So About Those ATGames Blast Things...

Reusing an old picture of unsold Sega Genesis Flashback things to talk about an ATGames related product that I have not played. For the record, those boxes are still there. Although the space is used more economically by being paired up with unsold drones, 3d cubes, and other things Walmart had on sale and were completely unable to convince people to buy.

So sometime ago, the Immortal John Hancock reviews one of these Blast things - the HDMI sticks that has built-in games and wireless Mega Drive controllers - and the version had featured a number of Namco arcade games. However, it turns out that this version was never intended for retail purchase and what people in stores got instead when buying these things were the lesser NES versions, with even lesser emulation quality. From the few videos I've seen, the sounds seemed a bit lower pitch and the framerate wasn't quite up there.

I haven't seen these things in stores myself; lessons learned from the Genesis Flashback not selling gangbusters, I suppose. Even the usual flea market outings are content not touching these and sticking with the much older Genesis plug-and-play things and bootleg NES and Super NES mini consoles. But yeah... featuring arcade screenshots on your box and including inferior ports on the actual hardware? Pretty scummy move. Even the casual shopper picking this up as an impulse buy would be smart enough to put two and two together and realize that one does not look like the other.

Don't get me wrong; the NES versions aren't generally too bad contrary to what most folks will tell you. But when people expect arcade emulation and you don't deliver, that doesn't exactly help your already tattered street cred.

A shame, really. But I suppose it's just another day in the office for ATGames.