ColecoVision Flashback System

[Bill Loguidice]

Truth be told, I didn't know what a TurboGrafx was until Nintendo announced it for VC support under Wii. Some of my most played VC games were Turbo titles I might add. In 2014, I broke down and bought one!

 

Either way, TG-16 was another "underdog" console, like SMS, 7800, Coleco, Intelli, Vectrex, and pretty much every other pre-NES console, with the lone exception of the massively popular but dated 2600. But the games are freaking awesome though

 

Since I always considered the Coleco and Intelli as "underdogs", then maybe others like SMS, 7800, or TG-16 might get added over time. But since you said there is a zero percent chance of it happening, I'll drop the subject.

 

Bottom line is it's not going to sell well if it doesn't have some type of nostalgia tied to it for the average person, which includes nostalgia for the original company behind the system, the system itself, and, probably most importantly, nostalgia for the games that are available to legally license at a reasonable price. Although I'm not privy to the exact sales numbers (and don't wish to know them), it seems that once again the Atari and Sega products were their best selling products by far and there needs to be ways to boost the sales of the other branded products. If the existing branded products had trouble selling despite healthy doses of nostalgia and relatively strong line-ups, that doesn't bode well for less well remembered systems like the 7800 and TG-16. However, like it or not, digital distribution IS a viable option for these second or third tier systems that don't warrant a $40 mass market product that needs to sell tons to justify the effort.

 

Naturally, an ideal solution would be a box with mixed formats on it, picking and choosing some of the best, most recognizable games from various platforms. However, like HDMI outputs, that requires a different configuration of hardware and different overall approach that wouldn't necessarily hit the price point required for it to be carried at retail, i.e., it really can't retail for more than $40 or so.

[Tron Unit]

Family Dollar has Flashbacks on clearance for $25. I saw Colecovision and Intellivision.

[thevnaguy]

prototype 3d printed arcade knob for the flashback

 

[TrekkiELO]

 

It's not only that, of course, but what's actually available to license. For instance, Madden, Bomberman, Street Fighter II, Military Madness, Bonk, etc., all might be great bullet points on the box, but it doesn't mean they'd necessarily be available. There really is too much against the TG-16 to warrant anything except a digital offering, which has no risk of sitting in inventory unsold.

 

Galaga '90, NEC/Hudson Soft's port of the Galaga '88 Namco arcade game, was also a big selling point for their TurboGrafx-16!

 

Edited March 21, 2015 by TrekkiELO

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Galaga '90, NEC/Hudson Soft's port of the Galaga '88 Namco arcade game, was also a big selling point for their TurboGrafx-16!

 

 

I don't recall Galaga/Galaxian anything being available to license for the other Flashbacks. With that said, that would be a good bulletpoint item since you still often see the combo arcade cabinets with Ms. Pac-Man. Of course, having a Pac-Man series game would be even better, but again, not available for whatever reason to license.

[73ChargerFan]

I'm really looking forward to a rev 2 with a better controller, Mousetrap, Mr Do, and Ladybug. My mother could play that for 4 hours or more.

[73ChargerFan]

And I got Post 1982, the year Colecovision came out! I spent the summer drooling over it looking through JC Penny catalogs, and sold pumpkins to raise the $200 for it. Played nothing but Donkey Kong for 3 months! My favorite game system (never bothered with Nintendo or Sega).

 

If they announce a Flashback 2, I may turn my rev 1 into a case for a Rasberry Pi like the "Ultimate Intellivision" thread.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/231433-the-ultimate-intellivision-flashback/

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Galaga '90, NEC/Hudson Soft's port of the Galaga '88 Namco arcade game, was also a big selling point for their TurboGrafx-16!

 

 

 

 

I don't recall Galaga/Galaxian anything being available to license for the other Flashbacks. With that said, that would be a good bulletpoint item since you still often see the combo arcade cabinets with Ms. Pac-Man. Of course, having a Pac-Man series game would be even better, but again, not available for whatever reason to license.

Let's not kid ourselves, Namco has a history of making "TV Games" consoles using their arcade IP, which directly compete with Flashback type devices. Not sure they'd be willing to help the competition by sublicensing to ATGames.

[TPR]

^ Aren't all those Namco ones just licensed by Jakks Pacific, though?

[Andromeda Stardust]

^ Aren't all those Namco ones just licensed by Jakks Pacific, though?

Jakks Pacific who also made the Bowser toys that everyone went gaga over last Christmas. Yes. Namco/Nintendo/whomever used a known distributor with experience marketing toys. What's your point?

[TPR]

My point is that I doubt it's "Namco used a known distributor" and more like Jakks licensed the games from them for their products. I worked with Jakks on a few products that never ended up making it to market and I'm pretty sure with my dealings with them this is how it went down. I could be wrong though.

[Atariboy]

Has there even been a new plug and play with Namco content in recent years?

 

http://pnp-info.angelfire.com/pnpgames.20150219.txt

 

The newest that I see in there is 2012, and it appears to be an in-house Namco release.

 

 

The Jakks Pacific releases programmed by HotGen appear to not had a new Namco branded model since the latter part of the previous decade, well over five years ago.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Atariboy

[Tron Unit]

I bought Namco museum on the PSX store just to play them on my PS3. It sucks they won't license them out for these Flashback systems. I think that's been the biggest problem with all of these Flashbacks systems. They are missing all of the really cool licensed games and you are stuck with the less memorable B-titles.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I bought Namco museum on the PSX store just to play them on my PS3. It sucks they won't license them out for these Flashback systems. I think that's been the biggest problem with all of these Flashbacks systems. They are missing all of the really cool licensed games and you are stuck with the less memorable B-titles.

Again, because products like this

 

would then directly compete with Namco's own branded products such as this

 

If Namco's Arcade IP is good enough to stand on it's own, they aren't going to sub-license decades old inferior arcade ports to another "TV Games" device. You either buy the latest Namco Museum or whatnot for your favorite console, or buy a standalone all-in-one device. And I sincerely believe the ship has sailed on plug-in-play "TV Games" consoles, because everyone wants to play on their "mobile" devices now, with the convenience of playing anywhere, on the toilet, bus, standing in line for carnival rides or at the ticket booth, wherever one gets a chance to idle for a moment or two, and not be tied down to the TV.

 

We are really lucky that ATGames even bothered with the Coleco and Intelli Flashbacks. The fact that they care enough about us old-hats to release this stuff is incredible.

Edited March 25, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Tron Unit]

I wholeheartedly agree that the "plug-n-play" ship has sailed. That was a kitsch novelty tailored more for the 90's. Now, it's all mobile apps. The appeal of the Flashbacks was purely for nostalgia targeting a generation who grew up with them and wanted to share those experiences with their children. It's a retrogaming "trend" that will be around for a few years and then it too will pass but the mobile apps will continue indefinitely. I really don't see any longevity in AtGames Flashback products. They've already done 5 different iterations of the Atari 2600. What's left? If we are lucky Colecovision MAY get a second chance but without licensed games I'm afraid the incentive would have to be pretty huge and from what we've heard, it wasn't as big of a seller as Atari or Sega and there's never going to be a Nintendo, Sony or Xbox Flashback so...

 

With everyone scrambling to secure their IP's and not place nice it's become a nightmare for consumers who have to pick and choose what, where and how they want to play their games and there's never going to be a simple all-in-one solution. You need X app for this and Y app for that and it's virtually not unlike having to buy several different hardware consoles to play all the games you want to play. Essentially, things haven't changed since the 70's. They've just gotten more complicated.

[Atariboy]

I'm sure that if a 3rd party was interested in licensing some classic Namco properties, they'd be willing.

[ls650]

For enough money, sure they'd licence it. The question is, does AtGames have the money to spend?

[Bill Loguidice]

For enough money, sure they'd licence it. The question is, does AtGames have the money to spend?

 

It's not so much having the money to spend as it's spending the money and then being able to make it back. As was pointed out, the market for TV games has shrunk from million sellers to hundreds of thousands of units at best. That's likely one reason why AtGames has, among other things, branched out into digital products.

 

Even though it's not practical at this point from a cost standpoint, I think a nice kick-in-the-pants to the market segment would be getting off of composite connections and going to HDMI.

[Andromeda Stardust]

For enough money, sure they'd licence it. The question is, does AtGames have the money to spend?

Sony does. They sure did whore out Pacman and Galaga in the Pixels trailer. Ditto for Donkey Kong!

Edited March 25, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Tron Unit]

 

Even though it's not practical at this point from a cost standpoint, I think a nice kick-in-the-pants to the market segment would be getting off of composite connections and going to HDMI.

 

And that's another problem with these Flashbacks with composite only video out. If they had HDMI output capabilities and at least 720p upscaling it would be a big plus. I understand that they went cheap to get more return on an item with a low $40 price point but I would have happily paid the extra $20-$30 these would have sold for had they included that capability and were advertised and marketed with HDMI. If AtGames is moving more towards digital delivery now then I'd hope we'll see console-specific apps for Apple, Sony, Xbox, etc. but they are going to have to negotiate some pretty big licensing agreements to deliver on those platforms and sub-license the games as well.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

And that's another problem with these Flashbacks with composite only video out. If they had HDMI output capabilities and at least 720p upscaling it would be a big plus. I understand that they went cheap to get more return on an item with a low $40 price point but I would have happily paid the extra $20-$30 these would have sold for had they included that capability and were advertised and marketed with HDMI. If AtGames is moving more towards digital delivery now then I'd hope we'll see console-specific apps for Apple, Sony, Xbox, etc. but they are going to have to negotiate some pretty big licensing agreements to deliver on those platforms and sub-license the games as well.

 

The main issue with increasing the price beyond $40 is the retailers. The retailers they deal with simply won't stock it if they can't sell it around the $40 price point (more or less a disposable electronic toy). They could easily make say an $89 option with better emulation, HDMI output, and overall higher quality, but they wouldn't be able to get it carried in stores.

 

The digital strategy is real (see here for the "Flashback Zone") and they seem to have plenty of flexibility and few restrictions in terms of the where and how. The catch is whether or not it will catch on. They also have in the works or already available things like iOS apps and even an interesting Android tablet with a robust ecosystem of classic games. Again, these are tough, tough markets, but probably the only viable way to expand beyond the physical products they already do.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Bill Loguidice

[Tron Unit]

Well gee, I was just going to go buy those Coleco game packs for my IOS device and saw it was for Windows only and I have Apple devices. That's exactly the kind of barriers I'm talking about with digital delivery. If you can't negotiate to have your apps available on all major platforms it will only impede who will buy them.

[Bill Loguidice]

Well gee, I was just going to go buy those Coleco game packs for my IOS device and saw it was for Windows only and I have Apple devices. That's exactly the kind of barriers I'm talking about with digital delivery. If you can't negotiate to have your apps available on all major platforms it will only impede who will buy them.

 

I said there's going to be an iOS app. It's already done, it's just a matter of when it will be released. All of this stuff is being slowly rolled out. My only personal criticism of the AtGames digital strategy is that for the Windows and iOS stuff, at least so far, there's no controller support. If I recall correctly they're planning on correcting that at some point.

[Tron Unit]

How are they going to do controller support on ios devices? Bluetooth? That means you will have to buy their special bluetooth enabled controllers and we all know how the controllers turned out for the Flashbacks...

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

The digital strategy is real (see here for the "Flashback Zone") and they seem to have plenty of flexibility and few restrictions in terms of the where and how. The catch is whether or not it will catch on. They also have in the works or already available things like iOS apps and even an interesting Android tablet with a robust ecosystem of classic games. Again, these are tough, tough markets, but probably the only viable way to expand beyond the physical products they already do.

And the gaming experience will be ruined by sh!tty touchpad controls. Sure people can sync a gamepad but most customers will not be savvy enough to do this and it will leave a foul taste with much to be desired.