Coleco Chameleon.....new console from Coleco

[NIAD]

Is the Colecovision flashback really as bad as they say?

For someone that has been an avid ColecoVision fan since the release in 1982, it was a disappointment. Let's see:

 

- controller shaft is even shorter than the original made by Coleco

- controller is not compatible with the CV and vice versa

- power connector on side of case instead of the back

- poor emulation, not all games suffer, but how the heck could they let The Heist go? It plays in slow motion.

- glad to see some awesome Homebrew games included, but some others were poor choices

- very uninspired console sticker, thank heavens for Phil B.'s replacement sticker.

- game menu could have been organized better to highlight the legacy games and homebrew games

 

There's other things, but for $40 when it was released and even $15-$20 a couple months later when they were being liquidated, it' still a good introduction or even re-introduction to the ColecoVision. I'm personally glad it was made and released seeing it's a mainstream product that rekindled interest in the system and brought to light for many the tremendous job the Homebrewers have been doing for years.

 

So to wrap, a good product for what it is, but mine was only setup for about a week before I boxed it back up to eventually sell one day.

[Parrothead]

Hello Everyone.

 

It is the end of a very tumultuous year for me and in the spirit of Christmas and the holidays I wanted to come in here and ask those of you who will listen to let the past be the past as it relates to this (ad)venture. RETRO VGS is the past and COLECO Chameleon is the future. The Chameleon is not just a rebranded Retro VGS. Despite sharing some of the same internal components the hardware has been completely redesigned to lower the cost while maintaining much of its ability to play a wide variety of games in a variety of ways. To boil this all down to its essence we just want to produce a product that is different, affordable and will bring joy to people’s lives. The market will ultimately decide if we are crazy enough to believe a cartridge console can stand its ground in this age of digital delivery. There are clearly lots of people on both sides of this fence and ultimately it will all come down to the games that can be played and if they are compelling enough to vie for peoples hard earned money.

 

The COLECO branding was a business decision I made to bring instant brand recognition to the Chameleon. But I did not enter into this licensing agreement lightly, knowing that if done so, we have a lot to live up to. COLECO made some very influential, high quality and fun video gaming and electronic products during their time and we will try endlessly to carry on that tradition with the Chameleon. The recognition of having the COLECO logo on the system and the (game and console) boxes will make the Chameleon immediately identifiable by millions of people right from the beginning. In the end this is a good thing for all involved including us, our customers, our suppliers and distributors, our contract manufactures, potential retailers and probably most importantly to game developers. Mark and Chris at River West/Coleco Holdings are also very behind this product and will be helping out in a variety of ways, beginning by inviting us into their booth at Toy Fair which is where they want to officially begin rebuilding this brand in more concrete ways.

 

We know we have a mountain to climb and are prepared to do what it takes to plant a flag at the top. I will once again apologize to all of you for at times dissing some individuals and this community but it was hard being criticized by a group of my Atari and classic game lovin’ peers. I let it get to me on occasion and I do regret all of it. I am aware that we gave you all plenty to poke fun at and criticize but in the end, I believe the product will be much better for going through all of this. In my mind, the best way for me to apologize once and for all is to ultimately create a game system that will make most of you turn a 180 and win over your support and positive influence. And given the chance that is what I will do.

 

All I ask is moving forward into the New Year is you try and give the Chameleon a fair chance to stand on its own, and again forget about the past. Let it speak for itself when we reveal it to you all early this New Year. And finally, let’s respect one another and our opinions (some advice I am directing towards myself) and that goes for both believers and non-believers of what we are trying to do. In the end, we all love and are passionate about video games and sometimes this passion causes us to do uncharacteristic things.

 

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and I hope you all have a very Happy New Year!

 

- Mike

[Keatah]

Well let's see what you can do. When it becomes available on the shelves I'll re-examine the decision to purchase one or more of the consoles.

[TPR]

All I ask is moving forward into the New Year is you try and give the Chameleon a fair chance to stand on its own, and again forget about the past. Let it speak for itself when we reveal it to you all early this New Year. And finally, let’s respect one another and our opinions (some advice I am directing towards myself) and that goes for both believers and non-believers of what we are trying to do.

 

As much as I appreciate your post, it just would have been nice to get ANY specific information as to what the new system will be in the press release. IMO, stating that it will "play a wide variety of games in a variety of ways" just isn't enough for an announcement and that's exactly the reason why you had 100+ posts filled with questions and doubt. That being said, I'm sure the majority of people here will be giving you a "fair chance" once the details are released, but until then, you can't blame people for speculation and throwing some shade in your direction based on what happened over the past few months.

 

If you want us to forget about the past, give us more insight as to what the future will hold. I have to believe I'm not the only one that feels this way.

[Serguei2]

Yeah. It's very weird to me how a console could play 8-16-32 bit games.

 

Coleco Chameleon is more like a 2600, Colecovision, Sega Genesis and Neo Geo (32 bit?) consoles in one case.

 

A console could be 8, 16 or 32 bit but not 8, 16 and 32 bit at the same time.

 

Nevermind, I read too fast as usual.

 

 

 

in the 8-, 16- and 32-bit styles

Edited December 23, 2015 by Serguei2

[Jaynz]

Parrot, wouldn't be a bad idea right now to throw out the specs, or start actively courting developers/programmers to have some launch titles going. At the very least, it would alleviate the 'vaporware' concerns.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Yeah. It's very weird to me how a console could play 8-16-32 bit games.

 

Coleco Chameleon is more like a 2600, Colecovision, Sega Genesis and Neo Geo (32 bit?) consoles in one case.

 

A console could be 8, 16 or 32 bit but not 8, 16 and 32 bit at the same time.

 

Nevermind, I read too fast as usual.

 

Beyond the 16-bit era, bits became meaningless. GBA, PS1, Neo Geo were all 32-bit. Do they have the same capabilities or graphics style? Not by a longshot. Even today, there is very little advantage of 64-bit software over 32-bit, unless you need additional integer precision or greater than 3Gbytes of RAM. Mostly apps for ARM or x86-64 can be compiled to either 32 or 64 bits and will run smoothly either way.

[128Kgames]

Coleco Chameleon is more like a 2600, Colecovision, Sega Genesis and Neo Geo (32 bit?) consoles in one case.

 

 

Beyond the 16-bit era, bits became meaningless. GBA, PS1, Neo Geo were all 32-bit.

 

Neo Geo = 24 bit

Edited December 24, 2015 by TMOSteel

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

 

Neo Geo = 24 bit

Bullcrap. Marketing hype. And 8-bit processor and a 16-bit processor does not equate 24 bits...

[128Kgames]

Bullcrap. Marketing hype. And 8-bit processor and a 16-bit processor does not equate 24 bits...

 

I was just pointing out that the Neo Geo wasn't 32 bit; besides "24 bit" sounds so much more powerful than 16, after all their slogan in the US was "Bigger, Badder, Better"...

[TPR]

Bullcrap. Marketing hype. And 8-bit processor and a 16-bit processor does not equate 24 bits...

 

I'm pretty sure he was just joking and poking fun at all the marketing hype. I mean, you have to remember ads like this one, right? How can you take it seriously???

EDIT: Posted before I saw his response....

[frank_c]

And finally, let’s respect one another and our opinions (some advice I am directing towards myself) and that goes for both believers and non-believers of what we are trying to do. In the end, we all love and are passionate about video games and sometimes this passion causes us to do uncharacteristic things.

 

 

 

I hate what this world has become.

Edited December 25, 2015 by frank_c

[Keatah]

The best thing to do is wait and see if and when the system comes out. Make your choice then. If you can't play it prior to purchase, I'm sure there will be hands-on Youtube reviews. Its way too early to form opinions. Wouldn't it be better to see for yourself or try it out hands-on?

 

Also it is important to not pay attention to blogs and preview articles too much. It is clear most tech reporters do not understand proper journalism and do not understand what they're talking about. Most just regurgitate without fact checking.This is the modern internet and it's full of shit and hate posters. Anyone can say anything and the gullible believe it all. The wanting jump on their bandwagon for fun.

[Serguei2]

Or wait to Toy fair to learn more about this console.

 

The press would write the previews of it.

[SoulBlazer]

Well, since the mods paniced and took away our main thread -- I wanted it to reach 200 pages, damnit! -- I guess we'll need to talk about it here.

[+phoenixdownita]

A third one gone too.

There can be only one

[Keatah]

I for one am happy the mods derailed the hate train. It was gaining speed at a prodigious rate. Too many personal attacks: user against user, and user against RetroVGS.

 

There only needs to be one thread on this console at this juncture in time. And the thread shouldn't be growing at anywhere near the rate of the other one. There's only so much you speculate until real hardware becomes available.

 

In the end it will all work out. The console will either succeed or fail. Not any one individual here on AA is going to change that.

[+phoenixdownita]

Albert seems Ok to have another thread started, so I did start one related to HW speculations:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247145-coleco-chameleon-hardware-speculations/

[Rolo]

Let it speak for itself when we reveal it to you all early this New Year.

I wish you luck for your project!

I like the idea of a new, old-style, American console with classic cartridges and frankly I'm quite puzzled, how much negative response it got. Sure, that's probably not the latest technical approach and we don't know the specs, but who cares? We will see its capabilities soon enough and then can make up our minds. Nobody is obliged to buy this. There are different kinds of gamers. A hardcore everyday 14 year old gamer probably needs his latest hi-res PS4 with internet connectivity, but what about us older ATARI, MAGNAVOX, MATTEL ... gamers? We still play those consoles, because we do not need all of that and don't have the time for mega-complex games. We need something we can play for 15 minutes and then go back to work. This thing is for us! Or for younger kids maybe.

I also like that re-made JAGUAR case, that genuine design and the fact, that it is no fake, but original Atari stuff. Great!

So, I'd like to propose, let's not verbally kill it before it's there and let's not run it down, but let's be happy that somebody puts a lot of effort (and money) into such a risky project. That is positive, not negative

(Or maybe my perspective for the world is too simplistic (I don't think I care))

Edited February 12, 2016 by Rolo

[retroillucid]

Here's our game running on the Coleco Chameleon

[Serguei2]

Are those cartridges so big?

 

I don't surprise if the price of a game would be $70-$100.

 

With today's technology, the cartridges could be the same size than Atari 2600 cartridges but they could store 64 megs of data.

 

They would be $30-$50 instead.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Serguei2

[+grips03]

Here's our game running on the Coleco Chameleon

is Coleco Chameleon a RaspberryPi with CoolCV?

[retroillucid]

Are those cartridges so big?

 

I don't surprise if the price of a game would be $70-$100.

 

With today's technology, the cartridges could be the same size than Atari 2600 cartridges but they could store 64 megs of data.

 

They would be $30-$50 instead.

 

Cartridge are exctly like the Jaguar ones

 

Price of a game will be around $25 / $35 each

[retroillucid]

is Coleco Chameleon a RaspberryPi with CoolCV?

 

 

No, it's not

[jblenkle]

So this unit won't play existing CV carts???

 

 

Cartridge are exctly like the Jaguar ones

 

Price of a game will be around $25 / $35 each