Backers of the Linux-based Ataris VCS console should be sufficiently numb to news about delays by this point.
We’ve been covering the protracted mess being marketed under the name “Atari VCS” since …Well, since forever, or more accurately since 2017, when the machine was known by a better name (‘Ataribox’) it wasn’t cloaked in a thick cloud of vapourware…
Alas it looks like we’ll be writing about the console-that-never-is for a while longer, following news that the machine, which still lacks a functional prototype, has been delayed once again.
But I have to ask at this point: does anyone even care?
Rename it the ‘Atari Delayed’
Per tradition, the team behind the Ataris VCS buried word of the delay in a blog post touting specs upgrade for a SoC that, at the time, wasn’t even released.
The Atari VCS team spinning their glittery (i assume) wheel of excuses is pretty much the only actual gaming action taking part in all this, so I’m not knocking it.
The “estimated shipping” date on the IndieGoGo campaign page has been revised from July 2019 to December 2019.
The delay applies to all tiers, including the $49 controller-only option.
Should I cut the team some slack? Perhaps. It can’t be easy raising $3 million on IndieGoGo for production of a console you’re still designing and picking hardware components for.
But a dose of reality wouldn’t go amiss.
There’s no prototype (yet). There’s no Ubuntu-based OS (yet). There’s not even a convincing demo of any of the games which will run on it (yet).
So the team should cut out the subtle implication that they’re minutes away from yanking the lever on production, and admit that the notion of creating a games console from the ground up on a comparatively minimal budget was …a little harder than a game of Asteroids.
Thanks Alistair
An earlier version of this article was written as though the delay was a new delay and not just the same delay we’d written about previously. The delay is still the same delay and the article has been updated to remedy the confusion.