1 00:00:00,590 --> 00:00:05,360 - It's retro time!? Maybe, sort of. 2 00:00:05,360 --> 00:00:10,850 I've been waiting for this for a long time. Like this unassuming looking package, 3 00:00:10,850 --> 00:00:14,600 you can probably actually tell what it is by the tape on the top. 4 00:00:14,600 --> 00:00:17,970 It's from a small company you might've heard of called Atari. 5 00:00:17,970 --> 00:00:24,780 They had a console called the VCS which is currently called the Atari 2600 and that is, 6 00:00:24,780 --> 00:00:28,040 I'm led to believe, what this is modeled after. 7 00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:33,155 So I don't have a whole lot of nostalgia for Atari personally 'cause I didn't really grow up with it 8 00:00:33,155 --> 00:00:36,690 but I am really interested in seeing what this is 9 00:00:36,690 --> 00:00:40,000 because it's more than just a game console. 10 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:43,075 So let's get this open. Oh, here we go. 11 00:00:43,075 --> 00:00:46,277 I might be able to finagle this side. 12 00:00:46,277 --> 00:00:51,744 - [Jono] I taped over the top. - Yeah, yeah, you didn't tape over the bottom did you, Jono? 13 00:00:51,744 --> 00:00:56,150 - [Jono] Well, you're not supposed to open things from the bottom. - Well I'm opening it from the bottom. 14 00:00:56,150 --> 00:01:00,993 It's what you get. - [Jono] You mean like the back door? - Backdoor, best way to get in. 15 00:01:01,830 --> 00:01:05,760 We're in through the back door and it is actually the bottom, 16 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:10,483 I guess they didn't expect me to open it from this end. So let's get this out of here. 17 00:01:12,590 --> 00:01:18,110 Oh, look at that. So what size shirt did they send us? 18 00:01:18,110 --> 00:01:21,877 XL. - [Andy] I'm XL. Thank you! 19 00:01:21,877 --> 00:01:25,120 - let's show them the shirt First. (laughing) 20 00:01:25,120 --> 00:01:28,930 Atari VCS. Quite a nice little logo there. 21 00:01:28,930 --> 00:01:34,210 It kind of reminds me of the Atari boot screen with the like multicolored rainbow effect 22 00:01:34,210 --> 00:01:39,130 that they had going on there and it actually says on the back here that it was backed in 2008. 23 00:01:39,130 --> 00:01:41,123 So I was a year off, it was 2000, 24 00:01:42,153 --> 00:01:47,533 - [Jono] 2018. - It was backed in 2018. I was 10 years off. 25 00:01:47,533 --> 00:01:53,260 (laughing) Since Andy is XL and I am, well, 26 00:01:53,260 --> 00:01:56,700 unfortunately not quite XL. 27 00:01:56,700 --> 00:01:59,000 Here you go. - [Andy] Thank you, Atari! 28 00:02:00,530 --> 00:02:04,050 - I don't know if we can keep that or not. Moving on. We have other things that we might be able 29 00:02:04,050 --> 00:02:07,400 to keep like this, this here sticker. 30 00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:11,810 They're actually pretty high quality stickers. So that's the ancillary stuff. 31 00:02:11,810 --> 00:02:15,283 Let's get this out of the outer wrapping and take a look at the box. 32 00:02:17,890 --> 00:02:21,870 Ooh, sexy. Actually that is quite fetching. 33 00:02:21,870 --> 00:02:25,280 I actually really do like the like subtle dark walnut 34 00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:28,910 that they got here, that's what they call it here, black walnut. 35 00:02:28,910 --> 00:02:32,061 Video computer system, gaming plus PC streaming. 36 00:02:32,061 --> 00:02:35,500 Okay. 800, I don't know what that means. 37 00:02:35,500 --> 00:02:39,400 Does it mean that it has Atari 800 support? Can I play 800 games? 38 00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:42,602 - [Jono] Could you? - Could I? - [Jono] Should you? 39 00:02:42,602 --> 00:02:49,070 - Should I? - [Jono] Should you!? - I mean the Atari 800 was actually not a bad machine 40 00:02:49,070 --> 00:02:52,730 if I remember correctly, it's like the 5200 except it's a computer. 41 00:02:52,730 --> 00:02:55,770 One thing that might be throwing a couple of you off if you haven't been keeping up, 42 00:02:55,770 --> 00:03:00,630 is this gaming plus PC plus streaming bit. 43 00:03:00,630 --> 00:03:06,720 As it turns out, this is actually straight up an AMD Ryzen based machine. 44 00:03:08,050 --> 00:03:13,150 It's actually a Ryzen embedded processor and the graphics are Vega 3 I think. 45 00:03:13,150 --> 00:03:16,373 So it's not super powerful but it's more than enough to play. 46 00:03:17,922 --> 00:03:21,500 - [Jono] Can I scalp it? - These kinds of games. Can you scalp it? 47 00:03:21,500 --> 00:03:25,020 I don't know. I mean, it'll probably be scalped a little bit 48 00:03:25,020 --> 00:03:28,400 but I'm not sure how big the market is for it. 49 00:03:28,400 --> 00:03:34,220 So we'll have to see. - [Jono] But memories. - Memories, can you put a price on memory? 50 00:03:34,220 --> 00:03:37,340 I mean, I lose mine all the time. 51 00:03:37,340 --> 00:03:40,373 So yeah, it's got the new and retro games and apps built in, 52 00:03:40,373 --> 00:03:44,130 a 100 plus Atari classics. Okay. 53 00:03:44,130 --> 00:03:48,840 Discover Atari classics with a modern controller. Yep. Okay, featuring LED effects in rumble. 54 00:03:48,840 --> 00:03:54,920 I dunno what the LED effects are all about but we'll find out and customize, unique PC mode, 55 00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:59,060 upgradable RAM and storage. Every console should have this. 56 00:03:59,060 --> 00:04:03,080 I mean, maybe not actually but you know, this is good. 57 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:08,410 This is basically a console on a PC. You remember the Subor Z+ that we looked at 58 00:04:08,410 --> 00:04:12,880 on LTT a little while ago? That was basically the same kind of idea, 59 00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:16,460 is to have like a special game OS filled 60 00:04:16,460 --> 00:04:20,720 with games and then like a straight up PC OS like Windows 61 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:24,500 or Linux or in this case, it also supports Chrome OS. 62 00:04:24,500 --> 00:04:27,970 Yeah, this could be a very useful little machine 63 00:04:27,970 --> 00:04:32,120 for somebody who wants to, you know, play games and have a small little computer 64 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:35,470 to occupy a very little space in their home. 65 00:04:35,470 --> 00:04:37,803 Let's get it out of the box. 66 00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:42,320 Two chambers, this feels like it might be the main unit. 67 00:04:45,070 --> 00:04:47,343 Oh yeah, almost certainly. 68 00:04:49,810 --> 00:04:52,203 Let's work our way up in terms of size here. 69 00:04:58,380 --> 00:05:01,760 That is adorable. I like the matte. 70 00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:04,810 The mirror kind of works alongside it 71 00:05:04,810 --> 00:05:09,510 but I know that this is gonna pick up fingerprints. This button here is the connect slash pairing button, 72 00:05:09,510 --> 00:05:14,330 I'm sure, these two seem to be menu and back and oh yeah, 73 00:05:14,330 --> 00:05:17,867 here's another button on the front here. So you've got two buttons like that 74 00:05:17,867 --> 00:05:22,960 and then you've got your directions. Never been a fan of this particular layout for controls, 75 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:26,270 but it is classic. So they've got that going for them. 76 00:05:26,270 --> 00:05:30,040 It feels, it feels pretty solid actually. 77 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:35,330 It's not like creaky or anything like that and two nice rubber strips on the bottom 78 00:05:35,330 --> 00:05:38,680 so you can plant it down and really get going. 79 00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:42,300 There's no suction cups and there's no place to put suction cups though. 80 00:05:42,300 --> 00:05:45,090 So if you're into that, then you're out of luck unfortunately. 81 00:05:47,260 --> 00:05:51,450 Nice lengthy micro USB cable. 82 00:05:51,450 --> 00:05:54,983 I'm more interested in this box though. Okay, yeah. 83 00:05:54,983 --> 00:05:59,440 So there's a little quick start in here. That button is in fact for pairing and for power 84 00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:04,030 but these two buttons here, you can toggle between VCS and Xbox mode. That basically means that you can toggle 85 00:06:04,030 --> 00:06:08,300 between like their proprietary like controller mode, 86 00:06:08,300 --> 00:06:12,823 to being able to be used in the PC mode, so in Windows 10 or whatever. 87 00:06:15,350 --> 00:06:18,533 And here's their, not an Xbox controller. 88 00:06:21,001 --> 00:06:23,251 (laughing) 89 00:06:24,660 --> 00:06:25,493 - Hmm. 90 00:06:31,270 --> 00:06:38,653 Okay. So Atari is much lighter than Microsoft. 91 00:06:40,150 --> 00:06:44,650 There's no knurling on the back or anything. It's just soft plastic. 92 00:06:44,650 --> 00:06:48,930 It's actually pretty solid again, it's not creaky or anything. 93 00:06:48,930 --> 00:06:53,010 This D-pad is at very least passable. 94 00:06:53,010 --> 00:06:57,529 This D-pad is not good. 95 00:06:57,529 --> 00:07:01,220 If you don't like how the Sega Genesis controller feels 96 00:07:01,220 --> 00:07:04,710 with it's like disc shaped D-pad, this is a million times worse 97 00:07:04,710 --> 00:07:07,970 because there's no like actual D-tense. 98 00:07:07,970 --> 00:07:12,540 Yeah, Like I don't feel like I'm pressing anything in particular after this first press. 99 00:07:12,540 --> 00:07:16,570 So if i were to do like a Dragon Punch 100 00:07:16,570 --> 00:07:21,410 in Street Fighter that might or might not fire, I have no idea because there's no feedback. 101 00:07:21,410 --> 00:07:24,820 I'm just like rubbing my finger across the D-pad. 102 00:07:24,820 --> 00:07:28,933 So that's a thing, but I guess we'll have to see how it feels in game. 103 00:07:30,240 --> 00:07:32,590 Triggers feel okay but they're a little spongy. 104 00:07:34,378 --> 00:07:40,853 Yeah, these are a little bit spongy on the way down too I guess. It's soft, let's put it that way. 105 00:07:41,730 --> 00:07:45,590 They're not bad though and then there's these bumpers, which 106 00:07:45,590 --> 00:07:50,160 I mean, they're just bumpers. Presumably this has a built-in battery and yes it does. 107 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:53,320 It's at 75% charged right now if the three dots are 108 00:07:53,320 --> 00:07:56,950 to be believed. That's Atari's controller. 109 00:07:56,950 --> 00:08:01,950 It's basically this but it's different. 110 00:08:02,180 --> 00:08:05,513 I would say for the worse, but I mean, they tried. 111 00:08:06,950 --> 00:08:13,440 Yeah, just another micro B cable, and finally the main event, the Atari VCS itself. 112 00:08:16,370 --> 00:08:20,310 There it is. These nice little tabs to pull it out. 113 00:08:20,310 --> 00:08:21,143 That's cute. 114 00:08:23,330 --> 00:08:27,760 It's got an external power supply. What are these different types of bags here? 115 00:08:27,760 --> 00:08:33,374 This one is resealable. This one is just open and this one is sealed. 116 00:08:33,374 --> 00:08:39,530 - [Andy] It gives you three types of unboxing experiences. - Yeah, you get three times the unboxing experience. 117 00:08:39,530 --> 00:08:45,870 Anyway, this guy here is just the other end to this power adapter and we've got an HDMI cable. 118 00:08:45,870 --> 00:08:46,970 Anything else in here? 119 00:08:49,970 --> 00:08:53,616 Snack for later. All right. So all of this stuff is boring. 120 00:08:53,616 --> 00:08:57,183 This is the real meat of the experience here. 121 00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:02,580 Stop, thank you for your Atari VCS purchase. 122 00:09:02,580 --> 00:09:06,480 If you have questions or problems with your purchase please do not return it 123 00:09:06,480 --> 00:09:09,840 to the retail store. Great. We didn't get it from a retail store. 124 00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:12,960 So I don't know where we return it if we had any problems with it. 125 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:16,603 So thank you. We're stuck with it. 126 00:09:16,603 --> 00:09:20,113 (laughing) This is mine now. I'll just make it so 127 00:09:20,113 --> 00:09:24,583 that the taking up space in the warehouse and then at some point they'll beg me to take them. 128 00:09:25,571 --> 00:09:30,820 That is real wood. I'm touching real wood right now. 129 00:09:30,820 --> 00:09:33,920 - [Jono] How much does this thing cost? - 399. 130 00:09:33,920 --> 00:09:37,300 It's more than most mini consoles but when you consider it's like a Ryzen computer 131 00:09:37,300 --> 00:09:40,430 that's upgradable, like it's not too bad. 132 00:09:40,430 --> 00:09:43,963 You got your two USB ports upfront, these are 3.0 type A. 133 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:49,260 Around the back we've got two USB ports. 134 00:09:49,260 --> 00:09:54,260 HDMI, Ethernet, Gigabit, AC power and power, power. 135 00:09:55,390 --> 00:09:59,603 Okay, so should we get set up then? 136 00:10:01,162 --> 00:10:05,394 I mean, I could like do this kind of thing. Verify the account, Jono. 137 00:10:05,394 --> 00:10:09,563 - [Jono] I did! - [Presenter] Hi, Short. 138 00:10:09,563 --> 00:10:13,160 - [Jono] Hi, Linus. (laughing) 139 00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:19,200 - How to install Companion APP, yep. Okay, so I have the VCS Companion APP here. 140 00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:24,870 I may actually have to connect it to the same Wi-Fi network but it's taking a minute 141 00:10:24,870 --> 00:10:29,897 to find the VCS. Okay, you know what? I think I don't care enough about that feature. 142 00:10:29,897 --> 00:10:34,340 - [Jono] I wanna play some games. - Yeah, let's play some games. 143 00:10:34,340 --> 00:10:39,470 Thanks Grammarly for sponsoring today's video and hopefully you don't hate that we forgot to segue this. 144 00:10:39,470 --> 00:10:43,530 Grammarly is a digital writing assistant that helps you with grammar and spelling suggestions. 145 00:10:43,530 --> 00:10:46,740 Simply install the browser extension, log in and start typing. 146 00:10:46,740 --> 00:10:50,030 There's also Grammarly Premium which provides more feedback on your writing. 147 00:10:50,030 --> 00:10:53,490 For the job hunters out there, we recommend checking out the vocabulary 148 00:10:53,490 --> 00:10:56,670 and clarity suggestion tools. They help you save time 149 00:10:56,670 --> 00:11:00,000 and make your writing more compelling by finding synonyms for overused words 150 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:04,550 and completely removing unnecessary words. Now it's much easier to make a great first impression 151 00:11:04,550 --> 00:11:08,830 on every application or introductory email. Go to grammarly.com/shortcircuit 152 00:11:08,830 --> 00:11:14,320 to sign up for a free account and get 20% off Grammarly Premium and get Premium today 153 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:17,320 to help you save time and work more efficiently. 154 00:11:17,320 --> 00:11:20,470 Well, let's go to the VCS Vault, see what happens. 155 00:11:20,470 --> 00:11:25,713 Ooh. Okay, so Asteroids, I guess these are the arcade versions? 156 00:11:27,470 --> 00:11:32,070 Okay, so you can choose 2600 games or Atari arcade games. 157 00:11:32,070 --> 00:11:38,530 Let's go with Asteroids. Up is thrust, directions are directions. 158 00:11:38,530 --> 00:11:44,180 The A button is shoot. B is that teleport thing that almost always kills you. 159 00:11:44,180 --> 00:11:48,723 It's got some pretty hefty rumble actually, like it's hefty. 160 00:11:50,410 --> 00:11:55,817 So that's Asteroids. It's neat how the box is in 3D and the cabinet is in 3D, 161 00:11:55,817 --> 00:11:59,190 ah, the back of the box isn't modeled, come on. 162 00:11:59,190 --> 00:12:03,663 I'm gonna switch to the other controller for the authentic 2600 experience. 163 00:12:04,770 --> 00:12:08,100 To be clear, I've never actually played a real 2600. 164 00:12:08,100 --> 00:12:11,213 So I'm gonna suck at this. Sprint Master. 165 00:12:12,610 --> 00:12:16,690 Oh cool. Oh, that's neat. It's got the owner's manual. 166 00:12:16,690 --> 00:12:19,750 There was an NES emulator for Dreamcast called NesterDC SE 167 00:12:19,750 --> 00:12:23,160 that let you do this as well. This is super sweet. 168 00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:28,180 I love it. Oh, okay, you can turn on scan lines. 169 00:12:28,180 --> 00:12:32,260 Oh, you can do realistic vector display, bright, bold, standard, okay, cool. 170 00:12:32,260 --> 00:12:36,870 So they're actually giving you a lot of options here. Audio, yeah. Flicker authentic, yeah, you can, 171 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:41,520 I think what that means is either they're actually filtering 172 00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:46,303 it or they're removing the Sprite Limit which I mean, I guess technically this didn't, 173 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:52,170 the 2600 hardware was weird. Right, These are all the settings that you would set 174 00:12:52,170 --> 00:12:55,653 with jumpers, like switches on the original 2600, 175 00:12:56,560 --> 00:12:59,780 it's kind of hilarious. Oh, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be. 176 00:12:59,780 --> 00:13:04,543 Oh yeah, I crashed immediately and I crashed again. 177 00:13:05,420 --> 00:13:09,020 I am not good at this game. I'm not good with this controller. 178 00:13:09,020 --> 00:13:13,204 Yeah, he lapped me like twice. And oftentimes this is what happened 179 00:13:13,204 --> 00:13:17,290 when you play a 2600 game, 180 00:13:17,290 --> 00:13:21,633 the game just runs and you do a game and then it kicks you back out. 181 00:13:22,510 --> 00:13:26,010 There's the back of the box. So I guess they have the back of the box 182 00:13:26,010 --> 00:13:31,910 for some games but not all of them. Yars' Revenge, that's a classic. 183 00:13:31,910 --> 00:13:35,710 I've never played it but this is far more minimal 184 00:13:35,710 --> 00:13:40,330 to the joystick than Sprint Race 185 00:13:40,330 --> 00:13:43,630 or whatever it was called was. Like I've seen this game played before 186 00:13:43,630 --> 00:13:50,650 but I've never played it myself. Let's try something with like dial support here. 187 00:13:50,760 --> 00:13:55,520 Oh yeah and I immediately missed. 188 00:13:55,520 --> 00:14:01,300 Oh hey, this even has rumble in it. Okay, This rotary encoder is really good, I love it. 189 00:14:01,300 --> 00:14:09,100 There is the slight issue of there being a little bit of stiction when you turn it, 190 00:14:09,240 --> 00:14:12,270 making finer adjustments is a little bit difficult 191 00:14:12,270 --> 00:14:15,870 but making flicks is super satisfying. What else is there to say? 192 00:14:15,870 --> 00:14:20,390 This is a pretty neat little console. Oh, we don't, we didn't try the operating system PC mode 193 00:14:20,390 --> 00:14:25,160 but they didn't have a PC mode. So I don't know what we can do with that. Yeah, like obviously there's more to this. 194 00:14:25,160 --> 00:14:28,230 Let us know if you wanna see a full in-depth review in LTT, 195 00:14:28,230 --> 00:14:32,210 like, I mean there's the PC mode, there's the upgradability, 196 00:14:32,210 --> 00:14:36,140 there's so many different things that can be done with this. 197 00:14:36,140 --> 00:14:41,870 I mean, I know there have been reviews of it already but maybe we can find some other angle to kind 198 00:14:41,870 --> 00:14:45,240 of really push it or do something weird with it. 199 00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:50,400 I don't know. All I know is that it's a really neat little mini PC 200 00:14:51,790 --> 00:14:54,800 for 400 bucks you're getting a 100 games for free. 201 00:14:54,800 --> 00:15:01,350 Well, a 100 games built in. Now they're not the most complex games, 202 00:15:01,350 --> 00:15:04,700 they're certainly not the games that I have the most nostalgia for 203 00:15:04,700 --> 00:15:08,460 but they are still like classic games and some 204 00:15:08,460 --> 00:15:12,060 that I wasn't even expecting to see there, like the Swordquest games 205 00:15:12,060 --> 00:15:17,517 which you should actually read up on. Those are ridiculously interesting. 206 00:15:17,517 --> 00:15:21,330 So yeah, like, let us know if you want to see more about this, 207 00:15:21,330 --> 00:15:25,130 otherwise for now, thanks for watching. Make sure you get subscribed 208 00:15:25,130 --> 00:15:32,014 to see more ShortCircuits in the future. - Oh my, don't do this!