Atari Box = Cheap Linux Box

[number six]

https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/25/ataribox-runs-linux-on-amd-chip-and-will-cost-at-least-249/

Atari released more details about its Ataribox game console today, disclosing for the first time that the machine will run Linux on an Advanced Micro Devices processor and cost $250 to $300.

In an exclusive interview last week with GamesBeat, Ataribox creator and general manager Feargal Mac (short for Mac Conuladh) said Atari will begin a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo this fall and launch the Ataribox in the spring of 2018. The Ataribox will launch with a large back catalog of the publisher’s classic games. The idea is to create a box that makes people feel nostalgic about the past, but it’s also capable of running the independent games they want to play today, like Minecraft or Terraria.

The new box will have an AMD custom processor with Radeon graphics. It will run the Linux operating system, with a user interface it’s customizing for TVs. Mac said that the machine will run PC games, but it will also be capable of doing streaming, running apps, browsing the web, and playing music. As far as games go, the machine will run the kind of games that a mid-range PC can do today, but it won’t run Triple-A games that require high-end PC performance.

Well that about does it for the Atari Box.

Basically a cheap linux based gaming PC.

The astute gamer out there may remember when a few years ago a smallish PC company called Valve teamed up with garage PC manufacturer Dell to unleash something with the same concept. Sure it was $400 but it would play modern PC games (for the most part) and it tanked.. badly.

I mean seriously, how does Atari think it's going to get anywhere with this? They don't have the money to market it properly.. their games have been whored out so much it's not exactly a draw considering you can play Asteroids on just about anything.. Plus Linux gaming has been the great white whale for years.. I don't see Atari making it suddenly work where so many others have failed.

The other problem is we don't even know how much of Atari is behind this thing (or what's left of the name) anyway.

I'll be shocked if this makes it past the indiegogo or whatever.

[Shdwknt]

$300 for an emulator..

Ya no thanks.. not when I can build a piplay for $78 dollars and ensure all atari games upto and through the 90's arcades will be played and all the other consoles out there..

$80 for the SNES classic is about as deep as I will go for an emulated classic system - licensed.

[number six]

Dude, you are not looking at the big picture. With those specs you'll also be able to play the Linux port of Quake.

[k7]

https://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/games/asteroidsClassic/ateroids.html

[Shdwknt]

Hahahah ok well that makes a big difference.. I DEFINITELY wont be getting it.. I didnt like quake.

[Niloc]

I think they're giving it a shot because garbage like the OUYA gets funded and has a ton of hype and excitement behind it... at least before it actually comes out.

Must be confusing to be a huxter these days, people go nuts for the NES classic, but don't want the Genesis version of the same idea - sometimes people will buy crap, sometimes they won't, seems to be very hard to predict lately.

[Shdwknt]

Ya but sega.. is..  well sega.. they are the dirty step brother of the video game world.. they couldnt cut it as a console maker and basically fell off, now licensing its software to anyone that will pick up the pieces..

if sega really marketed the system.. it would be different.. I think that people feel the sega release wasnt really a proper sega product and didnt want it.  I dont believe that it is.. it might be .. but its like.. meh..

[Shdwknt]

"Ah, but buyer beware – AtGames products don’t have a great reputation. Their Sega classics tend to be poorly emulated, and a lot of the games pre-installed on their systems are actually lousy shovelware you won’t want to play. Is AtGames stepping up their game with the Sega Genesis Flashback? Possibly, but it definitely won’t be the kind of carefully-crafted product the NES Classic was."

end quote.

[number six]

I think the Ouya ruined it for these sort of devices though.. plus Atari already has a mixed reputation. The kids don't know what it is (or care) and the folks that do remember Atari know enough to know that Atari is no longer Atari.. and even if it was Atari's track record was pretty much a fail train for the last decade of existence.

A good chunk of their audience will be Joe Sixpack, but Joe Sixpack isn't crowdfunding.

Nintendo has been really good on protecting its name, its reputation and most importantly its games. You can't go buy a NES compilation for $6 like you can Atari or Sega compilations. Also as Shdwknt pointed out Atgames makes the Genesis plug in plays and they suck. They've also been making them for what.. 10 years in one form or another? Ditto with the Atari Flashbacks. Nobody is going to get excited about a new iteration of either of those especially if its $300.

For the Atari Box to succeed it would need new games.. not just 2600 compilations. How are you going to get developers to make new games for Linux? There's no market for that.. the Steam Box showed us that. Honestly they'd had been better off with an Android based system as at least you've got lots of publishers making games for the platform. You'd just need to be very selective about what games you allow on it unless you really do want to become Ouya 2. Of course how do you make money when half these games are on the Freemium model.. etc. etc. etc.

So anyway no, I doubt this gets passed the Indiegogo unless the target is super unrealistically low then it will get funded and fall apart.

[Shdwknt]

If it gets made.. it will be one of those stupid things that a few people will pick up and then sit on.. and in 20 years collectors might actually give a damn or it will have a falsified value based on so few exsist and that no one kept it.   

I too predict it going the way of ET and being dumped somewhere to be dug up in 30 years and a new youtube special will be made about it.

[Maverick1978]

To be fair, 2 points:

(1) Sega was a HELL of a console maker. Many of their systems eclipsed everything that was available at the time, and their marketing was great ("Sega does what Nintendon't"). Where Sega failed was in their leadership. Examples: They focused on the Saturn, a 2D system, at a time when 3D was the next thing. They released the 32x, rather then focusing on the next thing. They didn't encrypt the Dreamcast to ensure that CDR's couldn't be used with it, never dreaming that industrious gamers would rip games over the built-in RS-232 port and then compress the larger GD-ROMs down to fit on a CDR.

(2) The Atari Flashbacks have been overhyped for years... but you have to admit, the Atari Flashback 2 is cool as shit. PCB's manufactured with the idea that tinkerers would mod them with cartridge ports and the like? Genius! Almost like Jeri Ellsworth was involved... or had a fan in the Atari engineering dept.