Atari Ultimate Raspberry Pi Fightstick - Micro Center Saved the Day!!

RetroRalph·video·9m 14s·analyzed·Nov 13, 2020

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

Retro Ralph reviews Micro Center's Atari Fightstick after receiving warranty replacement parts from responsive buyer.

Summary

Retro Ralph reviews the Atari Ultimate Raspberry Pi Fightstick from Micro Center after receiving a replacement Raspberry Pi 3B Plus and SD card from Andy, a Micro Center buyer, to fix a defective unit. The video demonstrates the fightstick's quality construction, trackball functionality, and preloaded Atari game library (100+ games across multiple Atari platforms), while praising Micro Center's responsive customer service and DIY arcade product line.

Key Claims

The Atari Fightstick shipped with empty Raspberry Pi mounts instead of the promised Raspberry Pi 3B Plus
high confidence · Retro Ralph describes opening the original unit and finding 'nothing' inside the mounts, requiring replacement
The preloaded SD card includes 100 Atari games across 2600, 5200, 7800, and arcade platforms
high confidence · Retro Ralph states 'There's a hundred Atari games. So you've got Atari arcade games, Atari 2600 games, 5200, 7800'
The Fightstick uses standard RetroPie with no custom modifications beyond game preloading
high confidence · Retro Ralph confirms 'it's not anything different than what you'd expect with a vanilla RetroPie build' with full access to standard RetroPie settings
The Fightstick can be purchased with or without the trackball, Raspberry Pi, and SD card as separate options
medium confidence · Retro Ralph states 'you can order it either without the trackball with the trackball with the pi without the pi so you have options'
Andy from Micro Center proactively reached out after seeing Retro Ralph's video about the defective unit
high confidence · Retro Ralph describes 'Andy, who's a buyer over at Micro Center' initiating contact: 'Jon Hey, man, I saw your video, and I'd like to get on a Zoom call with you'

Notable Quotes

“I'm going to send you the 3B Plus that you need. I'm going to send you this... we are very, very serious about our arcade DIY stuff, and we wanted to make sure it was right for you.”
Andy (Micro Center buyer)@ 0:42 — Demonstrates Micro Center's commitment to customer service and arcade DIY product quality
“And he jumped on a Zoom call with me, and he's like, look, we are very, very serious about our arcade DIY stuff, and we wanted to make sure it was right for you. We're super bummed that this happened. But Jon Hey, let's fix it.”
Retro Ralph (paraphrasing Andy)@ 0:42 — Highlights proactive customer service approach and accountability
“This is so cool because he really jumped on a Zoom call, and he's like, look, we are very, very serious about our arcade DIY stuff... The experience was awesome.”
Retro Ralph@ 0:42 — Establishes the positive resolution and customer satisfaction theme
“I'm super excited that Andy reached out. I didn't reach out to them at all. He reached out and said, Jon Hey, we saw your video. So that means they're going out and looking at who's reviewing the products.”
Retro Ralph@ 7:24 — Indicates Micro Center actively monitors product reviews and responds proactively
“Food Fight stands the test of time guys not many Atari games do but I love this game... instead of building burgers, you're fighting people with food, I mean, what, how much more fun can you get?”
Retro Ralph@ 2:53 — Demonstrates the quality of the preloaded game library and emulation

Entities

Retro Ralphperson AndypersonMicro CentercompanyAtari Ultimate Raspberry Pi FightstickproductRaspberry Pi 3B PlusproductRetroPieproduct

Signals

?
business_signal: Micro Center investing in arcade DIY product line with dedicated buyer/product specialist (Andy) managing customer relationships and quality control
medium · Andy's role as 'buyer over at Micro Center, who does all the arcade DIY stuff' and proactive customer outreach indicates structured business strategy
?
community_signal: Micro Center demonstrates active engagement with content creators and product reviewers, monitoring video reviews and proactively reaching out to resolve customer issues
high · Andy initiated contact after watching Retro Ralph's video and responded with replacement parts and direct communication via Zoom call
?
product_strategy: Fightstick sold as modular system with optional components (trackball, Raspberry Pi, SD card), allowing customers to customize configuration
medium · Retro Ralph notes 'you can order it either without the trackball with the trackball with the pi without the pi so you have options'
?
product_concern: Manufacturing defect: Fightstick shipped with empty Raspberry Pi mounts instead of installed 3B Plus unit
high · Retro Ralph's original unboxing revealed 'nothing' inside the mounts where the Raspberry Pi should have been installed

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.028

0:00

Hey guys, welcome back! Alright, check this out. This is the Atari Fight Stick from Micro Center with the trackball. Now, if you watched my other video, you knew that when I opened this thing up, it was all good, I was all excited. And then inside, where there's supposed to be a Raspberry Pi 3B Plus with some preloaded Atari games, there was nothing. It was just the mounts. Well, check this out. This is super cool. So Andy, who's a buyer over at Micro Center, who does all the arcade DIY stuff, he's like, hey, man, I saw your video, and I'd like to get on a Zoom call with you. So he jumps on a Zoom call with me, and he's like, look, I'm going to send you the 3B Plus that you need. I'm going to send you this. He sent the case, even though I didn't need it. And then he sent the SD card. This is so cool because he really jumped on a Zoom call, and he's like, look, we are very, very serious about our arcade DIY stuff, and we wanted to make sure it was right for you. We're super bummed that this happened. But hey, let's fix it. So he did. That was really cool. And it was much, much appreciated. So thank you, Andy. The experience was awesome. And I really enjoyed talking to him too. He's a really super nice guy. And I think Micro Center has a lot of cool things in store for their arcade DIY, you know, part of their business. So I'm pretty stoked. So let's fire this thing up and I'll show you what you're going to get and what this thing is all about. Okay, as this thing boots up, you get this custom splash screen. It just says Atari loading and then it has the Micro Center logo because this retro gaming division of Micro Center is something they're, you know, continuing to add products and things like that, which is pretty cool. When you boot it up, it's not anything, you know, different than what you'd expect with a vanilla RetroPie build, but it's filled, again, like I said, it's built with Atari. There's a hundred Atari games. So you've got Atari arcade games, Atari 2600 games, 5200, 7800, and then you've got like normal RetroPie settings. So they haven't done anything custom here. So if you want to go and change anything, you can do all that. So you have full access to all of the settings you would in RetroPie. Now, I will say this for one second before we dive in further. It does boot up initially, and it updates the latest version of their build for this arcade stick. So I don't know, depending on if you have one of these, your experience may have been slightly different because it actually attaches to Wi-Fi. I would suggest you put a keyboard on it and then when you put a keyboard on it you can just put in Wi password and it does the rest for you which is pretty cool so i think the first game i want to play is food fight guys i loved food fight back in the day and i put up um i put up the camera so you can see the fight stick while we're playing the one thing i did notice about this image is it boots kind of slow so i don't know if that's just the sd card they used and keep in mind as we're walking through this you don't have to use this or buy this with the SD card you could totally just buy the fight stick alone by itself so you do have options oh man that is loud okay we're gonna lower that a little bit I'm gonna die watch all right so I don't know if you guys have ever played food fight but it I think food fight stands the test of time guys not many Atari games do but I love this game I mean if you like if you like burger time I mean yeah the graphics on burger time are slightly better, but, like, BurgerTime, Food Fight, instead of building burgers, you're, you know, fighting people with food, I mean, what, how much more fun can you get, who doesn't like a good food fight every now and then, so anyways, this is pretty, pretty fun game, I used to love this, I didn't have a 7800, you know, as a kid, but my neighbor did, and then I did get one later, but I got one way at the end of its life cycle, it was like no one cared about it anymore, I got a lot of hand-me-down video game stuff when I was a kid, so I don't know, maybe you guys are in that same boat, but my neighbor was, he was, his dad had money, so he would, he would have, like, the latest and greatest stuff, I still had a 2600, I think, or maybe a Master System, I don't remember, whatever was around at that time, so anyways, I love this game, it plays great on this, emulation is good, and most of these Atari games emulate well, so let's check out the trackball, since the trackball is such a big feature of this, so we're gonna go back, and we'll go to Arcade and we're gonna load some Let's see, we'll probably do some Tempest, right? I mean, we will do Missile Command, but I'm worried about it. Because you guys know, if you've watched the channel for a while, I did that whole Missile Command debacle with the Missile Command Recharged or whatever, the newer version. Oh, dude! Did the... Regular Missile Command was not this hard. I need a better mouse. It's the mouse, guys. I know it's the... Damn it! Damn it! That's not good. That's not good. Aw, man, that's not a good start. So one thing I say about Tempest and obviously Tempest was a spinner game so this is using a trackball which is still pretty cool but I will say I would probably adjust the sensitivity on the trackball I don't do a lot of pie stuff, so I actually don't know how to do that, but I'm sure there's instructions out there on how to adjust the trackball. The trackball seems like it could be a little bit more sensitive, like when I kind of got to give it a good push. yeah i mean their atari games they're known for good emulation their emulation of all these games is pretty dialed in there they're like the original games that people would do under emulation so a lot of them run really really well okay we're gonna exit out to the main menu one more time we're gonna go to missile command but you know just just so you guys know i'll i'll say this one more time you're not fixed to this so if you enjoy and like this fight stick which is a really good quality fight stick by the way you can order it either without the trackball with the trackball with the pie without the pie so you have options so i mean if you're looking for a high quality fight stick that you know is really cool because i love to service it is really awesome like to have this capability where you can lift it up that's really neat because you can go in and easily replace buttons joysticks all sorts of stuff although they're really good quality for what it is they're clones but for being like a like a hap clone button and stick it it's pretty good so i'm not complaining about that it's pretty neat all right let's go back to the game real quick let's play some missile command i got to get this out of the way i can't i can't have this this is gonna mess with me all right oh man we already got we're already we're already screwed okay now if you guys remember i wasn't necessarily awesome at missile command the the recharged version but I mean, the recharged version was a little hard, man, for being, like, you know, I don't remember Missile Command being that hard. I mean, not, oh, crap, as I die. Wait, wait, no.