Atari XP Physical Releases - Atari Releasing New Atari 2600 Game Cartridges!

[Justin]

3 hours ago, RickR said:

The thing I appreciate most is the positive discussion here.

Thank you @RickR that means a lot. That's precisely the sort of vibe we've always tried to curate for our little community 

[Justin]

A breaking news update from our old friend @nosweargamer

 

 

[Sabertooth]

An additional clarification from Atari via their social.  Mistakes happen. Now on to the games! 

 

[Justin]

Another breaking update on the upcoming Atari XP 2600 releases from Chris the @Atari Creep 

 

 

[Sabertooth]

It looks like Atari have been at work over the holidays. They have updated the website with the final art for the limited editions. It's much improved and gives you a better idea of what you're getting, including a patch! I still think they should have come in at $99 for the LE.

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Sabertooth

[Justin]

1 hour ago, Sabertooth said:

It looks like Atari have been at work over the holidays. They have updated the website with the final art for the limited editions. It's much improved and gives you a better idea of what you're getting, including a patch! I still think they should have come in at $99 for the LE.

 

I love the patches. They're doing a decent job on this

[RickR]

[Sabertooth]

New blog post from Atati about their new PCB for the XP line.

https://t.co/nRDd3znArJ

[RickR]

That blog post gives this endeavor a lot more credibility.  Someone cares and is making great progress.  IMO of course. 

[Sabertooth]

That's my impression too @RickR .

[CrossBow]

I'm more curious why they didn't reach out AA to get boards for this purpose? AtariAge already has the Melody boards that can pretty much do what their board design claims to do so I'm not sure why they went to reinventing the wheel. Unless the current Atari just has NO idea about the existence of AA?

Either way, it looks to be a good design so I'm going to be more curious about how well it works with not just the 2600, but all the various clones, and the finickiness of the 7800 console revisions.

 

[peteym5]

I am very interested in the board. I still need to learn how to set up a bank switching ROM. I know it is better to have one portion of the memory mapped at all times, and one that is switching. Like 2K always mapped and 2K switching. If all 4K switches at once, I am not sure how one would have the program in one bank, and access data or subroutines in the other bank without CPU intensive programming.

 

[Atari Creep]

On 11/16/2021 at 8:59 PM, Justin said:

I get the feeling we may see SwordQuest AirWorld released, or possibly a nice little box set of all four games.

What would be really nice is if they could "fix" E.T. and release something incredibly fun and engaging for the 2600 

I can't get behind these so far. Think you hit the nail on the head there Justin. I can get behind the E.T. but no. Someone I might know might be working on that right now. Someone. lol

[Justin]

1 minute ago, Atari Creep said:

I can't get behind these so far. Think you hit the nail on the head there Justin.

What would you need to see from them in order for you to get behind it

 

2 minutes ago, Atari Creep said:

I can get behind the E.T. but no. Someone I might know might be working on that right now. Someone. lol

Hopefully for the 2600, to give us a proper version of 2600 E.T.

Here's a starting point, let's get text on the screen plus you can walk over the wells the same way Elliott, the Scientist, and the FBI agent can. You have to walk over the well and press the Fire button to enter it. You're greeted with something like this:

 

 

[DegasElite]

Interesting stuff, these new carts for the A2600. In my opinion, they should have made the new Atari VCS with some kind of removable media, like a cartridge or optical media. Because, what if the companies who make this online content go out of business? How would they get the online content to people then. Even an SD card drive would be nice with games in it. One thing they are doing that's good though: these carts are physical. Something that is tangible. Something about virtual bothers me. It's cool and all, but you can't hold it in your hands a like a CD, DVD, or cartridge. I wonder if there is a way to save DLC on a VCS with something. Something that can be backed up.

I think this virtual online media could be the Achilles' heel of the VCS. This is just my opinion, that's all. Thanks for letting me share. :O)

[Sabertooth]

8 minutes ago, DegasElite said:

Interesting stuff, these new carts for the A2600. In my opinion, they should have made the new Atari VCS with some kind of removable media, like a cartridge or optical media. Because, what if the companies who make this online content go out of business? How would they get the online content to people then. Even an SD card drive would be nice with games in it. One thing they are doing that's good though: these carts are physical. Something that is tangible. Something about virtual bothers me. It's cool and all, but you can't hold it in your hands a like a CD, DVD, or cartridge. I wonder if there is a way to save DLC on a VCS with something. Something that can be backed up.

I think this virtual online media could be the Achilles' heel of the VCS. This is just my opinion, that's all. Thanks for letting me share. :O)

I agree that it would have been cool to have a physical media slot in the new VCS. This is my first all digital console and I'm definitely a fan of physical media.

That said, although the new VCS content is digital and you need internet to buy content from the store, once downloaded it can be played offline. Access to purchased games does not require a connection to the internet. You can also back up games on USB or internal or external hard drive.

 

[Clint Thompson]

3 hours ago, Sabertooth said:

I agree that it would have been cool to have a physical media slot in the new VCS. This is my first all digital console and I'm definitely a fan of physical media.

That said, although the new VCS content is digital and you need internet to buy content from the store, once downloaded it can be played offline. Access to purchased games does not require a connection to the internet. You can also back up games on USB or internal or external hard drive.

 

They could have and should have added a hidden USB port at the top center of the console and released a small library of USB Atari games in 2600 or 7800 styled carts that you could have plugged in to the top. Micro versions of cartridges, those would have been cool and fun to collect.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Clint Thompson

[Scott Stilphen]

On 1/28/2022 at 3:40 PM, CrossBow said:

I'm more curious why they didn't reach out AA to get boards for this purpose? AtariAge already has the Melody boards that can pretty much do what their board design claims to do so I'm not sure why they went to reinventing the wheel. Unless the current Atari just has NO idea about the existence of AA?

Who else is using Melody boards?  Who else has means to even program (flash) them?  There's a reason no such information about them has ever been made available, or that you can't even purchase them for your own projects.  The Melody is (unofficially) exclusive to Atariage.

[Scott Stilphen]

On 11/16/2021 at 8:59 PM, Justin said:

I get the feeling we may see SwordQuest AirWorld released, or possibly a nice little box set of all four games.

What would be really nice is if they could "fix" E.T. and release something incredibly fun and engaging for the 2600 

What little code there was for SwordQuest AirWorld is likely gone at this point, so unless Tod Frye decides to sit down and recreate it - and complete it - I wouldn't hold out much hope for that one :)

As for E.T., that won't happen due to licensing costs.  And since HSW has no intention of ever programming for the VCS again, I wouldn't be interested if a fixed version was ever officially released.

[CrossBow]

11 hours ago, Scott Stilphen said:

Who else is using Melody boards?  Who else has means to even program (flash) them?  There's a reason no such information about them has ever been made available, or that you can't even purchase them for your own projects.  The Melody is (unofficially) exclusive to Atariage.

I understand that, I meant... going through AA to make these up as again the work there has already been done and it likely would have been much cheaper to just procure Al's services to make these up or possibly license whatever from Al to sell them the boards and program them up themselves.

[Scott Stilphen]

Going through AA means giving them 50% of the profit.  Plus if you design your own pcb (as David Crane did for Circus Convoy), you don't have to buy boards from anyone else.  And as we see, Atari is certainly capable of doing cartridge releases themselves.  

[Justin]

22 hours ago, Scott Stilphen said:

What little code there was for SwordQuest AirWorld is likely gone at this point, so unless Tod Frye decides to sit down and recreate it - and complete it - I wouldn't hold out much hope for that one 🙂

As for E.T., that won't happen due to licensing costs.  And since HSW has no intention of ever programming for the VCS again, I wouldn't be interested if a fixed version was ever officially released.

I wouldn't put it past them to do any of this.

[Chubbz]

Upcoming news regarding ATARI XP's release of Aquaventure.

 

 

[Chubbz]

There's some great interviews with Howard Scott Warshaw, and Dennis Debro on the ATARI XP websites discovery section.

Dennis Debro talks about his enhancements to Yars' Return for the ATARI XP 2600 release.

Howard Scott Warshaw talks about the Yarniverse, the relationship between Yars' Revenge and Saboteur, and the possibility of working on another Yars game.

Exciting stuff!

Edited February 2, 2022 by Chubbz

[Scott Stilphen]

On 2/1/2022 at 7:46 PM, Justin said:

I wouldn't put it past them to do any of this.

Love the positive attitude, Justin :)  But the harsh reality is, these guys were in their 20s and 30s when they were at Atari.  Outside of the Audacity Games guys (Dave Crane, Garry Kitchen, and Dan Kitchen), we have Bob Smith at the 2015 PRGE claiming to have made a new VCS game (but it still hasn't been released AFAIK), and Tod Frye, who at the same show claimed he was rebuilding some/all of his VCS tech demos (and again, nothing more from Frye about it).  We might see Smith's "Dungeon" game some day, but despite what Frye and Warshaw have said (and Warshaw has states several times over the years he has zero interest in coding on the VCS again), I wouldn't count on either of them doing anything.  As Rob Zdybel mentioned in that video, unless you're able to sell enough copies to make it worth the effort, there's no reason to do it unless it's something you personally want to do, and not motivated by financial concerns... which is the only reason Audacity Games exists (and if they didn't make enough from releasing Circus Convoy, we won't be seeing anything else from them).  Btw, Warshaw has been talking about his ideas for a followup to Yars' Revenge ever since I asked him about it 25 years ago:

http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/howard_scott_warshaw/interview_howard_scott_warshaw.html

Q: Was there any talk of doing a sequel?

Howard Scott Warshaw: I actually had designs for a Yars series.  The next game was going to be Yarian Olympics, which was a game that Yars had to participate in that would develop the skills that they would need to be able to go up against the Qotile.  I was already under development to do them when I got pulled off to do Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.