At the end of May
Atari released a trailer for the newest gaming console—the Atari VCS—showing off what this new machine could do, as well as letting customers know that pre-orders had become available. Everything looked fine, the console is stylish, and it seemed like it could do almost anything. It turns out that may not be the case at all as some new evidence has come out and it seems that Atari doesn't even know what their console can do.
A couple of months ago, Kieren McCarthy—a reporter for The Register—
had an interview with Atari Chief Operating Officer Michael Arzt. This interview didn't go that well since Atari's COO didn't seem to know anything about the console they were supposed to be talking about. So, eventually the interview gets posted on The Register and simply reports exactly what happened during the meeting with Michael Arzt, which didn't bode well with Atari, who last week responed to the article via a Facebook message.
"
We honestly can't explain that article either. Our executives sat with that reporter for half an hour and he wrote what he wanted instead of what was discussed with him. Sadly there are even irresponsible trolls in "professional" positions i guess. We clearly said that we were bringing engineering design models to GDC and lots of people clearly don't understand what that means. Hunks of plastic? Well, yeah, that's how you finalize the designs and confirm that you can get the look and feel you want for the finished products. Sad".
The problem with this is that—after finding out what Atari had said about the original news—
The Register issued another article in which they revealed the audio recordings of that interview, which not only confirms that the Atari COO didn't know anything about the console, but also that Atari was just trying to save face with their post on Facebook—which is blowing up in their face. The main problem is that in the original interview there were other details that were concerning like the fact that the Atari VCS didn't work at all, and the controllers where just replicas that didn't feature pressable buttons or moving analog sticks.
This could probably mean that Atari have been cashing in on the customer's nostalgia without actually having a working product, or maybe that they simply haven't started working on the console—which would explain the delays. Whatever the case, it is already pretty bad when the company's COO can't even answer if a controller can be plugged into a laptop, or if the console has custom hardware and software—constantly reminding the interviewer that he isn't the engineer so he can't answer all the questions.