaming, while Amiga, as great as it's hardware is, didn't get a mention at all. It's not always about superiority of the hardware, but the time and place when things actually happened. If it were, most games would have been written for Acorn Archimedes.

YouTube videos are just games in attract mode. Like a car that can't be driven from the passenger seat. You can only admire scenery, but have no idea how it handles.

Ocean used the fact the Amiga user base was smaller than that of the ST to justify the £5 price difference. 

 

Without seeing the RG article in question, i really can't comment on it's context. 

 

 

[Flojomojo]

5 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Most of those were about Andrew Davie’s site. That really sucks and makes sense of his hatred for present-day Atari. It looks like it was a grab for the domain name, which apparently was just allowed to lapse and now hosts spam ads. What a waste.

 

The RM800XL is a commercial product and they used Atari’s name and trademarked design without permission. That’s not smart. Atari didn’t even issue that C&D, Retro Games Ltd (the people who make TheC64 and TheA500) did.

 

None of the other C&Ds are targeted at fans.

Good point. But it's nonetheless chilling and makes me think of the "embrace, extend, and extinguish" critiques of 1990s Microsoft. I think Wade Rosen's Atari is a lot less evil than 1990s Microsoft, though. 

5 hours ago, marakatti said:

I've always been an Atari ST user, but also had Amiga since mid 90's. It has some great gaming hardware and games from 1991 or so onwards really shows what the system can do, versus ST being a great multipurpose computer at the time with an unbeatable power/price ratio. Two different worlds.

 

I think it would be great to see Amiga chipset returning back home. There's so much Atari history in that machine. I'm just happy Atari did the ST instead of Amiga back in the day. I wouldn't have my career without the ST. With Amiga I would just  ended up playing games.

You're replying to someone else's comment, not sure why the Amiga question was attributed to me. @TrogdarRobusto this is for you

[marakatti]

2 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

You're replying to someone else's comment, not sure why the Amiga question was attributed to me.

My apologies.

[Flojomojo]

3 minutes ago, marakatti said:

My apologies.

It was a good comment about Amiga. 😊

[Crazy Climber]

18 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

It won’t work on the 2600+ because it has custom sound hardware.

Current version won't work but I'd still buy it with watered-down music 😃 

[desiv]

10 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

 

That's funny,  simply because I have a friend who claims only rich kids had home systems Like Atari 2600...He says at least he could afford to pay quarters at the arcade,  heh...

Yep, that's why my family had an Odyssey 2.  Couldn't afford that 2600 at the time...

I was a C64 kid, even into college.  (Fleet System 2 word processor and UCSD Pascal!!)
I did get my first Amiga while in college, but not because I got money.  Because they gave me a credit card...

Yeah, I wasn't a math/finance major...   Don't want to think about what that computer cost me over time.

That said, the school was a Mac haven, and the A500 cost much less than what I could get a Mac or PC for at the school bookstore (yes, where I bought my Amiga.. they sold it there...)...

Anyone who didn't have a Mac/PC at Oregon State was a poor kid...  Which wasn't totally inaccurate in my case...   

Edited September 13, 2023 by desiv

[Flojomojo]

That's the beauty of retro gaming ... all the stuff that was unobtanium back then is now just a click away, if you still want it, and aren't stuck on having original hardware that went up in value and price. 

 

I wonder what Atari paid for AtariAge? (Not expecting an answer)

[Mayhem]

12 hours ago, roadrunner said:

I wonder if lemonamiga and lemon64 are for sale?

I can tell you right now, definitely not heh.

[Nall3k]

28 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

That's the beauty of retro gaming ... all the stuff that was unobtanium back then is now just a click away, if you still want it, and aren't stuck on having original hardware that went up in value and price. 

 

I wonder what Atari paid for AtariAge? (Not expecting an answer)

<insert Dr. Evil gif> "One million dollars!"

[Flojomojo]

55 minutes ago, Mayhem said:

I can tell you right now, definitely not heh.

Meh, everyone has a price. Especially if they get to stay on and keep running it they way they like. 

[+Stephen]

7 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Meh, everyone has a price. Especially if they get to stay on and keep running it they way they like. 

[+GoldLeader]

7 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Most of those were about Andrew Davie’s site. That really sucks and makes sense of his hatred for present-day Atari. It looks like it was a grab for the domain name, which apparently was just allowed to lapse and now hosts spam ads. What a waste.

 

The RM800XL is a commercial product and they used Atari’s name and trademarked design without permission. That’s not smart. Atari didn’t even issue that C&D, Retro Games Ltd (the people who make TheC64 and TheA500) did.

 

None of the other C&Ds are targeted at fans.

Ya know,

 

I wasn't even going to respond.  Not you specifically @jgkspsx,  but in general,  if I tell someone something important it will be ignored...OTOH,  If I said "Ignore This"  it would be focused on with LASER-like intensity.

 

Mainly as stated in the past,  my biggest examples are not my stories to tell (More cryptic examples to ignore:  Chesnais VS. CV (May he R.I.P.), MO's book Which won't be published,  one whose initials are JM,  + more),...Again I won't be discussing those (let's call it minor proofs for my own edification; nothing more...Endlessly they would be handwaved away anyway so I'm done mentioning them).  My post wasn't meant for a line by line analysis.  It was meant as a backdrop to show a pattern (Flojomojo gets it)...Do I hope this is a thing of the past?  Yes!  Do I know that to be the case?  As other people smarter than me have said,  Time will tell.  Here's hoping!

[+jgkspsx]

44 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

OTOH,  If I said "Ignore This"  it would be focused on with LASER-like intensity.

[Xyla]

13 hours ago, Prince Colwyn said:

Atari SA has finally given us the cartridge loading retro system we've been pining for over twenty years for, yet this thread is an inferno of geek rage.  Madness!

 

An awful lot of nitpicking here from people who put Tramiel Atari on a pedestal.  The Tramiels gave us the flea market/dollar store knockoff versions of what Nintendo and Sega were doing at the time.  No money to spend on game development, no third parties - yet we're constantly told how great the Jaguar is.

 

Atari SA has done far more for the brand for a far longer time than the Tramiel traveling circus ever did.  They've found the proper niche for this brand and they're attempting to be a portal for retro gaming information and sales.

 

2600+ > Jaguar.  

 

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Yeah, you're definitely wrong.

[LatchKeyKid]

13 hours ago, Prince Colwyn said:

Atari SA has finally given us the cartridge loading retro system we've been pining for over twenty years for, yet this thread is an inferno of geek rage.  Madness!

Admittedly I've only been a member of the community for a couple of years but I don't recall seeing massive yearning for an official emulation machine even if it has some improvements over the previous ones.

[juansolo]

The Amiga was huge in Europe, bordering on a religion. Support might have died down, but it never went away. Games, demos and hardware have been in constant development since it's inception by the community (sound familiar?), and it has a very enthusiastic user base. But I'll warn you now, do not expect the same polite responses you've had from AA members. As Dave Pleasence found out recently, just being involved back in the day doesn't mean you can push BS and expect to get away with it. You'll be a lot better staying away from the Amiga until you've proven yourselves here.

 

As for the IP; it's fragmented as hell. I suspect you'll have trouble with getting anything from Hyperion or Cloanto. AmigaKit own the A1200 brand also. No idea who owns Commodore at the moment or has the rights to the hardware.

Edited September 13, 2023 by juansolo

[+DjayBee]

9 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

The RM800XL is a commercial product and they used Atari’s name and trademarked design without permission. That’s not smart. Atari didn’t even issue that C&D, Retro Games Ltd (the people who make TheC64 and TheA500) did.

You are right regarding Atari's name but (at least) in Europe design patents expire after some 20 years and cannot be extended plus a desing may not have been published before it gets registered.

The XLs' designs date back to around 1983 and therefore have expired around 2003. Plus they obviously have been published before RGL has registered them recently.

I guess that this registration will fall as soon as somebody starts a dispute at the EUIPO.

[Shawn]

21 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Uh when I hear people say that, they usually mean they want Nintendo to stop making video games (because they hate them). Nintendo is still making cards anyway, including Hanafuda.

 

That being said, I agree with everything else you said. 😉

 

IIRC, about a decade ago there was Hanafuda cards as one of the Nintendo Club reward options.

[zylon]

14 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

 

That's funny,  simply because I have a friend who claims only rich kids had home systems Like Atari 2600...He says at least he could afford to pay quarters at the arcade,  heh...

Atari 2600 Berzerk, was my first ever video game playing experience. I was in hospital, in my kindergarten year, recovering from burn injuries on my arms, from falling on freshly paved road in front of the school. One of my orderlies, who used to change my dressings daily, used to bring it in for me.  The family didn't get a 2600 until mid 80's, with the Jr for 50 bucks. It was our income tax refund splurge that year, with 3 games- Warlords, Galaxian, and Battlezone. The next year, my grandmother got me the C64c and I could afford bargain bin discs/tapes for that, so most gaming began there for me.

In those days, Jamesway, ran a promotion, of offering a gift certificate of like 5 or 10 bucks, for every $500 in reciepts, turned in at front desk. So, I spent an entire summer, wandering the lot, picking up any stray ones I could find, and turning them into game cash. 😎

[Bakasama]

1 hour ago, juansolo said:

The Amiga was huge in Europe, bordering on a religion. Support might have died down, but it never went away. Games, demos and hardware have been in constant development since it's inception by the community (sound familiar?), and it has a very enthusiastic user base. But I'll warn you now, do not expect the same polite responses you've had from AA members. As Dave Pleasence found out recently, just being involved back in the day doesn't mean you can push BS and expect to get away with it. You'll be a lot better staying away from the Amiga until you've proven yourselves here.

 

As for the IP; it's fragmented as hell. I suspect you'll have trouble with getting anything from Hyperion or Cloanto. AmigaKit own the A1200 brand also. No idea who owns Commodore at the moment or has the rights to the hardware.

As much people complain about what is the “real Atari” at least much of Atari corps. ips are owned by one company. I had no idea how fractured the Amiga side is.

[+jgkspsx]

40 minutes ago, Shawn said:

 

IIRC, about a decade ago there was Hanafuda cards as one of the Nintendo Club reward options.

I think it was 2010. I got a set! They’re really nice with a fun Mario theme.

 

They still make regular hanafuda sets too.

[Tavi]

1 hour ago, LatchKeyKid said:

Admittedly I've only been a member of the community for a couple of years but I don't recall seeing massive yearning for an official emulation machine even if it has some improvements over the previous ones.

Pretty much my feelings.

I would have been first in line throwing money at Atari if this was a system that can play both my old and new 2600 game cartridges. But it seems basically a Retron 77 with added 7800 support. Minus the micro-SD.

I am sure it will still sell well enough to make Atari a profit, but then I imagine the same can be said for every previous Atari Flashback model. I had no burning desire to collect all of these either.

There is certainly a market for emulation, but it is not what I am looking for personally.

[roots.genoa]

8 hours ago, Crazy Climber said:

Isn't pokemon...nintendo?

Not exactly. The Pokémon Company is its own thing, even though Nintendo has shares in it.