How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS

[shadowkn55]

Not to be off-topic but here's a random thought that just occurred to me.

 

So Mike obviously realizes there is conflict of interest with whether or not the ability to update your games is a good thing. This is why he brings it up, because he thinks if he sells you the idea that not having this capability is a good thing, then it won't matter.

 

So why couldn't you have a method of updating that involves downloading an update from their website, sticking it on a thumb drive and then through one of the USB ports the system could install the update or even better flash the update to ram on the cartridge itself. If they'd invested any time at all figuring stuff like this out, and less time fluffing up the project with multi colored plastic fetishism and starting tons of unnecessary drama.

 

From a software developer standpoint, the last thing I want to do is go back to an old project and fix problems. I just want to move onto the next project and keeping moving forward. Bug fixes may not be as simple changing a couple lines of faulty logic. Sometimes it could mean that entire blocks of code need to be completely rewritten. Developing software isn't just sitting at a keyboard and typing away. A large portion of time is spent on design architecture and hopefully coming up with "use cases" (i.e. if this happens, what happens next scenario) so that nearly all the possibilities are covered. If the software was properly architected, there shouldn't much in the way of game destroying bugs and glitches. And not spending enough time in QA just because a team comprises just a few members or even just one person isn't an excuse for releasing software is full of bugs. If that was a good reason to do so, someone should tell my computer science professors that I should get better grades on my programming assignments because they didn't work exactly as expected and I'm just "one student." QA is part of the job description. Many of us don't like it including myself but it needs to be done.

Edited September 27, 2015 by shadowkn55

[triverse]

 

 

If you continue to do interviews like this, I hope you take the previous commenter's advice and get transcription software. Then you can just (hopefully?) listen again and verify or edit as needed. Well, if the software works as promised, that is.

I spent a few hours looking for software that would allow me to simply run the audio and it transcribe to text. That does not exist, not from multiple sources. I then looked at software that would transcribe my talking to text and tried repeating what they were saying but that was too brutal on many levels (have you tried to keep up with someone talking but just a second or two behind them?). Also, the software was lost on many of the terms such as CPU (it wrote see pee you) and FPGA (just gibberish) and other technical jargon that was discussed (most of the software did not understand IndieGoGo or Kickstarter either but they all understood "Atari Age"). In the end, it was more hassle to go back and try and edit the mistakes while having to find those places in the interview.

I used Audacity so that I could highlight 10 to 15 segments and repeat just those, over and over till I got the words right, or as right as I could due to various issues with Skype. All in all, I did not copy over every "um" and "yeah" that was said which cut out probably 2,500+ more words (saving me many many hours of rewinding to catch back up to the recording). This is not an official 100% transcription of the interview (see previous sentence) and therefore these are not "quotes" from anyone. The audio is being made available along with the text for anyone that wishes to hear exactly what was said.

 

I am about halfway done encoding the Youtube video now. It won't have a ton of pics but I do hope to include more than Gamester81 did in his (I only watched some of it and it seemed to be just that one render of the colored cases rotating).

 

I am going through the interview now and adding relevant hyperlinks to the discussion where possible/warranted.

[elmer]

I am going through the interview now and adding relevant hyperlinks to the discussion where possible/warranted.

Thanks for going through all this hard work, I'm looking forward to reading this.

 

I just hope that it's not going to be too hard to separate the wheat from the waffle.

[triverse]

Thanks for going through all this hard work, I'm looking forward to reading this.

 

I just hope that it's not going to be too hard to separate the wheat from the waffle.

I believe the way it comes across in text it is easy to find what you want. I will be bolding my questions so people will be able to skim and get to the sections they are interested in without having to read every question/answer. This is for the fans that have shown immense support for this. I have said it many times before but we do pay attention to what people are reading and work to bring more of that to RGM. That is why I am passing the 20 hour mark total, on this interview alone, since Wednesday night.

[StarPath]

 

From a software developer standpoint, the last thing I want to do is go back to an old project and fix problems. I just want to move onto the next project and keeping moving forward. Bug fixes may not be as simple changing a couple lines of faulty logic. Sometimes it could mean that entire blocks of code need to be completely rewritten. Developing software isn't just sitting at a keyboard and typing away. A large portion of time is spent on design architecture and hopefully coming up with "use cases" (i.e. if this happens, what happens next scenario) so that nearly all the possibilities are covered. If the software was properly architected, there shouldn't much in the way of game destroying bugs and glitches. And not spending enough time in QA just because a team comprises just a few members or even just one person isn't an excuse for releasing software is full of bugs. If that was a good reason to do so, someone should tell my computer science professors that I should get better grades on my programming assignments because they didn't work exactly as expected and I'm just "one student." QA is part of the job description. Many of us don't like it including myself but it needs to be done.

 

But updating goes beyond simply fixing problems but also adding features and new content that the consumer wants or even requests. It has been an issue of concern about the viability of a no-updates system in the modern games market and in terms of competing with the platforms that do offer updates and fixes for the same exact games that cost less. Who wants to support a project that is trying to compete in a market that already exists on multiple other platforms, but can't even bring a competitive platform to the table?

Edited September 27, 2015 by StarPath

[rob_ocelot]

What I'm wondering now is when is the plug going to be pulled?

 

I suspect Mike is going to drive the train to the very (bitter) end of the track because this is no longer business to him, it's a personal crusade.

 

Marketers are taught to communicate with their audience on an emotional-associative level and the marketing arm of the trio is the reason why the campaign is all over the place in it's presentation and communication. The guy who feels this was all his idea and has (IMO) put in the least amount of technical work but has deluded himself into thinking it's solely his project and thinks quoting buzzwords as equivalent to real knowledge is the one holding the reins. Last minute changes because of "better" ideas, sudden new paradigms for their business model that even their webmasters can't keep up with, all kinds of emotionally driven schoolyard politics on social media, spending more time and energy blaming others than making constructive solutions -- all of this junk is sabotaging the business in ways that reeks of "if I can't have it, then no one else can" type of scorched earth thinking.

 

I suspect this would have gone down differently if it was three technical guys with an idea and a marketing guy stepped in to help them focus their idea into business model. At least in that scheme they could fire the marketing guy for putting the cart before the horse. You'll notice that the other two guys aren't saying much, and when one of them did it looked stiff and like he had no other choice BUT to. Mike does all the talking and it's a 10/90 signal to noise ratio. He talks so much he contradicts himself and doesn't realize he's done it in the same interview session. For this guy to come clean and admit he's screwed up would mean he'd have to be honest with himself, and that's clearly not happening. I would not be entirely shocked if the next move was to delete the other two from the proceedings and continue this as a one man campaign against the 'internet bulles' that are in his mind the real cause of this situation.

 

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Mo.... er RetroVGS

 

Edited September 27, 2015 by rob_ocelot

[shadowkn55]

I explicitly remember a post in which they claimed that that was their choice due to the availability of said cables, so not just the port.

 

Anyway I always wanted to buy a CMVS, just the Omgea is a little out of reach for me, I wish they were cheaper.

I had to settle for an AES + MagicKey, I modded for SVideo but my TV does not like its signal especially when playing Pulstar, I would venture that MVS is even worse (on my TV).

Now I have a Framemeister (not just for the AES obviosuly) and use RGB but it didn't come cheap. Also even with the Framemeister I cannot use sync=auto [HDMI sync to console] for the AES for the same reason, but at least I can use sync=off [HDMI locked at 60p] and deal with the very minor tear.

 

I know they are a little expensive but I didn't have the luxury of buying a second hand mold sitting in a medical warehouse. I designed it from scratch and had the mold made here in the states. The parts are also made here too. It cost me a little more than if I went to China but I got a level of service that completely made up for the offset in price (semi-interesting story, save for later). But I am working on ways to cut down on the cost so that it's reachable to a large group of people. It involves an fpga, lol, but no ARM (not A-R-M, Pat) processor. I'm following in the footsteps of the minimig to keep some semblence of original hardware.

 

The idea of fpga cores kinda makes sense and it kinda doesn't. I can't wrap my head around how loading cores on the fly combined with an ARM processor makes for a retro flavored system. Part of what makes a retro system so charming (in context of when it was current) was that it was relatively under powered and used N-2 hardware (N = current generation of computer hardware, so N-2 is two generations back) but at the same time used creative engineering and design to extract what I think is an amazing amount of creativity in portraying the creator's vision. I think TOO MUCH power is the issue is with this project. It allows for too much feature creep and the scope can quickly get out of control. On the other hand, the additional horse power gives devs the ability to program in something other than assembly (which isn't that bad) but there should be strict controls on say the number of sprites allowable on screen and the number of sound channels that can simultaneously play. The limitations of the hardware in the 16-bit and before era is what allowed them to be so iconic. Vampire Killer via the NES apu is a pretty rockin score and Phantasy Star for SMS is damn beautiful. If you ask me, I think Recca on the Famicom and Street Fighter II CE on the PC Engine are engineering marvels. Never in a million years did I think those systems could pull those off but they did and did it well.

[PlaysWithWolves]

I spent a few hours looking for software that would allow me to simply run the audio and it transcribe to text. That does not exist, not from multiple sources.

 

You probably saw Dragon Naturally Speaking Premium, then. Currently $150 and can transcribe from audio files, but AFAIK doesn't discern different speakers or automatically add punctuation. So with adding punctuation, speaker names and fixing incorrect words I'm not sure if it would be helpful or not. You're a dedicated man.

 

2011 demo:

 

[Markimus of K.]

So it's safe to say the strategy of:

 

 

Jag shells

 

???

 

Profit!

 

 

hasn't quite worked out for them.

 

I'd say this sums up the entire 100+ pages of this thread.

[triverse]

 

You probably saw Dragon Naturally Speaking Premium, then. Currently $150 and can transcribe from audio files, but AFAIK doesn't discern different speakers or automatically add punctuation. So with adding punctuation, speaker names and fixing incorrect words I'm not sure if it would be helpful or not. You're a dedicated man.

 

2011 demo:

 

Yeah, and that price shot it down for me right now. We are still small time. That could be something I could put as a stretch goal in my mythical Kickstarter to transcribe Gamester81's interview though!

[phoenixdownita]

 

I know they are a little expensive but I didn't have the luxury of buying a second hand mold sitting in a medical warehouse. I designed it from scratch and had the mold made here in the states. The parts are also made here too. It cost me a little more than if I went to China but I got a level of service that completely made up for the offset in price (semi-interesting story, save for later). But I am working on ways to cut down on the cost so that it's reachable to a large group of people. It involves an fpga, lol, but no ARM (not A-R-M, Pat) processor. I'm following in the footsteps of the minimig to keep some semblence of original hardware.

 

....

Given you are actually doing real retro stuff, care to share a ballpark of what the target audience is on those systems?

Are we talking 100K customers, 10K customers or a trickle hovering at 1K or so every say 6 months [which is ~5 a day]?

I do not want to know how profitable your business is, just an idea on what numbers are involved.

Edited September 27, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[elmer]

What I'm wondering now is when is the plug going to be pulled?

I'm assuming that they're going to at least wait until the end-of-the-month payday in a few days, in the hope that some of their potential backers need to hold off until they've got the cash-in-hand.

 

But that's a pretty big "hope" when the continuing decline in backers (down to $63,888 now) has got to make people nervous about jumping onto a sinking ship.

[PlaysWithWolves]

I explicitly remember a post in which they claimed that that was their choice due to the availability of said cables, so not just the port.

 

Voila: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/235430-how-has-this-not-been-posted-yet-retro-vgs/?p=3324028

[AE35]

 

 

Red flag number 3: Ok, I know very little about electronics, so others may jump in, and correct me if needed here. Why talk about the lab power supply so much? Why is that a focus point? I don't understand why I needed to know about this. Why would you loosely drape a clear Jag shell top over an off the shelf proto board, with an off the shelf VGA to RGB board? There is nothing secret, or patentable about those working together AFAIK. (Perhaps he is using this to write the "very thin OS layer"?) Why mention that's it's air cooled? This proto board, as far as I can tell, doesn't require a fan anyway. And if that's not the final hardware build, why bring it up now?

 

 

 

I'm not very technically inclined, but I also have a lab power supply

 

Also, why have the HDMI and then at the same time have composite video + RGB + Y/C? I take it that the games will be made in 1080p, which means that somebody is going to decimate that resolution when using composite/Y/C/RGB(15kHz). It will go from 1080p to something like 480i. This will give artifacts and all other problems.

 

/Nicholas

[shadowkn55]

 

But updating goes beyond simply fixing problems but also adding features and new content that the consumer wants or even requests. It has been an issue of concern about the viability of a no-updates system in the modern games market and in terms of competing with the platforms that do offer updates and fixes for the same exact games that cost less. Who wants to support a project that is trying to compete in a market that already exists on multiple other platforms, but can't even bring a competitive platform to the table?

 

I'm not in the camp of being highly optimistic of "thank you dlc" (which is awesome btw) coming to every indie title that hits it big. However, I think part of what is the problem with DLC in general is that the public has been accustomed buying what is in fact an incomplete game. Coupled with the fact that retail game discs haven't moved in tandem with the rising costs of development. A couple generations ago, when everyone moved from cartridges to optical media, that was in effect a subsidy to the cost of development. For the sake of argument, lets just say it costs $20 for a cartridge and $5 for a disc based game. That is a net effect of +$15 for the developer side of things. The end result was that the consumer didn't get a price increase but the developer was able to offset the increase cost of development by way of decreasing the cost of production. Fast forward to the modern era. The $10 increase from $50 to $60 kinda helped but not really in the PS3/360. No change changes in the XBone/PS4. So what can they do give you $60 worth of game? Sell you something that is half done and dangle the carrot of "extra content" in front of you. In reality, what you end up paying is closer to $100 for a game and is what I feel games should really be priced at. They shouldn't be set to a hard standard of $59.99 but due to what is saturation of the mobile gaming market with dollar games and the stigma that they are "just games," it's hard to convince the consumer to pay otherwise. A lot of these AAA studios have dev teams that are comparable to corporations that make and sell enterprise level software and their customers pay far more than $60 for their hard work. I'm not saying DLC is good but that's just one of the mechanisms game studios came up with to actually charge for a game to reflect the cost of making it.

 

I just realized I didn't quite answer your question. I don't quite think it's a good to have physical model with no-updates in a market where digital distribution works the way it does now. I can only see it working if say the entirety of the game was released on cartridge first and the digital copy would be sold piece meal or at least have the physical copy by the exclusive means of distribution for a period of time.

[elmer]

Voila: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/235430-how-has-this-not-been-posted-yet-retro-vgs/?p=3324028

Hahaha ... I hadn't seen that it was actually a comment from John Carlsen that confirmed the 32X cable.

 

That's a(nother) pretty dumb mistake for their hardware "guru" to make.

[SoulBlazer]

The video most recently posted from the No Swear Gamer is Phil, host of the Atari 7800 Game by Game Podcast and contributor to many others (my own included). He goes by that name on his long running YouTube show where he does reviews. I'd chatted with him about this a little bit on FB and I'm glad he decided to make a video about it. He's a great guy.

[Flojomojo]

Shadow, I disagree. Today's games that are stuffed with DLC aren't "incomplete," they're sold as a service with back end servers and multiplayer features. The RetroVGS is about playing Boogerman 2015 on a cartridge, not a multiplayer first person shooter with episodic content.

[shadowkn55]

Given you are actually doing real retro stuff, care to share a ballpark of what the target audience is on those systems?

Are we talking 100K customers, 10K customers or a trickle hovering at 1K or so every say 6 months [which is ~5 a day]?

I do not want to know how profitable your business is, just an idea on what numbers are involved.

 

I think the actual target audience is quite large. Everyone and their brother (and sister) has at least one good memory of the Neo-Geo. I know I drooled over those EGM adverts all the time. I actually did have one of those rich neighbor kids that had an AES but never let me play it.

 

The only true barrier to reaching a wider audience is the cost. The was the problem then and that's the problem now. I kinda made it more accessible by bringing hardware than played less expensive software (AES vs MVS) but the hardware is still up there. Once both get down to a more palletable level, I expect more people to get onboard. There are a lot of high quality titles on the Neo platform one of which is what I consider to be one of the best sports games ever made, Neo Turf Masters (a golf game). And I hate golf. People are itching to play Neo on real hardware but when real life calls, I more than understand that priorities need to be taken care of. That's why fpga development and cost reduction are on the short list of things to do.

[shadowkn55]

not a multiplayer first person shooter with episodic content.

 

That right there screams incomplete to me. Everyone has their favorite method of distribution and content delivery. I'm just pointing out a trend I saw with cost and advancing technologies.

[StarPath]

$100?? $60 is a hard standard? Mike Kennedy, is that you?

[shadowkn55]

$100?? $60 is a hard standard? Mike Kennedy, is that you?

 

Plz. In Neo-Geo land, if you can get a highly sought after title for $100, it'd be a good day.

[Papa]

 

 

Really? Not playing older carts themselves is spot-on, but it was definitely stated to play games targeted to those old systems, but through their own cartridges that also contained the necessary software to reconfigure their FPGA to act as the console in question (see Parrothead's post of Woita's words).

 

They also planned their own core that appeared to be some kind of fantasy 16-bit console kind of thing maybe, which could have been fun for some with the right tools.

 

Popular modern games in a retro style - that started getting mentioned around 3 months later and is where they're concentrating now is seems, but with cart adapters for unspecified old consoles to allow those to be used, and modern homebrews, on the system as well.

 

 

Ummm.. that's pretty much what they're saying it will be, new pixel-style games on cart, but more like the kind of stuff you'd find on steam or other digital outlets. Maybe you should go back their campaign and alert any like-minded friends you may have to do the same. Or maybe you want Neo Geo (Gunlord) and SNES (Tiny Knight originally) homebrews/indies, in which case those platforms would do you?

 

 

Wut? That was never a plan, was it? How much would those carts be to create, before they even considered taking their cut and the devs' cut? That must have been crossed wires.

 

 

Yeah..Gunlord is a retro style game with a multiplatform release and between a $200 (DC) or $1200 (NG) price tag and Tiny Knight isn't complete yet to the best of my knowledge. I would hope that the system would offer Gunlord (or whatever else is as good) for $60, or the previously stated higher price point for their carts. Games that were made so recently as these I, personally, would classify as 'retro style' games, although they do target older systems, they are made like the games from twenty years ago. They are not the actual games from twenty years ago. If I wanted to play those I would just do that on those older systems. I think that offering adapters that enable older carts to play is cute and all but it muddles the selling point of the system. Playing modern retro-style games on a classic medium is what made it appeal to me. Throwing in adapters to play NES games just makes it look like they are trying to compete against something like the Retron5 or other emulation systems.

 

I hope it makes it somehow, but it looks like people are leaping like rats from a sinking ship.

 

I saw it as an opportunity to avoid the tiny Android screens and DLC, internet-fused modern retro game. To play one of those great games on a cartridge with a Sega six button pad, no load times, and on a nice big CRT screen would be excellent.

[dj_convoy]

 

 

Yeah..Gunlord is a retro style game with a multiplatform release and between a $200 (DC) or $1200 (NG) price tag

 

Um... not to get into a thing but that's not true at all. Gunlord was like 60 bucks on the DC (or less; more like 50ish plus shipping).I don't know about the Neo version; that was probably crazy expensive.

Edited September 27, 2015 by dj_convoy

[dommie]

 

Red flag number 3: Ok, I know very little about electronics, so others may jump in, and correct me if needed here. Why talk about the lab power supply so much? Why is that a focus point? I don't understand why I needed to know about this. Why would you loosely drape a clear Jag shell top over an off the shelf proto board, with an off the shelf VGA to RGB board? There is nothing secret, or patentable about those working together AFAIK. (Perhaps he is using this to write the "very thin OS layer"?) Why mention that's it's air cooled? This proto board, as far as I can tell, doesn't require a fan anyway. And if that's not the final hardware build, why bring it up now?

 

 

Air cooled?? That's it, I'm out. I was going to fund this beast back when I thought it would be liquid nitrogen cooled... how else can you keep the retro-ness from causing a full thermonuclear meltdown in your living room?? But air cooled? Pfft, forget it.