Atari VCS (2019)

http://nerdist.com/atari-making-new-console-over-20-years/

Not much is known about it, but its tentatively named the Atari Box, and it seems like Atari is seriously reentering the video game console business after leaving it decades earlier due to the failure of the Atari Jaguar. You think it'll have a chance of carving out a niche next to the big three consoles out there now?

Highly doubt it.

If it does displace one it'd be XBONE and I don't see that happening.

Maybe it's something like the NES Classic?

The current Atari isnt anywhere near related to the original aside from the name. This 'Ataribox' is going to be an absolute joke.

Hell must still be frozen.

To elaborate on this, the current Atari is just Infogrames after they bought out the company years ago.

Since then every time they've tried to capitalize on the Atari name by releasing something related to the old Atari properties, it's been complete shit. There was a new Asteroids game that was a really dull survival crafting sim, an Alone in the Dark game which was a horrible multiplayer 3rd person shooter, a Haunted House that was a discount Outlast, etc.

So this Ataribox is just going to be a joke. Even if this was coming from a less incompetent company, it takes a special kind of powerhouse in order to craft a niche in the videogame market. There's only so much space.

I hope that Atari Box is just a temporary name because there is no way that Microsoft wouldn't call them out on the name. They should call it the Atari Tiger, or Atari Lion, or Atari 13K. Atari 13,000 is a multiple for 2600, and it would be the 5th home console made by Atari, so 2600 times five is 13K.

Still, it's pretty risky to make a new console, while the big three are still competing for each other.

edited 30th Apr '18 11:55:49 AM by DokemonStudios

I dunno, I'm cautiously optimistic. Colour me interested!

Hoo boy. If they're going to make this work, they'd better give it something that it can have over the current major consoles. Otherwise, this really looks like the makings of a flopperoo unlike anything the current gaming industry has ever seen. (Though maybe not as big as the Ouya, now that I think about it. It'll be tough to top that...)

All I can say to them is: Good luck. You're really gonna need it.

edited 18th Jun '17 8:29:25 PM by kablammin45

Since they say it's going to be PC based it's likely going to be marketed as a counterpart to the Steam Machines that arnt selling.

And people would just rather get a PC.

More accurate to say some company calling themselves Atari are entering the console market after the Atari people actually cared about died a violent death almost 21 years ago.

Honestly, this reminds me of the Collicovision from 2 years ago, which turns out was a fucking scam, so.... Yeah, I don't believe this. at best it'll be a shit box sold to unsuspecting buyers too dumb to know otherwise.

Like Gizmodo points out - Microsoft spent 100 million just developping the X Bone controller. And some company wearing Atari's dried up corpse like a coat is gonna come out of nowhere and be a serious contender? Yeah, right.

As RPS puts it "The Company wearing Atari's skin like a cloak" are making some hardware because someone in a board meeting reminded them they make these "dweeb, nerd games", and yet other companies are making money out of it.

What they should be doing is making an Atari branded "Steam box" or something like that - or a cheap retro console that plays all their old classics but with maybe higher res graphics....

It doesn't help that most of the Atari consoles are memetically bad. If someone's heard of the Atari Jaguar, (probably through the Angry Video Game Nerd) they know it sucks. Because that's the thing. When it comes to video games, no one cares about modern Atari. They don't have a fan base. At best, people like a couple specific games (I think they released the Prototype games) but no one's keeping an eye on the company with baited breath.

And when you look at the current market, you can tell how all the companies made it in. Nintendo pretty much built the market, Sega got in on the ground floor and only crashed and burned later, Sony had a significant advantage over Nintendo with the PS 1, because PS 1 games could afford to be way bigger than the N64, and they grabbed a bunch of killer apps, and the Xbox paved the way for the following generations and, again, killer apps.

No one is going to want to make an exclusive, especially out of a highly anticipated game, for the Atari console. There is no guarantee whatsoever that it will sell at all.

Exactly. Best they could do is market to an audience NOT being served. The retro market is easiest because that's probably what most people associate Atari with.

Don't compete in a pool you can't handle - a cheap, easy to plug in, portal console that panders to some retro memories COULD work. But it's whether they can use a lot of their back catalogue. But who's betting they want to pitch in with a major graphics monster?

There are already tons of 2600 retro consoles out. Some models even rock the wood grain.

I just don't see the market for this.

Exactly. Best they could do is market to an audience NOT being served. The retro market is easiest because that's probably what most people associate Atari with.

Gizmodo points out that if they are doing that - going the NES Classic way, that too would be stupid. Coz Atari's games have been licensed over and over again. Heck, there was one such console at this year's E3 - The Atari Flashback 8 Gold, which is packed full of classic Atari games. Atari would literally be in competition against the very people they licensed their crap to.

If anything, if Atari sticks to their gun, it would be entertaining.

Ah I didn't see that one.

Latest releases say it's, basically, going to be a PC. So an Atari branded PC. I concur with the rest of the thread by saying: "why".

I mean, they haven't exactly been great with business decisions, licensing or ANYTHING really.

Maybe they'll surprise us and the new console is a retro-console of the Atari 800 or ST.

Three companies is hardly over saturation of a market. Maybe software development is a little bloated but there's room for another console developer and competition is good for business. Now when there are five, ten of them, then maybe we can be saying "naw, don't do it", but as is, I don't think anyone going to go under just because Atari makes a new console, barring some really unexpected recession.

Yes, yes, Sega. It almost died, but was that really indicative of the video game market or of Sega's missteps? The decline of arcades, that I think one could make a case for, but if they can still hang on, after all these years, a fourth console should definitely be able to.

I don't think anyone's saying that there's literally no room for a new console, but that Atari is not likely to put the effort required forward to crack the market. Either the Atari box is going to be something akin to the main consoles, in which case they'll need something to draw people in, and Atari currently owns no properties that people are crazy about and it's unlikely that anyone will want to put an exclusive on it. There were exclusives on Atari's last couple consoles. They did not sell. Or, it's a retro Atari console, and those are a dime a dozen. I saw one in the grocery store today, they're that easy to find. There's also the rumour that they're going for a sort of branded PC, like the Steam Machines, but even there, people aren't really that crazy about them. There's no real draw.

The market isn't saturated, but it's not exactly starving for competition either. It doesn't help that current Atari, who are not the same company as original Atari, appear to have a bunch of morons in charge. These are the people who keep taking their classic properties (either Atari or Infogrames) and then releasing really crappy and basic cash-ins that no one wants to buy. They'd probably release the Atari box and assume that Alone in the Dark: Inferno+ or Prototype 3 or something would be a killer app.

edited 25th Jun '17 3:51:32 PM by Zendervai

First look at the Atari Box. Atari hasn't revealed specs yet, but it looks like a slick lil piece of hardware, like an Atari 2600 updated for the HD age. The article implies that Atari is aiming for a more niche market with it rather than trying to directly compete with the big three consoles, which is a smart move on their part.

http://comicbook.com/gaming/2017/07/17/atari-reveals-new-console-ataribox/

edited 17th Jul '17 11:54:21 AM by Prinzenick

A whole lot of nothing and empty words with no firm info to back it up.

It's just the ATGames Flashback, with 105-130 2600 games (depending on which one you get). There's also a Sega Genesis with 81-85 games, depending on which one you get.

I'm more interested in the Atari 2600 Portable and the Ultimate Gaming Portable (Sega).

EDIT:

And then there's this.

edited 17th Jul '17 4:37:23 PM by AnotherGuy