Atari VCS Hardware Specs Revealed

jardows said:
They say they are making them, but nothing has been announced.

Yes

Not yet specifically, but if you count the fact that any game that will run on Linux will run on this machine, there are a lot of 3rd party games that will run on this out of the box.
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The lack of information coming out of the Atari Corp. has been upsetting. So far, nothing other than 2600 playability has been announced. Even then, it's been sketchy on details. It's a simple Linux box. For the cost, I'd rather buy a Switch with great first party, recent games that I know will be supported by a first rate company.

I REALLY wanted this to be something great. Since day one I've been excited. But, the more they come out with information, the less excited I am. The cost, the specs (not bad, but nothing special), the lack of game information. I'm not buying in at that cost for something they sound like they have little faith or long term support for. They want the name and the nostalgia. Both of which I have been buying into. I love Atari. If it were $100, I'd preorder for those two reasons alone. For $249? No. I want a nice gaming machine with vendor support, third party games, and something I can trust to still be around in a few years. I don't sense that with this Atari machine.

I can run Linux on a Pi. I can run it on a few year old machine that will still run everything pretty good. I run emulator boxes that run games from the 2600-Dreamcast/PS2 era.

I wanted more than what they are delivering. High expectations. Maybe I over-hyped it.

If I can pick one up on clearance for $100, I'll grab it for that nostalgia alone. If it can be legal and play games from 2600, 5200, 7800, Jaguar, Lynx, and their computers, then I might grab one at full price. I have some of those machines, but I don't have the full library of games. And at this point, some of those systems are not easy or cheap to stock up on games.

It's cool. It's just not $250 cool. It'd be nice to have, but it's not a must have.
 
It'd be great if they'd roll the 5200 and Atari 8 bit games into this officially. Later stuff like the 7800 would be nifty, but the nostalgia isn't as strong.
 
229.00-299.00 for 100 Atari 2600 games. Whoever marketed this was a cast reject from idioracy.
 
For the people saying "I could build one better".. or "who is this for?"

For the majority of the population, people don't want to spend their time researching, ordering parts, trying to put something together, then research more on software, and then download roms they don't own, and then try to figure out a front end that works, and then spend countless hours figuring out why something went wrong.

If your time is worth money, then something like this is perfect.
 
Evil said:
229.00-299.00 for 100 Atari 2600 games. Whoever marketed this was a cast reject from idioracy.
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Because those games are what the money goes toward right? Not, oh, I don't know, the actual hardware? It's a PC, not a closed 2600 emulator.
 
fwiler1 said:
For the people saying "I could build one better".. or "who is this for?"

For the majority of the population, people don't want to spend their time researching, ordering parts, trying to put something together, then research more on software, and then download roms they don't own, and then try to figure out a front end that works, and then spend countless hours figuring out why something went wrong.

If your time is worth money, then something like this is perfect.
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Look at the majority of people interested in this. Nerds, geeks, nostalgia folks. Not the typical console gamer looking for a way to play their Dad's (or Grandpas) consoles. Paying >$200 for a device with 2600 (or even 7800) graphics is not acceptable to them. They'd go out and buy a Switch or PS4 or XBox One and Activision Classics or even an Atari Throwback (which is much cheaper and has a lot of the 2600 games).

So far, it's been marketed towards the nostalgia. Which is great. But, not at that cost. Regardless if you can make your own for a much lower price or not, with what they've marketed and shown (very little), it's definitely not worth it.

If they were to come out right now and showcase what it's capable of (definitely a LOT more than 2600 games... even a lot more than Jaguar games), it'd probably change my mind. I just want to see some more dev backing. I'd hate to buy this thing for the old games and a couple new games and then it get shelved....
 
Ur_Mom said:
Look at the majority of people interested in this. Nerds, geeks, nostalgia folks. Not the typical console gamer looking for a way to play their Dad's (or Grandpas) consoles. Paying >$200 for a device with 2600 (or even 7800) graphics is not acceptable to them. They'd go out and buy a Switch or PS4 or XBox One and Activision Classics or even an Atari Throwback (which is much cheaper and has a lot of the 2600 games).

So far, it's been marketed towards the nostalgia. Which is great. But, not at that cost. Regardless if you can make your own for a much lower price or not, with what they've marketed and shown (very little), it's definitely not worth it.

If they were to come out right now and showcase what it's capable of (definitely a LOT more than 2600 games... even a lot more than Jaguar games), it'd probably change my mind. I just want to see some more dev backing. I'd hate to buy this thing for the old games and a couple new games and then it get shelved....
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Well, I can't speak for the mainstream obviously. But for a nerd like me, this would make a great emulation and indie box. (I already have more than I can count, but another one in another room of the house never hurts.) I would love to see them come right out and show a few games that are being developed with it in mind though. People keep talking like its only purpose is to play 2600 games though, and like that's all its capable of. It's an AMD APU in a box with some RAM and a small SSD, with some interesting controllers. It's obviously quite capable of doing much more. It's also running Ubuntu, so you can basically do whatever you want with it. For $200, that's REALLY not that bad at all.
 
J3RK said:
Well, I can't speak for the mainstream obviously. But for a nerd like me, this would make a great emulation and indie box. (I already have more than I can count, but another one in another room of the house never hurts.) I would love to see them come right out and show a few games that are being developed with it in mind though. People keep talking like its only purpose is to play 2600 games though, and like that's all its capable of. It's an AMD APU in a box with some RAM and a small SSD, with some interesting controllers. It's obviously quite capable of doing much more. It's also running Ubuntu, so you can basically do whatever you want with it. For $200, that's REALLY not that bad at all.
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It's capable of a whole lot more. But, Atari Corp still hasn't shown off anything that really shows what it's capable of. If they were to show off some cool new games, tech demos, whatever at E3... I'd be all over it. Right now, Atari has pushed it as a retro "throwback" style machine with beefy specs (for an indie box/emulation machine).
 
Ur_Mom said:
It's capable of a whole lot more. But, Atari Corp still hasn't shown off anything that really shows what it's capable of. If they were to show off some cool new games, tech demos, whatever at E3... I'd be all over it. Right now, Atari has pushed it as a retro "throwback" style machine with beefy specs (for an indie box/emulation machine).
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I agree. They haven't shown nearly enough, and not enough to entice your average user of technology. That's why I'm still not 100% on board. I'm really interested in what Atari themselves are bringing to the table, not just what I'd personally do with it. What makes it different, is what I've been waiting for, and that's going to be on the software side. I do like the controllers though, including the simple joysticks.
 
fwiler1 said:
For the people saying "I could build one better".. or "who is this for?"

For the majority of the population, people don't want to spend their time researching, ordering parts, trying to put something together, then research more on software, and then download roms they don't own, and then try to figure out a front end that works, and then spend countless hours figuring out why something went wrong.

If your time is worth money, then something like this is perfect.
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But this isn't marketed at dads looking to relive their console days. That's already sated with this $65 system:

https://www.amazon.com/Atari-Flashback-Classic-System-Games-2600/dp/B0111WVWHA

This costs several times as much and is just a sexy case for a cheap Linux PC.

Remember why the NES and SNES Classic were so successful? It's because they targeted under $100, and it only does one thing.

Want to still insist that I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about? This is just a $150 bargain-basement PC with a $150 custom case. And for most of the audience this targets, a custom build is not hard for them.
 
defaultluser said:
This is just a $150 bargain-basement PC with a $150 custom case. And for most of the audience this targets, a custom build is not hard for them.
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$150 + $150 = $199?


While I agree, it's a low cost Linux PC, I don't think you can put one together for less with the same specs, so for purposes where something like this would come in handy, it's still not a bad deal.
 
They did show a Tempest 4000 is the video. Looks to be an evolution of Tempest 2000 which was a pack-in with the Jaguar if I remember correctly. So they do have designs on more the 2600 emulator. Personally I hope they go more for MAME Atari arcade rather then the shitty home ports. They should put in ET though, just for the legend.
 
This is probably going to flop. Yes it can do a lot more than simply play retro games, but the market for this is going to be very limited. Nintendo really got the price point for nostalgia issue right when they launched the NES, SNES, and when they relaunch the NES again for a second run. These relaunched Nintendos really only play the games, but that is really what people were mostly interested in. I do not understand why people would want to buy a relaunched Atari just to send dick-picks or creep on someone in Facebook.
 
Evil said:
229.00-299.00 for 100 Atari 2600 games. Whoever marketed this was a cast reject from idioracy.
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229.00-299.00 to relive your childhood memories. You can buy 40 dollar raspberry pi 3 to achieve the same goals.
 
Or you could buy 8 of these, and 8 cheap monitors, and have them auto-boot Quake 3 Arena. Instant party :D
 
Uvaman2 said:
Bluetooth , wifi? 32gb, i think would be ssd... But in the end you are close, which means with the atari vcs you are getting your moneys worth in hardware alone.
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Yeah, I mean they are buying in bulk, so they are able to pass along those savings, and by not adding much storage they are skipping the most expensive part. The Bluetooth and WiFi you can add with supper cheap dongles. Heck they go for free on Newegg during sales, but yes the price is not bad, buy I would still want to see the end product running before I spent my $$ on it.
 
I am trying to get my hands on a AMD Ryzen 2400GE. I am pretty sure we can up the ram on this thing. We will see. I am wondering how modular it is inside. Got a 256GB micro sd for it. We will get this little beast humming.
 
Vader1975 said:
I am trying to get my hands on a AMD Ryzen 2400GE. I am pretty sure we can up the ram on this thing. We will see. I am wondering how modular it is inside. Got a 256GB micro sd for it. We will get this little beast humming.
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Why worry about modding IT, when you can build your own?
 
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