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Or Steve, or Sean, or Coleco, or anybody else that could bring a new exposé.

Just a few clarifications: The only Officers of a corporation are those listed in the Articles of Incorporation (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, etc), which could be public record, depending on the state. Anybody can be given any title they want in the company otherwise, including the C-level popular titles. They're just words that can be freely thrown around without any legal backing, and if Sean has the history claimed here, he would be certain not to actually sign anything while verbally agreeing to everything. Memo lines are also not legally binding, and don't represent an agreement between parties. (I know this isn't necessarily what you're implying, but for the benefit of everyone) Also, the realm of a few thousand dollars certainly doesn't smell of actual hourly billing, task estimation, etc. It's most likely just a number "Mr. Lee" pulled out of the air that he thought Mike would be willing to part with. I really don't think Mike's going to win any legal case. I'm certain it was just an oral arrangement, and Sean did deliver literal mockups and a playable system for the toy fair, and was compensated as apparently agreed. Mike's words have been captured here over time and lawyers from both sides will certainly be poring over this thread if it ever comes to that, especially as media articles point right back here. But Mike can certainly push this into the courts without many barriers, if he can find a lawyer amenable to the case. I also suspect that most lawyers will simply tell him he's screwed.

The retro gaming roundup guys talked about this at length. They've been a lot closer to Mike through this whole time. They say the old Mike is gone and replaced with Business Mike, and unfortunately it looks like that's there to stay. Their words really match with what's been going on, and I believe their assessment is current and correct.

Regardless of Steve, that excuse has never, and should never hold water. Mike is (was?) a retro gaming guy and a collector. He's bought and sold hardware many times over himself, and runs a site dedicated to that purpose. He's had to get old broken crap working. There no way that he wouldn't recognize a SNES video jack, or the multi-power supply, or a SNES multicart which obviously only plugs into a SNES cartridge slot (and he was very cautious to have only the cartridge front facing the camera). It's dubious that he wouldn't know the various major SNES models, as a collector and as popular as that console was. It's ridiculous to claim that he never happened to peek into the holes where the controller cables were going to obviously see SNES controller connectors. Even if he's just out to make a buck today, he's is certainly an informed retro console guy and in no way can feign ignorance about these sorts of major details.

It does disappoint me hearing these casts & reading these articles where the only thing they read was Mike's posts, and not all the fact-checking, now vs then analyses, and other first party reports that came immediately after.

People already like Nintendo & their franchises, so the predicate is fulfilled.

Mike, stop talking about "collecting" every stupid little idea you fart out! Nobody cares! The only reason people collect anything is if they liked it. You can't just plop something on the table and magically deem it "collectible"!

Don't forget the top half of the Jag case haphazardly tossed on top of the board.

But old console cartridge games don't have bugs!

Even when it's just 1x, there are enough new people to crowdfunding that are looking at it with innocent hopeful eyes.

I haven't had any problems with the two Pandoras I ordered years ago. It's really easy to have no problems with something you never received! But all ire goes to Craig. I give big props to Evildragon for what he's been able to scavenge out of that mess.

They've stated that they want to find an existing, completed console and put their name on it to start making money on "revitalizing the brand". I don't think they care either way about level of performance, if it emulates existing systems, etc. They thought the "Chameleon" was almost complete, as I'm sure MK spun the tale.

I think it's necessary for Gamester81 to make that statement video, because the entire problem arising from this is the rabid Youtube fans that are making problems for others. He's the only one that can calm his fans down and stop them from harassing others, and Pat's the only one that can calm down his fans. It's this stupid internet mob behavior that's causing the problems in the first place. They watch a video and extrapolate and exaggerate their own story from it, and then that becomes a self-sustaining conflagration of unfounded rage kept alive by the mob being a mob. The only hope you have of shutting that type of behavior down is a statement to cut it out from the very people the mob thinks they're defending.

Didn't Mike loan personal funds into RETRO to purchase the Jaguar shells? If that's the case, then RETRO has a financial obligation back to Mike personally to repay that loan. If that's the case, you'd be taking it over, and working hard to make money only to have to pay back Mike's loan out of those earnings, and bail him out of (some of) the financial hole he dug for himself! Think about it, why is Mike trying to sell this off? The company & magazine itself is completely dead in the water, and really has no value to sell. It's because there's something in it for him regardless of company sale price; if that loan is in there, he wants it to stay viable to pay him back, with interest. Purchase the assets cheaply if you like (subscriber list, back catalog, graphical assets, rights to the name, etc), but do NOT purchase the company itself and all the strings attached to it! His companies are intermingled and are business poison.

He thanks Game Gavel like it's a separate entity?

Many failures before success are reasonable business models, but are crowded out or aren't experienced enough to run internal affairs optimally. What Mike has created, even with his experience, starts with nonsensical business models. He has dreams of legions of customers where the market will only sustain a handful.

Regardless of when it happened, it's very hypocritical of Mike "Mortal Kennedy" Kombat to be involved in both mobile games and hawk cartridges as the only way things should be. I retract any goodwill I gave him for his starting moves in the RetroVGS. There was no hint of passion project in there, it was purely a predatory marketing stance. From that perspective, I doubt he's feeling any sort of personal pain of losing out on something he really wanted to see come to fruition. It's just some opportunistic idea he cooked up and he'll move quickly to the next.

^ I need an edit of that Indy4 clip, with Mike Kennedy crawling out of the refrigerator, clutching some Jaguar shells.

While I would expect changes to be geared towards his next venture, "Celebrating the History of Video-Hyphen-Games" could simply be a reference to his magazine. I hope so, and that he's taking some time off to reflect on things before stumbling into whatever is next for him.

But Ouya! Ouya Ouya Ouya! Such crowdfund! If only he can get just X percent of Ouya's funding | eBay's marketshare | Nintendo's install base | etc, then he'd be rolling in cash!

Yeah, maybe instead of saying "well-meaning", something like "he actually intended to do real business" could be more appropriate. He didn't want to set up an actual scam to take money and run, or to sell a fake product on the shelves. But rather he wanted to Corner The Market™ and make a pie that he can have his fingers in. He's certainly a scummy businessman, but if he was actually trying to scam the end customers and crowdfunding backers is up for grabs. That latter point is what people (including me) are trying to distinguish. But it's undeniable that he was pulling a con at the Toy Fair, and was certainly scamming Coleco, even if his endgame was to try to ship a real product after funding. Evil is as evil does, regardless of intention or means to an end, and Mike's responses to trouble were certainly from the dark side of the force.

And the Mysterious Mr. Lee is likely another one on the pile, according to Eli's account. Even giving Mike the absolute benefit of the doubt, where Mr.-ious Lee was solely at fault for slacking off, cashing in contracting fees, and giving Mike Corp useless hardware props, that still doesn't exonerate Mike. Because he then took these props and presented them as real, getting into specifics of them being FPGA-based and cooking up reasons why they can't open the Toy Fair model. A simple "Sorry, we had to back out of the fair because our supplier didn't come through for us. Give us some time to find another partner." would save face if you get screwed by somebody else. Honestly is simple, and keeps you as the good guy. I am in the boat of thinking Mike was generally well-meaning, in that he's an actual retro fan, and believes he's going to make sellable product (I don't believe it'd actually sell). It's shady that he doesn't want to risk anything, wanted to set up a walled garden, and is shuffling ownership away from partners (though I really don't see anything technically illegal in that as others have alluded). But he did want to actually build and sell a real thing, even if tainted by his disreputable Serial Entrepreneur™ tactics. However, once things started going pear-shaped, his response was to try to lie his way through continuing the project as-is, and at that point he's firmly the bad guy, even in this absolutely best-case hypothetical scenario.

Look at the chips on the board. They're all laid out orthogonally, so the edges of all the rectangular chips show "true" horizontal and vertical directions. The edges of the board don't line up with them. The board is trapezoidal.

I don't think this will affect any of the larger sites that just saw the Coleco name and thought they had a story. However, I'm sure all the small players involved are certainly more aware of the value of not taking things at face value now. I think the only burning he's going to get is the lack of opportunity and traction going forward. There isn't going to be any impact to him legally or financially from any of this behavior, unless Coleco gave him funds. Since Coleco said that the split was amicable, that implies that they're not going to pursue anything, but that could also just be a politeness for a publi statement. (Also, every time I see "MK" I think "Mortal Kombat" and have to re-think what context I'm in. )

The only reason word spread so far was because the entire situation was baffling, and left people curious and asking questions. That had nothing to do with any marketing prowess on Mike's side. The "Retro Video Game System" is one of the most unimaginative, uninspiring, and unremarkable names ever coined for a console. Each of his public statements detonated another problem. The websites and crowdfunding content were a mess, including the copy on it. This was popular specifically because of marketing failure.