Atari niche

[Draikar]

I hope this topic was not posted before, I just wanted to say it seems Atari found its niche in gaming again with Dedicated Systems like so many years ago with pong systems. They must have with Flashback 1 and 2 now doing well and a 3rd to come latter (I think and hope). Ironic Atari is back to Dedicated Systems and from what I seen is doing very well, guess classics never die.

 

I seen other Dedicated Systems like sega games and others but the Flashback seems to have made a real mark and profit at it too now. People love it or hate it but we all seem to buy it...

[+cvga]

I hope this topic was not posted before, I just wanted to say it seems Atari found its niche in gaming again with Dedicated Systems like so many years ago with pong systems. They must have with Flashback 1 and 2 now doing well and a 3rd to come latter (I think and hope). Ironic Atari is back to Dedicated Systems and from what I seen is doing very well, guess classics never die.

 

I seen other Dedicated Systems like sega games and others but the Flashback seems to have made a real mark and profit at it too now. People love it or hate it but we all seem to buy it... 

945106[/snapback]

 

 

I don't know that I agree with your conclusion. It does appear that FB1 sold enough to warrant the creation of an FB2 but I doubt that sales will be as great for the FB2. FB1 was low quality even from a nostalgic perspective and that won't help with repeat buyers. As a company profits aren't very high at Atari. 2004 revenues were significantly lower than 2003 and the stock price is near an all-time low. If I thought it were undervalued, I'd be accumulating shares but I don't think that's the case. Hopefully I'm wrong.

[Curt Vendel]

The retailers were far more interested in the Flashback 2 and their orders reflect this. QVC selling out of its 42,000 units in just under 24 hours and ordering another 17,000 units further reflects this (there are maybe under 5,000 truly hardcore retro fans out there and then another 2,000-3,000 moderate retrofans that are going to automatically buy such a product, the rest are layman/general consumers, so those figures speak volumes for the sales of these new consoles this holidays season.

 

The Jakks Atari 10-in-1 did 3.5 million units in sales worldwide in 3 years. The plug N play market, had it stayed in the same format/style would be on its way out, but with Atari raising the bar and now taking these all in one systems and making them into consoles with seperate controllers and using real chip's instead of NOAC or Sunplus and Winboard TV-Game chips which have their games re-written to look kinda-like and sound kinda-like versus the real-deal, things have gotten refreshed and more interesting.

 

Jakks new "keys" I think was a poor attempt at generating interest and post-sales revenue, quite frankly I find the whole concept insulting in that - you buy the device, but you only get levels 1 to say 5, if you want to play more levels, well then you have to buy a key to add more levels into your unit, thats just bullsh*t. If the keys had been a different game to plug in, now THAT would've been the right way to go, but to sell a partial game and require players to purchase the next levels later, thats a rip-off.

 

 

Curt

 

I hope this topic was not posted before, I just wanted to say it seems Atari found its niche in gaming again with Dedicated Systems like so many years ago with pong systems. They must have with Flashback 1 and 2 now doing well and a 3rd to come latter (I think and hope). Ironic Atari is back to Dedicated Systems and from what I seen is doing very well, guess classics never die.

 

I seen other Dedicated Systems like sega games and others but the Flashback seems to have made a real mark and profit at it too now. People love it or hate it but we all seem to buy it... 

945106[/snapback]

 

 

I don't know that I agree with your conclusion. It does appear that FB1 sold enough to warrant the creation of an FB2 but I doubt that sales will be as great for the FB2. FB1 was low quality even from a nostalgic perspective and that won't help with repeat buyers. As a company profits aren't very high at Atari. 2004 revenues were significantly lower than 2003 and the stock price is near an all-time low. If I thought it were undervalued, I'd be accumulating shares but I don't think that's the case. Hopefully I'm wrong.

945116[/snapback]

[Draikar]

I am happy with Flashback 1, and hope too buy Flashback 2 soon. just think how much Flashback 2 is better and if there is a Flashback 3.

 

I hear sales are good but I could be wrong....

[+cvga]

I hear sales are good but I could be wrong....

945140[/snapback]

 

You may be right. I'm not suggesting that sales have been weak so far. I'm suspicious as to whether they can surpass the sales of the original flashback. I haven't seen Jakk's new key approach but I will admit that they've been far more successful than I thought they would be up to this point in this market segment. I'm pulling for Atari and Jakks has shown you can make a profit but I think the market looks very saturated.

[jaybird3rd]

As a company profits aren't very high at Atari. 2004 revenues were significantly lower than 2003 and the stock price is near an all-time low. If I thought it were undervalued, I'd be accumulating shares but I don't think that's the case. Hopefully I'm wrong.

945116[/snapback]

There are other factors that could explain that besides the Flashback, though. Atari has had some management turnover in the recent past (did I hear that their CEO left after a few months on the job?) and their development efforts for modern platforms have been disappointing (the seemingly endless Matrix games and other licensed titles, etc). One important thing to remember when comparing the short-term profits of the FB2 versus the Jakks products and others like them is that these companies aren't having to fabricate their own hardware; they're using generic off-the-shelf chips and hiring inexpensive programmers to develop their software.

 

Personally, I think Atari has a real hit on their hands with the Flashback series. Curt is right when he points out that the use of classic hardware and software provides a more authentic gaming experience, and that the market is ready for an expandable system that will allow the consumers to change out the games themselves. With the incredibly rich gold mine of hardware and software properties that they inherited, I think Atari is in a perfect position to create such products and to address some of the real problems that the TV-game market has had so far (non-expandable units, low-quality software, etc). Atari has already raised the bar substantially with the FB2, and if I'm right about the FB3 being based on the Atari 8-bit computer architecture, I think it has the potential to blow away the competition.

[82atari5200]

As a big fan of video games I find myself having less and less time to play todays latest hits. Working 50 hours a week and having a son has seriously decreased my free time. I think that's true of a lot of people in their late 20's early 30's. It's easy to just plop in Centipede or Defender into my original 1982 5200 and play for a while not having to worry about investing 100's of hours into beating a game to see some shitty ending. ATARI's slogan of Minutes to learn Years to master ring true even today. That's why I love ATARI and the flashback consoles.

[Zonie]

I hear sales are good but I could be wrong....

945140[/snapback]

 

You may be right. I'm not suggesting that sales have been weak so far. I'm suspicious as to whether they can surpass the sales of the original flashback. I haven't seen Jakk's new key approach but I will admit that they've been far more successful than I thought they would be up to this point in this market segment. I'm pulling for Atari and Jakks has shown you can make a profit but I think the market looks very saturated.

945205[/snapback]

 

 

Sales weakness could be an attribute of single (up till now) retail outlet - Ghettomart. (Walmart)

 

As it appears in better locations like Target, best buy, and the game stores, I think it will surpass the FB1. It also has a more familliar look. How many people remenber the 7800 as opposd to the good 'ole woody?

[Zonie]

As a big fan of video games I find myself having less and less time to play todays latest hits. Working 50 hours a week and having a son has seriously decreased my free time. I think that's true of a lot of people in their late 20's early 30's. It's easy to just plop in Centipede or Defender into my original 1982 5200 and play for a while not having to worry about investing 100's of hours into beating a game to see some shitty ending. ATARI's slogan of Minutes to learn Years to master ring true even today. That's why I love ATARI and the flashback consoles.

945282[/snapback]

 

Hear Hear! My atari 400 seems to get the most play in my busy life.

 

Y'know, it dawns on me that the Tengen games were usually regarded as the best NES games. I know Tengen was a div of Atari Games (coin-op, now midway IIRC) but it sure would be cool to see a "Tengen Flashback." They could acutally use NOAC hardware and still have true to original games, too.

[+cvga]

Sales weakness could be an attribute of single (up till now) retail outlet - Ghettomart. (Walmart)

 

As it appears in better locations like Target, best buy, and the game stores, I think it will surpass the FB1.  It also has a more familliar look.  How many people remenber the 7800 as opposd to the good 'ole woody?

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I'm not saying that sales have been weak. I don't know how they're performing against expectations. I'm just saying that I think that there's a good chance that the people who want this type of merchandice already bought a FB1 and I doubt that a large percentage of those people will also buy a FB2; partly because the FB1 quality was low and partly because they're not hardcore gamers like we are.