Nintendo's Project Atlantis -- The unreleased handheld

While surfing the internet for every bit of info about Project Cafe (Wii 2 / Wii HD), I came across this 2009 article about Project Atlantis, an unreleased handheld before the GBC and GBA.

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8984425&publicUserId=5379721

 

:lol:

Good one. Actually looks quite nice, although you can see why it neve got released, it's design is kind of outdated for a "next-gen" handheld and I'm sure the technology didn't stand up to what the GBA came to be. Does look nice though, it's design reminds me of the Sega Saturn 3D Controller.

 

That was my first thought, too.

I wonder if there was ever hardware, or anything playable for it.

 

There was hardware and games developed for it but not to a release state. Supposedly GBA F Zero was one of the games.

There is an interesting old interview with Howard Lincoln which includes a mention of the Atlantis project coming from the UK (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2464380.html?q=lincoln)

 

Saturn 3D controller with a permanent VMU like screen.

Honestly that doesn't sound like a half bad idea. If the VMU was a higher resolution and in color it would have been a lot better off. Resident Evil attempted to use it to display health which would have been extremely useful IF you could see what color it was in. In monochrome all it could do is display urgency for using herbs.

 

Here's something that I worked on awhile ago:
http://web.me.com/celebi23/project_atlantis/frames.html

 

That's a great resource. I feel like I have a proper handle on what it was and what happened now. Cheers!

 

Next Generation article

 

My pleasure. I originally did that site just for me so that I could understand what happened. Glad that it's useful for other people too

 

Thanks for taking time to put together all of that information, great read!

 

Yeah, I read that article months ago and I though how laughable was that Edge journalists really believed that was feasible releasing an handheld clocked at 160Mhz in 97/98.

I remember another article by Edge that talked about the SA chip ( or was it the N64 compression algorithm ) and proposed an insane compression ratio ( something like 20:1 ).
Super Mario RPG graphics are massive for the system though.

 

Thanks for the scan, gigadrive.

 

I got an old issue of gamepro or EGM which has a lengthy article on Project Atlantis, I'll try to get a scan up sometime.

 

What a fantastic resource.

 

Btw credit to Jeremy parish.

If you are under a rock or non-apple get iTunes just to download 1up.com's retronauts.

They stopped making it but damn is it a great podcast.

THE BEST retro podcast and one of the best all around I feel.

 

Actually I tended to find it quite frustrating to listen to. All too often it would descend into a shouting match with everyone talking over the top of each other. Jeremy would usually try and reign it in but basically a lot of the guests were just too boisterous and noisy. It's a pretty common theme in American gaming podcasts, actually. I'm sure they're all great blokes and I'd love to sit down and have a chat with them, but if I had one message to pass on it'd be calm down.

 

Sharky & T-Frog where the only reasons to ever listen. I know Sharky comes off a bit rough at times but at least the guy knows his shit.

Now the RPG podcast, man that is bad. They did an ep on falcom games and brought on their "falcom fanboy" who was wrong on so many things and in a bad way.OH:

 

I personally hate the retro music but maybe it's cultural that I'm used to the heated discussion.

The older episodes were more rough though, they even admit that.