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rob_ocelot

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Everything posted by rob_ocelot

  1. Incoming! Everyone please shuffle to the right to make more room under the bus!
  2. If you make a habit of murdering people they refer to you as a serial killer. What do they call you when you repeatedly murder the careers of hardware engineers? (egads, to think this is probably only the tip of the body count)
  3. A shame, really. So you didn't get the rah-rahing Greek chorus you wanted here and now you are leaving. Maybe you should just retire to your Facebook echo chamber and smell your own farts for a decade or two. A parting thought for Mike: Namedropping Clay Cowgill into this discussion was a really low move on your part. His involvement in your sorry saga had absolutely no bearing on it's ultimate failure, and IMO only served to give yet another name for people to focus on and swing the spotlight away from you. Like Kevtris, you wanted CC to work for free and maybe glean a few smart-sounding buzzwords from him that you could throw at the next unlucky hardware guy who happened to cross your path. Now Clay's name will pop up in Google searches associated with this Sean/Lee character. Unlike you when you hired Sean, most real busineses do background checks on prospective employees including casual Google searches for obvious red flags. Think about that the next time you come here wanting sympathy and understanding while wearing your "I'm the only one who suffered a loss" t-shirt.
  4. Sounds like a quote from Tony Wilson, Factory Records' founder. Or Martin Hannett. As for who this mysterious 'Lee' is -- We've just unmasked Janus as one of Mike's cronies who was trolling or hyping here and there's the ugly possibility that it was happening at Mike's behest or instruction. Would not at all be surprised to find Janus or another sheep in the Retro fold posing as a 'hardware engineer' at some mysterious Google-esque entity. That sounds like just the sort of shit someone who thought they could pass off a video capture card as a console would come up with. This is probably the most mundane of the pack of lies told.
  5. Looks like they predicted smack talking while playing online games too.
  6. My prediction is he will GTFO of Dodge as far as video games are concerned. If he has any other interests or hobbies I wouldn't be at all shocked if he bulldozed his way into one of those as a money making venture. With video games he made the classic mistake of taking something he liked and had a decent working knowledge and turned it into his job. Quickest way to turn something you like into something you loathe is to make your income depend on it. Not to say that someone CAN'T do this and be happy and successful but the odds are really stacked against you.
  7. Why do I get the feeling that most of the credientials of the 'team' are just fluffed up peacock tails. Game testing is the about the lowest of the low jobs in the industry. The guy who gets the morning coffee and shines the exec's shoes with his tongue is higher up on the totem pole. Just remember, seven years later this guy thought he could be calling the shots at Apple...
  8. I never really understood just what the big deal was about the console and cartridges still working in 50 years. Do people really expect display technology to be compatible? Do you expect the same kinds of financial value placed on old consoles that we do now? Would your grand- or greatgrandkids even care about this stuff? A lot can change in 50 years. You can fit the entire history of the console market in that. Ikea used to make a computer desk called the 'Jerker' (and I'm sure the designer was having a bit of a larf when he named it). The second version of the desk is the Best Damn Desk Ever. Solid, useful, can be configured multiple ways for a multitude of uses unrelated to computers. Practically indestructible too. People into making music still rave about the desk to this day becuase it could easily bear the weight of heavy keyboards and mixing consles. There was a shrine website to this desk at one point. And then Ikea discontinued it. Why? Because it was too good. People only had to buy it once and they never returned to buy another one. Sure, add on accessories sold but the markup was just not the same as the desk. Ikea replaced the desk with a similar looking but nowhere near as sturdy desk. In fact, the replacement (Gallant, ISTR the name was) would fall apart within a year or two -- and that's exactly what Ikea was hoping... there was a 50% chance you might come back in and buy a replacement versus a 5% chance you might come back if your Jerker broke. The problem for the Chameleon (or any new retro console) is market saturation. Once the OCD completists, cartridge hoarders and speculators buy your system where do you go from there? Maybe Piko or Collectorvision can give us a rough idea how much of a market there is for retro catridges. If someone is making a full time living by producing retro catridges I have yet to hear it -- almost without exception these people have day jobs in addition to their side business. I haven't even mentioned things like the Flashbacks eating into your pie. If these things (and all things retro) are selling like gangbusters you'd think you'd see more big fish in the industry throwing their hats into the ring in a big way. Pixelated 2D graphics are not a trend. They are a fad. Fads come and go and get revived approximately once per generation, give or take. Flared jeans, high-top sneakers, capri pants, clogs. These things keep coming and going like clockwork. The fashion world (at least the marketing end of it) will keep shoving these down our throats till the end of time. Mike made the #1 classic marketing mistake: He assumed his needs were universal. "I want a new retro system with cartridges" became "Everyone's going to want this" quite quickly.
  9. I'd LOVE to see new games written for older arcade hardware, eg Williams 6809 and running on an FPGA system that was modular so you could hook it up to the display and UI of your choice -- be it a modern HTDV, an older composite/RF TV, or an arcade monitor in a coin-op cabinet with arcade controls. Official support from companies like IREM and Taito would be icing on the cake. That's just me though. I wouldn't mistake my wanting this as everyone else wanting this.
  10. If there's something to be angry about it's your microphone, Eli -- manufacturer totally threw you under the bus there. In all seriousness, thank you for providing another perspective to this whole mess. Fills in a lot of blanks and gives clarity to other events we've heard about. IMO, the good folks here at AA should be striving to present as complete and clear a picture of the inner workings of Mike's companies as they can without being biased or heavy handed. The next person who stumbles onto a summary of this mess should be able to form their own opinion of events. If they choose to deal with Mike or his affiliated ventures in the future then hopefully they will do some minimal research and inform themselves.
  11. I'd be very cautious about what's being broadcasted on the 'Coleco' end of things. With all we've experienced in this saga is manipulating both sides of a social media conversation to give the appearance of legitimacy completely out of the question now? I know that sounds paranoid but the players involved have continually sunk lower than even my most pessimistic expectations.
  12. I'd say a little of column A and a little of column B. All I know is Mike has probably made some out-of-work forensic accountants very happy.
  13. With all the Hollywood accounting, stockholder shell-gaming and other assorted financial shennanigans that have come to light recently I doubt Carlsen would have seen a dime, even if the RVGS or CC was a success. Mike seems very flexible in both the scope and breadth of his promises -- gentlemen's agreements seem to be the order of the day and it's practically financial and legal suicide to make these sorts of vague or off the cuff promises. However, what I think Carlsen is alluding to in the interview is that if the CC became a success he (and possibly others) would extract their payment from Mike in court -- hence Carlsen's mention of patents. John took his toys and left and has been waiting for Mike to take the bait and use (or claim to be using) something he developed without permission. To mix metaphors here, that damn bus was never going to navigate through all the burnt bridges much less move at all because of the quantity of people thrown under it. The Chameleon was painted into a corner and screwed no matter if it became a success or not
  14. I laughed so hard at that (it's been a shitty week IRL) I'm holding you personally responsible for my next drycleaning bill. Bravo, sir.
  15. More to the point, you can't fight their illogic with logic -- even using logic backed up with facts. There's a cognitive disconnect happening there that skirts around or conveniently ignores inconvenient information, kind of like a zipper missing a tooth but it always manages to navigate through and zip up the jacket just fine.
  16. Legal grace period so as not to make the side asking seem unreasonable in their demends. It also gives them time to seek out an expert. It took the forum here only a few days but remember that was many people working in parallel who were fixated on those pictures. We also had a combination of hard work and a little luck that there was a current ebay auction with those cards. We might still have been looking. Worth remembering that hardware engineer's job is really ony to prove what it isn't. We had a vested interest in proving not ony that but also what it was -- an incentive that made us even more determined. The real problem here is going to be finding a local hardware engineer who hasn't been involved with RVGS, Mike, or Coleco -- I'd advise Coleco to not look under the nearest bus Kevtris might seem like a good choice on paper but legally might be considered to have a conflict of interest due to his past dealings with them, however pripheral they may be.
  17. Here's hoping Coleco sticks Mike with the bill for the engineer's time. Halleujah, it's likely to be the only time a hardware engineer involved with Mike actually gets paid!
  18. Wow. Shit just got real. Mike better have his homework done and not cribbed from elsewhere. Guess River west Brands does care if their hard-purchased IP is dragged through the mud. Who knew?
  19. You've highlighted a very important aspect of this whole affair that wasn't immediately apparent until we all took two steps backwards. No one except Mike had access to the full picture (and thus the full scope) of the project. There were people involved who weren't even aware of each other and in some cases they were duplicating the efforts of others all because one guy had to have total control and knowledge -- ironic, because it's likely Mike was afraid of being squeezed out by knowledgeable people who might have realized he's not actually contributing anything. Pre-emptive elimination of internal competition. So everyone's participation is limited and if anyone starts to make too much noise they'd get left out of a few Skype conferance calls and get soft-fired from the project without knowing it. Or they got frustrated and left. Mike couldn't control Kevin -- couldn't get him to cough up something for free and was introducing some engineering and fiscal reality into what were basically fantasy football discussions. Kev would have eventually been squeezed out in favour of John once Mike realized that they would inevitably begin to compare notes or have different ideas about what was feasable. Far easier for Mike to say that Kev is a troublemaker and is no longer allowed in the sandbox and that's why we aren't including him in the meeting today. The first inkling we got of this was Woita's surprise that Kev wasn't working with them and hadn't been for months. Whoops! Forgot to send the memo that the key hardware guy is no longer with us. Oh well, don't worry, hardware guys are a dime-a-dozen we'll just drive by the hardware engineer store (aka some tech discussion forum) and hire another. When one guy is trying to wear all the hats (in some cases, badly -- as you're just parroting technical terms with no idea what you talking about) no one can work effectively. I'm sure Mike sees it as how Nolan ran Atari in the early days. Just as we associate Atari's early success with Nolan I'm sure Mike wanted to be remembered as some sort of tech guru. Likely convinced himself that just saying smart sounding things and keeping people in the dark or badmouthing them to their peers was enough to keep him on top.
  20. Probably a wee bit of projection there on Gamester81's part -- suggesting the AA "haters" were in it for the money (from whom?) was his own cry for help that he was just a paid stooge for Mikey. I'm pretty sure he's aware which side of his bread the butter is on. When that slice of toast is resting butter-side-down on Mike's kitchen floor Gamster81's ethical organ suddenly perks up and it's mea culpa all around.
  21. I suspect he was cobbling together the 'glass bottom boat' version of the Chameleon and taking some pictures at the last minute, likely as Mrs. Kennedy was walking out the door for good.
  22. Ahh but Mike had something to prove. His e-peen was on the line when people were talking trash about the SNEZ-jag. He could have coasted under the radar for the rest of this year after the KS postponement with no one the wiser. He broke cover and got caught in the same way like every stupid criminal does -- he needed to stretch his ego. All that energy and effort put into these fake prototypes -- so many man hours of other people's time wasted. I bet you if he had just sat down with a hardware guy (who got paid upfront!) and hashed out what he wanted and let people do their jobs we'd not only have a working console by now we'd probably be buzzing about the specs for the RetroVGS 2. There isn't a palm big enough for me to bury my face in.
  23. So, what does Mike think removing the pictures at this point in time accomplishes? Meme-worthy stuff like this tends to live forever on the internet because someone, somewhere will always be bringing it up. Zeitgeist, and all that stuff. Some of it may even leak out of the basement on a slow news day and <gasp> the non-gaming press takes notice.
  24. 224 users! Maybe AA should go to an ad revenue model and book Mike to perform three nights a week. Even Penn and Teller don't get these types of captive audiences in Vegas.
  25. Mike, if you're reading this (and I bet you are) please STAY THE F**K AWAY from the videogame community. Crawl back to your day job as a Sandwich Artist and never bother us with your bullshit again. To Steve Woita, Steve Rosenbaum, Ben Herman, Phil Adam and Paul Wylie: Time for one or all of you to step forward and come clean. Either take responsibility for this shitpile or throw Mike under the bus (it's getting really crowded under there with all those hardware guys).
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