Retro VGS

[Don Panetta aka 404]

I've been keeping up with this as a friend of mine on twitter has been digging at this immediately after the toy fair fiasco. This has been brewing for a while. Someone brought this up on twitter and it rings alarmingly true. The biggest slap in the face to consumers didn't come from the chameleon team's scam but from game "journalists" who have flat out refuse to cover the story and some have even gone as far as to comment on why they won't cover it claiming they believe the story was a conspiracy theory and/or inconsequential.

game journos have only begun reporting on this for the past 4 days (the toy fair controversy goes back about 20+ days ago); That came only after the original author of an Engadget article was pressured via social media to do so by people they labeled as "gamer-gaters". The remaining journalist followed suit only after the Engadget article hit and many game outlets still haven't covered the scam. Had game journalists had their way, the kickstarter would have went on and consumers would have lost out on this scam. For example, Kyle Orland of Ars called the initial reports "Speculation" on twitter following the second time the chameleon's proto was found to be a fake even though he was the only author on Ars that was covering the Chameleon.

[number six]

What a mess. This was almost as successful as GameGavel is. Honestly, what were they thinking with all the latest shenanigans? Even if this had been made who was going to make games for it that people would actually buy and who was going to buy them?

It was an interesting idea when it was FPGA because it would have been a really good emulator/simulator system.. so even if the new games never materialized you could justify the initial price.

When it became the 'non-internet connected ouja with $30-$50 carts' it became a very bad idea as you were basically paying one hell of a premium only to have a physical cart. I like carts and all but on new games I don't care that much.

Then of course there's all the lies and subterfuge which doesn't make any sense at all.. especially when your target audience is very tech savvy. They should have known better.

I can't imagine it will be coming back a 3rd time. Also looks bad for dudes other enterprises.. ie Game Gavel and the Retro Magazine. I've never used Game Gavel (probably won't now) and I bought one issue of 'Retro'.. it wasn't very good

[number six]

I've been keeping up with this as a friend of mine on twitter has been digging at this immediately after the toy fair fiasco. This has been brewing for a while. Someone brought this up on twitter and it rings alarmingly true. The biggest slap in the face to consumers didn't come from the chameleon team's scam but from game "journalists" who have flat out refuse to cover the story and some have even gone as far as to comment on why they won't cover it claiming they believe the story was a conspiracy theory and/or inconsequential.

game journos have only begun reporting on this for the past 4 days (the toy fair controversy goes back about 20+ days ago); That came only after the original author of an Engadget article was pressured via social media to do so by people they labeled as "gamer-gaters". The remaining journalist followed suit only after the Engadget article hit and many game outlets still haven't covered the scam. Had game journalists had their way, the kickstarter would have went on and consumers would have lost out on this scam. For example, Kyle Orland of Ars called the initial reports "Speculation" on twitter following the second time the chameleon's proto was found to be a fake even though he was the only author on Ars that was covering the Chameleon.

It seemed like a lot of people were giving the project a 'pass' which obviously was a bad idea given how many problems the project had. The Retro VGS team also aren't very internet / PR savvy as instead of putting out fires they only made them worse on several occasions.

It's a big cluster all the way around but at least it imploded before any consumers actually lost money on it.

[bjones]

I never really got the appeal of this thing.  If you want to play most retro games with a repro console just get a retron 5.  No idea why I would want a new indie game on a cart.

[number six]

I never really got the appeal of this thing.  If you want to play most retro games with a repro console just get a retron 5.  No idea why I would want a new indie game on a cart.

The FPGA would in theory make it better than a Retron 5 but once they took the FPGA out then no, the Retron 5 was a better deal all around.

[Don Panetta aka 404]

interesting interview from the first hardware dev on the project
http://retrogamingmagazine.com/2016/03/07/john-carlsen-interview-his-career-and-the-retro-vgs/

he also reveals that at one point, he and sony were working on a PSOne SOC system small enough to fit in a psone controller. 

[bjones]

Looks like coleco called bs and cancelled it outright. 

[Don Panetta aka 404]

yup. its officially dead
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1698733963736901&id=1616402778636687

[number six]

yup. its officially dead
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1698733963736901&id=1616402778636687

I'm sure Coleco didn't like their name being tossed around with 'Scam' and 'Fake' so they decided it was better to pull the plug.

I just hope the 'Retro Team' doesn't try to come back in six months with the Vectrex Advantage or some other retread of this silliness.

[Don Panetta aka 404]

http://www.retrovgs.com has been taken offline

[Niloc]

Meanwhile the guy who make the "Charlie the Unicorn" cartoons already has 4x his goal of $35,000 on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1556971210/charlie-the-unicorn-the-grand-finale

and he even flat-out says that he doesn't have stretch goals other than buying a new computer. That's gonna be pretty damn nice computer. He gets to pocket the overflow (minus the vig to Kickstarter). Still another 15 days to go too.

Those Retro VGS guys have got to be grinding their teeth seeing how easily some other people seem to make that sweet Kickstarter cash. Of course the Charlie the Unicorn guy did the work in advance but putting out a series of cartoons that a lot of people liked, so there's that too...

Maybe a functioning prototype first next time, buy the bad-juju Atari Jaguar plastic case molds AFTER you get paid.

[number six]

It's obvious that some projects really 'connect' with people whilst others don't.

Had they kept it like what they originally promoted.. ie the 'FPGA System' and IF they had been able to actually accomplish it.. ie working prototype, etc. I think it would have done well. It still kinda niche so they won't have gotten crazy money ($2m.. yeaaah) but it probably would have done well.

End of day they were way over their heads here. Nobody had an idea of how to actually realize this thing.. they just had some molds and a vague idea of what they wanted to do. A lot of planning went into collector aspects (limited edition translucent carts, etc) which shows their priorities were FUBAR.. then you have the fact that 'Mike' the main guy behind all this was apparently going nuts with the shady stuff.

It's dead, it's not coming back.. and there's a good chance this implosion may take Retro Mag and Game Gavel with it (no big loss on either)

[Don Panetta aka 404]

It's obvious that some projects really 'connect' with people whilst others don't.

Had they kept it like what they originally promoted.. ie the 'FPGA System' and IF they had been able to actually accomplish it.. ie working prototype, etc. I think it would have done well. It still kinda niche so they won't have gotten crazy money ($2m.. yeaaah) but it probably would have done well.

End of day they were way over their heads here. Nobody had an idea of how to actually realize this thing.. they just had some molds and a vague idea of what they wanted to do. A lot of planning went into collector aspects (limited edition translucent carts, etc) which shows their priorities were FUBAR.. then you have the fact that 'Mike' the main guy behind all this was apparently going nuts with the shady stuff.

It's dead, it's not coming back.. and there's a good chance this implosion may take Retro Mag and Game Gavel with it (no big loss on either)

Have to disagree here. The Age where FPGA's would make a viable system have come and gone. The amount of time it would take to develop an FPGA based system, create stable hardware, an SDK, testing time etc would negate any possible positives that a system of that nature could provide. Forget the cost of such custom hardware, In the end the dev time alone would be a nightmare.

Also, people seem to continue to believe this myth that run of the mill FPGA can somehow accurately mimic classic hardware better than software emulators. The old rule still applies here. The possibility of running them is strictly based on how good the implementation is. Just like how good a software developer's implementation is on a standard emulator. Let's take KevTris' work for example. Last i remember, he still wasn't able to get 16 bit consoles working properly on his FPGA implementation. He is using off the shelf FPGA dev hardware and he isn't anywhere near as close to even beginning the custom hardware phase; Let alone the cost reduction phase if memory serves correct.

Carlsen said it best in his retro gamer mag interview. A standard low-cost off the shelf quad core processor would have been more than sufficient for what they wanted to do.

[number six]

Have to disagree here. The Age where FPGA's would make a viable system have come and gone. The amount of time it would take to develop an FPGA based system, create stable hardware, an SDK, testing time etc would negate any possible positives that a system of that nature could provide. Forget the cost of such custom hardware, In the end the dev time alone would be a nightmare.

Also, people seem to continue to believe this myth that run of the mill FPGA can somehow accurately mimic classic hardware better than software emulators. The old rule still applies here. The possibility of running them is strictly based on how good the implementation is. Just like how good a software developer's implementation is on a standard emulator. Let's take KevTris' work for example. Last i remember, he still wasn't able to get 16 bit consoles working properly on his FPGA implementation. He is using off the shelf FPGA dev hardware and he isn't anywhere near as close to even beginning the custom hardware phase; Let alone the cost reduction phase if memory serves correct.

Carlsen said it best in his retro gamer mag interview. A standard low-cost off the shelf quad core processor would have been more than sufficient for what they wanted to do.

We'll see how Kevtris' project turns out. If it has advantages over emulation then that's great.

Point is, a game 'console' that is nothing more than an emulator using cartridges would be no better than existing systems like the Retron. I've also never seen the point of the Retron (other than for say testing carts) so reading the rom off a cart then loading it into an emulator really isn't any different from just loading the rom directly. I guess it makes you feel better because you are sliding the original cartridge in but thats about it.

[mcjeremy42]

Retron 5 sold me by having built in HDMI out and multi-slots.  One thing to hook up.

It pays for itself by the SD card hack to play roms without original carts! For me, best of both worlds. I can leave the classic console hooked up to the CRT in one room and the Retron hooked to the flat screen in the arcade.

I looked at the Retro VGS as a curiosity, but not surprised it failed.