Xbox Co-creator Rob Wyatt Sues Atari For Failing To Pay Him for Design of VCS Console

Xbox co-creator Rob Wyatt has filed a lawsuit against Atari for failing to pay him for the design work he did in creating the Atari VCS console. From a report: Tin Giant, Wyatt's company, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Colorado, alleging breach of contract and defamation. Tin Giant said that Atari owes it in excess of $261,720. Wyatt, a co-creator of the Xbox and cofounder of The Last Gameboard, said in an interview last year that he quit as lead architect for Atari. He alleged that Atari did not pay his company, Tin Giant, for six months of work. Atari CEO Fred Chesnais declined to comment in a statement, saying that he had not received a copy of the lawsuit yet. Atari has not developed a game console for more than 20 years.

Just say "no" and build your own...

[Baby Yoda's Daddy]

It's just an overpriced Ryzen system running an emulator inside a custom case.

Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

[CajunArson]

I think so Brain, but why would the kids want to play Version Control System on their consoles?

In other news ...

[psergiu]

In other news, Ugg the caveman's estate is suing Michelin, Toyo & Continental for failing to properly compensate for Ugg's critical role in development of the wheel.
A new lawsuit is also being prepared against Zippo, Bic & Ronson ...

Re:

[NateFromMich]

In other news, Ugg the caveman's estate is suing Michelin, Toyo & Continental for failing to properly compensate for Ugg's critical role in development of the wheel. A new lawsuit is also being prepared against Zippo, Bic & Ronson ...

Are you trying to compare this to patents maybe? I don't really see how that would compare to someone hiring you, and just not paying you for your work, like in this case.

TLDR

[JBMcB]

Atari is owned by the french company Atari SA, better known as Infogrames.

They hired Tin Robot to design the new VCS console. Apparently they did some kind of work on it, then stopped after Wyatt said Atari never paid any of it's invoiced work over six months.

Most likely it's some contractual dispute, where Atari will say payment will be made on completion of the project or something. Someone will settle because $261,000 isn't a lot of money in legal terms, and any kind of court case will gobble up all of that within months.

Re:TLDR

[Rockoon]

I know businesses like this, where it cannot possibly be because "on completion of the project" reasoning, because its not a "project", its goods that were delivered.

Large businesses simply feel that they can pay invoices whenever the fuck they please.

Re: TLDR

[mrchew1982]

As an HVAC contractor it's not just large companies. Everyone from general contractors to small businesses and little old grannies try to not pay the bill. Luckily we have leans...

Re:

[clickclickdrone]

Who Atari is these days, and the Atari developing this, is a bit more complicated than that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Interactive#Infogrames_subsidiary/ [wikipedia.org]

Tacos are better than this

[Spyrus]

Thereâ(TM)s a ridiculous, long-running thread on AtariAge.com where people got tired of waiting for this and decided that tacos are better than a late, low-end, limited PC with no software ecosystem. Lots of memes and mockery of the lack of progress. People have got to stop falling for nostalgia traps like this. The same can be said of Intellivision Amico, an ego project driven by an old music designer from the Sega CD days. That one is like Android TV hardware with goofy touchscreen controllers that