Is the atari flashback 9 any good?

[Howard_Casto]

I was searching the "blast!" flashbacks to see if they had dropped to a dollar yet (It's going to happen) when I ran across this:

https://brickseek.com/p/atari-flashback-9-hdmi-game/6623712#in-store-offers

They are marked down to $21 at one of the local Walmarts.  I know it's Atgames junk, but there aren't a whole lot of hdmi solutions for the 2600.  It was my understanding that the 9 uses Stella for emulation and has a sd card slot for games.  The reviews seem pretty good online, but I trust you guys better than some random strangers. 

[Grasshopper]

At $21 it sounds like an absolute bargain. If they were available locally for that price then I'd definitely pick one up, even though I think most Atari 2600 games have aged horribly.

I haven't seen one in the flesh, but from the reviews, they appear to be using the same front end and (probably) the same hardware as the 2018 edition of the Sega Genesis Flashback. If that's the case, then you've got nothing to worry about. I recently bought a 2018 Sega Genesis Flashback and it's a very solid system.

I think it might actually be time to re-evaluate Atgames. The company itself is shady as hell, but most of their recent products have been pretty decent, once you factor in the price. Fortunately, they've moved away from using crappy proprietaty hardware and software. Their newer systems are mostly based around tried and tested open-source emulators running on Linux. So there's very little they can screw up. Even their new front end is pretty decent, if a little bland.

[PL1]

Did they ever fix the issue with paddle sensitivity being ~7x higher than original?

TL;DR version: Using original Atari paddles, Flashback 9 has (had?) a 6 degree range of motion compared to 43 degree range of motion on the 2600.



Related thread at Atari Age:  https://atariage.com/forums/topic/284795-flashback-9-gold-paddle-issue/#comments


Scott

[Howard_Casto]

I guess brickseek is off, or more likely, someone at that Walmart is doing something shady because brickseek says there are 6+ available even now and when I went they were no where to be found.  Seems kind of odd considering the closer Walmart is 100% accurate with brickseek all the time.... as in you can buy something there and see the inventory update on the site. 

Oh well. 

As for the paddles, I got a 10 pack of 10k pots for my racing setup, so I was going to use those.