Rob Wyatt, the architect behind the original Xbox and someone Atari hired to work on the Atari VCS system is now suing Atari over their failure to actually pay up.
This is something we mentioned last year, when it was announced that Wyatt left Atari on poor terms, mentioning how they hadn't actually been paid for over six months and they were left with no choice but to leave the project. Since then, we've not heard much. Atari continued putting out their development blog posts, showing off pictures of units in production in China and delaying the release. Spotted by VentureBeat and confirmed here, Tin Giant (Rob Wyatt's company), are now suing Atari over a "Breach of Contract". According to the suit, Atari owes something around $261,720 which is no small sum.
All this is going on while Atari also mentioned in a recent update about COVID-19 and the VCS production, stating they had enough to build only 500 units by the end of March and those would be developer kits and none of them going to backers. They said they planned to "ship to all backers at the same time when enough VCS units and peripherals are available". Their wording is interesting, as they don't directly say it's been delayed but it quite clearly has been, again.
Real shame to see Atari constantly screwing up on this one. A Linux-powered, small form factor and quite stylish unit could have been great.
Not sure what I expect at this point, this is from the company who emails people on the Atari VCS list about their upcoming "Atari Casino" where you play with cryptocurrency including their "upcoming Atari Token"—oh dear. That feels pretty gross. There's a lot of trust issues going on, repeated delays and now a lawsuit over not paying someone they made a big splash about joining them.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje Apr 4, 2020
Quoting: OrkultusThe Final Fall of Atari is around the corner? Perhaps.Anyone remember when Commodore USA came about and was trying to make C64 and Amiga like cases? That pretty much ended after the guy died.
It will probably take something like that, but I guess the big difference is that Atari actually made a lot of games in the past that were fantastic. The problem is, most of them were arcade games, and really they needed something more complex then and now to have stayed relevant to software.
I have always liked their hardware designs, but my favorites were the 2600, 8bit line and then the Amiga. All created by the same lead engineer, Jay Miner. Too bad he isn't still around to make something cool.
I wish Atari luck myself, if they can eventually pull something out, cool. If not? Meh.
Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: OrkultusThe Final Fall of Atari is around the corner? Perhaps.Anyone remember when Commodore USA came about and was trying to make C64 and Amiga like cases? That pretty much ended after the guy died.
It will probably take something like that, but I guess the big difference is that Atari actually made a lot of games in the past that were fantastic. The problem is, most of them were arcade games, and really they needed something more complex then and now to have stayed relevant to software.
I have always liked their hardware designs, but my favorites were the 2600, 8bit line and then the Amiga. All created by the same lead engineer, Jay Miner. Too bad he isn't still around to make something cool.
I wish Atari luck myself, if they can eventually pull something out, cool. If not? Meh.
Yeah! i would love to see Atari strive..We need something more than the three main console providers. I did have an Atari 2600 for a while, it wasn't my fav. Although i do like Atari. I always wish i could of owned one of their old computer systems. This project sounds great though, and i do hope it can come into light. We need more consoles that allow more freedom to the user.
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