I'm already looking into upgrading & overclocking the RAM in this, and of course increasing the shared video RAM once I've done that - then I'll be doing some before and after comparisons! I've seen some benchmarks that have managed to increase the performance of the VCS by up to 50% using these methods. Of course SteamOS isn't the only option, there's also Batocera and even Windows, of course. Is there anything else you'd like to see me try on the VCS? Comment below!
One thing that helps quite significantly with keeping the temperatures / fan noise low is removing the back plastic piece. It doesn't look too pretty without it but reduces temps by 5-10 °C. I was thinking about adding another fan inside but there just isn't enough room anywere near the vents. To Atari's credit, I've read somewhere that the machine was supposed to be fanless but the chip AMD provided just could not cope with it so the active cooling solution had to be added quite late in the design process.
the negativity you start out with is really unnecessary. I was a teenager when the American 1983 console crisis happened, and THAT was a horrible failure. Games went from $40 to $2, thrown in Video Game "bins". The latest incarnation of Atari has very recently put out some more games for the unit, I believe the Steam store is upgraded quite a bit. While it does go on sale discounted, it's still selling from the original website, and not dumped on third-party sellers. The fact that you found faults is unsurprising given the attitude you start with, and my response was "of course it's fixable"!! Did you think it was not meant to be upgradable? That seems to me the whole point of the PC aspect! It's very difficult to upgrade pure emulators like the "2600+" and Atari 400 Mini. The Atari 7800+ with bluetooth is coming out and TH-camrs are alreadt whining about not getting that feature with their 2600s. It's like Atari name is cursed and they can't be credited with doing anything right!
I got my unit as a backer and I'm happy with it. The Store items are sorted by release date by default, thus you can't see Atari 50 near the top. It's been a while since it's been released. Also, I suggest getting the content when it's on sale. There are some nice deals throughout the year.
When I saw the Atari 50th Anniversary Collection I wondered what I could play it on. Playstation? X-Box? Switch? Atari VCS?! Waitaminnit! Atari VCS? Tell me more! Those other game consoles never had any attraction to me because I didn't see anything I wanted to play on them. I'm not much for first-person shooters. I never had Nintendo or the original Atari VCS 2600, so I'm really not interested in those. I was all about the video arcade games and my Atari 800 Home Computer. Having been originally designed to be the successor to the 2600, the games on the computer looked and played much better. I usually bought them as graphics demos to figure out how they did that. My "games" were Atari 8K BASIC and the Assembler/Editor cartridge. I also enjoyed the Music Composer cartridge. What sold me on this machine was the look of those arcade games. They look almost exactly like the games I spent so much time shoving quarters into back in the day. Those Atari games were always the best. I don't know about SteamOS, I was hoping to use something I could install an Atari 800 emulator on. Now that I'm retired I've considered getting a game console to see what all the buzz was about. This is the only one I can seriously get interested in. A few rough edges don't surprise me. I thought Atari was long gone. The corpse is struggling back to life and I'm ready to forgive a lot if it can really help me play those games I enjoyed so much. The "PC side" is the real saving grace of this "console," and opens up so many possible alternatives.
It’s basically a nearly 4yo $350 laptop repackaged into a console. The APU is essentially the same as the Ryzen 3 3200U. I got a backer collector’s unit and had no problems with it, but I also only use mine at 1080p on a wired Ethernet connection. Updates taking 10-20 mins. can be a little nerve wracking. I upgraded mine to 16GB (4GB assigned to GPU) and a 512GB M.2 SSD and have both Windows 10 and Fedora Linux installed on it.
I have one, and it does what it's supposed to do. I have friends who have not played games in quite a few years, I talked to them about getting a vcs. I say that because you not only can play Atari games but Xbox Gamepass and play your Steam library. If you look at it as a mini budget pc, it's a great deal. No, it's not an Xbox or Playstation or Nintendo, but if given a chance, you can have a lot of fun with it.
Indeed, I'm going to be upgrading the RAM and overclocking and seeing how much performance I can squeeze out of this beast, so watch this space. I must admit I did find the default Atari offering a bit underwhelming though.
@ctrlaltrees I agree it definitely could use some upgrades, but I believe for most casual users, it works fine or good enough. I know for a while they had a problem when new customers tried to set up the console it would start to update and just get stuck on 2 of 4 and never finish. My friends actually did that, and it just needed to be flashed. The bad part was Atari had been contacted and never offered to help anyone. It was an easy fix if you some what know what you're doing. My issue was what about customers who don't know how to do any of this stuff? Yes, people like us do, but most don't know where to start. Are you going to try the 2600 plus? I never owned the original, so I don't have the warm spot in my heart for the system some do. I heard the failure rate is 1 to 2 %. The emulator they use is horrible, and you assume for 50 year old games they could have done better.
Hey, just a heads up, in the "Atari Vault", if you choose a game, and choose "options", you can can change button mapping and have Asteroids use the thumbsticks as opposed to the d pad.
Used my unit as a daily workhorse and emulation box since 2020. Since my homeoffice is Atari-themed anyway, this one fits in perfectly. Need to upgrade ram soon to get the best out of it though. As an Atari computer user from the 90's there's just some magic having able to use a modern Atari computer for my daily tasks. How many other homecomputer brands lived long enough to manage that...
I love mine. I haven’t played any other console since I got it a month ago. Caverns of Mars Recharged is a blast. I’m sure the novelty will wear off after a while, but for now I’m digging the heck out of it. Tip: the Vault volume 1 is preinstalled, volume 2 is in the store. It’s not as good as volume 1 but it’s free. Also, the Atari 50 for VCS makes better use of the controllers than the Vault. And pick up a cheap keyboard/trackpad combo for the streaming services and for use with Missile Command Recharged.
Does the stick's rotation feature work with Atari 50? I've been playing the collection on Switch, and it'd be nice to have a controller option for the spinner (and the trackball) ...
Not sure what's up with the missing Atari 50. I picked it up on my VCS and really enjoy it as much for the historical aspects as I do for the games. There is even a mention of the Falcon...
I did find it after recording - you can search or scroll down a few pages. It's very odd that it isn't more prominently promoted, though. I'd stick it right on the home screen if I were Atari (if not bundling it for free).
A Atari VCS user here! If your curious about the companion app, its completely garbage and isn't all that useful and only lets you use your phone as a super delayed controller with a and b or as a touchpad and very limited keyboard, wish it did more. Also if you want to leave apps, you need to hold the menu button down like the PS5 controller for a second. As for the store, it actually does lets you search for specific games, you have to press the start button and a search menu will appear. Anyways, modding a custom OS on it and adding extra ram and ssd space is absolutely the best thing you can do with it.
I just got the Atari VCS, and wow. What can i say. Too bad it doesnt get more attention. its a great solid platform. It definitely has what every console sets out to do. Which is have its own identity. It is a place to play all the Atari published games. With a few exceptions.Ive bought up most of the big games on the store. All the official Atari Releases are just spot on. Absolutely love it.
This was doomed from the start. They chose a generation 1 Ryzen embedded chip. Basically a 2017 design cut down to run billboards and ATMs. For the price it would have needed much better software and be able to play somewhat modern games.
For the $300 (or around there) price there wouldn't really be a way to have anything that can run modern AAA games anyway, but they could still sell a polished OS / UI experience and rely on indie and lower end games, older AAA games and their own emulators. IMO the hardware is ok, technically it can run several thousands of PC games (just not any modern high end AAA stuff), the issue is that it can only do it by working around Atari's broken software instead of through it.
I looked into low-power AMD Ryzen Embedded CPUs with integrated graphics a few years ago, when the R1505G and V1605B were being offered in low-profile, fanless or quiet systems, largely because I had been running a power-hungry (and noisy) Intel system for years and wanted something more rational, with these CPUs being rated at 15W. Reviews were a bit mixed, although reviewers often seem to have unreasonable expectations. In the end, the 35W "GE" versions of Ryzen CPUs weren't readily available, and so I went for a 65W "G" version of a Ryzen 5 CPU instead, which is decent enough for general purpose computing and software development. It probably isn't great for high-end gaming, but nobody should be expecting a great high-end gaming experience with these integrated graphics CPUs. This R1606G happens to be pretty close to the Athlon 3000G which, again, won't satisfy gamers, but it is a reasonable desktop CPU.
They weren't going to include an extra powerful CPU to put it in competition with Sony/Microsoft if they couldn't bring equivalent exclusive games and online features either. Atari doesn't have those resources. This was a decent foray into hardware and logistics to develop a real console one day.
My 2600+ did not come with a branded HDMI cable - now I'm annoyed! I was literally just thinking about that last night because I was switching back and forth between a couple systems and I like to keep my cables together with what they came with, but I thought "eh, it's not branded or anything so who cares". I had no idea some were! Mine came from a later batch so maybe this was one of the perks of the first run. As for the VCS, I remember the original IndieGoGo campaign and I had at least signed up for updates or something, but I was discouraged by many, many people on AtariAge from buying one, so I never actually put money down. Now I kinda want one again, seeing that it's actually a real thing and not just something they shoveled out and forgot about. I think it's actually pretty cool even just as a mini-PC. Also, Wreckfest looks awesome; I don't know how I'd never heard of that. Gonna have to check it out. Looks like an update to Destruction Derby, which was one of my favorite games on my 486.
I backed the indigogo campaign. Pretty jealous of that low number collectors. Mine is 3700. I haven't used it in ages but it does look nice on my console shelf.
As a Mini PC that you can run Steam OS or whatever it's decent. As a standalone game console it leaves much to be desired. I'm glad Atari is putting their new games on Steam in addition to the VCS store... though at least the VCs has encouraged Atari to make new games
The classic joystick doubles as a paddle controller apparently. A bit awkward I would guess, but worth a shot with Breakout (and Kaboom! If they have it).
I’ve been eyeing one of these as a huge fan of Atari and there’s a big Labor Day sale going on rn. It’s half off so I’m finally diving in. I plan on using it as a full on retro/indie machine. I’m really big into boomer shooters so I’ll load the thing up with those, modded DOOM and shit like that
That flashing lights speaker was really, problematically distracting for me. I ended up watching with half the video scrolled off-screen for a chunk of it.
Great video - so does Breakout actually work with an analogue option then? It looked unplayable with the d-pad but later on I saw it running more smoothly.
Yes, it works fantastically well with the joystick controller (rotating the stick to use it as a spinner) and another commenter has informed me that there are options to remap the controls, which I somehow missed.
Get Thrustlander for it, which is great. You have to like Gravitar. Gravitar recharged is good but not as good as Thrustlander. As you had researched the console before getting it, I am sure you knew a lot of the issues before hand. Though it is good to see what a novice would feel like using it. You want a 4k machine, get a ps5 or an Xbox Series X. This is definitely a 1080 console. Oh Foodfight is a new game and is console exclusive. It also has Tempest 4k. I have that on PC and did not like it much.
Forgive me if this has been mentioned in the comments, I only read about half. My guess is that the banding on screen is caused by the Atari putting out a 30 or 60 Hz signal while in the UK you would normally get a 25 or 50 Hz signal. I have a similar monitor, if you press the (only) button on the back and go into the menu, then information, it will show you the refresh rate. It may be possible to set your video camera to the same number of frames per second as the refresh rate, and that may fix the video issue.
The rolling on the monitor kinda looks like the LED backlights being PWM'd at a frequency which upsets your camera. Have you changed the brightness since the last time you recorded it?
Always a bit of a shame if it doesn't actually capture that nostalgic experience. I was thinking about the why as well, I always liked the custom chipsets for these machines that made them a bit more unique. Weird probably. :)
I upgraded the ram and dual boot debian on it... though honestly haven't booted into Debian in a long time, there are some really good games for it now, still waiting on Unsung Heroes to release!
I really want a new VCS, but they are all US shipping only on the Atari website. Is there some way to get these that I don't know about in the UK? Of course, I'm not paying the stupid scalper prices on ebay.
Hi Rees - nice video - I was wondering what is that thing you have in screen that is raining green digital dots like the matrix ? Its cool and I wanna buy one !
It's probably not the best if I see one of these official retro boxes and my impression isn't "how can I put more contemporary games on it" but "how can I turn it into an emulation box".
The problem with the lines on the screen would be down to the Hz rate. if the device is not able to go as fast as the recording device cam it will band the screen, then downgrade the recording hz rate will solve the problem
There are no differences in HDMI standards between the two countries. If the power adapter is not properly filtering out the 50hz line frequency, then that's a problem.
@@redleader7988 Actually, the frame rates accommodate a wide range of vertical refresh rates from 24 fps to 120 fps, which includes a 50 Hz and 60Hz rate. US devices will default to 60Hz and UK devices will default to 50Hz to prevent this exact scenario. It is quite possible that it can be a noisy power supply, but due to the nature of switching supplies, I seriously doubt it. I'd say it is more likely the frame rate of the camera beating with the frame rate of the display.
ChimeraOS might be a better version over holoOS. The state of modern Linux gaming is very good. And without a window os eating up all the resource you can often get a better experience even via proton. Not to mention older windows games 9x era ones generally run via proton with no issues either. It's a shame because it's basically a poor laptop packaged nicely in an Atari shell.
I've no specific examples, but I have read that a lot of modern devices come from the factory with a firmware that is just designed to download and install the latest firmware. It has no functions apart from that.. This makes sense, from a security point of view, but could be annoying if you just want to use the device offline.
I love the look of it, but you would probably be better off and get a more powerful system and better gaming experience buying a modern Ryzen mini PC, installing HoloISO or ChimeraOS on it along with a nice controller. Done.
Perhaps the banding on the display when captured via a camera is due to the refresh rate being slightly off which IIRC is also the case for "real" VCS/2600 units. There's no sane reason to do that while running the menu system but well, it does feel a bit slap-dash so possibly. IIRC different VCS games uses slightly different number of lines and thus refresh-rates, but critically there's no number of lines that result in either of 59.97 (NTSC, what it should have outputted) or 60 (lots of computers) due to the master clock being slightly off.
Just change the refresh of the output? Though some GPU drivers are really limiting the options there. And even more so on mobile chips I suppose. Should still be at east some that are less camera incompatible.
Purchased the VCS bundle back on 2/14/2024 and it too needed to have the OS flashed. As you stated, this is a TERRIBLE experience and the posts I’ve seen go back a few years so this issue has been around. The disappointing part is that years later Atari is still shipping stock out of their warehouse that needs the OS flashed.
I ordered one during their Labor Day sale 2024, and it arrived yesterday. I too had to flash the OS, though I must say it went very smoothly. Twenty-five minutes total time, maybe thirty. And that included downloading flashing software, joining the VCS discord to get the newest image, and cleaning off the USB drive I was using.
None of these nostalgia based reboot systems ever light a fire under me. For me retro computing is literally that, the original equipment of the past even with all the issues they often suffer with. I don’t wish to be critical of the developers by any means but just not for me, I’d compare it with looking at other people’s holiday photos! 😂 As for the app issue, it's certainly becoming a huge problem with equipment and anything that 'requires' an app to wok nowadays I’ll avoid like the plague, it's just a doorstop in waiting.
so disappointing that the device isn't functional out of the box. now i have to do tons of troubleshooting to figure this brand new purchase (from the Atari website itself) to get this device working!
I ordered one during their Labor Day sale 2024, and it arrived yesterday. I had to flash the OS, though I must say it went very smoothly. Twenty-five minutes total time, maybe thirty. And that included downloading flashing software, joining the VCS discord to get the newest image, and cleaning off the USB drive I was using.
It may have been one of the better products on the Ryzen Embedded line, but various "G" model APUs were a lot faster: the 3400G is twice the performance, for instance, having twice the cores, threads, L1 and L2 cache. And the Athlon 3000G, which is merely Athlon-labelled for market positioning, is quite similar in performance terms to the R1606G featured here. Those other products need a cooler and consume more power, of course.
I was on the fence about buying one of these but I don't see anything worth spending $300 plus the ongoing charges for more games. I'll stick to my Switch and maybe just buy a 2600+ for $130.
I've tried to play antstream on my Nvidia Shield. I've never been able to get it to work for the free games so i just launch Asphalt 8 and enjoy hours of racing goodness. I think i stick to my Nvidia Shield with Retroarch. This is a non Atari console for the Atari fanboys to have on their shelves. Disappointed. Do you know what worries me is the American TH-camrs alway hype these units up. Are they getting paid for the hype? It seems to me that it is an underpowered laptop pcb in a cheap case without a keyboard and screen. Nice to see you change it into Steam Deck. Loving your channel Rees.
I think the majority of the "hype" came when expectations of any delivery by the new Atari were REALLY low. So the bar was set extremely low, which this system exceeded. With some of the more recent successes with the 2600+ the bar has moved ever so slightly higher now. This makes the VCS really disappointing, but a cool design with some amount of fun playing it. I've enjoyed mine with all its warts.
Thanks for the comment. I also have a Shield and I'm very happy with it. The main problem for me with AntStream is my internet connection. Kind of odd that they went with a streaming setup rather than just downloading the ROM and running it locally in an emulator.
Remove the crappy stock CPU thermal pad and apply Arctic MX4 instead - the fan noise will go right down and the CPU will stop throttling. Makes a world of difference.
Good review brother. My personal opinion is that this thing is completely and utterly useless which is a shame. The VCS seemed super half fast. Especially when compared to the new 2600+ which in my opinion is the polar opposite. A highly quality premium retro console remade. I would recommend the 2600+ over basically everything else. (ie. Atgames, My arcade, 400 mini, etc)
I got the pack during the Gamestop sale two years ago think ot was discounted to 129 usd. Many of the games are great Asteroids reimagined and Yars revenge and centipede while there arent a ton the antstream adds a lot more via streaming.
I guess I don't understand the hate for this. It's a Ryzen mini-PC with performance in the middle of the Ryzen 3 range, between the Pro 2300U and the 2200U in a cool case for less than $200. Nothing more, nothing less. What are people buying instead? I've seen generic Ryzen 3 mini-PCs on Amazon on Black Friday for $139 (for the less powerful 2200U) but pay just a few bucks more for the Atari for the extra m.2 slot if nothing else, plus reasonably good components and build quality...and cool case. Anything ARM based would be much less powerful. The ancient Nvidia Shield and Ouya don't compare. Neither does the Switch.
IMO for what it does the hardware is fine, especially considering when it came out, but the issue is really the buggy software. The fact that it was released with issues like the broken updates and even the latest OS seems to have issues with emulators, etc, seems like Atari rushed it out and then largely abandoned it aside from a skeleton crew (perhaps it only gets updates because some people inside Atari see it as their pet project but without having support from the higher ups). That even years later it isn't available outside of US and Canada also shows that Atari doesn't really care about it anymore.
No, there's nothing wrong with the emulation. He's got his capture card set to 30fps trying to capture the 2600's interlaced 60fps screen, so he sees only one of the fields in each frame. He's new to it so he's bumbling through the menus, which is not the fault of the system, it's not that hard. @@badsectoracula
I've owned a few PowerA controllers in the past and they've pretty much all been garbage, suffering with everything from stick drift to outright failure within a couple of months.
Is still a pity to get rid of the original OS and replace it with whatever else. If you bought it because is an ATARI, then leave it as ATARI, whatever issues they have today might be fixed tomorrow. My two cents.
It's been 3 years and if anything it's getting worse (ie the app not being maintained). The Atari OS is still there if I want to boot into it. I do agree though, it's a shame that most people who buy these just end up using it as a PC and skip the Atari stuff entirely.
I myself am looking into wanting to buy just for PC Mode. I am not interested in big AAA games, I am just hoping to play games like; League of Legends, Guild Wars 2, Valorant, Star Wars The Old Republic.
This is a product which I think doesn’t really know who it’s for. If it isn’t turnkey with a whole bunch of new, original and retro style Atari games out of the box, then it’s really a mini PC to build a emulation box. There’s plenty of cheaper options. I just don’t “get” what or who it’s for. Nostalgia?
Yes, I think I agree. I was hoping the software side of things would be a lot stronger and better supported - it's a real shame that most people just end up using this as an expensive SFF PC. Although it is a very cool looking one, at least...
I've no love for modern Atari, but no modern tech is immune to the odd gremlin causing crashes and problems with updates. That goes for giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google as much as small concerns like Atari. Some of your problems are a case of diving in without becoming familiar with it. Familiarity is a dual edged sword. Swapping between Windows 7, 10 and 11 still causes me problems. Going from an 8 bit Atari to an Amiga 1200 and PCs running DOS and Windows 3.1 was hard. It's especially annoying for me today when trying different Linux distros, simply because they all work differently to Windows and each other. 😵💫
It's a nice system and I do really like the hardware - it's just a bit disappointing that the Atari bundled software is so underwhelming that most people just end up using it as an expensive SFF PC. It does look cool though. 😁
Ale hovno... gdzie się podziały te romantyczne czasy, gdy kupujesz nową konsolę, podłączasz ją i grasz - A NIE - pierdolisz się cały dzień z podłączaniem do sieci, aktualizowaniem i zakładaniem miliona kont! 😎
When you pull that lid off you have to be careful. It can rip the solder points that the antenna are hooked up to. If you read the Atari website about upgrading the memory and drive it talks about it..
CV19 killed it. 2-3 years of manufacturing delays made it lacklustre once released. Originally if the Atari VCS made it to market on time, then its ATI chipset would have been great value for money vs power. It was still a good buy when released late, but after a year it was getting stale. The delays failed to capture developers.
A mini PC with off-the-shelf Bluetooth controllers running the emulators, walled gardens of gaming, and streaming apps you actually want - hassle free - is probably a more enjoyable overall experience than all of this. Why can't these companies just make a product that delivers on the promises made? I get that there is a need to keep it cheap, but I have legit watched videos about things like a Raspberry Pi running circles around this. And those are even more cost-reduced pieces of hardware. Would it be okay to buy this for the case, gut it, slap a Pi in there, and just lie to people when they ask what it is? Am I a bad person for doing that?
Atari should have kept the remake of VCS games exclusive to this modern VCS, making people want the console. Nope they were desperate for the $ and released the new games on all platforms, including Nintendo Switch. Bad move.
You expect Atari to let everyone just use the online store etc, without logging in to an account? I can't see that idea catching on though, Android, IOS, Steam, NETFLIX and Amazon Prime require accounts too, but I can't imagine why... surely nobody would ever abuse online services. Would they?
Glad I did not import this thing. I would not have been happy with it, even if I upgraded it and used it as a PC. I do like the form aesthetics of it and the joystick.
@@ctrlaltrees I actually went to London as a kid for an expo that the jaguar was launching at and honestly I really wanted one just for avp. It blew me away. It was only later that I realised it was going to bomb but that said, for me, I had played doom / 2 on pc and that's all I could think about for the next year.
i heard the majority don't like the atari vcs at all think it's bad trash hardware but only the miniroty love the atari vcs everyone is entitled to there opinion i respect that i want to share by being honest i love my atari vcs 800 it's a great underrated unpopular hardware to me in my honest unpopular opinion it doesn't matter to me if video game hardware has alot of games or don't have alot of games only having little bit of games, have exclusive or don't have no exclusives at all even sells don't matter to me at all because i always hate it and don't care about popularity at all to be honest i always love prefer unpopularity over popularity with most video game hardware and software too i wasn't disappointed with the new atari vcs 800 hybird pc/console i enjoy it this is my favorite hardware i may disagree with the rest you said but the only thing i do agree with is the atari vcs store has issues not working sometimes because of the zip code glitch going on i also think they need to fix that too for everyone else but the vcs store is working well for me now but the last time it wasn't working well for me but it's fixed for some of us now that's the only problem issue i have with the atari vcs but overall i still think the atari vcs is great underrated hardware to me i have a blast with it love it so much it made my a new atari fan i'm a fan of this hardware and i also wanna say that graphics spces power don't matter to me i don't care about power but some of us know the majority do care about power don't like the fact most video game hardware like the nintendo wii, nintendo wii u, nintendo switch and atari vcs 800 is underpowered but there are some of the miniroty don't mind it at all that don't care about power well for me power doesn't matter to me at all to be honest and yes everyone expereince is difference and also difference with the atari vcs 800 as well!
Not everyone has the same views and expectations as you. You may think something you see or experience is crap, but there may be millions of people who disagree. That applies to everything from music, literature, food and fashion to collecting Pokemon cards, old coins ,stamps, old computers and playing video games. Apparently a lot of people like their VCS.
A fortune? No, most people spend far more money on computers, consoles and mobile devices. How many free games do you get with the latest Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo? How many games do you get for free when you buy a PC, laptop, Mac or Chromebook? Why do people expect the things they want to own or use, to be free? 🙄
@@infinitecanadianthat brings up another interesting point. Most of the games library for Atari VCS are newer games, but when a company hasn't made a system for a long time, people expect a re-release of what came before, and not something new. Kind of a downfall for a company trying to get back into the game after so long. I'm enjoying what they're doing though, and rooting for them!
@@greatbigeyeball I appreciate love and passion for everyone who seeks for any sort of platform from their childhood. I might say not a scam but a very average mass production quality level
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm already looking into upgrading & overclocking the RAM in this, and of course increasing the shared video RAM once I've done that - then I'll be doing some before and after comparisons! I've seen some benchmarks that have managed to increase the performance of the VCS by up to 50% using these methods. Of course SteamOS isn't the only option, there's also Batocera and even Windows, of course. Is there anything else you'd like to see me try on the VCS? Comment below!
I admit I am considering taking mine apart and doing something like that.
After the video I will consider holo iso to make it usable.
One thing that helps quite significantly with keeping the temperatures / fan noise low is removing the back plastic piece. It doesn't look too pretty without it but reduces temps by 5-10 °C. I was thinking about adding another fan inside but there just isn't enough room anywere near the vents.
To Atari's credit, I've read somewhere that the machine was supposed to be fanless but the chip AMD provided just could not cope with it so the active cooling solution had to be added quite late in the design process.
@@PG-gs5vb The big help is to remove the stock apu cooling pad and replace with paste- such as Artic.
the negativity you start out with is really unnecessary. I was a teenager when the American 1983 console crisis happened, and THAT was a horrible failure. Games went from $40 to $2, thrown in Video Game "bins". The latest incarnation of Atari has very recently put out some more games for the unit, I believe the Steam store is upgraded quite a bit. While it does go on sale discounted, it's still selling from the original website, and not dumped on third-party sellers. The fact that you found faults is unsurprising given the attitude you start with, and my response was "of course it's fixable"!! Did you think it was not meant to be upgradable? That seems to me the whole point of the PC aspect! It's very difficult to upgrade pure emulators like the "2600+" and Atari 400 Mini. The Atari 7800+ with bluetooth is coming out and TH-camrs are alreadt whining about not getting that feature with their 2600s. It's like Atari name is cursed and they can't be credited with doing anything right!
I got my unit as a backer and I'm happy with it. The Store items are sorted by release date by default, thus you can't see Atari 50 near the top. It's been a while since it's been released. Also, I suggest getting the content when it's on sale. There are some nice deals throughout the year.
This seems like it would be one of the nicest HTPC/Emulation box for a living room.
Been running batocera on mine and its absolutely perfect for a set top box that I can play up to ps2 and connect to jellyfin.
I have no problems with my unit at all. The store has a lot of great games and the community is awesome.
Agreed!
31:44 the crushed volleyball box scan says it all 😂
That's actually quite fun if you ask me! 😄
When I saw the Atari 50th Anniversary Collection I wondered what I could play it on.
Playstation? X-Box? Switch? Atari VCS?! Waitaminnit! Atari VCS? Tell me more!
Those other game consoles never had any attraction to me because I didn't see anything I wanted to play on them. I'm not much for first-person shooters. I never had Nintendo or the original Atari VCS 2600, so I'm really not interested in those.
I was all about the video arcade games and my Atari 800 Home Computer.
Having been originally designed to be the successor to the 2600, the games on the computer looked and played much better. I usually bought them as graphics demos to figure out how they did that. My "games" were Atari 8K BASIC and the Assembler/Editor cartridge. I also enjoyed the Music Composer cartridge.
What sold me on this machine was the look of those arcade games. They look almost exactly like the games I spent so much time shoving quarters into back in the day. Those Atari games were always the best.
I don't know about SteamOS, I was hoping to use something I could install an Atari 800 emulator on.
Now that I'm retired I've considered getting a game console to see what all the buzz was about. This is the only one I can seriously get interested in.
A few rough edges don't surprise me. I thought Atari was long gone. The corpse is struggling back to life and I'm ready to forgive a lot if it can really help me play those games I enjoyed so much.
The "PC side" is the real saving grace of this "console," and opens up so many possible alternatives.
It’s basically a nearly 4yo $350 laptop repackaged into a console. The APU is essentially the same as the Ryzen 3 3200U. I got a backer collector’s unit and had no problems with it, but I also only use mine at 1080p on a wired Ethernet connection. Updates taking 10-20 mins. can be a little nerve wracking.
I upgraded mine to 16GB (4GB assigned to GPU) and a 512GB M.2 SSD and have both Windows 10 and Fedora Linux installed on it.
How did you assign 4 gigs of ram to it? I just upgraded mine to 16 gigs and windows still says it's 2 gigs dedicated
@@BMW-sd6nn Have to change it in the BIOS
@xnonsuchx okay sweet thank you I tried today but where in the bios do you set it to four gigs? Couldn't find online
it is a cool pc case.if nothing else :)
Agreed.
But fan, running constantly... Very suspicious
@@paveloleynikov4715 yes that would annoy me too much I guess.
yes completely...
I have one, and it does what it's supposed to do. I have friends who have not played games in quite a few years, I talked to them about getting a vcs. I say that because you not only can play Atari games but Xbox Gamepass and play your Steam library. If you look at it as a mini budget pc, it's a great deal. No, it's not an Xbox or Playstation or Nintendo, but if given a chance, you can have a lot of fun with it.
Indeed, I'm going to be upgrading the RAM and overclocking and seeing how much performance I can squeeze out of this beast, so watch this space. I must admit I did find the default Atari offering a bit underwhelming though.
@ctrlaltrees I agree it definitely could use some upgrades, but I believe for most casual users, it works fine or good enough. I know for a while they had a problem when new customers tried to set up the console it would start to update and just get stuck on 2 of 4 and never finish. My friends actually did that, and it just needed to be flashed. The bad part was Atari had been contacted and never offered to help anyone. It was an easy fix if you some what know what you're doing. My issue was what about customers who don't know how to do any of this stuff? Yes, people like us do, but most don't know where to start. Are you going to try the 2600 plus? I never owned the original, so I don't have the warm spot in my heart for the system some do. I heard the failure rate is 1 to 2 %. The emulator they use is horrible, and you assume for 50 year old games they could have done better.
Hey, just a heads up, in the "Atari Vault", if you choose a game, and choose "options", you can can change button mapping and have Asteroids use the thumbsticks as opposed to the d pad.
Oh nice, that's great to know, thanks!
Used my unit as a daily workhorse and emulation box since 2020.
Since my homeoffice is Atari-themed anyway, this one fits in perfectly. Need to upgrade ram soon to get the best out of it though.
As an Atari computer user from the 90's there's just some magic having able to use a modern Atari computer for my daily tasks.
How many other homecomputer brands lived long enough to manage that...
Commodore certainly didn't 😉
I love mine. I haven’t played any other console since I got it a month ago. Caverns of Mars Recharged is a blast. I’m sure the novelty will wear off after a while, but for now I’m digging the heck out of it. Tip: the Vault volume 1 is preinstalled, volume 2 is in the store. It’s not as good as volume 1 but it’s free. Also, the Atari 50 for VCS makes better use of the controllers than the Vault. And pick up a cheap keyboard/trackpad combo for the streaming services and for use with Missile Command Recharged.
Does the stick's rotation feature work with Atari 50? I've been playing the collection on Switch, and it'd be nice to have a controller option for the spinner (and the trackball) ...
Well I learnt two things today. That VCS console is a bit poo and Jack Black appeared in a Pitfall commercial! Great video btw 👌
And it only took up 44 minutes of your valuable time 😁
Not sure what's up with the missing Atari 50. I picked it up on my VCS and really enjoy it as much for the historical aspects as I do for the games. There is even a mention of the Falcon...
I did find it after recording - you can search or scroll down a few pages. It's very odd that it isn't more prominently promoted, though. I'd stick it right on the home screen if I were Atari (if not bundling it for free).
A Atari VCS user here! If your curious about the companion app, its completely garbage and isn't all that useful and only lets you use your phone as a super delayed controller with a and b or as a touchpad and very limited keyboard, wish it did more. Also if you want to leave apps, you need to hold the menu button down like the PS5 controller for a second. As for the store, it actually does lets you search for specific games, you have to press the start button and a search menu will appear.
Anyways, modding a custom OS on it and adding extra ram and ssd space is absolutely the best thing you can do with it.
I just got the Atari VCS, and wow. What can i say. Too bad it doesnt get more attention. its a great solid platform. It definitely has what every console sets out to do. Which is have its own identity. It is a place to play all the Atari published games. With a few exceptions.Ive bought up most of the big games on the store. All the official Atari Releases are just spot on. Absolutely love it.
This was doomed from the start. They chose a generation 1 Ryzen embedded chip. Basically a 2017 design cut down to run billboards and ATMs.
For the price it would have needed much better software and be able to play somewhat modern games.
For the $300 (or around there) price there wouldn't really be a way to have anything that can run modern AAA games anyway, but they could still sell a polished OS / UI experience and rely on indie and lower end games, older AAA games and their own emulators. IMO the hardware is ok, technically it can run several thousands of PC games (just not any modern high end AAA stuff), the issue is that it can only do it by working around Atari's broken software instead of through it.
I looked into low-power AMD Ryzen Embedded CPUs with integrated graphics a few years ago, when the R1505G and V1605B were being offered in low-profile, fanless or quiet systems, largely because I had been running a power-hungry (and noisy) Intel system for years and wanted something more rational, with these CPUs being rated at 15W. Reviews were a bit mixed, although reviewers often seem to have unreasonable expectations.
In the end, the 35W "GE" versions of Ryzen CPUs weren't readily available, and so I went for a 65W "G" version of a Ryzen 5 CPU instead, which is decent enough for general purpose computing and software development. It probably isn't great for high-end gaming, but nobody should be expecting a great high-end gaming experience with these integrated graphics CPUs. This R1606G happens to be pretty close to the Athlon 3000G which, again, won't satisfy gamers, but it is a reasonable desktop CPU.
It's actually been quite successful. Everyone thought it was not coming out. Why does generation fail love "fail" so much? 🤦
Yeah. If they would have put a newer APU with an rdna2 iGPU like the raddeon 680m. This thing might have stood an actual chance
They weren't going to include an extra powerful CPU to put it in competition with Sony/Microsoft if they couldn't bring equivalent exclusive games and online features either. Atari doesn't have those resources. This was a decent foray into hardware and logistics to develop a real console one day.
At least, Atari managed to get something right in this video... That vintage ads were actually pretty nice
My 2600+ did not come with a branded HDMI cable - now I'm annoyed! I was literally just thinking about that last night because I was switching back and forth between a couple systems and I like to keep my cables together with what they came with, but I thought "eh, it's not branded or anything so who cares". I had no idea some were! Mine came from a later batch so maybe this was one of the perks of the first run. As for the VCS, I remember the original IndieGoGo campaign and I had at least signed up for updates or something, but I was discouraged by many, many people on AtariAge from buying one, so I never actually put money down. Now I kinda want one again, seeing that it's actually a real thing and not just something they shoveled out and forgot about. I think it's actually pretty cool even just as a mini-PC.
Also, Wreckfest looks awesome; I don't know how I'd never heard of that. Gonna have to check it out. Looks like an update to Destruction Derby, which was one of my favorite games on my 486.
I love Wreckfest, it's one of my favourite games. Made by Bugbear who did the "Flatout" series, if you're familiar with them.
I backed the indigogo campaign. Pretty jealous of that low number collectors. Mine is 3700. I haven't used it in ages but it does look nice on my console shelf.
Watch a man's enthusiasm wane in near realtime 😅
😂
I just realized I've never heard of someone ever say that someone's enthusiasm was waxing which is the opposite of waning.
Think I'm going to go with the 2600+. I really want to have a nice physical collection
The asteroids issue is the unit set to 4k sadly. If you lower it to 1080p that emulator works fine.
The interface is impressive, minus the bugs you had! They should have resigned to using SteamOS.
Looks pretty Cool, always wanted the original as a kid.
Love Atari , still have my 8bit computers , Atari Lynx Ii and my Atari Jaguar 👌👌👌👌
As a Mini PC that you can run Steam OS or whatever it's decent. As a standalone game console it leaves much to be desired.
I'm glad Atari is putting their new games on Steam in addition to the VCS store... though at least the VCs has encouraged Atari to make new games
The classic joystick doubles as a paddle controller apparently. A bit awkward I would guess, but worth a shot with Breakout (and Kaboom! If they have it).
Indeed, it works great!
I’ve been eyeing one of these as a huge fan of Atari and there’s a big Labor Day sale going on rn. It’s half off so I’m finally diving in. I plan on using it as a full on retro/indie machine. I’m really big into boomer shooters so I’ll load the thing up with those, modded DOOM and shit like that
That flashing lights speaker was really, problematically distracting for me. I ended up watching with half the video scrolled off-screen for a chunk of it.
Sorry to hear that, and thanks for the feedback. I'll certainly consider some different options for future videos.
Great video - so does Breakout actually work with an analogue option then? It looked unplayable with the d-pad but later on I saw it running more smoothly.
Yes, it works fantastically well with the joystick controller (rotating the stick to use it as a spinner) and another commenter has informed me that there are options to remap the controls, which I somehow missed.
Get Thrustlander for it, which is great. You have to like Gravitar. Gravitar recharged is good but not as good as Thrustlander. As you had researched the console before getting it, I am sure you knew a lot of the issues before hand. Though it is good to see what a novice would feel like using it. You want a 4k machine, get a ps5 or an Xbox Series X. This is definitely a 1080 console. Oh Foodfight is a new game and is console exclusive. It also has Tempest 4k. I have that on PC and did not like it much.
Thanks for the recommendations, I certainly haven't given up on the VCS and I look forward to playing with it a bit more.
Forgive me if this has been mentioned in the comments, I only read about half. My guess is that the banding on screen is caused by the Atari putting out a 30 or 60 Hz signal while in the UK you would normally get a 25 or 50 Hz signal. I have a similar monitor, if you press the (only) button on the back and go into the menu, then information, it will show you the refresh rate. It may be possible to set your video camera to the same number of frames per second as the refresh rate, and that may fix the video issue.
The rolling on the monitor kinda looks like the LED backlights being PWM'd at a frequency which upsets your camera. Have you changed the brightness since the last time you recorded it?
I think this is exactly it... Going to do some experiments and hopefully get it sorted. Thanks! 😁
Always a bit of a shame if it doesn't actually capture that nostalgic experience. I was thinking about the why as well, I always liked the custom chipsets for these machines that made them a bit more unique. Weird probably. :)
I upgraded the ram and dual boot debian on it... though honestly haven't booted into Debian in a long time, there are some really good games for it now, still waiting on Unsung Heroes to release!
This is my plan too, hopefully overclocking and bumping up the GPU RAM will make it a lot more useful 😁
I really want a new VCS, but they are all US shipping only on the Atari website. Is there some way to get these that I don't know about in the UK? Of course, I'm not paying the stupid scalper prices on ebay.
Use a freight forwarder.
Indeed, I should have mentioned this. I used a forwarder called Viabox.
Hi Rees - nice video - I was wondering what is that thing you have in screen that is raining green digital dots like the matrix ? Its cool and I wanna buy one !
It's probably not the best if I see one of these official retro boxes and my impression isn't "how can I put more contemporary games on it" but "how can I turn it into an emulation box".
Wow... what an experience...
The problem with the lines on the screen would be down to the Hz rate. if the device is not able to go as fast as the recording device cam it will band the screen, then downgrade the recording hz rate will solve the problem
It's a US device, so the refresh is 59.94 frames per second. It's likely "beating" with your 50Hz line frequency to show the "banding".
There are no differences in HDMI standards between the two countries. If the power adapter is not properly filtering out the 50hz line frequency, then that's a problem.
@@redleader7988 Even if the power brick can run US voltage, that doesn't mean the monitor can handle 60Hz. The two things can both be issues.
Every modern monitor supports 60 Hz and beyond. There is no 50 Hz limit any more like there was in PAL. @@PixelatedH2O
@@redleader7988 Actually, the frame rates accommodate a wide range of vertical refresh rates from 24 fps to 120 fps, which includes a 50 Hz and 60Hz rate. US devices will default to 60Hz and UK devices will default to 50Hz to prevent this exact scenario. It is quite possible that it can be a noisy power supply, but due to the nature of switching supplies, I seriously doubt it.
I'd say it is more likely the frame rate of the camera beating with the frame rate of the display.
ChimeraOS might be a better version over holoOS. The state of modern Linux gaming is very good. And without a window os eating up all the resource you can often get a better experience even via proton. Not to mention older windows games 9x era ones generally run via proton with no issues either.
It's a shame because it's basically a poor laptop packaged nicely in an Atari shell.
I've no specific examples, but I have read that a lot of modern devices come from the factory with a firmware that is just designed to download and install the latest firmware. It has no functions apart from that.. This makes sense, from a security point of view, but could be annoying if you just want to use the device offline.
I love the look of it, but you would probably be better off and get a more powerful system and better gaming experience buying a modern Ryzen mini PC, installing HoloISO or ChimeraOS on it along with a nice controller. Done.
Perhaps the banding on the display when captured via a camera is due to the refresh rate being slightly off which IIRC is also the case for "real" VCS/2600 units. There's no sane reason to do that while running the menu system but well, it does feel a bit slap-dash so possibly. IIRC different VCS games uses slightly different number of lines and thus refresh-rates, but critically there's no number of lines that result in either of 59.97 (NTSC, what it should have outputted) or 60 (lots of computers) due to the master clock being slightly off.
Just change the refresh of the output?
Though some GPU drivers are really limiting the options there. And even more so on mobile chips I suppose.
Should still be at east some that are less camera incompatible.
It is a nice box if nothing else. Haven't seen anyone trying to verify if it really got wood though. ;)
Purchased the VCS bundle back on 2/14/2024 and it too needed to have the OS flashed. As you stated, this is a TERRIBLE experience and the posts I’ve seen go back a few years so this issue has been around. The disappointing part is that years later Atari is still shipping stock out of their warehouse that needs the OS flashed.
I ordered one during their Labor Day sale 2024, and it arrived yesterday. I too had to flash the OS, though I must say it went very smoothly. Twenty-five minutes total time, maybe thirty. And that included downloading flashing software, joining the VCS discord to get the newest image, and cleaning off the USB drive I was using.
Nope. Can't imagine why anyone would by this given all of the alternatives.
None of these nostalgia based reboot systems ever light a fire under me. For me retro computing is literally that, the original equipment of the past even with all the issues they often suffer with. I don’t wish to be critical of the developers by any means but just not for me, I’d compare it with looking at other people’s holiday photos! 😂
As for the app issue, it's certainly becoming a huge problem with equipment and anything that 'requires' an app to wok nowadays I’ll avoid like the plague, it's just a doorstop in waiting.
If I had to guess, the video output is at 30Hz (or thereabouts)
so disappointing that the device isn't functional out of the box. now i have to do tons of troubleshooting to figure this brand new purchase (from the Atari website itself) to get this device working!
I ordered one during their Labor Day sale 2024, and it arrived yesterday. I had to flash the OS, though I must say it went very smoothly. Twenty-five minutes total time, maybe thirty. And that included downloading flashing software, joining the VCS discord to get the newest image, and cleaning off the USB drive I was using.
@ctrlaltrees I can see this just being ISO'd and planted on any PC. I mean its just a PC
I don't think it would be worth the effort tbh. From what I'm hearing even VCS owners don't use the Atari stuff and just put Windows or Linux on it 😂
I think the console (PC) is decent and was actually one of the better spec Ryzen APU at the time. Such a shame the Atari software let it down.
It may have been one of the better products on the Ryzen Embedded line, but various "G" model APUs were a lot faster: the 3400G is twice the performance, for instance, having twice the cores, threads, L1 and L2 cache. And the Athlon 3000G, which is merely Athlon-labelled for market positioning, is quite similar in performance terms to the R1606G featured here. Those other products need a cooler and consume more power, of course.
I was on the fence about buying one of these but I don't see anything worth spending $300 plus the ongoing charges for more games. I'll stick to my Switch and maybe just buy a 2600+ for $130.
I've tried to play antstream on my Nvidia Shield. I've never been able to get it to work for the free games so i just launch Asphalt 8 and enjoy hours of racing goodness. I think i stick to my Nvidia Shield with Retroarch. This is a non Atari console for the Atari fanboys to have on their shelves. Disappointed. Do you know what worries me is the American TH-camrs alway hype these units up. Are they getting paid for the hype? It seems to me that it is an underpowered laptop pcb in a cheap case without a keyboard and screen. Nice to see you change it into Steam Deck. Loving your channel Rees.
I think the majority of the "hype" came when expectations of any delivery by the new Atari were REALLY low. So the bar was set extremely low, which this system exceeded. With some of the more recent successes with the 2600+ the bar has moved ever so slightly higher now. This makes the VCS really disappointing, but a cool design with some amount of fun playing it.
I've enjoyed mine with all its warts.
Thanks for the comment. I also have a Shield and I'm very happy with it. The main problem for me with AntStream is my internet connection. Kind of odd that they went with a streaming setup rather than just downloading the ROM and running it locally in an emulator.
Remove the crappy stock CPU thermal pad and apply Arctic MX4 instead - the fan noise will go right down and the CPU will stop throttling. Makes a world of difference.
Indeed, this is my plan as well as upping the RAM and overclocking. Interested in seeing what this thing can do!
Could use steam to stream games from a big gaming rig hidden in another room.
Good review brother. My personal opinion is that this thing is completely and utterly useless which is a shame.
The VCS seemed super half fast. Especially when compared to the new 2600+ which in my opinion is the polar opposite. A highly quality premium retro console remade.
I would recommend the 2600+ over basically everything else. (ie. Atgames, My arcade, 400 mini, etc)
On the monitor issue:
Is there RFI coming from the unit?
I got the pack during the Gamestop sale two years ago think ot was discounted to 129 usd. Many of the games are great Asteroids reimagined and Yars revenge and centipede while there arent a ton the antstream adds a lot more via streaming.
I guess I don't understand the hate for this. It's a Ryzen mini-PC with performance in the middle of the Ryzen 3 range, between the Pro 2300U and the 2200U in a cool case for less than $200. Nothing more, nothing less. What are people buying instead? I've seen generic Ryzen 3 mini-PCs on Amazon on Black Friday for $139 (for the less powerful 2200U) but pay just a few bucks more for the Atari for the extra m.2 slot if nothing else, plus reasonably good components and build quality...and cool case. Anything ARM based would be much less powerful. The ancient Nvidia Shield and Ouya don't compare. Neither does the Switch.
IMO for what it does the hardware is fine, especially considering when it came out, but the issue is really the buggy software. The fact that it was released with issues like the broken updates and even the latest OS seems to have issues with emulators, etc, seems like Atari rushed it out and then largely abandoned it aside from a skeleton crew (perhaps it only gets updates because some people inside Atari see it as their pet project but without having support from the higher ups). That even years later it isn't available outside of US and Canada also shows that Atari doesn't really care about it anymore.
No, there's nothing wrong with the emulation. He's got his capture card set to 30fps trying to capture the 2600's interlaced 60fps screen, so he sees only one of the fields in each frame. He's new to it so he's bumbling through the menus, which is not the fault of the system, it's not that hard. @@badsectoracula
I've owned a few PowerA controllers in the past and they've pretty much all been garbage, suffering with everything from stick drift to outright failure within a couple of months.
Is still a pity to get rid of the original OS and replace it with whatever else. If you bought it because is an ATARI, then leave it as ATARI, whatever issues they have today might be fixed tomorrow. My two cents.
It's been 3 years and if anything it's getting worse (ie the app not being maintained). The Atari OS is still there if I want to boot into it. I do agree though, it's a shame that most people who buy these just end up using it as a PC and skip the Atari stuff entirely.
I myself am looking into wanting to buy just for PC Mode. I am not interested in big AAA games, I am just hoping to play games like; League of Legends, Guild Wars 2, Valorant, Star Wars The Old Republic.
This is a product which I think doesn’t really know who it’s for. If it isn’t turnkey with a whole bunch of new, original and retro style Atari games out of the box, then it’s really a mini PC to build a emulation box. There’s plenty of cheaper options. I just don’t “get” what or who it’s for. Nostalgia?
Yes, I think I agree. I was hoping the software side of things would be a lot stronger and better supported - it's a real shame that most people just end up using this as an expensive SFF PC. Although it is a very cool looking one, at least...
More than double the price of the plus. Is MAAAAYBE consider it of $200 cdn.
I've no love for modern Atari, but no modern tech is immune to the odd gremlin causing crashes and problems with updates. That goes for giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google as much as small concerns like Atari. Some of your problems are a case of diving in without becoming familiar with it. Familiarity is a dual edged sword. Swapping between Windows 7, 10 and 11 still causes me problems. Going from an 8 bit Atari to an Amiga 1200 and PCs running DOS and Windows 3.1 was hard. It's especially annoying for me today when trying different Linux distros, simply because they all work differently to Windows and each other. 😵💫
Not much to recommend there then.
A bit disappointing for Atari fans!
It's a nice system and I do really like the hardware - it's just a bit disappointing that the Atari bundled software is so underwhelming that most people just end up using it as an expensive SFF PC. It does look cool though. 😁
Yeah, definitely not something for me.
Well that was an...experience. 😉
Ale hovno... gdzie się podziały te romantyczne czasy, gdy kupujesz nową konsolę, podłączasz ją i grasz - A NIE - pierdolisz się cały dzień z podłączaniem do sieci, aktualizowaniem i zakładaniem miliona kont! 😎
Wow that stupid television thing isn’t annoying at all!
When you pull that lid off you have to be careful. It can rip the solder points that the antenna are hooked up to. If you read the Atari website about upgrading the memory and drive it talks about it..
So... One should buy it for the look you say 😅
Claimed to give an authentic Atari experience but just gives a Linux experience.....
CV19 killed it. 2-3 years of manufacturing delays made it lacklustre once released. Originally if the Atari VCS made it to market on time, then its ATI chipset would have been great value for money vs power. It was still a good buy when released late, but after a year it was getting stale. The delays failed to capture developers.
Dam Stray runs way better than 42:12 on a Steam Deck and that thing is a portable device. Also Stray has way low recommended specs.
A mini PC with off-the-shelf Bluetooth controllers running the emulators, walled gardens of gaming, and streaming apps you actually want - hassle free - is probably a more enjoyable overall experience than all of this. Why can't these companies just make a product that delivers on the promises made? I get that there is a need to keep it cheap, but I have legit watched videos about things like a Raspberry Pi running circles around this. And those are even more cost-reduced pieces of hardware.
Would it be okay to buy this for the case, gut it, slap a Pi in there, and just lie to people when they ask what it is? Am I a bad person for doing that?
I don't like that controller. I've never taken a shine to that thing where the D-Pad and left stick are swapped. I prefer how PS controllers do it.
I have one of these too, and its very dissapointing though is cool to look at
Atari should have kept the remake of VCS games exclusive to this modern VCS, making people want the console. Nope they were desperate for the $ and released the new games on all platforms, including Nintendo Switch. Bad move.
Login required? No thanks!
You expect Atari to let everyone just use the online store etc, without logging in to an account? I can't see that idea catching on though, Android, IOS, Steam, NETFLIX and Amazon Prime require accounts too, but I can't imagine why... surely nobody would ever abuse online services. Would they?
Great review , i think atari have given up on this , theyve made their money and exited - pretty much shortly after realising its a failure...
Glad I did not import this thing. I would not have been happy with it, even if I upgraded it and used it as a PC. I do like the form aesthetics of it and the joystick.
Everything Atari has done since the ST has more or less been a disappointment.
Even the Jaguar!? 😉
@@ctrlaltrees I actually went to London as a kid for an expo that the jaguar was launching at and honestly I really wanted one just for avp. It blew me away. It was only later that I realised it was going to bomb but that said, for me, I had played doom / 2 on pc and that's all I could think about for the next year.
Paid Packman! 🤯😵
i heard the majority don't like the atari vcs at all think it's bad trash hardware but only the miniroty love the atari vcs everyone is entitled to there opinion i respect that i want to share by being honest i love my atari vcs 800 it's a great underrated unpopular hardware to me in my honest unpopular opinion it doesn't matter to me if video game hardware has alot of games or don't have alot of games only having little bit of games, have exclusive or don't have no exclusives at all even sells don't matter to me at all because i always hate it and don't care about popularity at all to be honest i always love prefer unpopularity over popularity with most video game hardware and software too i wasn't disappointed with the new atari vcs 800 hybird pc/console i enjoy it this is my favorite hardware i may disagree with the rest you said but the only thing i do agree with is the atari vcs store has issues not working sometimes because of the zip code glitch going on i also think they need to fix that too for everyone else but the vcs store is working well for me now but the last time it wasn't working well for me but it's fixed for some of us now that's the only problem issue i have with the atari vcs but overall i still think the atari vcs is great underrated hardware to me i have a blast with it love it so much it made my a new atari fan i'm a fan of this hardware and i also wanna say that graphics spces power don't matter to me i don't care about power but some of us know the majority do care about power don't like the fact most video game hardware like the nintendo wii, nintendo wii u, nintendo switch and atari vcs 800 is underpowered but there are some of the miniroty don't mind it at all that don't care about power well for me power doesn't matter to me at all to be honest and yes everyone expereince is difference and also difference with the atari vcs 800 as well!
Smash it with a hammer?
We have to stop buying carp like this.
It's sad that this kind of stuff is basically just landfill. Such a waste of materials really
Not everyone has the same views and expectations as you. You may think something you see or experience is crap, but there may be millions of people who disagree. That applies to everything from music, literature, food and fashion to collecting Pokemon cards, old coins ,stamps, old computers and playing video games. Apparently a lot of people like their VCS.
Right? Stop buying Carp, instead buy Cod or Lobster!
I prefer trout
The thing is, this does nothing more that 100 other devices do. Get a raspberry pi and 3D print a VCS case.
What a mess
👍👍👍
You have to pay a fortune for the console and there ain't many free games? Gimme a break.
A fortune? No, most people spend far more money on computers, consoles and mobile devices. How many free games do you get with the latest Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo? How many games do you get for free when you buy a PC, laptop, Mac or Chromebook? Why do people expect the things they want to own or use, to be free? 🙄
@@another3997 That is a point, but you could get a cheap console that has most of the classics already on it.
@@infinitecanadianthat brings up another interesting point. Most of the games library for Atari VCS are newer games, but when a company hasn't made a system for a long time, people expect a re-release of what came before, and not something new. Kind of a downfall for a company trying to get back into the game after so long. I'm enjoying what they're doing though, and rooting for them!
Jesus loves you!
Your most recent guest (Sean of @ActionRetro) would probably try to put Haiku on it.
Sorta scam here we can see, unfortunately there is a lot of projects on retro scene just for profit while widely using well known old brand names.
Lots of developers have made their first strides on this platform. Scam for you but blossoming community for others.
@@greatbigeyeball I appreciate love and passion for everyone who seeks for any sort of platform from their childhood. I might say not a scam but a very average mass production quality level
Looks pretty Cool, always wanted the original as a kid.
Love Atari , still have my 8bit computers , Atari Lynx Ii and my Atari Jaguar 👌👌👌👌