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New Console: RETRO Video Game System


triverse

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Has anybody ever recorded computer tape/cassette tones onto vinyl? You know.. SAVE & LOAD.. I could have sworn some magazine did a trial run distributing programs that way?

 

A handful of bands did that at in the 80s. The Thompson Twins & The Stranglers did. I have a 45 single, where the b-side has the same program for 3 different computers.

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I commend Mike on his ability to dream of accomplishing something great, trust his imagination, and work hard to move the idea from dreamland into reality. He's also had the confidence to hit up many of his contacts from CGE and the podcast, to the new console's advantage: Bob Polaro, Steve Woita and (this is still tentative) Alexey Pajitnov are involved in various capacities.

 

I'll support the console simply to vote for the creativity and courage behind it, and the ever-rare idea of individuals pursuing their dreams in this sadly corporate, cubicle-driven age. There will always be consumers around to fall for marketing like teenagers do, spending exorbitant amounts of cash on the "latest thing" (which never turns out to be genuinely new). But $150 to $180 for a new cartridge console, with original games being programmed by some of Atari's '80s coders? No "updates" that I need to get online for? Damn right, I'll support the thing. I'm looking forward to inventive game ideas, rather than the same old arcade concepts being rehashed in countless imitative homebrews.

 

There's an interview with Mike at 1:06 in the latest Intellivisionaries episode. He's clearly not being frivolous about this pursuit; he fills in some details about the project and mentions other experienced hardware and software people who are helping him out. It's not as if he's not accepting the advice of experienced guys.

 

There will always be suckerfish riding along and trying to discourage you if you're trying to do something great. The quality of their opinions must be weighed against what they've done that's taken a lot of courage, creative effort and sheer ambition.

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I commend Mike on his ability to dream of accomplishing something great, trust his imagination, and work hard to move the idea from dreamland into reality. He's also had the confidence to hit up many of his contacts from CGE and the podcast, to the new console's advantage: Bob Polaro, Steve Woita and (this is still tentative) Alexey Pajitnov are involved in various capacities.

 

I'll support the console simply to vote for the creativity and courage behind it, and the ever-rare idea of individuals pursuing their dreams in this sadly corporate, cubicle-driven age. There will always be consumers around to fall for marketing like teenagers do, spending exorbitant amounts of cash on the "latest thing" (which never turns out to be genuinely new). But $150 to $180 for a new cartridge console, with original games being programmed by some of Atari's '80s coders? No "updates" that I need to get online for? Damn right, I'll support the thing. I'm looking forward to inventive game ideas, rather than the same old arcade concepts being rehashed in countless imitative homebrews.

 

There's an interview with Mike at 1:06 in the latest Intellivisionaries episode. He's clearly not being frivolous about this pursuit; he fills in some details about the project and mentions other experienced hardware and software people who are helping him out. It's not as if he's not accepting the advice of experienced guys.

 

There will always be suckerfish riding along and trying to discourage you if you're trying to do something great. The quality of their opinions must be weighed against what they've done that's taken a lot of courage, creative effort and sheer ambition.

 

Well thanks for that Chris ++ :)

 

Hey All,

 

I am "still" enjoying reading everyone's comments and criticism. We are really trying to be transparent about this entire process and so far, people are becoming very interested and vested in this venture which is all by design. Our Facebook page is where all the action is and where our announcements will be made - http://www.RETROVGS.com. We are still working hard on the system specs and hardware. This is no easy task and we know we can't please everyone. Our main goal is to create a console that is easy for developers of all types and sizes to make and/or port their games over to and with enough capability to allow for a variety of games to be "built" from 8-32 bit 2D to possibly even first generation style 3D games. We want to create a console and cartridges around proven technology that have a long life span - 30+ years (Steve Woita won't stop until we can guarantee 50+ years :) ) Needless to say, all this takes time and tons of effort. The hardware team consists of professional hardware guru's and they are all retro gamers at heart so this is all in great and very capable hands. So sit tight, speculate or criticize, whatever you want, but be patient as we continue to solidify details and make future announcements.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is really cool and I will be joining the kickstarter fund. I hate everything about online consoles. I really wish they would forget about 3D (not retro) and help keep costs down. I would also rather see just the 9 pin controllers instead of USB (also not retro).

I feel like this would really benefit if they could bring on Shovel Knight and Ducktales Remastered.

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Boy did they really screw this project up. They got a lot of support stating it was going to be a retro project with pricepoint of $150-$200. Now they are trying to keep up with modern consoles with a price of $300-$450.

They lost all support overnight.

Maybe somebody else will take the idea and do it right.

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As the price point moves up, the audience shifts from casual collector and 50-cent cartridge trader to the Videogame Connoisseur. Purveyors of quality material will be enamored with such a work as this console.

 

You're getting a modern day self-contained console. You will not get software updates, nor firmware updates. And games aren't going to be a busted-up mess when they're initially released.

Edited by Keatah
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Boy did they really screw this project up. They got a lot of support stating it was going to be a retro project with pricepoint of $150-$200. Now they are trying to keep up with modern consoles with a price of $300-$450.

They lost all support overnight.

Maybe somebody else will take the idea and do it right.

 

For $300 I could buy the NVIDIA Android TV, play all Android games and get all the TV/Media apps, with a 500 GB HDD. I think the last word from Mike was more like $179.99.

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As the price point moves up, the audience shifts from casual collector and 50-cent cartridge trader to the Videogame Connoisseur. Purveyors of quality material will be enamored with such a work as this console.

 

You're getting a modern day self-contained console. You will not get software updates, nor firmware updates. And games aren't going to be a busted-up mess when they're initially released.

You are forgetting market. The market for a $350 retro console is much, much smaller than that for a $150 console, possibly an order of magnitude.

 

Developers won't release games for it if consumers don't buy it. Consumers won't buy it if the developers don't release games. It is a Catch-22 situation that does not bode well.

 

The relative success of their Kickstarter campaign will determine whether or not developers back it or not. The RetroVGS will not succeed as a luxury item. The huge price disparity will easily be the difference between big hit and big flop.

 

At $200 or less, I was in. At $300 & up, I'm definitely out. I wish them all the best of luck though...

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I doubt it will make it past the kickstarter, especially now. I forsee lots of different colored Jaguar shells available in the future to try to recoup more funds for this. Although most of the buyers may be burned out already on the Jag aftermarket shells.

 

I'm starting to think the price jump might be a way out for them as they must know that the kickstarter will fail and can be blamed for the console not making it off paper. Would be a good way to exit this mess with some dignity still in tact. Or that is how I would feel about it anyhow.

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heres some more news on RVGS

 

* JUST REVEALED ** RETRO VGS WILL PLAY THOUSANDS OF GAMES RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!

Are we leaving the FPGA inside RVGS? The answer is YES. Removing this part of our hardware will significantly reduce the value and capability of this machine. We are excited to reveal that we will have a variety of inexpensive classic gaming cartridge adapters that will allow you to play your original games (and using your original classic gaming controllers) from your collections in RVGS using only the highest quality, read that lots of GOLD, cartridge connectors. You won't have to worry about sticking in your prized copy of Air Raid or Little Samson into the RVGS cartridge slot.

And, RVGS will be a great system to play all the new and upcoming homebrew titles for Atari 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision and NES (possible 16-bit consoles in the future, however, no reliable cores for these have been made yet) giving you all lots of new games to play on RVGS from day one! This is all a by-product of having an FPGA enabled system. Imagine plugging in a USB keyboard and programming and saving your programs like this was an Amiga computer? This will all be possible with RVGS and its FPGA component. Not to mention this FPGA will be used by game developers to do things never seen before in a video game. As they become more and more familiar with what we are providing them, you will see games here that you won't see anywhere else.

Ultimately, we are going to make a very high quality product, in the USA and one that will deliver loads of value straight from the box. We look forward to revealing more information when the Kickstarter campaign lights up in a couple weeks. Thanks again for all your support and constructive criticism. We are taking it all in and learning a lot from it. GET READY FOR THE RETRO REVOLUTION!

- RETRO VGS TEAM

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I think they have missed a trick with this console which they could still provide. How about Cartridges which are console/computer definitions, include the logic for the machine in question, sdcard or other appropriate interfaces, throw a few games in? You could still have all in one game carts, but the potentially could be so much more. You then end up with a multipurpose system.

 

Barnie

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Cassettes are dead, man. Vinyl is where it's at. Beiber can shove it though. Vinyl was meant for real music. New albums from old classic rock ledgends? Yes, please! :grin:

With my system, I make cassette re-masters that sound 10 times BETTER than the cd I made them from! Then, when I use DBX, dynamic range and bass that won't quit! I run my vinyl through my system and wow!

 

Friends bring their cds over and I do an ANALOG re-master to another cd, no computer used, and they can't believe the difference! One friend said: "Instead of just hearing the guitar through the speakers, it sounds like your listening to the guitar ITSELF !" Metallica Black Album.

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With my system, I make cassette re-masters that sound 10 times BETTER than the cd I made them from! Then, when I use DBX, dynamic range and bass that won't quit! I run my vinyl through my system and wow!

 

Friends bring their cds over and I do an ANALOG re-master to another cd, no computer used, and they can't believe the difference! One friend said: "Instead of just hearing the guitar through the speakers, it sounds like your listening to the guitar ITSELF !" Metallica Black Album.

So you basically have discovered a method to undo the tampering and autoleveling done to music during the remaster process. Seems that you are able to duplicate the process on multiple CDs/albums, maybe you could create a filter for audacity or winamp to increase the dynamic range.

 

I've heard this done on oversampled pop/dance music. Dance is the worst. Ironically it was all I listened to in the 90s, LOL! Basically, you've got some etheral blend of mid/high pitched instruments that sounds unlike any real acoustic instrument, and on top of that you've got a heavy bass synth pumping in regular beats. The bass synth overwhelms the mid/high effects, and when the track is dubbed or normallized by the DJ, the etheral background sound effects drop about 6-10 decibels in amplitude with every pump of the bass synth. Basically the net effect is the overall volume amplitude red-lines for the entire track without clipping while the spectrum continuously and unnaturally shifts high-low-high-low. Once you learn to pick apart subtleties like this, you can never unhear them. Fortunately but not always, the voice track if present is dubbed over the hyper-normalized instrumental track so that what vocals exist sound normal. But of course they autotune the hell out of it so it doesn't matter. Substitute one form of sonic perturbation with another.

 

I guess over-normalization has it's appeal on the dance floor when amps are turned up so loud you can't hear it anyway and just feel it reverberate inside your chest cavity. Regardless, a vast amount of otherwise decent club-mixes get ruined by the DJs mastering it. Sometimes I listen to Chill on SiriusXM 53, and roughly 50% of the tracks are over-normalized with the aforementioned symptom of the bass portion creating a series of abnormal dips in the arrangement. It would be nice to have un-normalized cuts to jam to at sane listening levels.

Edited by stardust4ever
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Put that stuff through an original Creative Labs X-Fi card.

So you basically have discovered a method to undo the tampering and autoleveling done to music during the remaster process. Seems that you are able to duplicate the process on multiple CDs/albums, maybe you could create a filter for audacity or winamp to increase the dynamic range.

 

I've heard this done on oversampled pop/dance music. Dance is the worst. Ironically it was all I listened to in the 90s, LOL! Basically, you've got some etheral blend of mid/high pitched instruments that sounds unlike any real acoustic instrument, and on top of that you've got a heavy bass synth pumping in regular beats. The bass synth overwhelms the mid/high effects, and when the track is dubbed or normallized by the DJ, the etheral background sound effects drop about 6-10 decibels in amplitude with every pump of the bass synth. Basically the net effect is the overall volume amplitude red-lines for the entire track without clipping while the spectrum continuously and unnaturally shifts high-low-high-low. Once you learn to pick apart subtleties like this, you can never unhear them. Fortunately but not always, the voice track if present is dubbed over the hyper-normalized instrumental track so that what vocals exist sound normal. But of course they autotune the hell out of it so it doesn't matter. Substitute one form of sonic perturbation with another.

 

I guess over-normalization has it's appeal on the dance floor when amps are turned up so loud you can't hear it anyway and just feel it reverberate inside your chest cavity. Regardless, a vast amount of otherwise decent club-mixes get ruined by the DJs mastering it. Sometimes I listen to Chill on SiriusXM 53, and roughly 50% of the tracks are over-normalized with the aforementioned symptom of the bass portion creating a series of abnormal dips in the arrangement. It would be nice to have un-normalized cuts to jam to at sane listening levels.

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