Parrothead

Going out this week. I am thinking about doing a run of just red console tops. What do guys think of this. You could then combine with the black bottoms. Or would you rather have all red? Mike

Hey Everyone! Excited to say that GameGavel is hosting a very special auction for a #1 of #100 Autographed Ralph Baer Pinball game for Odyssey 2. This was a game Ralph began working on back in the 1970's but was never completed. It has now been completed and for sale the very first time. BID NOW ON RALPH BAER'S PINBALL

I've felt all along that there are some great new retro titles being made and I believe there are gamers who would enjoy having them on a cartridge. Yes, many of these great homebrew games are coming out on carts for original systems, but I have friends who grew up gaming on those classic consoles who I know still are retro gaming on their mobile devices, and have absolutely no idea that new games are still being made for them (original legacy systems). When I mention to them a NEW console that plays games like they enjoyed playing growing up they immediately love the idea of having a system like this. I believe there is a larger market for something like this above and beyond the niche collector market that exists here and on other classic gaming forums. We wanted to give developers the opportunity to reach people like my friends who have families and have no idea games are still being made for older systems. Giving these games additional "life" on a "new" system could open the market up and help all developers reach a market that before never existed. That is a really good thing! This was never meant as a replacement for the classic systems, but a new way to show a larger mass market that games like they love to play are still being made and there is a better way to play them than on glass touch screens. RVGS can bring these games to the forefront and out from just under the veil of forums like this. Remember, RVGS was never intended to be an EMU machine. It will certainly have that ability and people will figure it out in no time but it's never been our main selling point. Then add to this the digital only retro games coming out. There are games that I personally wouldn't buy digitally that I would love to have on a permanent cartridge. Maybe I am alone in that thought but I certainly don't think so. This is why a system like RVGS is needed in my opinion. And you can choose to agree or disagree but I would like to find out and see if this could be a viable alternative (or addition) to the other modern day gaming systems.

I don't recall lying or being misleading when talking about developers. Earlier this year I did have a two hour face-to-face meeting, at Konami's El Segundo HQ with Michael Rajna, Konami's Director of Marketing & Licenses. He is a big retro gamer and liked what we were doing. We discussed brining back some old Konami arcade IP in the form of new games (like Resogun did with Defender) on RVGS. He was all for it but indicated they would like to wait it out until the product got more fleshed out. He did kindly ask me to not discuss Konami's involvement until we a had signed deal. As I said this was early on and I was gauging interest and there was and is some legitimate interest here. I recall a post here from someone stating that "some people consider emailing a company PR person as being in discussions with ....." And that was certainly never the case with any of my contacts with any of the developers I said we talked with. We also met with Mika Mika and his team at Other Ocean up in Oakland a few months ago (Thank's Mike, btw for chiming in here a few pages ago). Mike is also a very big retro gaming fan and collector and liked our idea. I knew Mike was tied in with all the big publishers and always said, he could be our inroads to the bigger devs/pubs and that was all true. And, we discussed having them possibly work on some of the Konami arcade sequels as he already had a good relationship with them. They were also in discussions with SEGA on other business and thought they could help us make inroads there to bring back some of their 8/16 bit IP like Alex Kidd, Streets of Rage, etc. All real and legitimate. Oh, and we discussed having Mike himself create a RETRO game maker cartridge for RVGS and that is all still something that can happen if we are able to bring RVGS to market. All along, I've said many times, that I feel if we as a community can all show there is a market for a machine like this, then we have the contacts and believe we can get the larger devs/pubs on board. Heck, we already had WayForward (and they/we were going to announce Shantae Pirates Curse half-way through the campaign as a purchasable title if the campaign was on the road to success) and DotEMU (Met Cyrille at GDC after having many emails directly with him (They are in France) very interested in porting/making games for this IF they were to see a successfully funded campaign coming together. We were going to start with Double Dragon Trilogy. But early on I mentioned having a SHMUP arcade compilation on RVGS -- that was going to be Raiden Legacy. But DotEMU decided after I revealed that teaser they would like to start with DDt instead. Again, all real but things have been a moving target throughout this process. I will try and not get anyone's hopes up anymore with any sideline discussions we are having that aren't 100% nailed down. That was my fault and it won't happen again. I am sorry to see NG:DEV.TEAM go, but again, believe they will be back if there is a market here. They really saw RVGS as a replacement market for the declining/pirate ridden Dreamcast market. And I was excited to get their cartridge games down to a manageable price so that all of us who can't afford to game on the Neo Geo AES could have an opportunity to own and play their games on cartridges. Again, they were really on board and I believe they will be again IF we are successfully funded the second go-around. As far as having over 150 dev's interested in making games for this. All true. We have been inundated with inquiries from dev's around the world since we leaked this all out a few months ago. Many small and just starting out devs to more established dev's. We have been shown dozens of early game screen shots and some video footage and have been sifting through them slowly. As I've indicated before, we aren't in a rush to launch with more than 6-10 titles until we see what kind of demand there is and what type of first year install base we might garner. We don't want to oversaturate the games as that is not good for anyone. The great news is, we will be able to pick the cream of the crop to bring onto RVGS and have plenty of quality games and developers to choose from. This is going to be Steve Woita's task to identify the games that will be brought onto the system and he is also going to lead a small team of experienced game testers that he's worked with in the past to QA our games before going onto cart. And there are future plans to begin developing first party games exclusive to RVGS (thus our discussions with David Siller, a platform game designing genius, who I am talking with again this week). Again, we needed to first get the console officially launched and funded before adding this component which will take tons of additional effort and resources. Again, I apologize if any of you felt misleaded, but everything that I said revolved around something that actually happened and were more than just a few emails to PR people

I said I was not going to come back into this thread, but as you all can agree, AtariAge and this thread are a hard habit to break. Anyway, I wanted to chime back in on a few things in light of our current situation. Unlike the So Cal Mike from the past, I will try and be a bit more concise: 1) As you have heard (and discussed) in our most recent team interview there was discord among the team. Since bringing John on board this product started becoming incredibly expensive. It was actually up to $450-$500 (selling price at one point). Obviously, that was NEVER going to fly so Steve and I did what we could to try and work with John to understand why the cost and selling price became to excessive. Once we decided to eliminate the need for RVGS to "handle" Neo Geo size cores/games (coming through the FPGA), the price then lowered a bit, but not nearly enough. We then went back and forth amongst the team to include or not include an FPGA big enough to handle the existing 8-Bit cores thinking without it the price would come down even more, but at the expense of losing the magic of the FPGA. But even after removing the FPGA or using a small one for other "housekeeping" applications (John's words) the price just never came down to a price point Steve and I were comfortable with (it bottomed out at the $299-$350 you saw on the IGG campaign). 2) Regarding Kevtris (and PIKO too). Honestly, since we had been waffling on whether or not to include the FPGA leading up to a crowdfunding campaign, I didn't want to waste any more of their time. In the end, Kevin did understand that we would contract with him to license his existing 8-bit cores and also help finance his creation of 16-bit cores for our use and the community's use ONLY if we had a successfully funded campaign that included a capable FPGA. We didn't toss him out in any way, shape or form and I apologize to Kevin for how I handled his comments, which took our team by surprise and were a bit out of the blue. And, should RVGS have a successful ending, I hope we can work with him to license his cores in the future. In the end, I do believe our products will be two completely different kinds of machines and can exist together if the two of us are able to make our machines a reality. 3) Regarding PiperCub (Scott Schreiber). Yes, he was a confidant, friend and podcast co-host with me for years when I came to him with my idea to create a new cartridge based console. I valued his input and advice and he also knew Curt Vendel, someone who I initially wanted to design the hardware. Scott hooked us up and Curt and I discussed this very early on and he indicated he didn't have the time (and was also battling for his life) so he had to bow out of the running as lead engineer. I then moved on to two other very capable hardware guys who worked with Steve and I in the beginning, even to the point of having an operating prototype. This was all before Steve had the idea of integrating an FPGA (and also before a few other additions like the various output methods and 9-Pin controller ports (all things we are striving to include should it not break the bank). 4) Fast forward to the present. Yes, we pulled the IGG campaign and agree it should have NEVER been turned on in the first place. Prior to pulling the campaign John took it upon himself to light up his famous table prototype video (without any heads up to Steve or myself). At first, Steve and I were taken by surprise, but his attempt at showing a prototype did garner some positive sentiment among the natives so I thought we dodged a bullet there. In the end, I think it did more harm than good and wish it never got posted. But John is a very good guy and very capable engineer. But somehow this product grew into a three headed monster with him at the hardware helm. And I am not saying this was all his fault. John did his best to engineer the machine Steve and I had envisioned from the start. It just got completely out of hand on many accounts and we all take the blame for that. 5) Steve Woita. Steve is awesome ( I hope you can all agree with that) and he and I are on great terms and want to see RVGS to a positive end, whether that means a successfully funded campaign with a cool product you all might want OR if it dies out gracefully after given a true chance to succeed. Only time will tell where this story will end. 6) Back to #3. The good news is that our team all still agrees that having the FPGA in its fullest form is a good thing and are doing what we can to continue to include that bit of hardware in the design. We are hard at a work to complete the prototype that was begun early on in this venture and I am trying to stay out of the hardware side of things at this point so they can do their job and engineer some cool tech that doesn't cost you all an arm and a leg. That was never our intention with RVGS. If and when you hear from us again it will be with a playable prototype in hand. 7) Apologies. Hey, I think we can all agree this thread had both constructive criticism, which my team and I welcomed and also personal attacks which we didn't. I didn't mean to group everyone into any negative comments I made with regards to AA or its members. But there were a few comments that really rubbed me the wrong way and I let my emotions get the best of me. For what it's worth, I am sorry and certainly didn't mean any ill will toward the majority of the people here or on any other forum (or on Facebook) for that matter. Much of the criticism was valuable and I think we now know how to bring a viable product to market with a price point that most will agree with. But again, it's a balancing act trying to please as many people as possible while also trying to keep the price affordable. Now all I ask is that you give my team a fair shot to win back your trust with our second effort that will go long way to address the concerns from the final weeks leading up to the IGG campaign. We will have a playable prototype and it will be on Kickstarter. Will there be some changes to the game lineup? Sure, we will be working on fleshing out the initial game launch list once we have all agreed on the hardware and the price point. Carry on . . . . . - Mike EDIT: Oh, one other thing. I've discussed with our campaign rep at IGG about ending the campaign and they said they would look into it but for now it's still live. If you happen to still have your money tied up there, please go in and demand a refund asap. Here is a link discussing how and where to request this: https://support.indiegogo.com/hc/en-us/articles/526876-Refunds-Can-I-get-my-money-back-

Wow. Kevin ?!?! First off, we were going to pay Kevin his asking price for the licensing of the cores and this was build into our funding goal ($10K/core) and had another $50K +/- in our funding budget to pay him for the 16 bit cores he has yet to develop. And these could have been shared with the community or whatever, not exclusive to us. And I could care less if Kevin used these cores to sell his board in addition to ours, he could have had both opportunities. We are selling two entirely different kinds of products. It really is amazing how everything gets turned around in these forums. We are just three legitimate guys who want to bring a cool product to market. It's as simple as that. And set up it up as a real sustainable business that can continue to support the platform for a long time. As of this post, I am going to chime out here as there is nothing that even remotely comes in the form of meaningful constructive criticism. And Kevin, I guess we will look elsewhere for our core development.

500 @ $299 - Early Bird Black RVGS Only $349 is our base price during the campaign plus choice of Legend or Jewel series colors. These are unlimited exclusives made for the campaign only.

Tarzilla, our plan is to have a centralized location, ecommerce shopping cart site, to sell the games that can be played on our system, from our proprietary carts to homebrews on original carts from their respective systems. So to answer your questions, we can include your game as well as other homebrewer's games or AtariAge carts, for sale on our page. We will then also include carts from companies like Collectorivsion and Elektronite, etc. All on one place for RETRO VGS shoppers to find and purchase. Hopefully, this will open the market up to a new lot of gamers who were unaware that new games like this were being made for the systems they grew up with.

We are funding more core development. 16-bit would be next. In talks with Kevtris about all this but contingent obviously upon a successful KS campaign.

This is correct. Now that we've introduced the cart adapters that will negate the need to port any "Legacy" system's new(er) games to our carts. We'll update the FAQ.

Catch up: http://www.retrovgs.com/media.html

I want to get that on cart so bad! We interviewed the developers of Cuphead for an early issue of RETRO Magazine. Cuphead is initially a Microsoft exclusive but I believe that runs out in 6-12 months. But we will definitely be going after that one! I can say that every developer we've talked with is ecstatic about the idea of having their game(s) on a cartridge. It's something none of them ever thought they would have the opportunity to do So far, it's been a very easy sell to devs.

Guys, We have been boiling down all the discussions on a variety of forums and on Facebook and taking a hard look at our cost, price vs. capability. Originally, over a year ago this was going to be a system based largely around the architecture of the Beaglebone Black. At this time we had discussed pricing in the $150-$180 range. Soon after this, Steve Woita decided we need to do something that's not been done before and make a consumer product that is FPGA enabled as this would give immediate development paths to a wide variety of home brew game developers who could continue making games like they know how, for the systems they are familiar with and have a no-cost port of those games onto RVGS. Hopefully, bringing these games to a bigger audience allowing them to make more money so they can keep making more games. I hope none of you can argue about that Next, since we don't want the success of RVGS to lie only in the hands of smaller homebrew game developers who are making incredible retro games for the classic systems, we wanted to make RVGS capable of playing the best of today's retro inspired games coming from a great group of Indie developers around the world. And just because these games look RETRO, they are in fact, quite large, many in the 1-2GB range. So we have had to take considerable time and effort to design a system that will play a wide variety of games coming from a wide variety of developers using a variety of oldschool to newschool programing techniques and using today's mostly inefficient game making suites like Unity and Game Maker. RVGS will also have its own native core and tool chain that developers can work with as well. This is something still being worked on and SDKs will be available soon after the campaign ends. The bottom line is RVGS will have more than enough ways for devs to bring their games onto the system. That has always been the goal of my hardware team who by the way have been designing video gaming hardware and/or software for their entire careers. And the barrier's to entry are free as every RVGS system will be a dev console right out of the box. We have addressed the flash issue and will be able to use masked roms up to a max game size of around 128 MB which will cover lots of ground. But, for games larger than that we have been working on other higher capacity storage options that will make our games last a lifetime. But its been extremely challenging working with today's technology which is largely becoming more and more disposable. Believe me we have looked at every option there is and worked with the largest electronics distributors and Flash manufactures directly to determine the best options available for our long term storage needs. As far as whether or not we are leaving the FGPA inside RVGS. The answer is YES. Removing this part of our hardware will significantly reduce the value and capability of this machine. We have yet to announce, but will have a variety of inexpensive 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 made here in Southern California. You won't have to worry about sticking in your prized copy of Air Raid into the RVGS cartridge slot. AND RVGS will be a great system to play all the existing newer 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). 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. We are making a product for the ages and one that will have loads of value straight from the box. RVGS will be made right here in Southern California with only the highest quality parts on the market. Give us the time to prove what this will do and I am sure eventually, all of you will want to have this sitting beside your favorite game cartridge based consoles from yesterday. Regardless of what you all might think, we have spent tons of money, time and effort getting to this point. Carry on . . . . . . . - Mike

Hey everyone, I had to order another batch of clear carts to fulfill some of the past orders. I am picking them up on Friday so if you are one of the few folks waiting they will be mailing next week. For those of you who missed out or want to order more here you go: http://shopreadretro.com/collections/merch/products/atari-jaguar-translucent-cartridge-shell?variant=3854094660 I should have a small quantity of consoles shells for sale again, some of the left overs from the first batch. They will be added to the same Shopify store by end of this week.

Hey Everyone, Figured it was a good time to jump back in here and address some of these issues below: And as a bonus we are also going to use the FPGA to give programmers and computer enthusiasts the ability to hook keyboards up to this thing and come in through purchased system replication cartridges to program like on an Amiga, Atari 800 or a C64 for example. There are lots of cool things left to reveal.

Episode 2 Of Talk RETRO is out now. Come on and give a listen. http://readretro.com/features/talk-retro-episode-2-snes-cd-retro-gaming-and-battletoads/

Yes, to some extent

We are also counting on developers to create their own cores so we will not only be relying on cores for existing systems. This is where it will get very interesting, seeing what developers do to push the hardware.

This system is not going to be cheap. It will be as next gen as you can get in a cartridge based console. It will have plenty of capability to run even the biggest Retro indie titles coming to market now and in the future. As far as exclusives, we can get all the exclusives we want if the demand and userbase makes it profitable for the devs. But we can't yet demand exclusives from the big players because we don't yet know what our userbase is going to be until after the Kickstarter campaign. If we sell tons of these during that campaign period we will go after exclusive triple A retro game sequels and have them ready to launch when the consoles start delivering in 2016.

We are talking with Wayforward and they are very interested in porting thier games to cart and love the idea behind RVGS. But they are unsure yet if they want to have a title announced along with the Kickstarter and may want to wait to see if the demand is there to support them coming on board.

Hey T. I did email you tracking today. Did you get the email?

Hey Guys, Sorry a small few emails are falling through the cracks. If you are still waiting for your order -- and at this point this should only include 3-5 folks -- as all other have been sent, email me with your address and what you purchased. I will verify with your Paypal payments -- Email asap at socalmike@gamegavel.com and I will get your order shipped. Not looking to screw anyone here

Hey All, I am shipping all remaining orders this week and will then get a count of left overs. Stay tuned and I will get that info to you all very soon!

Base retail versions will be black. Having fun with a variety of colors that will be Kickstarter exclusives. You can get the black version or another color if you like

Hey everyone. We are excited to announce our Kickstarter to release new and modernized versions of your favorite Intellivision classics for PC and Mac. Both Keith Robinson and Dave Warhol are also a part of this cool venture. Check out the Kickstarter campaign here and help us spread the word: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/756513245/intellivision-gen2-video-games-for-pc-and-mac Thanks!!