Ataribox will be an open, Linux-based console priced starting at $249

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/26/ataribox-will-be-an-open-linux-based-console-priced-starting-at-249/

by justinucd • 9 years ago

188 144 9 years ago

sacheendra• 9 years ago

What is the point of a Linux based console?

Traditional consoles had fixed hardware which could be exploited through vendor specific APIs. If this is just going to run games programmed with OpenGL, this is not different from any other Linux PC.

Given the introduction of APIs like Vulkan which bings the programmability of PCs even closer to consoles, I don't see a use case.

The only market I can think of the niche of Atari fans.

kbenson• 9 years ago

Well, throw steamOS on it and you have a cheap (cheapest?) steam machine. $249 is much more palatable than $400+, and it would likely play quite a few of the hundreds of Humble Bundle games I have in my library.

sleepychu• 9 years ago

steam link is probably a better fit for you then

beefsack• 9 years ago

Atari says it’ll offer a “full PC experience” for your TV

I feel this is a significant part of the appeal.

Feniks5• 9 years ago

Without Windows?

pjmlp10• 9 years ago

Cheaper to develop for them as they don't have to develop an console OS from scratch.

godzillabrennus• 9 years ago

Not only that but if they partner with Steam they stand half of a chance at attracting more than Atari nerds who remember the 2600 fondly to purchase these.

nippples2• 9 years ago

What is the point of a Linux based console?

Let's break it down

What is the point of a console?

Very predictable hardware specs & setup.

What is the point of the console being Linux-based?

Reduction of brand-new OS development costs; potentially zero need for writing drivers depending on hardware setup; very extensive presence of compilers / interpreters / libraries that can be freely usable out of the box.

Feniks5• 9 years ago

Too bad Linux still doesn't play nice with most games. SteamOS was a failure.

eloisant• 9 years ago

They can have it open while still have fixed hardware and vendor specific APIs (in addition to open apis commonly found in Linux).

mtgx• 9 years ago

It may (should) use Vulkan, which should give closer to console performance, once developers know to target a specific Vulkan machine.

Zardoz84• 9 years ago

The same that running a BSD or Windows based console.... Oh, wait! Playstation & Switch uses BSD and XBox runs a striped down Windows!

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_4_system_software

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_system_softwar...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software

And add to the mix that Playstation and XBox actually are using PC hardware...

boomboomsubban3• 9 years ago

I still haven't seen anything showing the Switch is using a FreeBSD kernel, just that the Switch ships with the licence from the kernel. That's all that any of the English Wikipedia references show, and a copy of that license doesn't prove much.

la_oveja• 9 years ago

If this is just going to run games programmed with OpenGL [...]

dude, we're riding the Vulkan wave now!

nikcub• 9 years ago

Traditional consoles had fixed hardware which could be exploited through vendor specific APIs.

Atari know that - they tried it with the Jaguar

shmerl3• 9 years ago

Why not make it Linux based? Developing a new OS isn't something they want to do I assume. Leveraging Linux and established APIs (Vulkan / OpenGL) and etc. sounds like a pragmatic solution.

"Traditional" consoles used lock-in not because it was good to do, but because they were either too weak and required very close to the hardware APIs (and no portable APIs like that existed), or because vendors were just lock-in inclined.

SwellJoe2• 9 years ago

The case is delicious. I can't tell anything about it from the article or the company website, so it's anyone's guess what this actually is. But, it sure does look pretty.

That said, I worry that at the price point, it'll be a somewhat disappointing gaming experience compared to a general purpose PC with a decent GPU. Having a high-quality retro experience is cool and all (I hope they have arcade versions of the games, rather than the original VCS 2600 versions, as they were kinda awful), but it's been possible to emulate an Atari on modest hardware for a couple decades...I doubt I'd spend $250 for a pretty box that plays classic Atari games, even though I grew up on them.

throwanem2• 9 years ago

I'll spend $250 for a nicely designed and well integrated Linux-based STB that happens to come with an Atari 2600 emulator preinstalled, though.

radiorental• 9 years ago

You're paying $200 for a nice case and the 30 minutes you saved putting Kodi & Retro Pi on a $35 computer.

baldfat2• 9 years ago

Steam Box - http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steam_machines

morganvachon• 9 years ago

"That said, I worry that at the price point, it'll be a somewhat disappointing gaming experience compared to a general purpose PC with a decent GPU."

At $200, the Nvidia Shield offers an amazing gaming experience, whether through native games or streamed from my gaming PC. I can definitely see this performing just as well.

joekrill• 9 years ago

I bought a Shield not too long ago and I love it. But the $200 price point didn't make it a simple purchase -- I was reluctant to shell out that cash. I've bought a Chromecast, FireTV, etc, and they all end up being quite a bit of a letdown. So it was risky to dive into another device at a much higher price point. So $250 -- even higher than the shield -- is really pushing that comfort zone further.

And again, I'm so glad I bought the Shield. It's not without it's issues, but I love it. But I'd still be very reluctant buying something even more expensive.

mustacheemperor2• 9 years ago

I have the Steam Link and love it for streaming games, I just wish it had some official apps like Netflix or Plex - from what I can tell that's the main advantage of the Shield, and I'm not sure it's worth $150 difference compared to what the Link was on sale, with controller included.

VectorLock• 9 years ago

Think of it as a pretty Chromebox and it gets more appealing at that price point.

thedonkeycometh• 9 years ago

Maybe they're holding out for a steam compatibility badge.

taurath3• 9 years ago

Meanwhile Nintendo is selling the snes classic for $80 - that price point is glaring.

meheleventyone2• 9 years ago

The SNES Classic is locked down and only supports the games it ships with. That's not really comparable to an open console/computer that ships with a selection of old Atari games.

pjmlp10• 9 years ago

Yeah, because all Linux based games consoles have been a huge market success thus far.

GP2X, Novatio, Pandora, Pyra, Ouya, Steam Machines, ...

taurath3• 9 years ago

A raspberry pi can play all the games this will ship with - why is it $250?

SimeVidas• 9 years ago

The games that come with SNES Classic offer hundreds of hours of high-quality entertainment. I mean, have you seen the games? $80 is a steal. The problem is that you may not be able to get it for $80 due to scalpers and/or greedy retailers.

Karunamon• 9 years ago

Games that are 20-30 years old and can be had for free online with a modicum of effort. This isn't the 90s. Rom sites aren't virus-laden scams anymore.

Yeah, yeah, piracy boogeyman, but considering I've bought most of these more than once already, my conscience is clear when I don't pay Nintendo $5+ for emulated games. In my mind, it's equivalent to format shifting.

taurath3• 9 years ago

According to Nintendo they will have plenty (and they’re more worried about having enough Switches to keep up with demand). Time will tell if they’ve learned their lesson.

SmellyGeekBoy• 9 years ago

Ooh, it's real wood! Even the original 2600 wasn't real wood.

madshiva• 9 years ago

crowd-funding at that price? where's the goal? PS4 slim are at almost the same price. I have a raspberry PI 3 for 50$ that do better.

sliken• 9 years ago

Depends. What can you PS4 do? Do you have to pay to make it a plex client? Chromecast to? Can you run vlc on it? Can it transcode? Can you run an opensource game on it? Run a decent browser on it? Steam? How about the collection of Classic Atari games?

I've only have public knowledge of the Atari, but X86, cheap, and linux does open some rather interesting possibilities.

I've yet to see a media player that does it better than Roku. If the Atari could be the roku of gaming it could be quite interesting, even if it doesn't have the latest/greatest $50-$100 game that the PS4 of Xbox has.

criddell• 9 years ago

Do you have to pay to make it a plex client? Chromecast to? Can you run vlc on it? Can it transcode? Can you run an opensource game on it? Run a decent browser on it? Steam? How about the collection of Classic Atari games?

There are probably hundreds of us!

seba_dos14• 9 years ago

I am totally not interested in what PS4 or Xbox has to offer and will probably get one only when the prospect of porting one of my games to those consoles will be good enough to justify it (and that'll need them in some devkit form probably anyway).

On the other hand, I'm eagerly looking for more details about Ataribox. I only have a laptop(s) with Intel GPUs and I'm more and more in need of some device with stronger GPU with dedicated VRAM (mostly for testing, but occasional gaming with higher FPS would be nice too). I'm not keen on updating the laptop, as GPU is pretty much the only thing that would need to be replaced (and with Intel's worry-free open drivers stack, I actually like to have it on my main computer). I thought about building some cheap desktop just for those needs, but if Ataribox keeps on its promise of being so open, it might be just right (and cheaper) option for me.

Atari emulator would then be just a nice bonus.

jlebrech• 9 years ago

I'd still prefer a Raspberry PI 3. if something that form factor could emulator Gamecube it would be perfect.

gourou• 9 years ago

When was the last time Atari made hardware?

hnlmorg4• 9 years ago

This isn't the same company as the one that made the 2600. In fact the Atari trademark has been held by so many different companies over the years that it probably makes more sense at this point to class new hardware as "Atari branded" rather than "Atari".

phjesusthatguy3• 9 years ago

Infogrames, to be exact. They of Alone in the Dark and... that's the only game I can come up with at the moment.

ido4• 9 years ago

Either the Jaguar CD[0] or Flashback[1], depending on how flexible you are with the "atari made" part.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Jaguar_CD [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Flashback

hnlmorg4• 9 years ago

At risk of splitting hairs, Atari Inc and Atari Corp were different companies as well. The 2600 was released by Atari Inc and the Jaguar by Atari Corp.

brightfog• 9 years ago

What an brilliant continuation of an iconic design. I'll will just buy this because of its case.

krige• 9 years ago

Yeah nah it's going to bomb. Ouya 2.0 but with a nostalgic brand attached. To actually sell in any worthwile amount a console NEEDS to have a proper developer support. And I mean BIG developer, not a bunch of indie studios porting their preexisting products to linux.

mmjaa2• 9 years ago

Following the world of individual developers for years, I would have to disagree with you. If they can cover the basic users, i.e. get it shipping at profit, there's definitely a way to make this product work. Just look at the GP2X, GPH, GPD Pocket, Pyra Handheld, Open Pandora, Caanoo handhelds, for example .. the users are there.

pjmlp10• 9 years ago

Not paying users you mean, mostly using the consoles to run some variation of MAME.

This is why major studios mostly ignore GNU/Linux gamers, as many feel entitled to have nice stuff for free.

boondaburrah• 9 years ago

As someone who got caught up in the OUYA craze, nah that's not why it bombed. A console will probably do fine with just indies. What will kill it is a company that continues to not fix problems, act like everything is "rock star awesome" all the time, and pretend like they're some buddy of yours instead of be responsible.

OUYA just continued to piss me off by not even bothering to make sure their experience was good and brushing it off by doubling down on marketing on how cool they were. They slapped android on a Tegra and called it "good." At no point did they try to unify the controller api, yet they claimed to support multiple brands/types of controller. It was on the dev to map each one when they can't even predict every brand. I had controllers work in one game but not the next! That's unforgivable. Either handle an SDL2_Gamepad style mapping at the ENV/system level or just say you only support OUYA controllers.

When they were getting complaints about overscan (ugh, why do we still need to deal with this (aside: holy crap iPhone X, not you too!)), they elected to just force-scale the UI down by an inch (memories of PS2) and again tell the devs to just deal with overscan themselves on a game-by-game basis. A good solution would have been to make overscan a system setting that the games could query ("oh, btw, your display area is actually 1900x1000, offset by 9px left, 25px down").

This pattern of "slap a fix on it, and then plug your ears and yell 'LALALA'" was what killed it, and probably all other attempts at an indie console for a while. Hopefully the world has forgotten the OUYA enough that this has a chance.

I mean OUYA didn't even have a useful recovery partition COME ON.

Latty• 9 years ago

It depends on what you mean by "console" - this isn't going to be an equivalent to one of the big systems or become a "platform", no, but that doesn't seem to be what they are aiming for. Will people pick them up and use them? I don't see why not. It's an attractive alternative to a steam link or whatever.

mustacheemperor2• 9 years ago

Depends what "it" really is, since information is still pretty scant. If this is really just an underpowered Linux box it'll fail like the Ouya, but there's more opportunity than just running cheapo indie games. 1/3rd of the Steam game library can run on Linux, so if the box is powerful enough to run games like L4D2, and/or can stream content from a real computer/run streaming applications ala the shield it could succeed. The shield can cost $200+ depending on configuration, the market is definitely there.

ConfucianNardin• 9 years ago

Official site: https://www.ataribox.com/

hoopism6• 9 years ago

Tech websites need to stop giving these projects coverage. This is not Atari... Atari is gone. Slapping licensed games and selling a shiny box with common internals is not novel and will not somehow grow a magical following. Ouya was the best example but there's been dozens if not hundreds since.

I know it's a content driven world but techcrunch, kotaku, polywhatever needs to stop.

fhood2• 9 years ago

Unless you are Nintendo, In that case you will make bank.

hoopism6• 9 years ago

Nintendo is still Nintendo. It's the same company. Making hardware based on it's own IP. Many titles being their own in house produced work.

Nostalgia works when it's genuine.

mindcrime2• 9 years ago

Tech websites need to stop giving these projects coverage.

Why? There are people who want to know about this kind of thing.

This is not Atari... Atari is gone.

So?

Slapping licensed games and selling a shiny box with common internals is not novel and will not somehow grow a magical following.

Why do you think it needs a "magical following"? Isn't it enough that there's market demand for this box and they are serving that demand?

j2bax4• 9 years ago

From my perspective, its a novel little gaming computer with a neat industrial design and an Atari license. I don't see any reason the tech news shouldn't cover it unless they are inundated with higher interest news for the day.

hoopism6• 9 years ago

Because time after time the majority of these have turned out to be bad actors buying up old licenses, putting a few thousand into marketing and deceiving a large audience into buying into a vision of a console supported by hoardes of indie developers.

It's a narrative that has played enough times that it warrants at a minimum skepticism.

Like it or not when you do writeups based solely on the press release it lends credibility to the project. Personally I think a little diligence and curation would go a long way. Most these projects end up being funded when these sites all run to be first to publish... nobody actually spends time investigating whether the people involved have track record or whether claims are even reasonable... all of a sudden overnight it's funded... that sucks.

shmerl3• 9 years ago

We need more computers with Linux preinstalled. So don't complain and appreciate that it's happening.

legohead2• 9 years ago

Not computers which focus on gaming.

awill• 9 years ago

As a Linux desktop user that uses Steam, I hope they're at least moderately successful.

spinchange2• 9 years ago

Is this an x86 device? Are there any other consoles or STBs (anymore) in the market that are? Strange product positioning...

digi_owl2• 9 years ago

Just about every major console is, besides the Switch.

Both the PS4 and XbOne runs on a AMD supplied APU, that in turn is using the x86-64 ISA.

spinchange2• 9 years ago

Now, I feel foolish - I thought both those consoles ran on RISC chips. (I know that Xbox used to be an x86, but thought that had changed). Admittedly not a gamer or HW gamer buff, my kids are.

reiichiroh• 9 years ago

Ataribox will be a failure or not launch at all.

mindcrime2• 9 years ago

Define "failure"?

sparkpeasy• 9 years ago

That they've nailed down a price point yet haven't defined the exact GPU beyond saying it's a Radeon makes the whole enterprise very suspect.

thesmok• 9 years ago

They never show the back panel with all the connectors, but on this blurry image https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/2194981... it looks like the device is powered by an external power brick, which is a no go for me. Using external PSU for a stationary device is just lazy engineering.

mbrodersen• 9 years ago

This will crash and burn. You need a massive marketing budget to even begin to compete with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. And professional game developers will not support a platform without a large customer base.

Ataribox will be an open, Linux-based console priced starting at $249

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