New thread for any discussions on the THE400 MINI console that has just been released in March 2024 from RetroGames and Atari. First off, lots of video reviews have been posted but the best one so far is from our very own @Chris VGM Check it out here: What's peoples thoughts about this new bit of hardware?
Nice review by Chris, nice and detailed. It seems capable, although I did notice some screen crap on Star Raiders 2 which I must check if it happens on the real machine. My only critique is the choice of the games it comes with, sure you can USB whatever you like on to it, but not including Star Raiders is just shameful. I guess the reason was that there are numerous keyboard presses to play it properly, and those virtual keyboards are just awful. Again, an addition of a USB hub and a USB keyboard will solve the issue. I just think they missed a chance to put a few A grade titles on it. Maybe they had some licensing issues, as noted with Bruce Lee being changed. Overall it looks good, seems to be fine playing stuff, so all good.
Just looked at the Google reviews and it's a split, comments about games not playing right and lots of joystick dislike. OR I love it...Weird.. For me, I'd have it for novelty value only, it looks great...
Thank you for that! I tried to be honest and use what I knew from my buddy who had it earlier. Pretty crazy how this is spiraling with the initial excitement and now complaints of the CX Stick's quality.
Thanks for the nice feedback too! I appreciate it. Yes, for me it was/is for pure novelty too. It was funny that someone asked if my CX sticks are still holding and I had to chuckle back with the response, "Yes, but that's probably because the last time I used it was to make the video." hehe
Yeah it’s a bit of a Marmite machine… the lack of a real keyboard limits it a bit. I don’t think games like Rescue on Fractalus, Koronis Rift or Mercenary would work on it which is a shame. The only Minis I have are the SNES and PC Engine where the games are more arcade style button mashers so they work plus they just have joypads which are new versions of the original designs. The company that makes these have consistently had problems with their joysticks ever since the 64 Mini was released seemingly but I have never used one so I can’t comment one way or the other. You would have thought that they would have cracked the joystick build quality/design by now. I only hope the bring out a Maxi like the 64 but I suspect that is a long way off, they haven’t brought out a A500 maxi and the Miggy was a popular machine.
At least with a USB hub you can add a real keyboard and get those titles fired up, what niggled me was the emulation seemed inferior with weird glitches seen on a number of games. I always wanted a real 400, my brother had one, but we fell out about 15yrs ago and that is all done. It's a bit costly to get one just as a fancy model just for show, sure, if one was on ebay for 30 quid I might be tempted but no more than that.
The crying shame, Paul, is that i MISTAKENLY listed a BOXED 400 with PSU/the works on Feebay one evening as a BIN at £30 and amazingly... it was snapped up in the blink of an eye. It was back in the days of Brenski's Atari Sector forum and a user who used to be on there bought it and asked me why it was so cheap. I explained to him that £30 was meant to be the START price but Feebay had just changed their listing designer and I had inadvertently listed it at £30 BIN. He asked me if I wanted to change my mind and cancel the sale... I told him my loss was his gain... and of course he left the Atari forum and never took part in chats again/never heard again from him and that was that You lose some, you win some but in hindsight I would have much rather say you/Richie/Al/whoever on here had it for £30. Life eh...it frickin stinks!
The 400 joystick "CX Stick" is a bit hit or miss. Depending on quality control you might ge tone that has erratic movement (mine is fine) and it's easy to hit some of the extra buttons by accident while you are playing games. LIke @Vyper68 says, RetroGames have had quite a few issues with controllers and you would hope they might have got it sussed by now. A firmware update should solve other issues like screen cut off, memory above 128k and other requests but the company have been quiet so far and not said when this will be out. I'm not bothered about the small systems not having working keyboards as it's easy enough to just use a USB keyboard with them. They have announced plans for more machines and a full size Amiga is due around the end of this year. Going by the rumours it looks like a full size A8 and a mini ST might also follow within the next 12 months. I'm not a fan of RG's business methods and the history of other products before the MINI's came out but the quality of the little computers is pretty darned good and the A500 in partiular is a favourite of mine. Even more so with the Pandory emulator that @Paul "Mclaneinc" Irvine mentioned in the chat a few days ago.
If they bring out a full size 800 or 400 I would buy one, realistically there’s no way I could afford the real deal.
Yup, all of them support a USB keyboard, even the C64 mini..You swap around to USB joystick, but most keys will have no mapping.
After a LONG silence, Retro Games have finally released a firmware update that sorts some of the problems with screen resolutions and other fixes. I haven't had time to fully explore it yet, but definitely makes the Mini much more playable so far. @Paul "Mclaneinc" Irvine, I took this picture especially for you so you can get a proper size comparison
It makes it a lot more usable mate but the main appeal is still the cuteness of it. I know there is talk of brining out a full size version but don't know if I would go for that, what with having the 800 and 800XL. Maybe if they done it in an XE style case and it was under £100. Thankfully it should be about a year before they release anything like that.
I am sure you will get plenty of joy out of that firmware upgrade, Al. I would like to see you playing your TOP FIVE Atari go-to games on this little miracle of micro engineering, mate, and co-star the fabtabulous "filiming" with that there Clare Grogan out of yer Gregory's Gal / Altered Images etc. You two would make a great double act and you would double your viewing figures into the bargain, bud GAME ON!
