Atari To Release Old Games and New Console System 322
GrueMaster writes "Atari is announcing the re-release of their older games for the PS2 & Xbox. They are also talking about releasing a new console, which is a miniaturized version of the 7800 with built in games. Check out the story here. Being a collector of old Atari stuff, I'll be in line to get mine."
Lots of issues (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Nostalgia can be ruined by pushing quantity over quality. Since they'll be packing 85 games on the disk, there will be little incentive for players to play any one game for long enough to "master" it.
3. Who has the patience to master these games? Back in the day, we were bored. I remember spending hours on end in front of my GW-Basic interpreter, because it was rewarding. Now I can just pop on the internet and find all the information about BASIC that was so hard won. Alternatively, I might find something quicker and easier. I think the later would be the result for many Atari players.
4. The Atari games were pathetic compared to their arcade counterparts. Why bother with a pixelated version of Defender, when you can grab the arcade version in one of those joystick thing-a-ma-bobs?
5. Profit!!! (Hah! Pre-empted you on that one!)
Here's what I think Atari should do: Create a console on par with the SNES. That sort of hardware should be extremely cheap at this point, and could easily be manufactured for retail prices in the $20-$40 range. Sell simple "smart card" games (or something equally as inexpensive to manufacture) for $5-$10 a piece. This should give them several major selling points:
1. It mini, it's cheap, and it's cool!
2. The low cost will cause parents to consider it for a quick present for their kids.
3. The low cost games will encourage "impulse buys".
4. Very little expense would need to go into R&D.
5. Profit!!! (Did it again!
Sound (Score:3, Interesting)
I was sorry not to see Gauntlet included, maybe that'll be in the future. Crystal Castles was always visually appealing and fun (if aggrevating at times.)
I just hope they fix the controllers (Score:3, Interesting)
Justifying Bootlegging (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because they aren't selling it today, doesn't mean that they never will.
Abandonware sites work on logic somewhat like: "Well, you have this car, but since you've left it parked in the driveway for 6 months without using it, you shouldn't complain if we hotwire it and go joyriding in it... we'll return it so you don't lose anything!"
So long as there is a concept of "Intellectual Property", however fictitious in reality, these issues will remain. It's either the law, or it's not - and if you don't like it, change the law!
Re:Lots of issues (Score:4, Interesting)
Atari For Dummies (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Saw something at Futureshop (Score:3, Interesting)
Original carts and kids (Score:2, Interesting)
But then I could just be a retro guy. (We also don't get Nicolodean and such garbage in our house. But I have downloaded old episodes of He-man, Smurfs, Gummy Bears, etc., for him. PBS and TVO are both decent however.)
Sears, Atari, and Journey (Score:5, Interesting)
What I remember is the *Sears* branded Atari console. I'm not sure why, but the Sears console was my first exposure to non-pong video games. I remember our old Sears, too -- it had that Sears smell (which exists to this day in any Sears store) -- and I remember the Sears Atari rigged up in the "sporting goods" section of the store -- which seemed to have a lot of tennis rackets, tennis balls, and lawnmowers -- surrounding the big television.
We'd plant ourselves in Sears, play Combat for hours, sip Orange Julius's, and eventually make our way to Aladdin's Castle (with the requisite 'Aladdin's Castle smell'), get 20 (25?) tokens for five bucks, and play stuff like Pac Man, Tron, Pole Position, and that "Journey" game -- they released it during their 'Frontiers' tour, I think -- where you hopped Steve Perry over rock formations and guided Neil Schon (sp?) up and down some weird cave without touching the side.
Wow. It's all coming back now.
Re:Lots of issues (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd love to see this, but it kinda already exists in the used/retro gaming market. Sega and Nintendo systems are available for well under $40 and the used games can be cheap enough to be impulse buys.
Granted, there are drawbacks--dead saved-game batteries need to be replaced, finding instructions (when necessary) and game info can be difficult, cartridges are big and bulky, and some of the better games are rare and therefore expensive. And of course there's nothing new coming out.
But the selection couldn't be better, especially for someone who didn't have the cash as a kid to enjoy the systems the first time.
Alex.
Re:Lots of issues (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But will it be the same.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh yah. Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-B-A-STA
Re:Ooh Ooh Ooh (Score:5, Interesting)
From www.sjfanboy.com:
"Myth has it hat Atari expected E.T. to be such a popular game that they produced more cartridges than there were systems. When the game failed they supposedly buried millions of copies of E.T. in a desert landfill. The truth is Atari actually made 6 million E.T. cartrdiges and there were 20 million systems out. According to a former chief engineer at Atari there were more E.T. cartridges then there were VCS's in active use. By the time E.T. came out the VCS was 6 years old. According to Ray Kassar, president of Atari in 1983, the story about burying E.T. and Pac-Man cartridges in the desert is an "absolute lie." He claims they were dumped in discount stores. One ex-Atari vice president stated "Bullshit! They drove 14 freight trucks onto New Mexico, dug a pit, dumped millions of cartridges, drove a stram roller over them, then poured cement on top
of them."
Re:Sears, Atari, and Journey (Score:2, Interesting)
Issues with the Gaming Issues (Score:5, Interesting)
Nostalgia can be ruined by pushing quantity over quality. Since they'll be packing 85 games on the disk, there will be little incentive for players to play any one game for long enough to "master" it.
But I think we're missing the target audience here. I have a tough time believing that Atari thinks they can realistically sell these to anybody who hasn't gown up with them, let alone a pokeboy. At least not in large enough quantities to make a dent in sales. No, this disc is for old skoolers who might very well attempt to master it for old time sake.
1. It mini, it's cheap, and it's cool!
Come on. Any kid whose only exposure to gaming is a modern console is not going to find these games cool. My cousin has a knock-off system with 500 clone atari games on it or soemthing, but given the choice between the DC I gave them and that thing, the clone-boy gathers quite a bit of dust.
3. The low cost games will encourage "impulse buys".
And the GBA is already there. The SP's might be up there in price, but the old style GBAs are will within impulse buy range. The games are about $20 more expensive, but then, the graphics are lightyears better AND the unit is portable.
Not saying that these aren't worth picking up, just that they won't have anywhere close to the traction with the kids as they do with us.
Very cool idea! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been thinking about just such an idea for awhile now too, but with some variations/additions related to my open-system sensibilities:
* Use proven (if dated) technology based on off-the-shelf designs like Z80 and 68K processors. System functions (graphics, sound and I/O) would be handles by separate CPU cores working in tandem--a "quad Z80 system" perhaps. Development costs would be low as a result, and with a good design performance would be quite adequate. One FPGA could even hold most of the logic.
* Not only would it be mini, cheap and cool--it would be non-proprietary at the peripheral connectivity level at least. Games and memory cards would be distributed in the compact flash format, or maybe even on USB ROM keys. Users could connect the system to a PC's USB port like a palm pilot to load in games form the 'net. Same with game controllers--they'd use USB--none
of this oddball crap like consoles have today (blatanly implemented to screw consumers over).
* The hardware architecture would be simple enough (as would the BIOS/OS/API firmware) that hobbyists could develop their own creations. The manufactured device could even come with software along the lines of LEGO Mindstorms programming software, or STOS BASIC from the old Atari days or some such thing. Kids could make their own games on a PC, save them, share with friends, have contests.
* Once the device was released to production with stable specifications, said specs would be released as a gaming platform that could be implemented by other vendors. Hasn't worked for consoles (yet) but it made the PC industry what it is today.
Don't kow how well it would go over in the industry, given its MPAA/RIAA closed, protectionist culture. It basically takes the floor out from under the games software industry as it is now so I wouldn't expect publishers to clamour to develop for it. However, unless Atari or Nintendo or Microsoft or Sony made it getting developers on board would be a struggle regardless of how open the system was (hence the strategy for making development appealing to the mass public).
I think that even though it might be much harder to make billions with this strategy, I think that we've lost a lot in terms of creativity in computing since the "good old days" just prior to the shakeout in the 80s when computers were not only cheap but simple and oriented towards development (it's been a long time since you could boot into BASIC and create). It'd be great if somehow we could re-ignite that hobbyist culture again. Such a culture is barely a flicker now--and it exists almost solely because of Linux and the Free Software movement. I'd like to think that there are millions of geek-parents with a mindset similar to mine who'd put down $39.95 for a cool little digital camera-sized box that hooks to a television to play and can be loaded with little Johnny's latest creations.
Anyways...just in case someone DOES try to take and pervert this idea and patent the crap out of it, etc, I hereby copyright this idea and grant use under the Creative Commons License [creativecommons.org] on this day, the 7th of September 2004
Re:A suggestion... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Atari is just a name now.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. Atari officially died in 1998, when Atari Games made their last arcade game (San Francisco Rush 2049).
The company called Atari Corporation was just a bastardized version of the original company. Atari Games, the coin-op spin-off, was the TRUE Atari.
Atari started as a coin-op company, and they died as such.
Re:Atari's game image (Score:1, Interesting)
Atari Inc. had paid the Amiga crew $100,000 to develop the Amiga and aquire the rights to market it as a game system.
Then Atari Inc. imploded. Warner Communications sold the company to the Tramiel family. Amiga then took advantage of the situation and then claimed their contract was void because of the change of ownership/management at Atari. They then sold themselves to Commodore for $25 million. Atari Corp. sued Commodore Amiga Inc. and the case settled out of court in the late 80s/early 90s. Tramiel's Atari built the Atari ST line in 6 months in lieu of the loss of the Amiga platform.
What the true crime is that Atari had built much more powerful prototype machines than both the Amiga AND the ST in 1982. Parallel processing Motorola 68000 based with a custom CP/M operating system.
Read all about it at:
www.atarimuseum.com
"Gaza" was a codename for one of the prototypes...
The Lynxpro