It's now confirmed that Rob Wyatt, someone who Atari made a big thing over joining them has quit citing non payment of invoices for at least six months.
As confirmed by The Register who spoke to Wyatt, things have not been going well. Not only has Wyatt completely left the project, it sounds like Atari don't exactly know what they're doing. Originally, Atari said it would have their own Linux-based OS with an easy to use UI and their own store. According to sources The Register spoke to who've had direct contact with the VCS project, that might no longer happen. Sounds like it's turning into a regular Linux box now.
No game developers have signed up to make original games, which is something I expected after their first announcement about actual games years after the IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign was a retro streaming service. On top of that, they've not been able to pull in the big game engines like Unreal or Unity too.
Remember Atari also said they would fully support streaming services? Apparently that's not even happening either. Instead, you will be running services like Netflix or Amazon through a special build of a Chromium-powered browser. The whole Register article is worth a read, as it's really something.
Meanwhile, Atari have also put out their own update post on the same day likely trying to bury this bad news. It doesn't actually give us anything new, in fact it basically confirms have Atari don't really have anything to show. They explained that the pre-production Atari VCS units can run both Windows and Linux and that's about it right now.
The VCS team do claim they will be able to show their own UI, store frameworks and apps and more actually on a VCS unit to "a select group of press and partners" later this "fall". They also said they're still looking at a retail launch in "spring 2020".
I will be seriously amazed if they actually hit that goal. I still want them to, for everyone that backed them and to have a nice tidy Linux-powered box available like this would be pretty sweet. Let's see what happens but it's really not sounding good.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: peta77So it's heading the same way as the attempt to revive old times with the Amiga One: hyped at the beginning, delayed for several times and at the end nothing noticeable remaining...Well, unless it's someone with really deep pockets.
Though some more big players on the market would clearly help to push towards more platform independence in general, it seems that the stakes have gotten way to high for someone new to show up in the near future.....
Quoting: KohlyKohlThis is why I will never back anything before a final product has been released.I would, but only for something that I felt enough personal fondness for the idea and even the people involved that I wouldn't mind the realization that it might basically be a sort of charitable contribution.
we just wasted millions of dollars that could be better spend into funding an open source software instead of an console that had no chance to compete and was most likely an crash grab scheme,
Nintendo paid 1 billion to unity to support then back in the WiiU days, this project had much less money than that, why would epic, unity or anyone support then?
their dont pay for the cost of production of an single triple A game.
"They explained that the pre-production Atari VCS units can run both Windows and Linux and that's about it right now."
and as the last nail in the coffin, many people who purchased this, will not wait for the ports, they will just install winodos on it an call it a day, as an result, the developers who might be interessed in supporting it will just support windows instead.
we supported it hoping that it will increase the linux market but it will be yet another dead project hurting the linux "brand".
but at least now every one know an quick way to make money, an carmagedon-esque way of making.
slap linux on your project description, so you get an quick buck from
slaapliedje Oct 10, 2019
Quoting: peta77So it's heading the same way as the attempt to revive old times with the Amiga One: hyped at the beginning, delayed for several times and at the end nothing noticeable remaining...The difference I guess is that the Amiga One (and several models at that) finally came out. Problem, as always for platforms that are new (and really the Amiga One was, even though it could basically emulate old Amiga software, it's still a new platform) is that there needs to be developers working on software for it!
Though some more big players on the market would clearly help to push towards more platform independence in general, it seems that the stakes have gotten way to high for someone new to show up in the near future.....
Like if they had gotten a PPC version of the Video Toaster / Lightwave software plus the Tricaster working on it, maybe more people would buy them.
slaapliedje Oct 10, 2019
Quoting: elmapuli said it.According to some on the AtariAge forum, there were even people sending them emails asking if they wanted some games written for it, and there were either no response, or them saying no. These would have been exclusive remakes of Pitfall (at least) if I recall. So yeah, I don't know what the hell they are thinking. If they had done this right, it could have been pretty sweet, and it initially looked like they were going to, but it looks like they're just kind of flopping around (or is that fapping?).
we just wasted millions of dollars that could be better spend into funding an open source software instead of an console that had no chance to compete and was most likely an crash grab scheme,
Nintendo paid 1 billion to unity to support then back in the WiiU days, this project had much less money than that, why would epic, unity or anyone support then?
their dont pay for the cost of production of an single triple A game.
"They explained that the pre-production Atari VCS units can run both Windows and Linux and that's about it right now."
and as the last nail in the coffin, many people who purchased this, will not wait for the ports, they will just install winodos on it an call it a day, as an result, the developers who might be interessed in supporting it will just support windows instead.
we supported it hoping that it will increase the linux market but it will be yet another dead project hurting the linux "brand".
but at least now every one know an quick way to make money, an carmagedon-esque way of making.
slap linux on your project description, so you get an quick buck fromfoolsactivists, then give us an midle finger.
slaapliedje Oct 11, 2019
Quoting: GuestYeah, that is just plain old dumb!Quoting: slaapliedjeAccording to some on the AtariAge forum, there were even people sending them emails asking if they wanted some games written for it, and there were either no response, or them saying no.We (the Stella team) had an open offer to help get Stella running on the device. Not to do exclusive development on it, of course, but to point their own developers in the right direction. There was no response. Then months later, they said they would be creating their own 2600 emulator from scratch.
IME from similar past encounters with other companies, whenever someone doesn't want to use freely available software and would instead prefer to write an emulator themselves, it almost always means they want to lock the system down (and hence not have to abide by the GPLv2), or the product is going to be vapourware. I suspect the latter. It also usually indicates that their developers have no idea whatsoever about the workload they're about to take on.
I'll take this moment to thank you and the rest of the Stella team for creating such an awesome emulator for such an awesome system!
Makes no sense why they wouldn't just use Stella, as long as they aren't making a bunch of changes and refusing to distribute them, there is nothing wrong with using the GPLv2... Unless like you said, they either were going go lock it all down, or aren't really planning on releasing anything. Does the Atari Vault use Stella code?
Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: elmapuli said it.According to some on the AtariAge forum, there were even people sending them emails asking if they wanted some games written for it, and there were either no response, or them saying no. These would have been exclusive remakes of Pitfall (at least) if I recall. So yeah, I don't know what the hell they are thinking. If they had done this right, it could have been pretty sweet, and it initially looked like they were going to, but it looks like they're just kind of flopping around (or is that fapping?).
we just wasted millions of dollars that could be better spend into funding an open source software instead of an console that had no chance to compete and was most likely an crash grab scheme,
Nintendo paid 1 billion to unity to support then back in the WiiU days, this project had much less money than that, why would epic, unity or anyone support then?
their dont pay for the cost of production of an single triple A game.
"They explained that the pre-production Atari VCS units can run both Windows and Linux and that's about it right now."
and as the last nail in the coffin, many people who purchased this, will not wait for the ports, they will just install winodos on it an call it a day, as an result, the developers who might be interessed in supporting it will just support windows instead.
we supported it hoping that it will increase the linux market but it will be yet another dead project hurting the linux "brand".
but at least now every one know an quick way to make money, an carmagedon-esque way of making.
slap linux on your project description, so you get an quick buck fromfoolsactivists, then give us an midle finger.
of course they dont want, if they accept they would have to tell the developers about the specs of the device, this device dont even exist so they cant do that, they can lie with something but this like may leak and they will get in trouble to explain their selves.
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