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'Atari' are up to something

SeanR

By SeanR
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Ghost said:

Does Atari actually have any in-house development teams to make games for their new system or are they just farming out their IP to third parties?

 

This "Atari" doesn't own much of the Atari IP though. In fact, this is what they have:1986530087_Screenshot2020-04-24at14_01_37.thumb.png.67fb08d3d28ec9cbe6f843b02e828eca.png

 

You'll notice a lot of them are actually compilations of others in the list, duplicates, and in some cases (like Adventure 2) homebrew games. Missing "big" games include the likes of 720, APB, Badlands, Super Sprint, Hard Drivin', Klax, Marble Madness, Paperboy, Pit-Fighter, Rampart, STUN Runner, Toobin' and Gauntlet. Many of these were bought by Midway.

 

They have a full catalogue here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GTt13SyHyYCSOTUAyKCdHS0TOOthVzGT/view

 

I do like how they've had to nick photos and screenshots from other websites to illustrate their own games. Some are still watermarked!

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gone fishin

gone fishin

Posted
Posted

They haven’t included all the other IP they “own” from when Infogrames purchased Ocean and Gremlin Graphics (although I don’t know how much they have left after flogging some IP to PikoInteractive, Urbanscan and others). But then I don’t know if it could really be proven that they own the IP, I know Jon Ritman brought up that he still had a contract for royalty rights for Head over Heels which PikoInteractive seemed to deny at first, thinking they had total rights to it. 
 

It might be that they don’t see much value in UK focused game IP...

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merman

merman

Posted
Posted
On 22 April 2020 at 17:14, Lumpy said:

I'll make it a bit clearer then hopefully.

 

What I am saying is I am surprised/appalled that a company which has already taken a load of money from people who backed a project in good faith, has instead chosen to prioritise a gambling system to get more cash from punters, rather than actually produce the system for which they've already had the dough.

 

Still, the irony is sad isn't it, seeing as people were already gambling with their money when they chose to back this.

 

Fine. But you didn't reply to my point, which had nothing to do with the new console.

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

Posted
Posted
On 24/04/2020 at 18:02, gone fishin' said:

They haven’t included all the other IP they “own” from when Infogrames purchased Ocean and Gremlin Graphics (although I don’t know how much they have left after flogging some IP to PikoInteractive, Urbanscan and others). But then I don’t know if it could really be proven that they own the IP, I know Jon Ritman brought up that he still had a contract for royalty rights for Head over Heels which PikoInteractive seemed to deny at first, thinking they had total rights to it. 
 

It might be that they don’t see much value in UK focused game IP...

They don't have much of that stuff any more. 

Head over Heels is a weird one. Piko seem to somehow own the rights for the Amiga,PC and a few other versions ... But not the classic Spectrum version. A few other games are like that , too - Piko (or neo-Atari) own the ports and less well-remembered versions but not the 'definitive" versions. 

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  • 1 month later...
Anne Summers

Anne Summers

Posted
Posted

I see this is supposed to be shipping this month. Very interested to see how it turns out after all the fuss, and what people's reactions to the finished product will be. I have a feeling they will ship out something pretty lacklustre on the hardware side - not a quality product. The software will be half-arsed too, but at least they'll be able to use the line that it's a computer so obviously v1 of the software will be lacking, and that they will fix it over time if they get "user feedback" (sales).

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, amc said:

I thought this and Antstream were sitting in a tree together. Streaming old Atari games to the new Atari box?

Well all that really meant is that the Antstream app is available on the Atari console - a "special edition" version that will include 100 or so Atari games that don't appear on the regular Antstream app. (Antstream in return gets the right to add one Atari game per month to the regular service, for the duration of the agreement). 

So you have the rather strange situation where if you buy one of these boxes and have an Antstream sub, you get 2 versions of a lot of the Atari classics - you can play the Atari Vault versions (which I guess will be straight-uo emulations running locally) or you can play the Antstream versions which will be streaming and have all the Antstream added goodies like online leaderboards, challenges and tournaments. 

(Should probably note I'm not actually with Antstream any more and haven't been for a few months, so these plans could have changed I guess).

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, alex3d said:

Is Antstream still alive?

 

Very much so - recently signed deals with Team 17 and added Worms along with a load of their other Amiga stuff, and also announced that a deal has been done with Namco, so Pac Man will be coming soon.

I don't have any access to insider info any more so don't really know a lot more than is available on Google, but I would imagine this period of lockdown has been good for business - from what I've read, streaming services in general have seen their audiences grow substantially. 

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amc

amc

Posted
Posted

They know the only people who will buy it are the hardcore nostalgia nerds and collector crowd. The types who buy this shit at any price. Might as well gouge those people and sell off any left overs in the bargain section. Perhaps some of the higher ups will snag a few dozen for Ebay silly sales further down the line when they become scarce. By all accounts the people at the top are just a bunch of chancers with hair brained plans who'd stoop to any shit for a dollar. Atari bitcoin etc. 

 

At least Feargal Mac, he of the wretched and undelivered? Game band and Atari watch bullshit is no more. With him gone I at least expect it to actually launch. And I think Walmart wouldn't be too happy if they open pre-orders only for the machine to be vapour.

 

I do think it'll be a fairly low number manufacture run mind.

 

 

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amc

amc

Posted
Posted

I know, pretty obvious but I was trying to convey they wouldn't be averse to each putting a few aside to flog on Ebay further down the line. Low rent hustlers would probably have been a better description.

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Oaf

Oaf

Posted
Posted

Atari’s marketing guy commissioned us to make a VR game using their remaining IP, for an “indie budget”. We came up with a mashup of Centipede and Missile Command, for Vive and Rift, which they really liked.

 

When marketing bloke went to the CEO for sign off, the CEO revealed that by “indie budget” he meant “about five grand”. 
 

At least marketing bloke was visibly embarrassed when he apologised for wasting our time.

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Oaf said:

Atari’s marketing guy commissioned us to make a VR game using their remaining IP, for an “indie budget”. We came up with a mashup of Centipede and Missile Command, for Vive and Rift, which they really liked.

 

When marketing bloke went to the CEO for sign off, the CEO revealed that by “indie budget” he meant “about five grand”. 
 

At least marketing bloke was visibly embarrassed when he apologised for wasting our time.

 

Well they have got to save their millions for their hotel chain plans haven't they? 

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