Pipercub

One extra L or a capture card will get you in deep in this place!

Yes, I made a typo, no worries!

Ok insider, you spotted a typo.

512 TRs are a real contradiction in design, flat opposed engine to keep the CG low then put it 8 inches higher in the chassis because of the stupid tranny placement. But that said, I always give them a look when one comes up. My next one is a 458 Italia, it is a modernized F355 when you get down to it, it is stiff, loud, harsh and perfect. The cars between the 355 and 458 just got too soft and polite. I have logged a few track sessions with DR and their brilliant instructors in Vegas in a 458 and I am sold http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/videos/scott/scott_458_5.htm Oh man that fake enzo is rough to look at. I love kit cars in general but that is dog crap. They care, ALLOT. They just didn't have the staff to determine what they were looking at and they faced up to it publicly. All of that could have been done in private but they didn't, they did it all in the open and came here in an open forum for input to their project.

Hey Yellow355F1, just wondering about your user name, do you have a Yellow 355F1? Titanium Grigio 355F1 here. Oddly enough super common in gaming, Tommy Tallarico, Yu Suzuki, and Ed Fries have one too.

################################################################################################################################################################# NO BULLSHIT ZONE Once upon a time Socal Mike was a family member and if you want to see what an honest Socal Mike product reveal looks like here it is. Everything he says is true, that envelope came from my house to his and he shows what we built. Had he stuck with his brothers I bet the Coleco Chameleon would be an actual product.

So the guy that did the unboxing dribbled out a few more details; I hope he does us all a solid and posts them today!

Your damn right I do, I emailed the guy and found the place that made it for him. I will be following up on all channels to get one or more of these. If anyone knows this guy please ping him on my behalf!!!

That guy is an epic hack, he called CGE Adventures a confusing bunch of turns that end in dead ends, it's a MAZE GAME asshole. Cool with edits by mods if that is too direct.

So I was bored and did a little google search on some common terms used lately to describe the mysterious Mr Lee (Li) as described by Piko member Eli. As it turns out there is a place on Earth that has lawyers, showers, and rooms named after movies. Netflix HQ. Now am I saying or suggesting that Netflix was kicking out fake prototypes, oh no, that is insane, and the background in the pics matches a residential not a commercial environment. Still, one heck of a Venn diagram.

Excellent use of red underline, I ran out of money so I printed more. If one were to go to the RetroGaming Roundup forums and scroll up a few posts you would see this was Socal justifying what Pat and Ian called him out for doing in their latest vid, creating a new company to re-sell the molds and proprietary material developed under GG as well as scrape off those people as liabilities. How could that belong always and forever to a separate company as Socal claimed when that company did not exist until the 11th hour? I told Socal straight up that I considered that actionable and that if this thing funded it would come up. The world failed to notice for months and went on the epic roller coaster ride with this thing. And as Pat said, if you treat your close friends of many years this way........

https://youtu.be/sa_p9Up9DFg?t=226

Why, because I would buy one and if there are enough I's out there then it works, that said even though I would buy one, and I didn't care if it was as much as a PS4, I didn't think there were enough like me. Allow me to repeat myself: "I mean if I could buy a new console that just played games, wasn't infested with Call of Duty kids, and pick from new games on carts designed by the guys from the golden era of gaming you bet I would. And yes I do like carts, they are durable survivors that you can pull out of an attic or closet decades later and no matter what companies have come and gone, servers taken off line, licenses expired, re-issued etc. etc. etc. the things will just work and nothing can reach into your collection and interfere with your games. But how many of "me" are there out there, I don't know as someone recently said here, if I am making the mistake of assuming everyone's desires are the same as mine so I lean toward there not being a big enough market." Not that I know of, once the idea was formed it was formed with the conclusion that it was viable. The idea was make a new console that would play NEW games on a pre-online cart based platform, and again I questioned the market but thought the idea could result in a product I would like to buy. Much like those of us who have made our own games, like when we did CGE Adventures, to hold that game in your hand all packaged up and realize that you made what you wished you could own. I believed in Mike's idea because I looked forward to the prospect of holding that box with our console in it and a stack of new games by the godfathers of this industry. And Mike never once mentioned money, I think he really had the same sense of magic that I did of creating something that had someone else done it we would have lined up to buy it, but pragmatically it would have likely been a short line. As much as people in this story are often quoted saying "I'm not a hardware guy" I would like to say I am not a business guy. A good friend of mine opened a hardware store in my town, it is a small town with two larger towns 10 min in either direction where Lowes and Home Depot have larger selections at lower prices. If you asked me if a hardware store was a good idea in this town I would have said never ever ever would it work, 5 years later they are a thriving business. For me it was a pure technical question of could we build it not should be build it. I am glad I was out before regrettably, nothing was more important than making that product and everyone and everything was disposable to that goal.

And let me add, after I was soft fired from the project that is where my knowledge of Steve's role ends, I have no idea what he is or is not doing after that point.

Well you won't hear an unkind word about Steve from us, we know and like him thus far he has not been involved with any shennnanigans that we know of. If you listen to the indigogo era episode of RetroGaming Roundup you will hear Steve discussing some of how he came to be involved with the project; http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/shownotes/2015/roundup091_2015.09.php In short Socal Mike and I had been talking about this console idea, the very early days of fleshing out how to turn the idea into a product, and Steve and I had also been discussing his interest in getting back into the type of game development that he treasured and doing things the way they were done when it was in his view, better. And I can't say I disagree. As I have said here several times when Socal Mike asked me if I thought it was a viable product, and how such a thing could or would be made I told him I would buy one but that I was not convinced the mass market was there. I mean if I could buy a new console that just played games, wasn't infested with Call of Duty kids, and pick from new games on carts designed by the guys from the golden era of gaming you bet I would. And yes I do like carts, they are durable survivors that you can pull out of an attic or closet decades later and no matter what companies have come and gone, servers taken off line, licenses expired, re-issued etc. etc. etc. the things will just work and nothing can reach into your collection and interfere with your games. But how many of "me" are there out there, I don't know as someone recently said here, if I am making the mistake of assuming everyone's desires are the same as mine so I lean toward there not being a big enough market. As I am talking with Steve about the notion of standing up a studio I said he should really talk with Socal Mike about this because Mike was looking to fire up a console. Steve was brought into that discussion and all of that and what came next is pretty well detailed on the episode I posted just now. So for Mike to say stuff like "Why would Scott think he was a part of this etc." is so damn insulting because I literally brought the initial team together and was a contributor, anyway listen and your questions should be touched on.

I never saw John's name in any of the filings I have, his name was never mentioned as a stock holder, and I have no reason to believe he has ever held GG/Retro stock. The molds were purchased before the 2nd company even existed, and I have never seen anything to substantiate they were sold or transferred to any entity other than the three MK companies, I do not think John owns them. Just providing facts here and not making any kind of statement about the Gamester81 debate.

NOBODY, it must be an ISP thing, we have no such things in place to our knowledge unless wordpress has some hidden flag or something?

EXACTLY, there are things he has done, and those are bad but that stuff takes away from the importance of the discussion. And let us say if Mike comes around and we got our old Mike back, he can speak to all the contributors on this project and apologize, recognize them and perhaps one day gain their respect or trust. That video of Col. Klink and Unkle Adolf dancing around pretending to be him cannot be addressed or made right by Mike, and it serves no purpose in compelling him to come clean and apologize by deionizing him over things he did not do, muddies the water.

I respectfully disagree, the Sawyer interview shared, the Kickstarter guy's video shared, Piko interview shared, John Carlson interview shared, tons of truth coming to the surface from actual participants.

We'll do a "For Dummies" version for ya

Just listened, Steve crossed the line when he started making death threats against Mike. Nobody has a right to do that no matter what the raw deal and I do not condone that but when you screw over enough people you might run into trouble. HOWEVER, almost 100% of what Steve said was totally true and not embellished at all and some of it Steve even downplayed. The guy that Mike replaced him with, as well as the other *NEW* staff were never told about all the work that Steve did and that most of it was his idea, they were told he was a minor contributor who wrote a few poorly worded articles. If Steve had not made the threats he would be totally in the right, and I think has changed for the better, I will give him that. I only mention that part of the story because it could be brought up to deflect from the real issue. Steve was definitely processed through the Socal Mike system, use the guys ideas and work, replace him, throw him overboard, and diminish his contributions. About the only thing that he was wrong on is saying that it cost around 10k per issue as if it were unreasonable, I think it sounds about spot on, other than that I can't dispute a word of it.

Rob Osolot spoke clearer than most on the framework of this issue, scroll back and re-read what he wrote.

I'd swap my GG stock for them, just for the story. And that would be a loss, nobody would ever put anything but evil spirits on those things now.

Just looking over this mess and I was about to say the same thing. But lets put come context into play, the night the video capture card in a Jag was nailed we like MANY shared that image showing just what was in that case. And like many of you we saw mere minuets later that same image pulled from the RVGS FB page noted here as aaaaannnd its gone. So someone in control of that page saw that image and deleted it in response to it being re-purposed as proof of a sham. Next morning UK and I get emails and a phone call from none other than Socal Mike. We didn't respond because we knew it would be more of the same, he claimed he saw the image that morning and freaked out. I suspect setting up the who what where ummm I didn't know defence. No doubt looking to apply some combination of words to the issue because he was on the spot for deeds. And that is what this is all about, the endless use of language and words to create the appearance of a company, product, and world view, fix problems, address concerns, and rebut proof, but actions are no where to be seen other than parlour tricks to bolster the words. When we last spoke to Socal he was willing to apply any combination of words needed to "fix" the matter at hand but not the actions needed because those would possibly result in this thing not going forward. Now what do we have, hardware developers, software developers, business partners, former friends, the guy going to film the kickstarter and so many more all saying it was a cloud of words and when actions, proper and needed actions were demanded there was nothing. This is a small and connected community and if the organizational chart of people connected to this fiasco (by actual involvement) could be drawn it would be more vast than most of the observers here can imagine, but that network is in place and many of those people are talking and sharing. Many of us did not know about the promo video guy until his excellent video was recently posted, and he has likely never heard of many of us that were involved, but now we know one more guy that saw the same thing. And that pattern keeps repeating itself. Maybe I am a bit more of a hard nose sceptic but I am amazed at how long it took some to see what was going on, but after talking with so many and reading their thoughts on the matter I have to give some slack to them. Would it have been easier if: -Eli ran from the show floor screaming "Its a SNES, holy shit its a SNES" sure, but a young guy with a signed NDA and not being able to directly prove his gut? -A Coleco RWB handed a screwdriver over at the end of the toy fair and said open that thing now, they are not technical guys and business isn't conducted that way in general. -Gamester81, thenavguy, and so many other GOOD PEOPLE somehow arrived at the conclusion it was a sham earlier, ok they didn't -Ben Heck, Kevtris and other notables called BS earlier, maybe there business is not going after other projects as a first response. My opinion is after doubling down on the wrong choices and the use of words to fix things that action required (choices that would probably have meant no console) the thing just could not bluff its way over the guardrails and this project has arrived at a dead end, same result either way.

It may happen that the facebook and website go down, maybe River West finds out that they were taken for a ride and that the "haters and trolls" were their best friends. But I think it may be premature to call this the end of the story, this is a cockroach zombie that just keeps coming back to life. We may yet see a new name and new guts and another go-around.