Adam Tyner

There was enough demand to crash Indiegogo when it went live, and they raised a little over $2 million since the switch was flipped yesterday (which by crowdfunding standards is pretty huge). I don't understand it, but there does appear to be a good bit of demand.

fujishig

I don't know how fast they reached the 2 million mark, but Ouya raised over 8.5 million:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...o-game-console

edited to add:
according to the timeline, the kickstarter opened on June 10 and that same day there's a post thanking people for reaching the goal of 2 million.

Mike86

People are dumb. I honestly can’t believe they exceeded their goal without a working prototype or any new software shown off. People who shelled out for this pretty much are paying for a glorified steam box that’s got the Atari logo slapped on and will play the classic games (like the original cartridges are so hard to find or there aren’t a bunch of clone/emulation consoles out there). I don’t see studios suddenly developing games for this or any exclusives coming. This is a pipe dream system that unfortunately became a reality. Feel bad for the people who are going to realize this later when they actually get it.

majorjoe23

I don't see the point of shelling out when I can play these games on my phone.

Mike86

The scary thing is that being on indiegogo they didn’t need a working prototype. So people basically invested in a bunch of promises based on a spec sheet and a couple mock ups of what the console/interface/controller are supposed to look like. Nothing actually shown though because I guess that’s not important to sell your system.

fujishig

I think the name gives people some comfort, but as the other article stated Atari hasn't released it's own hardware since the Jaguar, and it was a completely different company then (plus that failed miserably anyway).

I mean look at the wikipedia entry on how the brand has changed hands since then:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari

Mike86

The name is just that at this point. Basically some license holding company bought their brand and now can stick it on things. Atari doesn’t really exist on its own. Also the Jaguar which is their most recent console wasn’t even successful. They basically haven’t been relevant since the early 80s. I mean really what’s their big claim since then? The Roller Coaster Tycoon franchise maybe?

It’s mind boggling to me. Imagine any other company doing this. Not showing an actual product, no new software (the retro stuff doesn’t count) asking for money on a crowd funding site. They’d be a fucking laughing stock. My guess is there had to be a couple wealthy dumbasses who threw their money at this not really knowing what it is or totally blind sided by nostalgia and not realizing you can play those same games very easily or buy a good gaming PC which does the same thing.

Noonan

Hey...The Lynx was kick ass back in the day!!

Agreed though. This is a nostalgia grab, nothing more. And they know it, which is why it's designed to look like an old console.

Adam Tyner

It was!

Although even then, you could say that that was Epyx's baby rather than Atari's.

gmanca

So yeah, I paid the 300 bucks for it; my thinking is that Atari is a name with pedigree and if this causes some disruption in the console business, I am totally for it.

The way it sounds they are going to work with indie publishers to create new versions of the games they own. This is a very exciting idea especially if they make it far more equitable than what Sony or Microsoft would do.

Plus it looks really good

The Questyen

Haha haha haha haha.

mattysemo247

Yeah, this sounds like a totally trustworthy company that is going to make a great consumer product!

https://www.neowin.net/news/atari-is...porter-a-troll

fujishig

Did you not bother to read the rest of the thread? Well, good luck as for me, I already have an ouya that can't do jack.

gmanca

I did follow that story in real time and the original story was an opinion piece, it wasn’t a straight journalistic report. I do think calling him a troll was too far but those are the days we are living in now.

The people who are actually working on the thing have serious backgrounds though, this isn’t some guy in a garage with an idea; it’s a company doing a public capital injection instead of searching for a private one.

The Ouya failed because it didn’t have IP that it could use to generate buzz and get developers on board, Atari has a ton of games that it can use to do that.

Mike86

The thing is though they really don’t have a lot of games to sell this on anymore. The whole thing is being sold on nostalgia in which case you could have just bought one of those Flashback systems or whatever for like $50 or $60 tops. They haven’t shown or announced one game that’s exclusive that sells the system and they likely aren’t going to or if so it’ll be like last minute because it won’t be anything exciting. I don’t think anyone sees this as something that’s going to light the console market on fire.

The Questyen

Haha haha haha haha.

fumanstan

I'm surprised it's up to close to $3 million now. Them banking on the Atari "name" even though it's basically means nothing now seems to be working (sorry gmanca).

gmanca

Of course it was the name that got them almost 3 million and not the actual console, or rather lack there of.

Yeah I mean I do have one of those flashback deals, the handheld version, but I’m not looking at this system to play the old Atari 2600 stuff, but rather to see what new versions of those games they will work with developers to make. It comes out in a year so for the developers, specifically indie ones, like Peteoglyph, they don’t need to come up with completely new concepts, they just need to modernize the gameplay, like Frogger for PS1 did.

I am not worried about losing the money, I did this because I want to see what happens; buying now makes it possible for the future to happen as opposed to waiting for it to release to purchase it.

fumanstan

Right, and it amuses to me that people see Atari even though there's absolutely little/no connection left to the original that even means anything.

Hey, nothing against people with money to blow. There were posters here that seemed to defend their Ouya purchase to the very end I'd be surprised if this ends up with any port worthwhile though, can't imagine developers would want to put anything on here that wouldn't be better suited for one of the other 3 major consoles already (especially the Switch these days) and limit their audience.

chuckd21

The Atari Box now has more power.

https://medium.com/@atarivcs/more-po...s-20c02f3aefc2

Mike86

Yet they still haven't even shown the actual product yet or made any game announcements.. Specs are cool to try and make what you're selling sound good, but they need to actually get something out there to make me believe its not a joke system.

fujishig

Walmart has put this up... for 389 bucks.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Atari-VCS...sive/344097754

That's actually a 10 dollar discount for early adopters because it's supposed to be 399.

https://twinfinite.net/2020/07/atari...ate-costs-399/

Good luck with that, Atari.

Maxflier

They are sure to sell dozens at that price.

fujishig

Imagine some kid with rich parents unwrapping this on Xmas after asking for an Xbox X or PS5. Hopefully they livestream the reaction.

fujishig

I didn't even realize before researching this that this version of Atari has come out with it's own cryptocurrency, the Atari Token, which sounds like a pyramid scheme of some sort.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AtariVCS/co...ventual_oasis/

That dude is some kind of shill for atari:
https://www.reddit.com/user/PowerDubs/
https://twitter.com/PowerDubs/with_replies

or a Russian bot of some kind.