Ataribox: Atari making a new console

Lucky Day

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Venturebeat references that one possibility was the success of the nesclassic.

I seriously doubt this because the atari flashback and intellivision flashback have been out for years. There's even been a coleco flashback and a sega classic.

https://www.amazon.com/Atari-Flashb...rd_wg=0ONl3&psc=1&refRID=ES45WDBAXXK0PX202D5Y

https://www.amazon.com/IntelliVisio...rd_wg=0ONl3&psc=1&refRID=ES45WDBAXXK0PX202D5Y

https://www.amazon.com/ColecoVision...rd_wg=CUFdF&psc=1&refRID=G9TG0Z03G4PADKPM37AX

https://www.amazon.com/Sega-Genesis...rd_wg=GE5Xd&psc=1&refRID=ZJ9P4Z0ZKAN5PVZYQFP3
 
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In doing so, the New York company might be cashing in on the popularity of retro games and Nintendo’s NES Classic Edition, which turned out to be surprisingly popular for providing a method to easily play old games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda in HD on a TV.

Someone should explain to them that playing old games on an HDTV doesn't make the games themselves HD. :)
 
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Yea, Sony and Microsoft should. All games on their fresh consoles are all true 4K. All.

As about Atari console itself, I say bring it on. More consoles on the market, more saturation, less $ earned thanks to numerous competition, that will lead to less exclusives bullshit or outright porting where possible.
 
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I could have sworn Atari went bankrupt years ago...
 
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Why do I have this same feeling ? Pardon me if I'm mistaken but I recall having read that years ago.
 
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daveyd: Infogrames (or whatever that publisher's name was) bought the Atari name as the original company sold off all assets. Its like a man buying the skin off of a dying man and wearing it for so long that people forgot what happened.
 
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Atari never went out of business, but it has changed hands a crapload of times. The original Atari company (which included arcade games + home consoles/games) sold off the home business to Tramel Technology in 1984, then Tramel Technology renamed itself to Atari. In 1996, Atari merged with JT Storage, then JT Storage sold Atari off to Hasbro Interactive in 1998, then Infogrames bought Hasbro Interactive in 2001, and several years later, Infogrames renamed itself to Atari. There was a bankruptcy filed by this company (or at least its US division) in 2013 but it emerged from it.

As for the arcade games part of the original Atari company, it was split off as "Atari Games" (not to be confused with plain old "Atari"), then was sold to Namco in 1985. Namco sold it off to a group of Atari Games employees in 1986. Time Warner bought it out in 1993, but then sold it to WMS Industries (owner of Bally/Midway) in 1996, and they renamed it to "Midway Games West". Midway Games West was disbanded in 2003, but its copyrights/trademarks were sold to Warner Bros in 2009. So the arcade game half of the original Atari is actually dead (unless Warner revives it someday), but the home console/games half has never been.

Edit: on another note, "Ataribox" is a really dumb name. We had the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800...the new one should be named the Atari 10400, or maybe the Atari 10.4K.
 
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daveyd: Infogrames (or whatever that publisher's name was) bought the Atari name as the original company sold off all assets. Its like a man buying the skin off of a dying man and wearing it for so long that people forgot what happened.

Yeah, that's more or less what happened. They even sold TOEE under the Atari brand, then.
And yes, their name was Infogrames, a French company.
 
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So is there any actual relastionship between this new console and the original ? Or is it just a new company with a new product using an old name ?
 
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VR Maze Craze please. VR Superman would be great, too - I always wanted to see a helicopter flying around in a sewer.
 
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Atari never went out of business, but it has changed hands a crapload of times. The original Atari company (which included arcade games + home consoles/games) sold off the home business to Tramel Technology in 1984, then Tramel Technology renamed itself to Atari. In 1996, Atari merged with JT Storage, then JT Storage sold Atari off to Hasbro Interactive in 1998, then Infogrames bought Hasbro Interactive in 2001, and several years later, Infogrames renamed itself to Atari. There was a bankruptcy filed by this company (or at least its US division) in 2013 but it emerged from it.

As for the arcade games part of the original Atari company, it was split off as "Atari Games" (not to be confused with plain old "Atari"), then was sold to Namco in 1985. Namco sold it off to a group of Atari Games employees in 1986. Time Warner bought it out in 1993, but then sold it to WMS Industries (owner of Bally/Midway) in 1996, and they renamed it to "Midway Games West". Midway Games West was disbanded in 2003, but its copyrights/trademarks were sold to Warner Bros in 2009. So the arcade game half of the original Atari is actually dead (unless Warner revives it someday), but the home console/games half has never been.

Edit: on another note, "Ataribox" is a really dumb name. We had the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800…the new one should be named the Atari 10400, or maybe the Atari 10.4K.

Nice summary of the history. Few people realize the developers continued under other names and I think they produced a few hits.

The Atari 10-4K would a brilliant name! But they'd better come up with a killer app for it like the Wii did or they'll have another Jaguar on their hands and have to bury it out in the desert.
 
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The Atari 10-4K would a brilliant name! But they'd better come up with a killer app for it like the Wii did or they'll have another Jaguar on their hands and have to bury it out in the desert.

Ugh… don't remind me about the Jaguar. I'm one of the idiots who purchased it back in the day. :)
 
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Big update

Atari has renamed the thing the AtariVCS. Word was it was meant to be released in December but that came and went.

here it is

atari-vcs-2.jpg


Looks spiffy right?

It definitely lights up. A few people got their hands on it over the past few months including their E3 show. But the Xbox like controller you see is just a prop. None of the buttons actually work.

Back in March, the Register had an interview with Atari's (the version of the company which bought the name in 2014) owner Michael Artz . He answer couldn't anything beyond the most basic questions ,and the Register called him out for it.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/22/atari_lempty_box/

Artz wisely responded that they were a bunch of trolls so the Register posted the complete audio of the interview.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/21/atari_interview_in_full/

You'd think that would be it for them right? You don't display vapourware then call someone a troll for calling it for what it is. Except they managed to raise $2.98 million for it on their Indiegogo campaign. They said all this during the campaign.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/...-connect-like-never-before-family-computers#/

Of all people even Intellivision waded in

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06...fire-again-as-crowdfunding-campaign-nears-end

IGN said:
…president of Intellivision Entertainment, Tommy Tallarico, who indicated the lack of solid information about the VCS’ hardware combined with Atari’s choice of crowdfunding site gives him reason to be wary.

"On Kickstarter, you had to have hardware in order to kickstart it,” Tallarico told us during an interview at E3 2018. "So Indiegogo, you can crowdfund something, a piece of hardware, never come out with it, and keep 3 million dollars."

Tallarico likened the situation to the disastrous, now-canceled crowdfunding campaign behind the Coleco Chameleon, which he referred to as "a big scam."

The video below sums up the fiasco well I think - especially check out 7:14 the demo of the game "working" but its worth it to watch the whole thing. It itemizes their past two products they tried to put out and swept under the rug and talks about the the person formerly in charge of Ataribox who has since "left the company". They don't have nice things to say about his "Gamewatch".



But with $2.9 million now in their pocket I guess they had enough cash now to hire original XBox system architect Rob Wyatt 2 days ago.

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/401231-atari-vcs-hires-original-xbox-system-architect-rob-wyatt

Things might be moving away from Vapour to Ware.

--

Getting back to the other strange bit in all this news, yes, Intellivision is getting back into the console business themselves.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...-new-family-video-game-console-300655931.html
 
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Hey, if all those terrible TV shows and ancient throwback games can profit from nostalgia alone, then I see no reason why Atari can't do the same thing.

Maybe they should make a deal with the producers of Stranger Things and release a brand version to coincide with season 3 :)

I mean, stranger things have happened ;)
 
The register interview really sounds like it was fun.

(The guy's name is "Arzt" tho. Call him Mike.)
 
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they should make new games based on the retro architecture and limitations this funding and sprawling a whole new generation of bedroom coders and i dies to this machine. plus all the vita people would migrate too.
 
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Hey, if all those terrible TV shows and ancient throwback games can profit from nostalgia alone, then I see no reason why Atari can't do the same thing.
Nostalgia ALONE!? Now just wait a minute! Atari's adventure had some deep, emergent gameplay! The discovery of the Magic Dot, the mental torture of certain dragons... there were things in that game that still haven't been matched by so called "modern" gaming!
 
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As I understand it, it's essentially just a Linux PC in an Atari style box.
 
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