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Atari To Release Old Games and New Console System
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."
1. How is this different from the joysticks you plug into your TV? I personally like the idea of the joysticks, but I'm not sure I would pay $45 for a PS2 CD.
;-))
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!
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For those of you that followed Atari back in the day; you may be surprised to see the name rise from the grave. The name was bought by Infogrames:
On May 7, 2003, Infogrames officially announces its name change to Atari. The Company's U.S. operations became Atari, Inc. (formerly Infogrames, Inc.) and changed its trading symbol on the NASDAQ National Market to "ATAR." Although the holding company parent in France, Infogrames Entertainment SA, retained its current name and maintained its symbol on the Euronext under the code: 5257, all of the Company's worldwide operations were renamed Atari. The Company gained all rights to the Atari license when it acquired Hasbro Interactive, Inc. in December 2000.
I guess this is a re-re-re-release (I probably don't have enough res) of the old titles; it make me wonder how long will these games will be around?
What about us 2800 people? Why don't we get our comeuppance? I WANT MY SPACE INVADERS OLD SKOOL!
Frist post.
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi
These have been released for the PC for a while and with all the emulators, etc. out there, I have to wonder if there is a demand for this?
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.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
See here for more details of the Atari Flashback Classic Game Console.
On Sunday, at Futureshop (a friend wanted to go) we saw a PC cd of 80 classic Atari games, some of the ones that jump to mind are: asteroids, defender, combat, circus, joust. It was about $20 (CDN) The screenshots looked like the games I remember playing as a kid. I love some of those games, but I'm scared to play them again as I wonder if I'll ruin my memories where I actually enjoyed these games.
....if you don't have to blow dust from the connectors when sticking in the cart?
And knowing which of your joysticks is a bit stiff and giving that to your friend?
And will it be the same when you see it on your massive widescreen TV instead of a little 14" that made anything seem high resolution?
the 7800 had the worst controllers in history (yes, worse than the 5200). They wore out quickly, where useless when they did, and where downright painful for long play time.
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On May 7, 2003, Infogrames officially announces its name change to Atari. The Company's U.S. operations became Atari, Inc. (formerly Infogrames, Inc.)
Ouch. Here we go with the Caldera/SCO debable, all over again.
"But it's not the same Atari! I'm telling you!"
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This is one of those cases where justifying "abandonware" sites becomes much more difficult.
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!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
These games should be public domain already... Patents and copyright are supposed to increase innovation, but they are doing the exact opposite. When a company can simply repackage and sell the same ol' stuff over and over again, why should they invest their money in new (potentially risky) endeavors?
Does this mean we can finally play "ET the Extra-Terrestrial" again?
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
MaMe and stella may work for smart folk, not for the masses and nostalgia freaks who actually buy stuff.
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2600, 5200, Intellivision, Coleco nostalgia I can see... As well as NES, of course... But wasn't the 7800 a terrible flop?
Eh. Good luck, Atari. You'll need it. Nintendo can sell us Excitebike, Zelda and Super Mario again because they always were and will be great games. Anything that could be considered "great" on the 2600 was only because we didn't have anything better.
The retro console is $45.
Next time, don;t read so fast in your rush to "fp"
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
This summer I found the two CD set for Atari Arcade Hits (volume 1 and 2) for $5. :)
I've played a LOT of tempest this year.
I highly recommend searching eBay if you want this stuff, or simply searching garage sales for old CDs.
--
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Too bad atari (the old atari, not the current owner of the brand) had an image as game console company, they made a great desktop system, the Atari ST. Man I loved that machine, I still have my Mega ST 1 lying around somewhere.
While my friends where fooling around with DOS, I had a system with a GUI (in 128KB rom) a nice high-res 640x480 monochrome monitor. I used WYSIWYG dtp and word processing software (great for school papers) while the rest still used WordPerfect for DOS.
It was cheaper than an IBM PC too.
Too bad their marketing department sucked ass, everybody assumed an Atari was a game system, and I had to explain over and over again they make desktops too.
Free ET cartridge with every purchase.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
For a community that is generally pro-emulation I cannot believe you guys are supporting Atari! You don't want them to rerelease games for newer architectures. Then they are no longer pieces of abandonware software, they can claim anyone spreading their older software under emulation is warezing, etc...
Yay, I can run antiquated games on expensive modern hardware for money. Personally I was more pleased when it was getting spread around in the emulation scene for free.
This is neat, but actually I still find myself buying old used carts for my Atari. They aren't hard to find, and are often pretty cheap. One is the nostalgia factor for me, but also, is the fact that I have a five year old who likes games and computers. We also have a game cube, but I've noticed a ton of difference in terms of my son's reactions when playing the different systems. On the GC (and on Windows), my little guy zones out, and often will get angry at some point (like when I tell him to turn it off). When playing on the Atari, I noticed he actually just has fun. I hear him laugh, obviously enjoy himself, and act a lot more positively than with the newer stuff. So, we somewhat strictly limit when and what he can play on the modern machines, but the older one is fine. What the old systems lacked in graphics and sound, they did have a clearer idea what video games are supposed to be about, having fun.
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.)
Off-topic, but nostalgic:
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.
The Atari 2800 existed, in Japan, looked like the 7800
You can find info about it on the net, i found some on http://www.atarihq.com/museum/2678/2800.html
They also say it was sold in the USA by Sears...
100% of statistics are wrong.
The complete list of games found in Atari Flashback includes:
a nyon Bombers ®
Adventure(TM)
Air Sea Battle(TM)
Asteroids®
Battlezone®
Breakout®
C
Centipede®
Crystal Castles®
Desert Falcon(TM)
Food Fight(TM)
Gravitar®
Haunted House(TM)
Millipede®
Planet Smashers(TM)
Saboteur(TM)
Sky Diver(TM)
Solaris(TM)
Sprintmaster(TM)
Warlord
Yar's Revenge
Personally, I won't be buying this. The only Atari game I want to play again is 'Dungeon Master' - but that wasn't a console game as I recall. I used to play it on my Atari ST way back in 1988 or so. That was one cool game!
The Anthology has 18 arcade games and 62 Atari 2600 games. And the mini-console is going to be a mixture of 2600 and 7800 games.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Now I would like to see the resurrection of Sir Clive Sinclair...
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
2600, 5200, Intellivision, Coleco nostalgia I can see... As well as NES, of course... But wasn't the 7800 a terrible flop? Eh. Good luck, Atari. You'll need it. Nintendo can sell us Excitebike, Zelda and Super Mario again because they always were and will be great games. Anything that could be considered "great" on the 2600 was only because we didn't have anything better.
:-P
I know I'll probably get modded for being offtopic, but there is a comparable mini-console for NES games. They have a kiosk over the mall near where I live, I think the device is called "SuperJoy" or something like that. Anyways, its $50 and claims to have 2000 NES games built in (in reality its closer to 100 or so games). It comes with 2 gamepads and a lightgun. Everytime I pass their display, I'm tempted to buy one. I'm sure if you google "Superjoy" or "PowerJoy", you might find one of these gray market devices.
Recently when I was over there, I noticed that have a new device they are selling. It's a stand-alone DDR pad (also $50), but the stupid thing is 8-bit and I can't imagine who would want to play DDR to old midi music.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
First of all, it really makes you feel like an old fart, especially if you have kids. And, trust me on this, these games are dorky and far from exciting to anyone who plays them for the game, and not for the memories and geek bragging rights. Plus, it just is not new, sexy technology any more. In the old days, we didn't mind typing up pages and pages of BASIC code - that was an integral part of the fun. Try doing that nowadays. Chances are you'll just feel it's pointless. Times do change.
There's some cool stuff going on in the do-it-yourself scene though. Over at the Xbox-Scene forums there's lots of discussion about creating custom controllers and even full-blown old-school arcades. And since the Xbox is pretty hackable, with MAME readily available (Sourceforge link), it's just a natural choice.
Please don't confuse the two.
The old one was American this new one is French.
The old one was all about creating original games - the new one has yet to create a successful original franchise. Name one!
The old one was kinda cool. The games industry *should* be cool - watching the new Atari try to be cool is like watching your father disco dancing. It's just lame and embarrasing.
In fact the only thing they have in common is the old name. Something which resulted from Infogrames lawyers dusting off the deeds discovered in Hasboro's basement.
Just a note or two...
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.
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http://www.atari.com/us/games/atari_flashback/7800 Not bad, but I don't really dig the game selection.
~Necromutant
They or whoever owns Atari's corpse in 20 years will just keep re-releasing this stuff on new systems forever. And of course Congress will oblige with copyrights that never expire. Sorry but I already shelled out for the real catridges once I'm not doing it again. Emulation is the only way to go IMHO. I don't begrudge anyone who wants to buy this but let's not turn this thread into a emulation users are stealing from the artists thread. I doubt most of the original programmers are even getting a dime from this.
"But Bonnell downplayed the impact bootlegging could have on sales for "Atari Anthology" and the Atari Flashback console."
"You're right to say that a lot of them are bootlegged, and the code is not the right code, and the color is not the right color."
Uh sure buddy. Whatever you say.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
He's a subscriber, so he had ample to time compose a reply before it was posted to the main page.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Christ, your son is going to be made fun of left and right at school.
Don't do it, shielding your children completely from popular TV, movies and games will turn them into lonely, bitter youths.
My parents thought it'd be a good thing that I watched Seasame Street all the damn time, and now look at me, I post as an Anime persona on fucking Slashdot.
Trust me... your kid will be better off with some exposure than none.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Shh!!! You're giving away the secret! It's much cooler to let people think I can type 147 WPM. (I can't even THINK at 147 WPM, but he doesn't need to know that!) ;-)
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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.
;-)
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 on this day, the 7th of September 2004
And of course the 7800 games were also seriously seriously designed for playability. You make it sound like Japanese invented the idea.
Mentioning the Dreamcast as having unplayably primitive graphics shows an unfamiliarity with the system, which in some ways looked better than the top-selling PS2.
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Copied from AtariHQ.com:
In brief, Atari was split-up in 1984 following the market crash. Time Warner kept the company's coin-op (arcade) division while selling off its home console and computer divisions to Jack Tramiel (former head of Commodore). Time Warner-owned Atari became Atari Games Corp. while the Tramiel-owned Atari became Atari Corp. Atari Games was sold to arcade giant Williams/Midway the early 90's, while Atari Corp. failed with its Jaguar and Lynx machines and merged in 1996 with JTS, a hard disk manufacturer. Finally, Hasbro came along in 1998 and purchased Atari Corp. for a mere $5 million, and and released a slew of revamped classic Atari hits for contemporary game machines and PCs. Hasbro fell on hard times and sold off its entire interactive group (including Atari) to French-owned Infogrames Entertainment. Similarly, Midway was affected by the downturn in the coin-op market and has exited from the arcade business -- which spelled the end of the Atari and Bally brand names in the arcades. Don't expect Infogrames-owned Atari to bring out a videogame machine anytime soon -- if not forever. With multinational conglomerates such as Sony and Microsoft vying for console supremacy, it's highly doubtful that there will be room for another contender...
----- Oooh, Shiny!
As a fan of intellivision, I discovered intellivisionlives It is some kind of official intellivision emulator with lots of games. Even they have a xbox game.
And, trust me on this, these games are dorky and far from exciting to anyone who plays them for the game,
What are you talking about? Centipede? Missile Command? I play these games in MAME on a regular basis because they're utterly challenging, exciting, and fun. These arcade hits were the very definition of twitch gaming--concentrate with everything you've got, because if you don't, you're dead. This is videogaming immersion at its very, very finest. Give me Missile Command on my Xbox/PS2 with my big TV and I will be enthralled.
The coolest voice ever.
I wish someone with a heart (and a lot of cash) would buy the rights to all those Atari games and release them to the public domain where they belong, IMO. There are few cultural reference points for those of us in our 30s as powerful as the video games of the 1980s. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that they influenced many of us deeply, many of us who went on to pursue careers in computing precisely because we were so amazed by these cheesy little games. In a sense, many people posting here played a role (no matter how small or large) in the direction that computing and video games have gone and the continued cultural impact of them. After a while, you get the real sense that these games should rightly belong to everyone. I don't view them as products anymore, but rather a piece of history (history is defined partly in terms of how we got where we are now, right?) It seems morally wrong for Atari and a lot of companies from that time to continue milking these old games (and our nostalgia) for whatever few bucks they can get out of it.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
One can be a purist and play the actual arcade game.
After 20 to 30-odd years of wear and tear and 'bit rot', that is becoming impossible.
Enter emulation and the (dubious?) success of MAME--'arcade in a PC'. The weak point is that the arcade game ROMs that 'power' it are (likely) still copyrighted and is illegal to have them unless you have the corresponding arcade game hardware.
So some arcade fans/programmers avoid all that and program 'remakes' that play (almost?) exactly like the originals.
The problem with that is that the copyright/trademark owners may/will come after you.
Case in point: Look at the way the 'Tetris' people crack down on all the tetris clone games that are out there--including the historic original IBM PC version that was first coded in Russia and was hosted at an informative 'Tetris History' website.
So all that is left is to get official, sanctioned emulated versions such as the 85 games-in-1 CD Atari is putting out in order to 'stay legal'.
In the end, isn't 'staying legal' what's it all about?
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[Green Elf] "Ewww!" (dies)
(insert-coins-to-continue-music)
>;k
Gauntlet II? Gauntlet II? Heretic. Er, you are, that is - the infidel-type, not the game ...
<Muttering>Shots don't hurt other players... yet...</Muttering>
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
" Atari offically died when the Tramiel family killed it with the Jaguar..."
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.
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