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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?


phoenixdownita

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What in the world happened to SoCal Mike?

 

Surely it had nothing to do with him discovering a funding platform where he can get other people's money with almost zero accountability...

 

Ask yourself- if crowdfunding sites didn't exist and Mike's only hope of getting funding was to go to a bank and take out a loan, do you think he would still be trying to do this?

Edited by StopDrop&Retro
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Mike was a GREAT guy when he started out on Retro Gaming Roundup. A very passionate gamer, and all around nice guy. It's what makes this all so stupifying. What in the world happened to SoCal Mike?

 

He's trying to cash in and make some money thanks to the "revolutionary" crowd funding concept.

 

I threw some cash at the magazine (I wish I didn't) but sometimes you need to make profits and you'll do whatever it takes to succeed. Cut corners etc.

 

The magazine isn't that bad anymore but he really screwed up with the RetroVGS indiegogo campaign.

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Surely it has nothing to do with him finding a funding platform where he can get other people's money with almost zero accountability...

 

Ask yourself- if crowdfunding sites didn't exist and Mike's only hope of getting funding was to go to a bank and take out a loan, do you think he would still be trying to do this?

Well, honestly he could have gone the old fashioned way of pitching his ideas to rich people and businessmen as investors that put money into his product in return for dividends just like most businesses...

 

...problem is that he would then be accountable to them, need to share his profits with them and they would have a great deal to say about how he should run his business and Mike seems like he wouldn't be comfortable with any of those options.

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Well, honestly he could have gone the old fashioned way of pitching his ideas to rich people and businessmen as investors that put money into his product in return for dividends just like most businesses...

 

...problem is that he would then be accountable to them, need to share his profits with them and they would have a great deal to say about how he should run his business and Mike seems like he wouldn't be comfortable with any of those options.

 

My point exactly.

 

I've seen plenty of other successful Kickstarter creators try to Kickstart other stupid ideas seemingly because in their mind the money is there for the taking if they just ask for it. No joke, I believe that Kickstarter is addictive, especially for a self-described "entrepreneur through and through" like Mike.

 

Imagine this scenario- I give you a magic lamp that grants three wishes. You make your first wish and it comes true. Then I abruptly take the lamp away and refuse to give it back. I believe that for a lot of people, the world and his wife wouldn't be able to stop them from trying to get that lamp back. It's addictive, you get your wish (money with almost zero accountability) and then you just want more and more, you keep going back to Kickstarter regardless of how stupid the next idea is.

Edited by StopDrop&Retro
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I really wish mike did this venture the right way, i was willing to buy a unit granted the point about saving money buying the games else did give me pause. Mike just go back to making clear shells for the jag, sell me a translucent red jag system shell and multi color jag cart shells.

 

Edit: Mike just sell some shells make your money back that you spent on the molds and try to move on before another crash and burn.

Edited by zredgemz
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I think I found the hardware guy, or at least the supplier:

 

https://www.the-core-store.com

 

I thought for sure it was going to be here...

 

post-2641-0-53740000-1455913351_thumb.jpg

 

Wow. When i made my assumptions about the ColecoVision compilations the other day i seriously doubted that they would go so far as 4 carts of 15 games each, totally assuming that they would do 3x20 or 2x30 instead.

 

Seriously. They are adding 75$ to the base deal and throw in 15 CV games and 2 CV controllers!? Anyone who has an urge to play ColecoVision and go for that ripoff instead of the Flashback that gives you 2 controllers and 60 games for 30$ thats below half the price, is seriously deluded in my opinion.

 

It's about the money. It's not about games.

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My point exactly.

 

I've seen plenty of other successful Kickstarter creators try to Kickstart other stupid ideas seemingly because in their mind the money is there for the taking if they just ask for it. No joke, I believe that Kickstarter is addictive, especially for a self-described "entrepreneur through and through" like Mike.

 

Imagine this scenario- I give you a magic lamp that grants three wishes. You make your first wish and it comes true. Then I abruptly take the lamp away and refuse to give it back. I believe that for a lot of people, the world and his wife wouldn't be able to stop them from trying to get that lamp back. It's addictive, you get your wish (money with almost zero accountability) and then you just want more and more, you keep going back to Kickstarter regardless of how stupid the next idea is.

Well, that and the massive "success" (well, it seemed successful at the time) of the OUYA surely helped. He dreams OUYA dreams; remember how many times he said he didn't want to compare his project to the OUYA (and then went ahead and compared his project to the OUYA)?

 

Those guys made a lot of money, and I wanna make a lot of money, as well. Surely, with my friends and contacts in the industry, I can do the same thing. Here's my opportunity; Jaguar molds. That's like half way to fulfilling my dream of a lucrative new business venture. Oh, and a new video game console, I guess. That'd be a nice byproduct of all of this money I'll make.

Edited by dj_convoy
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I really wish mike did this venture the right way, i was willing to buy a unit granted the point about saving money buying the games else did give me pause. Mike just go back to making clear shells for the jag, sell me a translucent red jag system shell and multi color jag cart shells.

 

Edit: Mike just sell some shells make your money back that you spent on the molds and try to move on before another crash and burn.

 

 

I just feel bad about the dental supply company. What are they going to put their intra-oral camera into now? I don't think it will fit into a mini-SNES.

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Apparently they are developing the "exclusive Coleco controllers" to work on PCs too. This is under today's tier announcement which first mentioned them:

 

 

Chris C What makes the controller exclusive? Is it just available during this KS or will it be available to buy after launch if you want one?

12642617_940617189340885_497132059328167
Retro Video Game Systems, Inc. Hi Chris. We are the first ones making such a device. It will also be PC compatible. It will be available to buy individually after the KS campaign.
1 · 4 hrs · Edited

 

 

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Ask yourself- if crowdfunding sites didn't exist and Mike's only hope of getting funding was to go to a bank and take out a loan, do you think he would still be trying to do this?

 

 

Exactly right. He would be laughed out of there, and forced to come up with a smarter way to monetize his dream.

 

His dream is charming, but impractical. Even if it were executed flawlessly, it would still have problems. OUYA keeps coming up as an analogy. OUYA was done pretty well -- they had a real spec, what they built matched what was promised, it was delivered on time, there were lots of games in the store, it was reasonably priced, and it was available at retail.

 

Alternatively, if Chameleon were an open-sourced, not-for-profit volunteer venture, with real community input and participation (like MAME, GCW-Zero, RetroPie) and true transparency, I would think this was pretty damn cool.

 

Here's a blurb from the GCW "About" page

 

 

 

We here at Game Consoles Worldwide believe that a company should not just capitalize and consumers should be allowed to do more than consume. Too many devices today are walled gardens, designed solely for consumption. Not ours! The GCW Zero gives you full control of your handheld. Install any application you want to run, change the operating system in any way you want. We won't fight you; in fact we'll encourage you.
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(Not replying to any particular comment, just a random thought)

 

To be somewhat hypocritical and take the high road for a minute, the comic opportunities from all this are almost limitless but if it goes too far it can become bullying. Mike seems like an OK guy at heart whose dreams of fame and fortune running a Retro gaming empire are looking less and less likely as we get closer to what promises to be a disastrous Kickstarter (or Indiegogo).

 

Mike is likely quite committed to this project financially (has already talked about cashing out some 401K retirement savings for just the molds), and is still betting everything on being able to bluff his way to finding a big investor (or crowdfunders), paying someone to build this thing, and releasing a succesful product. I do worry about him and I hope he's OK when it all comes crashing down and he fails again in front of his friends, family, and the community.

An OK guy at heart would not tape a SNES to a Jag and tell you it's a new creation. At this point, I don't trust a word. Did he invest his 401K, or did he just say that too? It doesn't matter to me. Lines were crossed (RVGS) he asked for another chance, and lines were crossed again. I don't intend to bully him, but it's either laugh or cry.

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I can only ask "Is it safe?" (cue the high-pictched sound of the drill)

 

I wonder how many people will get that. :) :thumbsup:

 

 

 

I'll spoil it, he is talking about a famous scene from Marathon Man (Dustin Hoffman getting his front tooth drilled through).

 

 

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Spokesmouths.

... and mouthpieces, official or otherwise!

 

But seriously, I finally had the chance to read Kevtris's excellent rundown a few pages back, and I appreciate his taking the time to write it. My only response is to this piece:

 

To be clear, I am not annoyed in any way that they keep inching closer to a Zimba 3000 on the design, in fact it's probably a good indicator that I have stripped the costs down as much as I dare without making it useless and uninteresting. I also am 100% certain they will never be able to produce anything themselves that works, and isn't just a repackage job of an SNOAC (SNES on a chip), Rpi, or Beaglebone or other similar SoC board stuffed into the Jag shells. Also, I don't think I want to get tangled up in this mess so I won't be licensing my cores to them I don't think. Even if I did, the chances of them having actual hardware to run them on is probably close to zero.

Kevtris, please stick to your guns on this! Don't license your cores to them, and don't help them in any other way! As Mike gets more desperate, I can easily see him coming after you and waving more money in your face, but please don't allow the fruits of your labor to be used to rescue someone as undeserving as Mike Kennedy! Put it all into the Zimba 3000 instead. I'm sure that all of us will be lining up to support it whenever you have it ready.

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Alternatively, if Chameleon were an open-sourced, not-for-profit volunteer venture, with real community input and participation (like MAME, GCW-Zero, RetroPie) and true transparency, I would think this was pretty damn cool.

 

Interesting that you mentioned the GCW Zero. I remember the lead up to that. They had a fully working prototype and a community of developers long before the Kickstarter was ever on the table.

 

They didn't have doublespeak, the specs and hardware were well known, and if you had any questions you could just ask the devs themselves in the forum. Gee, you could almost say they had nothing to hide. In fact, when the Kickstarter did roll around, there wasn't any new information. Those of us who were in the know already knew everything but the Kickstarter just put it all the info together in a more understandable presentation for the masses.

 

There's a reason I remember it so vividly... did you know the creator actually gave me a prototype unit so I could promote the handheld for him? Yep, back when I was just a wee lad on YouTube: https://youtu.be/A5FzEd860t8 And they did well too, they got $100k more than they were asking for.

 

But don't worry, Mike, I'm sure you're doing everything correctly and this is exactly how you're supposed to conduct yourself when launching a project that's asking the community for money.

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It's about the money. It's not about games.

He just couldn't resist throwing limited edition color cartridge shells into the mix right at Tier #1. All of this tacky crap that I so loathed about the Retro VGS campaign is back and I was really hoping he'd reign it in. He keeps pointing out the Chameleon you get in the current tiers is "black" so I can only assume we're going to have all the Charms Blowpop colors rolled out soon. The reason this grinds my gears so much is because he's trying to force collectibility onto something right from the get go. Remember how well that worked for Marvel trading cards in the nineties? "Maybe Collectible!" should appear on the freaking Chameleon feature list. This sort of nonsense is done simply to prey on collectors and make a buck. This why I genuinely think Mike has absolutely no genuine care for the retro gaming community (anymore, I've heard he was great in the past). Sisyphus keeps pushing that Jag shell up a hill because he sees $$$ at the top.

 

Ok, Hi! I'm Ian from the CUPodcast. I'm like the blushing nerd talking to the prom queen. I enjoy lurking in your threads and not just the drama ones! If you hate me I promise I'm pretty darn friendly and easy going in real life. I have no schtick on the podcast but I tend to get worked up at certain topics, sometimes depending on the day I've had. If you find me likeable... I promise I'm EVEN MORE likeable in person =P. Can't say I'l contribute much here. I don't play a lot of Atari although I do have an unhealthy love of the 5200. I don't currently own one because I don't have a separate room for the mammoth.

 

Back to lurking...

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Kevtris, please stick to your guns on this! Don't license your cores to them, and don't help them in any other way! As Mike gets more desperate, I can easily see him coming after you and waving more money in your face, but please don't allow the fruits of your labor to be used to rescue someone as undeserving as Mike Kennedy! Put it all into the Zimba 3000 instead. I'm sure that all of us will be lining up to support it whenever you have it ready.

 

I don't think you'll have to worry about Kev selling out. He's much more interested in the technology behind things, how they work, and how they can be improved rather than just raking in money for the sake of it. It might also mean you probably won't see a Zimba3000 any time soon either, but that's more a function of the reality of breaking into the game industry in this economic climate. Put another way... if this was easy, someone would be already doing it.

 

Irony time: Kev wrote the first homebrew for the Colecovision -- wouldn't it be a hoot if Mike accidentally slapped Kevtris onto one of his compilation carts not realising who wrote it? Wouldn't be the first time someone mistook homebrew as PD or free for use.

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Ok, Hi! I'm Ian from the CUPodcast. I'm like the blushing nerd talking to the prom queen. I enjoy lurking in your threads and not just the drama ones! If you hate me I promise I'm pretty darn friendly and easy going in real life. I have no schtick on the podcast but I tend to get worked up at certain topics, sometimes depending on the day I've had. If you find me likeable... I promise I'm EVEN MORE likeable in person =P. Can't say I'l contribute much here. I don't play a lot of Atari although I do have an unhealthy love of the 5200. I don't currently own one because I don't have a separate room for the mammoth.

 

Back to lurking...

Whoa, big dog in the house! Honored to see you here, Ian!

 

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that we all appreciate and enjoy the work that you and Pat are doing. I'm afraid I didn't discover the CUPodcast until the Retro VGS story broke last year, but I've since become a big fan! I'm sure that your coverage of that story helped to spread the word and sink the IndieGoGo campaign, which was an enormous service. Thanks for being such outspoken voices of reason!

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