How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS

[triverse]

Triverse, how the heck were you able to keep a straight face in here knowing all this days ago?

I didn't turn on my webcam.

[Reaperman]

 

Spoilers: They actually confirm they had no clue about Kickstarter's prototype policy until they read your alter-ego post on Neogaf.

 

spoiler alert: they seem to have no clue about a great bit more than that, so nothing should surprise at this point.

 

I've stopped assuming that they have any idea what a "video game" is. They probably think it's something that has to do with low serials and special editions.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Reaperman

[rob_ocelot]

It's this part of the inverview that really displays just how much they don't have their shit together. Not only are they not on the same page, each is reading from a different book!

 

Mike: The by-product of our system is that it can play those old games if we choose to have those adapters. As I have said before, there are countless ways to play old games. Tons of ways. Again, the point from day one on this was to play new games but have the by-product of this able to play old games. Certainly that is cool and that is certainly something ,but it has never been at the top of our selling point. What we wanted to try and do when we announced those was to show, to add more value for the cost, to help justify the cost. This is something in the future that we can bring out that will give this thing the ability to play lots of games right out of the box. That was never the original intention of this machine. The intention of this machine was not to do what all of these other systems are out there doing for a fraction of the price. All of these clone systems that are software emulating [lost to over talk]. It was never the point. If you want a [Retron], buy the Retron 5…

John: Or buy original hardware. If you want to play a SNES game, buy a used SNES. If you want to play a 2600 game, buy a used 2600. Of course–

Steve (interjecting): Basically the nature of the FPGA can allow that to happen.

John: We don’t need the FPGA to do it.

 

 

Mike's telling us the system isn't for emulation, so go buy a Retron 5 or roll your own.

John's telling us to go play retro on the old hardware (which I thought was the main push for the RVGS -- old hardware that doesn't break down and you can play on your HDTV)

Steve and John don't even agree whether the FPGA is necessary (because this machine isn't about emulation, but can do it... it just might need additional hardware...or not)

 

If these guys are THAT confused then how are they supposed to address the confusion in their customer base?

[StarPath]

Just for the record, I'm pretty sure I've seen that FPGA demo that he showed on the "prototype" before.

If that turns out to be the case then they may have just stuck an FPGA board in the case.

I'm wondering if trying to mislead investors like that would be considered fraud.

 

They are also stating that they know the exact cost projection to justify the adjusted price. But if they don't really even have a prototype but are claiming that they do then i'd say any projection on the cost is willful disinformation at the least to any parties of interest. Does the law apply to crowd funding investments?

[Algus]

Alright thoughts:

 

Steve: He just seems completely out of touch, like woefully. What exactly is he contributing to the project? He seems to think the console will do different things than Mike and John and he didn't know about kevtris. Do they keep this guy in the closet? Some of his comments like, "I don't understand forums," etc seem pretty out of touch too. I'm not particularly convinced he understands the community he is marketing things for.

 

Mike: John's assessment in his notes was spot on. Mike comes across as an over-enthusiastic dreamer that doesn't really understand the technical aspects of anything and is just John's personal hype machine

 

John: He actually seems like he kind of knows what he is doing but his goals seem contrary to what Mike (and Steve) want or expect. I feel like he's just building his own thing and hoping Mike will come through with the money. He certainly seems like the power behind the throne.

 

They're talking about crap like writing contracts with their game developer and the contracts will stipulate that the games are bug free but then they see developers will be free to do their own games for the system. Yeah, they just don't have their shit together. John seems to think that they are going to turn this venture into some fancypants high-end corporate gig but for the love of god, they're talking about maybe 5 to 6 thousand units!

 

I just, I don't even....they need a business guy to bring all of them down to earth. ~Bad~

[SoulBlazer]

I'm really curious about how they stated they decided not to go on Kickstarter cause they had concern about the 'double talk' policy that KS has about requiring a prototype. I've never seen a project go on there that DID NOT have a prototype. Does anyone know any more about this? Is this actually a concern or are the RetroVGS guys just blowing smoke? The two big reasons I personaly prefer KS over IGG (and have hardly backed anything on IGG when I have backed over two hundred things on KS) is that KS doesn't charge you until the project actually funds, and it gets more exposure.

[Gentlegamer]

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

 

So Mike obviously realizes there is conflict 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 they wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

 

Not being able to update games worked when there was a platform holder with a strict certification process like Nintendo or Sega.

 

Some yahoo essentially self publishing games that can't be updated is a recipe for disaster.

[goldenegg]

What's with the BS Mike said about Oculus? Backers definitely did get the product they backed. Oculus has since gone on to creating a second model (which I own) and they're shipping their consumer version next year. He really needs to stop talking about things he doesn't understand.

 

This interview has made me steaming mad. Such arrogance from the team as a whole and they're definitely not functioning as a single unit. I can't believe that anyone will get a positive impression after reading\listening.

Edited September 27, 2015 by goldenegg

[Reaperman]

I just, I don't even....they need a business guy to bring all of them down to earth. ~Bad~

 

You really think it'd help? It wouldn't be that different than this thread.

They'd probably think he's just another 'hater' (atariage spy) who doesn't 'get' their market.

 

They might be right--I don't 'get' their market either, and I think I'm in it.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Reaperman

[PikoInteractive]

The ONLY reason they wanted to run older consoles with the FGPA is to bank on homebrewers or companies making new games for classic consoles.

 

They were going to just get a Genesis or NES rom, put it on a cart for the Retro VGS (not NES cart) and then the console would recognize that is was a NES game and act as a NES. The Adapters probably was done to try to target an additional audience.

 

Why the heck do you think they contacted ALL the people making new games for classic consoles? that is like the 95% of the original games line up; they added one indie PC game with 12 bit pixel art for the press.

[Reaperman]

This project is by collectors for collectors.

So when I analyze this with my collector half a thought occurs:

 

Yes the RVGS team would be able to sell the first low-serial game for more because somebody will always pay for that first one.

And they will sell it rather than keep it. You'd think it'd kill the collector in them to let it go, but they have something better.

 

Prototypes.

 

I think possibly what this whole project is about, is little more than a famously extreme collector seeking the ability to make as many prototype carts/systems as he wants.

 

I mean it's a stretch, but is it really much of a stretch?

Make a few sacks of protos, slip them out a few at a time discretely.

Print whatever on them. "preview copy: IGN. Return to _____"

Nobody would know how many there really are. Maybe they'd outnumber the releases.

And the more devs that back out prior to release, the better.

 

Total failure doesn't even impact this, if anything it makes it better.

Could be, once this indiegogo fails, and for years afterwards, we'll see a steady trickle of non-functional RVGS prototype systems for sale. Just a jag shell with connectors glued into it and a wiimote. somebody would pay money for that, and we're giving it free publicity. Maybe they'll be in nice display cases with words like "4 PRGE 2016" scratched on the bottom in sharpie. Next to a signature--because why the hell not?--by collectors for collectors. If this whole thing bombs, how much does a broken jag cart with the words "Tiny Knight" written on it go for?

 

Perhaps we're going right along with this whole scheme. They've expended zero effort into meaningful progress, but they've got shells, connectors, and proposed game titles. That's the stuff needed for some questionable protos. It also might explain the choice of such a poor controller--it's common right now and cheap. Maybe it was selected not to play games, but to build prototype 'packages.'

 

"controller test 1a-ergonomics and printing durability test"

Edited September 27, 2015 by Reaperman

[Andromeda Stardust]

Special thanks to StarPath, quoting this for posterity!

Time for some levity in this thread!

 

 

So earlier, Reaperman posted a picture of the infamous (wikipedia) Ford Pinto automobile.

 

Here's the picture, again:

 

Pinto Ad.jpg

 

All of a sudden, I want a Pinto! Forget the fact that it was a crummy car and a potential flaming deathtrap; check out that leggy blonde!!!!

 

So that reminds us that "sex sells." Of course it does. Everybody knows it. It's not that Mike's ad campaign is not good - the ad campaign is probably the only thing done well in this entire project. I mean, look at those renders! You'd think the product actually exists, if you didn't know better. That's some marketing chops!

 

The only thing missing is some sexiness, the kind that makes you want to buy a Pinto in the above picture. I think the Retro VGS ad campaign could use some "spicing up" with the same sexiness that sells everything else that is overpriced, underperforming, and that you really don't need but buy anway in your relentless pursuit of consumerism.

 

I'm no advertiser, but as proof of concept, let's see if you're more inclinded to buy after sexing it up a little with some spicy new ads: (some may enlarge with a click)

 

Blonde Ad.jpg

 

Kicking.jpg

 

No Batteries.jpg

 

Blow You Away.jpg

 

See? You know you want to play with it (the Retro VGS, of course) now.

 

Now, there's been some chatter about prototypes, here. Just to see if a new sexy ad campaign would work, I had to come up with a "prototype sexy ad" before those other ones. To prove it, I also post it here, but take not that it's not a real ad. It's a "prototype sexy ad" only.

 

Prototype Sexy Ad.jpg

 

Now that you're fully-engorged, get on over to the crowdfunding site and donate while you still have turgor pressure.

Sorry I missed this likely epic post. (I actually slept long and hard last night, and for once attended church this morning). RetroVGS is definitely missing something, and it ain't prototype hardware. Ah, fixed that for you!

 

But seriously though, not even six inch models (or six foot consoles) can save it at this point!

Edited September 27, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Shiru]

There is so many things about that interview (thanks a lot for it) that it is really difficult to choose the highlights to comment, so I just leave that to others. I'm only point out that they're seeing no problem with admitting that they only bothered to read KS rules just three weeks before starting the campaing, while that was going to be their only source of funding, the thing to make it all possible, so reading everything about it would have been done as early as it was considered for the first time. Basically that shows the depth of the research done, and how much all the talks about patents, licenses, regulation fees, lawyers, and other stuff worth.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Shiru

[DreamcastGuy]

This is crushing because I wish a system like this really would be made. The idea of a super multi purpose retro console is fantastic, but scam artistic seem to try to invade any market they can. RIP VGS.

[VogieMac]

I lost the link to see the trending website for this project. Can someone re-post?

 

I've been away a few days and was shocked to see the train is STILL crashing.

 

I went out and bought a Retron 5 since I can't seem to find my original Genesis. I'm done with their garbage and just want to have some popcorn and watch the burning train fall off the bridge into the river in slow motion. The only good thing about this disaster is it's opened my eyes to people making new retro games and some new sites to find out what's going on with Retro. Fingers crossed someone will actually make a system like we were promised.

[triverse]

There is this:

http://www.yutron.com.tw/retro_freak.html

 

I covered it earlier this year - http://retrogamingmagazine.com/2015/03/11/cyber-gadget-to-release-the-retro-freak-game-console-11-platforms-supported-out-of-the-box/

 

I am going to go live life for the last few hours of my weekend now that the interview is live. Take care everyone.

Edited September 27, 2015 by triverse

[jaybird3rd]

I lost the link to see the trending website for this project. Can someone re-post?

Here you go!

 

http://crowdcharts.com/campaign/retro-vgs

 

A quick update: they're at 191 189 backers and $63,461 $62,733 now. Lots of tiny pledges have come in throughout the day, some from previous backers, but they've also lost some big ones, so they're currently down $1,682 $2,412 since this morning. As others have pointed out, they seem to be hoping for a surge of pledges on 10/1.

 

(EDIT: Figures updated @ 5:20 PM CST.)

[similar]

The vgs is no longer what they claimed it would be, they totally fucked what I think would have been an excellent console. I just can't believe how dumb they were.. just three persons and no one to see their issues and say "fuck we're doing things like we don't care anymore, fuck that, let's take it back to the beginning!" in fact they're just rolling in the deep and still digging! At this rate in one week they will get to the center of earth!

 

The amateurism of all this just blows my mind.. How can 3 people can fuck it up so bad.. it's nearly impossible to be so blind!

 

The rvgs should just be a cool system, which provides "retro" games with the feeling of playing something retro unlike steam does, what they're saying is just a total nonsense, what everyone of them is saying is the opposite of the two others view. Have they ever talk together before starting? It's unbelievable.. just wow.. mindfuck as hell

 

(sorry for bad language and spelling errors)

Edited September 27, 2015 by similar

[PlaysWithWolves]

 

I've been away a few days and was shocked to see the train is STILL crashing.

 

 

Not a train; a steamroller!

 

[elmer]

There is this:

http://www.yutron.com.tw/retro_freak.html

Where are the designer colors?

What is the availability of limited-edition packaging?

Why is there no credible plan in place to give everyone low serial numbers so that it'll be worth more in the future?

 

I'm sorry, but that product doesn't make any sense at all!!!

[driph]

 

 

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 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.

 

 

Unfortunately, there's no consumer software out there yet that'll transcribe audio in a way that's useful for interviewing – no separation of speakers, word recognition is iffy under great conditions, awful under standard (crazy google voice transcripts anyone?), rough use of punctuation, and so on.

 

What DO exist, and they are super useful, are programs that will allow you to pause, repeat, skip around, etc while typing in the conversation, allowing you to go through the whole process without lifting your hands from the keyboard, a major time saver when you're dealing with multiple hour conversations. There are even free web apps available (I haven't used the one linked, but it looks decent). For serious transcription work, software based around foot pedals is available to offload the repetitive tasks from your hands, speeding up the process even more!

 

(Oh God I hope I never get to the point where I'm transcribing enough interviews to be searching for foot pedals. It's drudgery.)

 

So yeah, huge thanks for doing this, triverse, sounds like it was a ton of work.

[roland p]

Steve: No, no, I am not reading the forums. Carl, I want you to understand, Carl, I don’t understand these forums at all. It takes too much to process.

Ironically, looking at this thread, he is totally right.

[Gentlegamer]

This project is by collectors for collectors.

So when I analyze this with my collector half a thought occurs:

 

Yes the RVGS team would be able to sell the first low-serial game for more because somebody will always pay for that first one.

And they will sell it rather than keep it. You'd think it'd kill the collector in them to let it go, but they have something better.

 

This reminds me of the pitch Kennedy used to solicit resubscribing to Retro: the first issues were already rare and valuable to collectors.

 

That made me throw up in my mouth a little, since Retro is absolutely nothing special or really worth anything, and I was very much inclined to drop it. But I thought, I'll give it one more year, perhaps they will attract better writers and find a nice niche. But no, I was wrong, the only thing good about it are the covers look nice, the content itself is not even as good as an active message board. But then again, I think the main audience are the yuppy instant collectards who aren't really part of any community and want others to spoon feed them info and stroke their collectard egos.

[dommie]

 

Carl: As far as retail space, obviously I am sure getting into the game stores is a goal for this system, right? How would that work?

Mike: Here is the deal. We have been waiting to gauge the demand, Carl, before we start talking to retailers and wasting a bunch of their time, right? We want to see what happens with this thing. You know, if we turn this thing on and we sell ten, twenty, or thirty thousand of these, we would go, ‘Wow, there is some great demand here!’, I think we could go to retailers and show them there is a market here. Ultimately we hope that is still what happens. It may take us a year to get there. But, yeah, that would ultimately be the plan. But also in this day and age of the Internet, you know it is also, could be better for us to sell direct. We are our own e-commerce site. Basically have game cartridges we can make on demand, and depending on, again, if it is flash or ROM, typically we ship these games out within one day, we use priority mail, for five bucks they get them in two or three days. We are talking to Funstock in the UK as well as one of the second biggest e-tailers over there, they have both been asking about this for months. They both wanted to start taking pre-orders the day our campaign ends because they are getting so much activity over there. We would love to give our International buyers, when we can, a way to avoid paying those taxes and duties and all of that kind of thing. Again, after the campaign, if we can work with Funstock and they can stock some systems and games over there so when people over there buy them they don’t have to pay the high shipping and the import duties and all of that. That would be great. We do have two retailers over there ready in the wings to do this. Over here, again, probably for the first year, we would sell direct to consumer and kind of grow our installed user base as quickly as possible. Now hey, if this thing sells a bunch and GameStop came to us and said ‘We want to buy 500,000 copies,’ and hey, all of a sudden we can lower our price because we got that large volume. That would be great. Certainly if the opportunity arises, it is something we would look at. We have to walk before can crawl. That is kind of where we are at today and why we are crowdfunding this thing as we speak.

 

OK, first in foremost - do these guys think anything through? I've imported as a manufacturer into the EU from the US consumer products for retail. VAT still has to be paid at the point of importation. So if you buy something in the EU from another country, the importer doesn't just get to skip the tax. If the consumer imports it themselves they pay the VAT directly. If a retailer imports it from a manufacturer, the retailer pays the VAT upon importation at port customs. No retailer will just absorb the VAT they pay to import the goods, it will be factored into the price at the register.

 

I won't even touch on their target adoption rates... They're just nuts.

[Flojomojo]

I just finished reading the transcript, thanks again triverse for the tedious work of making that happen. I certainly wasn't going to spent 90 minutes listening to the justifications and exaggerations from those guys. I took away a strong sense that they really do seem to believe in their idea, despite all the naysaying constructive criticism hating pointed their way. Mike is clearly over the moon with this project (as well as his own ego and his many industry connections that feed it). John plays egghead but it's unclear from the few details he drops whether or not his skills are current or relevant for this kind of work. It's also clear that none of them are willing to lose any of their own money in this endeavor. That's their choice, but the idea that they would spread the risk of developing on their consoles back to the would-be coders should give pause to anyone who thinks this is going anywhere.

 

Before seeing this, I wondered to myself whether the RVGS team would regroup in an effort to save face, claiming that this campaign was a bit of performance art or market research to bring out the box collectors and physical media fetishists. After seeing this, it's clear that they're all in on their wacko vision (except where spending their own money is concerned) and that they're not going to budge and listen to reason until the very end of the IGG cycle. Even though it's posted four straight negative days in a row.

 

I suppose that in a world where Donald Trump and Ben Carson think they're qualified well suited to be President of the United States, it's OK for a bunch of game-loving guys to try to cash in on retro nostalgia.

 

Also, Mike Kennedy is really, really, really proud of his acquisition of the Atari Jaguar console shells. It's probably going to be the thing for which he is most remembered in the gaming community.

You know, just for him to go out and create a shell, which again, everyone poo-poo’s this, but I mean, when I delivered that tooling to the injection mold shop here, I asked them what would that have cost me if I bought it in today’s dollars. They said two hundred fifty to three hundred thousand dollars. That is a big expense and to go in and say that you can do a product like ours for fifty to one hundred dollars less just seems ridiculous, honestly, you know. Hey, if he can do it, great. He may sell a few there in the forums, but to go out and mass market? I don’t see it.