It's not gonna be another flashback. Atari flashback 8 has been announced which will include 10 activsion games. One will also be released that supports hdmi
Edited by Envisaged0ne (06/18/17 03:39 AM)
Windows 11 64 bit OS
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32GB DDR4 RAM
While I personally don't give a damn about a possible new console, the speculation on Atariage pretty much sums up what's publically-known about it, which at this point is next to nothing.
Assuming it's not a hoax or vapourware (yes, I know about the guy who was part of the focus group), it's difficult to really care. Atari is long dead, and trying to compete in today's console market is basically suicide unless you have the capital and operational resources of Apple, Google, Amazon, or similar.
"We're launching Ataribox on Indiegogo this autumn (read: pretty soon). To reiterate why: we want you, the Atari community, to be part of this launch. We want you to have early access, grab special editions (& pricing) and to have you as active partners in the rollout of Ataribox. We want you to be part of the story."
What a cynical load of marketing horseshit.
If I'm reading this correctly, the genii behind the Ataribox are asking their customers to fund their company under the guise of allowing those customers to "be part of the story". That's pretty fucking patronising, but the worst part is that there are people out there who will fall for their line.
Let Ataribox shoulder 100% of the risk, get the product to market, and see it fail or succeed on their dime. Don't ask your customers to take a large chunk of that risk for you, then charge them for the privilege of acquiring one of your devices.
Speaking of the device: so it's a Linux box. Hoo-bloody-ray. So is practically everything else these days, and I'm hoping that they're building an end-to-end infrastructure that will allow it to remain secured enough that it doesn't turn into yet another Internet of Shit device, albeit one that could conceivably leak personal and financial information. My money's on 'they'll probably get around to it after the massively-embarassing security incident happens, assuming the company survives'.
The odd thing is that I would like to see the Ataribox be a success, offering something that other gaming platforms don't. But the funding model does not give me the warm fuzzies that Ataribox, Inc. (or whatever it is that the company behind it is called) has its act together, and the choice of OS isn't a selling point for 99.999% of the population. Oh, and all that media playback functionality is now available natively on even a $135 TV or $58 Blu-Ray player already on the shelf at Wal-Mart, so the extra cost of the gaming platform really needs to justify itself to a potential purchaser - and now that we've had over 9000 Flashback consoles on the market, tons of DLC methods of playing old games, and 20+ years of FOSS arcade emulation around, those new titles they're planning for the system really need to be utterly stellar. Games sell consoles, period.
But, hey. Fake woodgrain. So it's got that going for it.
Ataribox Creator Explains How The Console Will Succeed Where Valve’s Steam Machines Have Failed
The Ataribox console, due to launch in Q2 2018 (though a crowdfunding campaign will be available later this year), won’t be just targeting retrogamers. Atari announced a few weeks ago that its specifications will be comparable to a mid-range PC; the console will also run on Linux rather than Android like the Ouya did...
> That's pretty fucking patronising, but the worst part is that > there are people out there who will fall for their line.
All brand marketing is like that though. You say "fall", other people say "buy in". I know plenty of people who were happy about pre-ordering the pandora, although they were of course less happy when it slipped time after time.
> Let Ataribox shoulder 100% of the risk, get the product to market, and see it fail or > succeed on their dime. Don't ask your customers to take a large chunk of that risk > for you, then charge them for the privilege of acquiring one of your devices.
I would hope that it's a pretty safe deal, if they don't raise enough money to build it then they should return the money. If they raise the money then it's standard hardware in a custom box, that is easily priced.
The software will probably all be existing open source stuff with a custom skin, which they could knock up before the crowdfunding.
Then it comes down to pricing, if it's cheaper to buy an ataribox than a comparable PC then it's not a bad deal. If it's more expensive, then it's down to whether you want a linux steam box to happen or not.
> I would hope that it's a pretty safe deal, if they don't raise enough money to build > it then they should return the money.
You don't understand at all. That's the whole difference between Indiegogo and Kickstarter: On Indiegogo, you get to keep the funds that you raised, even if you don't meet your goal. You're watching a thief pick your pocket while blithely trusting his insistence that he just wants to make sure your wallet is in order.
> Then it comes down to pricing, if it's cheaper to buy an ataribox than a comparable > PC then it's not a bad deal. If it's more expensive, then it's down to whether you > want a linux steam box to happen or not.
lol, because the Steam box market is so successful already
> On Indiegogo, you get to keep the funds that you raised, even if you > don't meet your goal. You're watching a thief pick your pocket while blithely > trusting his insistence that he just wants to make sure your wallet is in order.
Indiegogo supports
Flexible Funding: Keep Your Money No Matter What Fixed Funding: Keep Your Money Only if You Meet Your Goal
You're only supposed to select Flexible Funding if you can ship to your backers, even though you didn't reach your goal.
If they keep your money but don't ship then it's fraud. Which can happen on kickstarter too.
I don't know which one they'll use, but as they won't be able to afford to ship if only one person backs them then they really should select fixed funding.
> lol, because the Steam box market is so successful already
> That's like saying "the past five buildings built here burned down, doesn't that > increase our chances of the sixth building sticking around?"
My point was that the people who go on about Linux steam boxes don't have brand loyalty to a market leader. Not that previous results impact future events. However if you can learn from other peoples past mistakes then that does increase your chances of success.
Your examples sounds like there is an arsonist, if you can find out why he objected to the first five buildings and burnt them down then you can build the sixth differently.
If people had looked at the newton and decided that PDA's would never be successful then the mobile phone market would be very different.
IMO Atari would be best off targeting Apple TV first, while also supporting steam games. They are probably a little high on price for that, they need a lower end hardware offering or cut their margins. Obviously they aren't going to get enough customers if they only chase the higher end of the gamer market and try to make money on it. Because those customers will just build PC's themselves.
> My point was that the people who go on about Linux steam boxes don't have brand > loyalty to a market leader. Not that previous results impact future events. However > if you can learn from other peoples past mistakes then that does increase your > chances of success.
And my point is that the Steam box market is dead because there's ostensibly zero demand for such a thing. To date, Steam boxes have amounted to little other than micro-PCs running a branded version of Linux and a shiny controller. This includes all of the negative points of running Steam on Linux - like virtually nonexistent support for same-day Linux releases of the sort of AAA games that drive support for a platform - while having none of the advantages of either a gaming PC running Windows, a dedicated gaming console backed by a major publisher, or even - god forbid - the ecosystem provided by Google Play via Android.
Generally, the overlap between hardcore PC gamers and people who buy pre-made PCs is minimal. Someone with the active interest in the Steam library - abbreviated though it is on Linux - is going to have the wherewithal and skill to build his or her own HTPC setup for cheaper, and wind up with a more capable system.
Outside of that market, you're looking at trying to capture the interest of some segment of the console gaming market, and honestly, how are you going to pull that one off? Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all have brands that they've spent - at a minimum - the past 15 years cultivating, with countless platform-exclusive titles made by second-party developers.
You've referred to some as-yet unknown ace in the hole that Atari might have to take on these publishers, but really, what could it possibly be? I don't think it's at all unfair to expect them to provide some kind of idea as to what exactly they plan to do to differentiate themselves, other than the brand, which is worth very little in mindshare today.
"Atari" is a brand associated in peoples' minds with the past, and for a very good reason: They were the leaders in console gaming when console gaming was little more than a nascent offshoot of arcade games. The game industry as a whole has matured and moved on since then, and given the decade-long game of hot potato that has been the Atari brand lately, I have very little faith that this latest attempt at reviving it will amount to much.
> Your examples sounds like there is an arsonist, if you can find out why he objected > to the first five buildings and burnt them down then you can build the sixth > differently.
You might think that, but on the other hand, maybe people keep rebuilding the building in the path of an active volcano.
> If people had looked at the newton and decided that PDA's would never be successful > then the mobile phone market would be very different.
This is a phenomenal point for the exact opposite reason you think it is. PDA's weren't successful. It required the eventual widespread adoption of cell phone technology before PDA-like functionality was integrated, into phones. The only real function that PDAs served in the grand story of computing was as a cautionary tale of what not to do.
> Atari would be best off targeting Apple TV.
Atari, the brand, would be best off being allowed to die a peaceful death, being fondly remembered by people my age and older. It would be best off going out on a high note, being respected for the groundbreaking work done by engineers employed by various Atari offices, when it was an actual thing that existed.
What is being peddled via this and other miscarried crowd-funding campaigns is not the real Atari. It's nothing more than a piece of paper conferring the legal rights to the name. The people who made Atari what it was have nothing to do with it anymore. At this point, what you call Atari is nothing more than the thrashing, convulsing corpse hooked up to a car battery called "crowdfunding". For fuck's sake, let it die with some dignity.
> This is a phenomenal point for the exact opposite reason you think it is. PDA's > weren't successful. It required the eventual widespread adoption of cell phone > technology before PDA-like functionality was integrated, into phones. The only real > function that PDAs served in the grand story of computing was as a cautionary tale of > what not to do.
It's not the opposite point, that was my point.
Newton failed, palm pilot came along and failed, htc built pocket pc phones which failed. Finally apple built the iphone and succeeded. It looked like nobody wanted PDA's, but it was they didn't have the right one.
Atari could be the box that cleans up, or it could just be another failure on the road to success.
> Atari could be the box that cleans up, or it could just be another failure on the > road to success.
Except the road to success in this case has already been followed and is well-known. They're trudging down a known path to failure. They're peddling a PDA in an era of the iPhone, to use your example.
> > Atari could be the box that cleans up, or it could just be another failure on the > > road to success. > > Except the road to success in this case has already been followed and is well-known. > They're trudging down a known path to failure. They're peddling a PDA in an era of > the iPhone, to use your example.
The PDA analogy doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. PDAs were becoming increasingly popular with businesses with the increasing capacity of cellular service. The BlackBerry was starting to become desirable for consumers. It was only a matter of time when the market would grow, which is more to do with 4G than with Apple. Note Android phones have the highest market share.
> Except the road to success in this case has already been followed and is well-known. > They're trudging down a known path to failure. They're peddling a PDA in an era of > the iPhone, to use your example.
Your negativity prevents you from seeing what Atari is doing differently, maybe it's because you are so incensed by the name being used by a company that isn't Atari.
Obviously you shouldn't dream of going against Apple with open source software, because that always fails. Oh wait, Android.
Of course there is a high chance of failure, but then so do most projects that become successful. They have the benefit of being able to learn from past projects mistakes. So they are in a better position than those past projects. They are doing things differently, no matter what you think, so it comes down to whether the differences work or whether they hit new issues that they can't deal with.
> The PDA analogy doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. PDAs were becoming increasingly > popular with businesses with the increasing capacity of cellular service. The > BlackBerry was starting to become desirable for consumers. It was only a matter of > time when the market would grow, which is more to do with 4G than with Apple. Note > Android phones have the highest market share. > > There’s no sign of that for Atari here.
You haven't heard of Apple TV? The other most successful big player is Roku, if Atari can steal their lunch then they have a chance. There are certainly a lot of bad things about Roku that they could improve upon.
There are also the Kodi boxes, which have a large market share but this is mainly due to illegal streaming. So it would be a risk for Atari to publicly target that market, but it would certainly be an extra string to it's bow if it was possible to use it too.
Android TV is doing ok because it's bundled with TV's, the stand alone boxes don't seem to be doing so well. They tend to be cheap and low powered. Which is certainly something that Atari have done differently.
There is a long history of players coming in and stealing lunch. There was a time when home video games was Atari, then Nintendo & Sega, then Sony, Nintendo & Sega, then Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft. The market has changed before, therefore it must be possible for it to change again. It's becoming harder to tell Sony & Microsoft hardware apart, if they can't differentiate from each other then how can they differentiate from a new player?
It might not be Atari who pulls it off, but someone probably will.
There are certainly parallels between what happens in the "set top box" market with the evolution of the PDA to the smart phone.
Do you mean 4G? The original iPhone was 2G, a year later it was 3G. By the time 4G came out the smartphone had a huge market share. I don't think there was an untapped market of people who didn't have a phone or used a feature phone because they were waiting for smart phones to get faster transfer rates.
Don’t deflect. You clearly believe investing into this product is a good idea.
Investment isn’t just about money. EVERYTHING we buy is an investment. Buying a console should come with a healthy software library and more consoles in the future. That’s the expectation of the console market that’s been established since the 2600. If a console doesn’t do that, it fails.
> Don’t deflect. You clearly believe investing into this product is a good idea. > > Investment isn’t just about money. EVERYTHING we buy is an investment. Buying a > console should come with a healthy software library and more consoles in the future. > That’s the expectation of the console market that’s been established since the 2600. > If a console doesn’t do that, it fails.
Right, millions of casuals won't want to put down their Switch/PS4/XB1 to play an AtariBox
> Right, millions of casuals won't want to put down their Switch/PS4/XB1 to play an > AtariBox
I'm pretty sure those people aren't the target market. In other news, people have been paying truly ridiculous prices for the nes and snes classics on ebay.
We hope you and your families all across the world are having a wonderful holiday season. Our team at Ataribox has been working toward takeoff and we're excited to have you along for the ride! Stay tuned for more updates! https://www.facebook.com/atariboxofficial/
> We hope you and your families all across the world are having a wonderful holiday > season. Our team at Ataribox has been working toward takeoff and we're excited to > have you along for the ride! Stay tuned for more updates! > https://www.facebook.com/atariboxofficial/
It's another say-nothing, do-nothing, info-free message. So what?
Moron ? Why You have to insult me (or others) ? The subject is Atari's new console and we talk about it in the FORUM ! I am NOT in any connection with Atari and I wrote here only my opinion about the subject.
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