Atari CEO Confirms the Company Is Working On a New Game Console (venturebeat.com)

Dean Takahashi, reporting for VentureBeat: Atari CEO Fred Chesnais told GamesBeat in an exclusive interview that his fabled video game company is working on a new game console. In doing so, the New York company might be cashing in on the popularity of retro games and Nintendo's NES Classic Edition, which turned out to be surprisingly popular for providing a method to easily play old games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda in HD on a TV. Last week, Atari began teasing a new product called the Ataribox. The video released on a non-Atari web site showed a picture of some kind of hardware product, but many people wondered if the teaser was fake. Others had no idea what the video was showing about a "brand new Atari product years in the making."

Comments

Sigh

[Captain Splendid]

$20 says this is vaporware. Any takers?

Re:Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's just another Emulator with pre-loaded ROMs, not interesting.

If they made a fully programmable console with ports for removable media - even if it was just emulating the 2600 - that's a little more interesting

A catchy tune more about the ZX Spectrum, but still: https://youtu.be/Ts96J7HhO28

Imagine a modern console platform anybody could cut software for without all the fuckery. Spicy

Re:Sigh

[Joce640k]

Nintendo's NES Classic Edition, which turned out to be surprisingly popular

Big difference: NES games were an order of magnitude better than Atari 2600 games.

Launching a 2600 emulator in a box will be a huge flop. Most of the games were shovelware if we're honest.

Re:Sigh

[TWX]

Based on your username I expect that you're of the same generation I am, and that the original Nintendo Entertainment System came out right about the time you were old enough to pay attention to video games.

For this generation an Atari 2600 would feel like a step backward, but for those who are only a few years older it might be just what they want, as it was the mainstream system when they were old enough to get into video games. In short, if it emulates the 2600 and even the 5200 or 7800 it would be aimed at children of the seventies more than children of the eighties.

Re:Sigh

[pr0fessor]

Wasn't Pacman, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong jr, Mario bros., and galaga all on atari also.The atari came out in the 70s and the nes in the 80s so the games look much better on nes but they were still a lot of the same games.

Re:Sigh

[Qzukk]

But that was what the switches were for! If you got tired of playing Combat with tanks 1-on-1, you could play Combat with 3 tanks versus 3 tanks! Or 3 tanks versus 1 fat tank! Not good enough? How about Combat with planes!

Re:Sigh

[93 Escort Wagon]

For this generation an Atari 2600 would feel like a step backward, but for those who are only a few years older it might be just what they want, as it was the mainstream system when they were old enough to get into video games.

My opinion is worth no more than anyone else's, but - I did "get into video games" way back in the Atari 2600 era, but I have little interest in an Atari 2600 throwback. The games were just too primitive, even though at the time they were fun.

The next generation - Amiga, Intellivision, etc. - is about as far back as I'd ever want to go... and, even then, I have to be in a particular mood to play those. I do actually own - somewhere - a bunch of "classic" re-releases of those games, ported to the PS3. They're fun to play, binge style, maybe once a year (or two).

NES games are probably the first where the gameplay was involved enough to hold one's interest without the graphics being so bad that your brain starts rebelling after a while.

Re:Sigh

[Jhon]

" but for those who are only a few years older it might be just what they want,"

I am of that generation and it's not really what I want. It would be a nice ADD ON to something that could play 8bit games and had 4 joystick ports. Hell... I'd be there if it could only play M.U.L.E.

Re:Sigh

[slack_justyb]

Imagine a modern console platform anybody could cut software for without all the fuckery. Spicy

Wasn't that supposed to be Ouya? I think the idea of having anyone cut software is great and all, but I don't think that model fits with consoles enough to be the sole model. I think that was Ouya's biggest fault, they just expected everyone to come to them. All of the really successful cut as you like games by indies usually go after PC first and let consoles come to them. Ouya thought that indies would want to target them because of licensing issues with the big three, but it doesn't seem like indies have massive problems with the big three's indie programs. Additionally, sans issues outright with licensing, I'm pretty sure indies look to get more eyes on their brand via the console more than anything else.

I'm all about championing Atari's rise from the ashes, but I'm three degrees past hyper-skeptical this will amount to anything that doesn't collapse shortly after take off. But I will say this, I'll be pleased as peaches if I'm insanely wrong about Atari.

Re:Sigh

[JackieBrown]

For me, the game has to be one I played when growing up. Then the nostalgia can overcome any shortcomings or unfair comparisons to today's games.

Re:Sigh

[darkain]

OUYA kickstarter person here, have two in my house. The reason OUYA failed is because the dashboard interface is a slow clunky piece of shit UI. The other reason is because of all the issues with the controller. Having it separate literally right at the analog sticks for the battery compartments was great in theory, but caused the analog sticks to have issues. Also, the four main face buttons would get stuck under the removable battery compartment doors, too. OUYA was ambitions, but failed miserably in the UX/UI department all around. This honestly makes me sad too, even to this day, because the concept was such an amazing one, but absolute shit execution beyond the main hardware of the console itself.

Re:Sigh

[Joce640k]

The games were lame then; they wouldn't survive beyond a five minute "OMG, I can't believe I once played this" session today.

Pretty much this. Nostalgia is one thing, reality will be another.

Re:Sigh

[Joce640k]

Based on your username I expect that you're of the same generation I am, and that the original Nintendo Entertainment System came out right about the time you were old enough to pay attention to video games.

What do they say about assuming?

I was in my 20s when the NES came out, been playing games a long time by then.

Re:Sigh

[Joce640k]

Wasn't Pacman, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong jr, Mario bros., and galaga all on atari also.The atari came out in the 70s and the nes in the 80s so the games look much better on nes but they were still a lot of the same games.

They had the same names on the boxes but they weren't comparable on screen. Not even close.

Re:Sigh

[ogdenk]

The 2600 was a joke. The fact that is all most people remember of Atari is really really sad. The 5200 was great with third party joysticks. The Atari 400/800/XL/XE were f**king awesome. The ST was a pretty cool machine and was decent competition for the early Mac and Amiga. Aside from the 5200 (basically a 400 w/ terrible analog sticks) and later Lynx handheld I have little interest in their game systems. Their computers were INCREDIBLY underrated.

I would rather see another attempt at a home computer than a lame nostalgia game console. Something in a smaller 800XL style case, decent keyboard, 4 or 8-core 64-bit ARM with a cheap, well-documented GPU..... maybe a real SSD instead of slow-ass SD, HDMI and a bunch of USB ports. Maybe a PCIe "cartridge" slot for expansion and break out some buffered GPIO pins. And maybe take a stab at a nice lightweight *NIX desktop OS and include development tools with LOTS of docs aimed at beginning programmers and hardware hackers. Maybe throw in some emulators for running old TOS/GEM or 8-bit stuff. I would buy that.

I want a nice hackable, open and fun machine again with usable performance, no Intel ME-style BS, no DRM and fewer levels of abstraction and blobs between me and the hardware.

Re:Sigh

[ogdenk]

NES games are probably the first where the gameplay was involved enough to hold one's interest without the graphics being so bad that your brain starts rebelling after a while.

The Atari 5200 wasn't bad but the game library was much smaller and the stock joysticks were crap. Other than that it was basically an Atari 400 computer with analog sticks. The 2600 was a turd and I'm not sure why that's all people remember of Atari. They had much better game systems and computers that were alive into the 90's. The 7800 sucked too as it was kinda a 2600 on steroids. I was more a fan of their computer lines.

Re:Sigh

[reboot246]

I'd buy something like that. I miss my old ST. I used a desktop publishing program on it called Pagestream and designed a lot of forms, including one my company still uses today. ST + Pagestream = awesome.

Re:Sigh

[Joce640k]

...and it was part of the problem.

People (bosses) insisted on porting arcade games just to get recognizable names on the cartridge boxes. Programmers hated doing it so the result was mostly crapware.

Re:Sigh

[Koen Lefever]

The Atari 400/800/XL/XE were f**king awesome. The ST was a pretty cool machine and was decent competition for the early Mac and Amiga.

Agreed.

Dont forget Atari also did the first MS-DOS palmtop PC and the ATW/Abaq in the late 1980s.

I was used to a Mandelbrot taking about half an hour on 8 bit machines, to a couple of minutes on a 80x86 PC. I was very pleased my Archimedes could do it in about 20 seconds, until I saw the Atari Transputer Workstation in action which was moving through and zooming in & out of the Mandelbrot set in real time.

Re:Sigh

[Wolfrider]

--2600 Space Invaders, Combat, Defender, Berzerk, Pitfall, Missile Command, Bump-n-Jump, Centipede, and Asteroids were playable for hours. Yars Revenge, Ms Pac-Man, Q-Bert, Frogger, Pole Position, Dig Dug, Adventure, Super Breakout and Vanguard were memorable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

--The Pac-man port to the 2600 was pretty blah compared to the arcade, but still playable. Thousands of ET cartridges literally ended up in a landfill, however. That game was a little buggy...

Don't waste your time on the article

[damn_registrars]

It's a couple paragraphs speculating a 22 second video clip of nothing. Do a google image search for the Atari Logo and you will be just as well informed.

Re:Don't waste your time on the article

[aliquis]

22 second video clip of nothing

google image search for the Atari Logo and you will be just as well informed

So which one is it?! ;D

Yawn

[Tempest_2084]

Why bother? Obviously it's not going to be a current gen console, so it either has to be a '2600 Mini' or something of that nature, or some sort of emulation box. They already have the Flashback series for the 'mini' crowd, and who wants to buy a crappy emulation box these days?

Re:Yawn

[HeckRuler]

Eh, it's a viable product for lazy consumers or those afraid of doing to intellectual property tango. It's bringing to the masses the capabilities that were previously held exclusively by geek or those who gave a damn and weren't idiots.

I'm surprised there's still a company called Atari and that it has a CEO!

Does it say something about our society when everything is a remake, reboot, or a retro throwback?

Re: Yawn

[arth1]

It's not an Atari joystick unless it squeaks.

Yes, but does it ...

[davidwr]

... play Pong?

Atari recycling old ideas again...

[__aaclcg7560]

You can always get the Atari Flashback 7 Classic Game Console. I would be much interested in an Atari 5200/7800 retro console, two generations I skipped because I had a Commodore 64.

Just a name, several times over

[Anonymous Coward]

Atari (home console company) died when they were reverse-taken over by JTStorage, a hard drive manufacturer, after the Jaguar failed. A whole three Atari employees joined the company (I think one of them did Jaguar technical support for a few more years). Even that tenuous link was broken when JTStorage when out of business and sold the Atari name to someone else. It's been passed around every since, and anyone claiming to be them now just bought the name from someone who bought it from someone, etc.

The arcade games half of Atari split off and followed it's own path to being a slightly-valuable trademark.

Re:Just a name, several times over

[__aaclcg7560]

It's been passed around every since, and anyone claiming to be them now just bought the name from someone who bought it from someone, etc.

I worked at Accolade when Infogrames went on a buying spree prior to the dot com bust. After they bought Accolade, they bought Hasbro Interactive that also owned the Atari intellectual property rights. It wasn't a coincidence that headquarters got moved from San Jose to Sunnyvale, home for the original Atari, and the company renamed itself to Atari. I believe that Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple personality disorders) is still behind the current Atari after the most recent bankruptcy. Whenever I wear an Atari t-shirt out in public, I still run into people who worked at the original Atari.

Re:Just a name, several times over

[ogdenk]

The fact that they killed their computer line to focus on the Jaguar was awful. The Falcon060 was a neat machine. Their 68030 machines weren't too bad either but they failed to market them in the US and delay after delay made the ST users feel like they were being sold vaporware.

And the Jaguar had some horrid defects from the get-go that made taking full advantage of the hardware nearly impossible. It was a neat game system but gambling the company on it was dumb. The 8-bit line and ST's were good machines with a rabidly loyal community built around them and Tramiel's Atari pissed it away.

Jaguar Mark II?

[RavenLrD20k]

Talk about skimping on the info. FTA: "But he said it is based on PC technology. He said Atari is still working on the design and will reveal it at a later date." That kinda points to a higher end system, but I'm with others on the thread. WTH is the point? Consoles only really made sense when PC gaming was laughable. Now it's cheaper overall to build a Mid-Level Gaming PC to handle your light browsing and heavy gaming better than anything a current Gen console can put out. I can't justify a PS4 or XBone purchase, regardless of the exclusives... what in Atari's plans that makes them think that I (and others) will justify them?

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[Tailhook]

Consoles only really made sense when PC gaming was laughable.

??

My last console was a ColecoVision in 1983; all the subsequent gaming that I've done has been on a PC of some sort. Yet I can see that consoles have "made sense" for a vast number of people, and indeed have succeeded in the market concurrently with powerful gaming PC equipment being widely available since at least the late 90's, conservatively.

I don't know what your definition of 'making sense' is, but it bears no relationship to the marketplace of paying customers that have been buying generations of consoles in the millions despite the wonders of gaming PCs.

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[RavenLrD20k]

When you had to put down $5,000 - $6,000 for a PC that could play the games available at the time as opposed to $200-300 on a console that had a larger library and arguably better graphics until EGA/VGA started becoming a thing... PC gaming didn't make sense. It was when Doom came out that the landscape really started to change towards PC's favor.

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[Tailhook]

$5,000 - $6,000

That's a huge exaggeration. I built machines with dual 3dfx, dual coppermines, adaptec SCSI gear and all manner or other crazy stuff and I have never spent more than about $1600. I could have saved at least 40% easily with slightly more modest gear a still have played every title on the market, and I built such machines for family members. There has never, EVER been a time when $5000 was needed to game on a PC. That's fable. Pure fiction. You either don't know what you're talking about or you're making stuff up.

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[DontBeAMoran]

He's talking about the era before graphic accelerators like the 3dfx.

Look at games before VGA, before sound cards. At best, you had EGA graphics and Tandy/PCjr audio running on 12~20MHz CPUs that had to do all the graphics one pixel at a time. But those games also had to support 8MHz CPUs, 4-colours CGA graphics and a PC speaker only capable of generating one programmable square wave frequency without any volume control.

That's what he's talking about.

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[__aaclcg7560]

[...] I was wondering if he meant Tom or Jerry [...]

A Cyrix processor? The founders' names were... drumroll, please... Tom (Brightman) and Jerry (Rogers).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrix

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[Tailhook]

He's talking about the era before graphic accelerators like the 3dfx.

If so then my original point stands; gaming PCs have been kicking it since the mid to late 90's and there has been a continuum of very popular consoles that have "made sense" in the marketplace concurrently with those gaming PCs from then till now.

Consoles are about surviving kids/pets and their slobber. Consoles are about optimizing for very specific hardware and getting highly consistent results with no effort on the part of the end user. Consoles are about zero hassle plug-and-play. None of these prerogatives are going away regardless of how cheap one can cobble together a low end, fragile, complex, malware ridden gaming PC.

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[Khyber]

"until EGA/VGA started becoming a thing"

How the fuck did you misunderstand this so badly?

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[Z80a]

I bet this time it will be at least as powerful as the original playstation and not have weird hardware bugs that lock down the system.

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[Z80a]

Even with VGA, consoles still had some advantages over the PC hardware.
The ISA bus heavily limited the fill rate of the video cards, making going over 40 FPS on a PC pretty much impossible, thus not as good as consoles for 2D platformers or fighting games.
But when the pentium (and it's PCI bus) came, PC surpassed consoles in everything and never actually got surpassed again.

Re:Jaguar Mark II?

[squiggleslash]

You are aware VGA came out in the late eighties, and EGA mid eighties?

I don't think so

[Kohath]

There's no reason for people to buy your game console.

Sony and Nintendo can sell consoles because they have a library of 1st party IPs, first class game publishing operations, and an extensive number of highly talented game creators. Microsoft is struggling because they haven't maintained this part of their business very well and they had a bad console launch.

Atari has none of this. No one will make games for your console. You can't write the billions of dollars of checks Microsoft wrote to get into the business. It's not going to happen. (Unless it's a tiny, cheap emulator box with games included, like the NES Classic.)

Re:I don't think so

[Ichijo]

No one will make games for your console.

False.

Re:I don't think so

[aliquis]

Sony and Nintendo can sell consoles because they have a library of 1st party IPs, first class game publishing operations

Speaking of which, have you seen the latest trailer of Super Mario Odyssey?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Say what you want about their re-usage of characters in other games, yet another version of their popular titles, the genre, whatever.. But could you see anyone else making it? With that polish and difference while still being true to the brand / similar enough for it to be exactly what people expect? Taking "the same" game and releasing it once again but still manage to make it different (the polish helps too, looks nice.)

Wonder how Metroid Prime 4 will look. Sure it would be even better if it could do nice graphics in 4K HDR too.

My Atari console

[crow]

Perhaps they're just looking at the retro market, but my idea would be to create a real console, or even partner with one of the existing companies, and create an add-on or special Atari edition of their console.

For classic games, create a USB cartridge reader (with the various game select toggle switches). The whole thing could be shipped with a built-in flash programmed with a selection of classic games and the emulator. Just plug in to the partner console, and it's a 2600 (or 5200, or 7800).

Extra bonus if the system is compatible with the USB Stelladaptor so that you could play with the real joysticks (which hopefully they would re-release for this system).

For example, if Microsoft bought Atari or partnered with them, they could put out the Atari edition X-Box, or offer it as an add-on for the X-Box.

www.ataribox.com

[DontBeAMoran]

All they have is a freakin' blank, empty page?

Comes bundled with Space Invaders

[jfdavis668]

Right right right right down left left left down ... pew pew pew

Hate the splash page. Loved the Jaguar.

[wjcofkc]

It drives me nuts when companies put up the most possible bare naked splash page for a product they want to me to be interested in. It is meaningless, and makes me suspicious. They could at least be open on where they are at... something... anything. I did like the Jaguar CD, mostly for Battlemorph. On the cartridge side, AvP was alright. I mostly liked playing the games they never finished. Something with a hover tank comes to mind. They also had the best rendered version of Rayman. Needless to say, I am not a serious gamer.

are there any good pay Emulators? that do more the

[Joe_Dragon]

are there any good pay Emulators? that do more then the free ones that per date them?

What about away to just buy the roms? so I can use the better Emulators that do way more then the pay ones that are warped with the roms? Some even have the DLC bs as well.

I hope they remake 2600 pacman

[Revek]

And ET.

Too late go home.

[Lumpy]

If atari thinks they can compete with PS4 and Xbone they are smoking some high grade drugs.
Look at Nintendo, the 900 pound gorilla that DESTROYED Atari... They are circling the drain themselves.

Unless ATARI comes out with full immersive VR and gets well known AAA titles for it out of the gate they might as well give up right now.

If you want the 5200

[rsilvergun]

get an Atari 8-bit computer. They're the same computer (with a few tweaks to the registers so Atari could try and control who released cartridges). Or an XEGS, which is a consolized Atari 800.

The 7800's a weird beast. You have to be careful you don't break the cartridge prongs off in it like I did when I was a kid (there's two prongs that it uses to connect a 7800 cart to the extra pins that let it be a 7800 cart). Otherwise you've just turned it into a 2600 until you pull it apart. The controllers suck, but IIRC you can use Genesis controllers. The games are kinda strange. Mostly arcade ports. The NES arcade ports are generally better though. But Pole Position II is superb and since it was the pack in cheap. Then there's Ball Blazer & Ninja Golf.

Re:If you want the 5200

[ogdenk]

The XEGS has a really mushy keyboard and is more like a repackaged 65XE. It'll run most software written for the 800 and what didn't run has probably been patched by now. The 800 only had 48K vs 64K and some minor OS differences. It was also built like a Sherman tank. Personally, I prefer a modded 800XL. With a cheap $10 FTDI FT232RL breakout board plus an SIO cable you can build an SIO2PC adapter with no additional parts and have the entire library at your fingertips. You can emulate up to 15 Atari floppy drives, printers, etc using a PC or Mac. The SIO2SD device is cheap too.

I'd skip the 5200 unless you really enjoy rebuilding analog joysticks. All the good exclusive 5200 titles were ported to the 400/800 anyway. And most of the games are ports from the computers. The only game I thought benefited from the analog stick was Star Raiders.

There is no Atari

[rsilvergun]

it's just a holding company for the Brand name. They're not really releasing a games console. It'll either be another X games in One or an Android console. Or both. But hey, maybe they'll make some nice hardware.

$$$ We've made retro-gaming easy for masses.. $$$

[WolfgangVL]

And now the masses are going to fuck it up for us, just like everything else we've made easy enough for the knuckle-draggers and technophobe crowd to figure out.

See:

OPEN AND FREE INTERNET. --------> Consolidated, abused, wholly surveiled, and walled.
HOME AUTOMATION. --------------->Consolidated, abused, wholly surveiled, and walled.
EMAIL. -----------------> Consolidated, abused, wholly surveiled, and walled.
etc...

Right now, I can run retro games on pretty much any hardware I like, it never calls home, it never tries to sell me some useless crap, it never forces commercials or ads, there is no DRM, no datamining, no surveillance, and I have a huge host of open and free softwares to choose from.

Dear masses,
Please stay TF away from my old games. They are far to difficult for you anyway. You already have plenty of candy to crush, cubes to endlessly click, and pokemon to collect.

Oh, so they can now go bankrupt a sixth time?

[bodog]

Such a low barrier to entry on this market, what could go wrong for Atari? Again.

Jag...

[Anonymous Coward]

Atari did some things right. For example, my Jag (from college) is now with my daughter (at college!), working well, and is incredibly popular among her dorm-mates. We even invested in rotary controller for T2K. Sometimes a company just "nails it", and Atari can do that, occasionally. That said, Atari isn't really Atari anymore, so who knows what is really going on. Could they revive the brand? Absolutely, but they've got to be brave and do it right. Hmmmm. Imagine a truly CHEAP VR rig that plays Jag games and older Atari titles in stereoscopic play. Price the entire rig, including headset, at like $149 and let people have fun playing a host of retro games in VR space...

Atari Jaguar II

[tezbobobo]

Wasn't the original Jaguar a pretty high spec machine?

Steam Machine?

[Zobeid]

If they had any sense, they'd just make an Atari-branded Steam Machine.

Sometimes I think Valve today is the closest thing that exists to the old Atari in its heyday, since they are bridging the gap between consoles and "home computers". Rather than try to compete with that, Atari should partner with them.

Re:Steam Machine?

[GNious]

If they had any sense, they'd just make an Atari-branded Steam Machine.

This is precisely what I'm expecting - a PC with something like Steam, nicely packaged up, and with a pile of old games in an emulator.

This is probably not a NES Classic style system

[jeepies]

They've been selling various versions of the Atari Flashback since 2004. There've been more than a dozen different versions of it and they've been releasing like clockwork before the holidays every year. We already know the Atari Flashback 8 Gold is out in September. I seriously doubt they have 2 retro consoles coming simultaneously. I also doubt they have a "mysterious" marketing campaign going for a console that's already been announced.

http://www.ign.com/articles/20...

Re:Nothing to stand on

[ogdenk]

What are you smoking? Their 8-bit computers, the ST and the Lynx were cool machines. I enjoyed my 5200 as a kid too.

If they can release a competitive console with comparable (or better) performance than Sony or MS at a similar price point I'd buy it.

For me it's about a cool machine, not a 3 way circle-jerk between MS, Sony and Nintendo. I'd buy a new Sega console too, I liked the Dreamcast.

They did launch a 2600 emulator in a box

[AC-x]

It has existed since 2004, and has apparently sold reasonably well