The Atari VCS, what on earth is going on there?

The Atari VCS, what on earth is going on there?

To say Atari have fallen from grace is one of the biggest understatements to be made in the gaming industry. In fact Atari today isn’t even really Atari, just a mask with a moustache worn by someone else and not really the legend of old. The original company went bankrupt and has had its name and IP sold and traded more times then the world has had economic collapses. Once one of the biggest names in gaming, and probably the main company that got so many kids hooked into the hobby back in the 80s, it’s now very much a shadow of a shadow of a shadow puppet of it’s one mighty self. Nowadays their real name is Atari SA and even then that comes as a rebranding of the Atari names current French owners, Infogrames Entertainment SA. And let's not even go into the number of different companies that have had a claim on the name of Atari.

And the most recent news about it’s plan to make a comeback? Well, it’s not good. As part of Ataris planned to launch a console called the Atari VCS, which has partly had funding from backers on Indiegogo, they have produced 500 consoles in their factory so far as of March 2020. Most of which are supposed to have some sort of shortcomings as far as their casings are concerned, scratches and marks that apparently 

damage the look of the casing.

But the real issue is that the Atari VCS has been in development in one form or another since June 2017. And these 500 consoles are apparently meant to be developer kits rather than home consoles for any of the backers who've made preorders. These backers have made requests for updates on the status of the console on the Atari forums after news in october 2019 showed the lead architect Rob Wyatt had resigned due to not being paid for his work, but Atari not only declined to answer these posts, but removed them. Wyatt has since taken legal action regarding his overdue pay.

Even at this point exac tech specs are a mystery, it has apparently gone through one revision to allow it to play modern day AAA titles, such as Fortnite and Borderlands being shown as running on it at the 2020 CES, thanks to using the new Ryzen R1000 chip, the R1606G from AMD. And pictures from July 2017 proved it has HDMI and USB ports, Ethernet port, and one SD card slot, with a case taking design cues from the Atari 2600.

Those same pictures show an updated take on the classic single button joystick that features an extra button to access the menus and wire, which ought to be good for retro games, and a modern controller that looks like it takes heavy influences from the Xbox controller. It even uses the same positions for the X, Y, A and B buttons, D-Pad and analogue sticks. Not that there's much they could do to make it that different without going down the playstation route. But with a plan to be compatible with PC peripherals maybe that would explain the modern day controllers resemblance to microsoft's joypad.
But this is all we know for certain for a project that has been ongoing for three years. Ataris latest release of information only goes into the ‘defects’ of the 500 models on the production line in great, minute detail, (as if though they are giving the consumers the complaints report they are giving, or should be giving to the factory) before stating that the Chinese factory is only operating up to 20% of norm due to the coronavirus pandemic. That at least is understandable and is clearly a situation out of their control, as it is everyone else's. It does not, however, explain or excuse why it has taken so long for the console to get to the stage it is at today.

The actual images show the first 500 in all their glory, partly wrapped in plastic, but their top parts already showing dust collecting on their shiny gloss finishes. Others show some issues with the scratches and even the wood grain frontage, a hallmark of the classic Atari consoles of old, not fitting correctly. Others suggest almost invisible discrepancies in the sizes of the USB and other ports, as well as some of the buttons on the rear being noticable out of place. But given they are on the rear and out of view, are they really going to make any difference? Unless the minor difference in sizes on the ports make connecting to the wires and leads difficult, is this really something to be concerned about? The rather detailed report doesn’t seem to cover this aspect.

I am not an Atari fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn’t mean I hate them and want them to fail. Not being a fan does not indicate not liking or even hating a thing. I do wish them well, but given how this project seems to have been mismanaged, and the previous failures of Atari, be it the original company or those wearing the clothes of it while smiling at us to try to win us over, I do wonder what fate will befall this version of the company.