Except they never opened it up for taking orders at all. Many people thought they never had any money to begin with.

My whole thinking is... did they actually have a prototype? Did they finally take some advice and decide to do the funding launch sometime in the spring so that they aren't asking for 250-300 RIGHT before Christmas for something people wouldn't have in their hands until MAYBE August of next year?

Who knows, but some pages said they've postponed it 'indefinitely' while the email said 'paused'.

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For what it's worth, the one guy over on AtariAge who said he was working with the AtariBox people said that he is no longer working with them and that it had something to do with some accessory they couldn't get working.

Not sure that is actually worth anything. He also said he'd be working on the Gameband instead. Which has been delayed over and over again, something about trying to get a water resistant rating and the USB-C port not fitting the design well enough.

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Quoting: KuJoI quote myself:

Quoting: KuJo

QuoteThe 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.

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

I don't have anything to add, just to quote you quoting yourself. :P

Yeah, some keep missing that it's 'and some mid-range' stuff. So it being Linux based, I was pointing out that Mad Max and Shadows of Mordor are both available for Linux, and I think both have their own benchmark, so I guess once it's out (if it comes out) then we can throw those at them and see how 'mid-range' vs 'triple A' vs 'only old console games' it can handle.

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Quoting: doomwarriorxI have no idea but if I would have to build a box for 300$ using an AMD APU. I would try to build something like this:

http://rhomb.io/shop/hyperion 45€ -> Mainboard with USB, Wifi, Bluetooth for Wireless controllers, USB for more controller ;-)
http://rhomb.io/shop/amd-rx-421bd 192€ -> AMD RX-421BD 4 Core 2,1Ghz with 512 Shader GCN 1.2 graphic card
8GB DDR RAM 70€
Casing 20€
32GB SD-Card Class 10 20€
---> 347€ Raw price

Minus bulk discount (for buying 5000 units) of lets say 25%
---> ~260€

seems to be too tight. The stuff has to be manufactured, boxed and they want to make some revenue. Wouldn't expect too much. But I think it will be an R-Series APU it is sold for this niche.

I guess it really all depends on their distribution model (hardware + software). If they're able to sell huge numbers of them, it could be on par with PS4 hardware? But you're right, if they are smaller gains, they won't be able to get the parts for as cheap, so less profit. If they're planning on having a digital 'Atari' store (which is what they've hinted at) and it can get some decent content, they may be able to to 'pull a Valve' though unless their store fixes a lot of the Valve issues (like DRM?) then I don't see it being anywhere near as successful. But then again I guess they don't have to catch up with Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo to be really considered successful, as long as they get some money coming in to do even a small amount of what they're doing, it's still more money coming in than going out, I would think.

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Quoting: 14Is it really $300? I haven't seen the price posted. If that's true, that's too much based off the spit of info we have. To me, it sounds like it's only powerful enough to play old pixel games. If that's the case, it should be more like $100 for the convenience package and good looks. Otherwise, I'll just hook up a $100 computer from Craigslist to my TV.

I think they hinted that the 'wood grain' version (with real wood!) was going to be the $300 model. And yeah, it's an AMD based system. Could be around the same spec as the PS4. Who knows until they announce it though.

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Quoting: Colombo

Quoting: slaapliedjeOblivion and newer they added auto-scaling of creatures. So you can go anywhere at the beginning will still have lower level enemies.

That is not true, not true at all. Autoscaling was there since maybe Arena, for sure from Dagerfall.

Problem was mostly in design philosophy.

There are basically two branches of design, as seen by people. One is fun roller-coaster, construct system in a way to allow player be constantly challenged.

The other is basically pre-created world.

First can feel a bit artificial and when you screw the balance, it is BAD.

Second can have a lot of boring places, some people don't like when they play the game "incorrectly", become too strong and then complain that they don't have any challenge and game is too easy. This approach is problematic especially when game is very linear. Different builds can have different strengths and without way to get some extra XP, player can become stranded, unable to defeat next encounter, but having a no way to get his character stronger.

Morrowind is the later approach, Oblivion and Skyrim the former. So like Gothic, Morrowind has a plenty of characters premade and put into locations by hand. Characters are generally not levelled dungeons and so on. Still, there are random encounters (in outside as well as in dungeons). Those are leveled. But each creature and each location have some level range. Some creatures will not spawn if you are far away from their level. Some will level you only in their level range, i.e.:

range 8-13. Which means that if you are below 8, monster would be in level 8 (if it spawns at all) and if you are above 13, monster will be on level 13 (if it spawns at all, again).

However generally, unlike Oblivion and Skyrim, Morrowind was "broken" by design. Level didn't mean a lot and Morrowind provided PLENTY of powerful ways (magical items, potions, training and powerful armours and weapons if you know where to find them) how to deal with enemies.

Oblivion on the other hand was broken by balance. The used system is not significantly different than Morrowind. Problem was that they tried to make it more important and provide the roll-coaster feeling for players, but they screwed balance and monsters leveled with player all the time. In addition, their power usually (unless you played super-efficient) grew more quickly than player. Which made game actually easier if you didn't level at all. In addition, all equip was autoleveled as well. This means even the almost-unique armours like ebony, daedric and glass were quite common, glass in particular, as light armour, was present on every single random bandit. Oblivion removed a lot of freedom and "exploits" from Morrowind, so it wasn't that easy to combat those overleveled monsters.

They realized it and in Skyrim, they got rid of most of their system completely. Skyrim got rid of all the useless stats and instead put there perks, which can work better for specialization and creation of interesting characters. Unfortunately, they botched it again my making plenty of perks boring. The autolevel was also much better, leveling weapons and armour as well. However, leveling monsters was done in a bit boring way (not that anyone else figured how to make it better), their AI is usually poor and thus monsters have to rise in both HP and DMG. Which makes them bullet sponges. This makes every character slowly approach the master class: archer assassin. Which through sneak attack and hiding back can deal with those bullet sponges. Still, if you don't try to play it on legendary, its fine. Especially if you have immortal followers who can soak some attacks. Or you are summoner.

I think we're talking about the same thing, but in different terms. Morrowind was more like a typical D&D module, if you considered various areas as 'modules'. Where each module/area would be leveled to a specific level of creatures, so even if my character was level 5, if I wandered into a nastier place, I'd be fighting Daedra instead of bandits. In oblivion I'd just run into bandits. It was REALLY noticeable when you're roaming the land in Oblivion and the random encounters went from wolves, to bears to TROLLS!

For what it's worth, Daggerfall was REALLY random. You'd go into a random dungeon (as opposed to story dungeons, which were pre-made) and you'd spend hours running around killing bats and orcs, then randomly a Lich would pop through the wall and kill you. Game was really buggy, you could get a job to kill off some rats in an abandoned house, and run into skeletons right off the bat.

One of the designs that were great and one of the first 'open world' games are the Ultima ones. Where you were plopped down into the world with not a whole lot of background story and you have to go about your business with some sort of grind, but especially Ultima IV where you have to act appropriately with NPCs and do things like give money to beggars for Compassion. But it didn't really scale monsters, while it didn't have that many to begin with, it seemed to scale more upon how big your party was vs what level your character was.

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To be fair, my Jaguar+JagCD cost 310 back when I got it new. That was just over 20 years ago. If you go by what they said in the interview, it'll be 'Open' so in theory we could wipe whatever it comes with and just stick whatever we want on it. Hopefully they at least try to pack some value into it, to try to get people to not do that, otherwise it just may become another little streaming box for most (game streaming could be nicer than the Steam Link, for example.)

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Quoting: razing32

Quoting: dvdI should play it already! :( I consider TES to be in my top 5 favorite games. Unfortunately, i have never played through morrowind before, but with OpenMW and OpenCS going strong, i think it is high time to do that, also discover the mods (and maybe try a bit of modding). It's really awesome how some developers manage to give a new life to old classics.

You should give it a go. It's a different experience to what came after.
I started on Oblivion and then played Skyrim before going back to Morrowind.
The experience is much more deep and it does little hand holding. Just be prepared to read a lot and deal with a VERY unwieldy journal.

The one major difference between Morrowind and what came after is Morrowind really more like some old school RPGs. Oblivion and newer they added auto-scaling of creatures. So you can go anywhere at the beginning will still have lower level enemies.

In Morrowind, if you go into some of the dungeons where you don't yet belong, you'll get slaughtered quick! The balancing in Oblivion was terribly broken until some mods fixed it. It was so unbalanced that when you get high enough level all of the bandits around would have high level armor, to the point where you end up just leaving all of it behind.

I still need to re-win Morrowind's main campaign so that I can take on the expansions.

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So when are they adding VR. :P Morrowind is still my favorite Elder Scrolls game, and I'd prefer to play that over SkyrimVR.

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Quoting: WJMazepas

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: WJMazepasIt's not Android, nor Android or Chrome OS works with AMD CPU. And if they were using Android they would say it rather than saying its linux because to Android is more known to the general public than linux

android DO run on x86, i dont know why it would be compatible with AMD.

I dont know the specific information why, but Android only works with intel CPUs in X86 version. You can even see that in the Android x86 page.

Also, if they were going with Android, the best route would be go with a Snapdragon or even Tegra X1 because the support for Android is really good, a lot of games already were ported to Shield TV like Doom 3 BFG, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 5.
Besides it runs 4k UltraHD content from every streaming app availabe on the Android like Netflix, HBO GO and Amazon Prime

That's not entirely true. I have (now non-working) an HP Touchsmart that has a Turion X2 in it that ran Android x86, it even supported the touch screen and everything. Downside was as soon as they released a version that did that, I had booted it up, and then randomly the screen became corrupted and after that it was simply dead. So not sure if Android killed it or.. well it is an HP.

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