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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?


phoenixdownita

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edit: aww, I got tree'd by above.

(do the kids still day "tree'd?")

 

That guy in the 'debunking haters' video sure has it all figured out.

Seems like retro vgs has at least one customer left to lose, anyway.

Not to wish him ill, but it sounds like he really deserves a coleco chameleon in his house.

Edited by Reaperman
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For the same reason companies in the good old days at CES did the same thing.

 

Either their board does not exist or wasn't ready for the show.

 

Listen to some of our interviews with the original Atari people. They all did the same thing.

That was the 1970s, when trade shows were the main form of sharing information like this. Atari didn't crowdfund their company. While it's true the public didn't see Atari products until they were finished, they weren't in a position of being asked to pay for unfinished products. RVGS chose Toy Fair as its big coming out party. None of the potential buying (funding!) public cares about or attends that show.

 

I can think of other contrasts...

 

Atari was a pioneer, RVGS is a nostalgic copycat.

 

Nintendo (an old company with assets and accomplishments) innovated. They never used pieces designed by other companies. Sure, there were deliberate, strategic partnerships like the Sony chips in the SNES, but this wasn't cannibalization of off-the-shelf consumer parts. RVGS has parts of numerous established systems of the past. The "Chameleon" system appears to have more old than original parts.

 

Atari, Imagic, Magnavox, Nintendo, Sega, and Sony all had fan magazines with dedicated coverage to their platform. This was in the days when print distribution was the main way to communicate with players, and the material was driven by the software. RVGS made the magazine first, but plans to charge itself for promoting Coleco Chameleon material.

 

In the old cartridge days, you could buy them at retail all over the place, including at supermarkets, drug stores, toy stores, department stores, and mail order catalogs. They were prone to discounting and clearance, and were eventually found in yard sales and thrift shops, until eBay came along. RVGS and Chameleon are by necessity going to be internet only. The chances of finding anything Chameleon branded "in the wild" will be effectively zero. Is collecting any fun when it's just buying from a single source?

 

Bad old Nintendo controlled their platform with an iron fist. That worked for them for a long time, until it didn't. Software developers will choose ubiquitous, open platforms over niche, closed platforms in every instance except when they're deliberately trying to make something strange and obscure. RVGS wants to replicate the monopolistic practices of bad old Nintendo, but in a market with powerful, ubiquitous open platforms everywhere.

 

As others have pointed out, most successful electronic products have the hardware first, and the "suits" only become necessary to manage things if/when it blows up big. Logos, casings, slogans are nice but should be secondary concerns, after the work is done, in my opinion. RVGS has a management team, but few engineers or software developers, at least in public.

 

Can anyone think of an example of a successful, small business revival of an ancient defunct brand like "Coleco" is trying to pull, with or without the original creators on board? I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm curious if I'm missing something. Examples must be credibly small businesses, Apple Computer isn't a valid answer, "here's to the crazy ones" notwithstanding.

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Interesting... See that massive pile over yonder, the one as big as a pyramid? That is our pile of "Its a SNES" edvidence. Put it there with the others.

See that big empty space in that other direction? It is supposedly the evidence pile for a custom FPGA board. Sadly it is going to be repurposed into a garbage dump soon as it will always stay empty and un-used otherwise.

No, there is one piece of evidence in the "custom FPGA" pile- SoCal Mike's word.

 

I'll just leave these here in the other pile.

post-39360-0-98311400-1455546721_thumb.jpegpost-39360-0-83885700-1455546731_thumb.jpegpost-39360-0-88634800-1455547858_thumb.jpeg

Edited by galax
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Actually this guy figured it out! One piece of evidence for the other pile!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXp76mm4LIw

Heh heh, "debuffed."

His evidence? Because RVGS said so, on their heavily censored Facebook page! Case dismissed!

 

When Toy Fair is over, surely someone could peel off the black tape and take a clear photograph of what's inside. The only reason not to? To hide the truth. We know and understand what "prototype" means. We know it won't be pretty. We want to see it anyway.

 

SoCal, Mike, Parrothead, GameGavel, whatever your real name is, you get a point for your recent "messaging discipline" of not gassing off all over the place about anything and everything, but not responding to this simple request is not winning you any friends or admirers.

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Yeah exactly. I'm explaining, not excusing it.

 

This project started in its planning sometime in 2012. There is no excuse not to have a running prototype.

 

For whatever it's worth, I edited my previous post to try to reflect your intention.

I do fully expect to hear that explanation parroted by a certain birdhead, though. :grin:

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Actually this guy figured it out! One piece of evidence for the other pile

That is the lamest debunking video i have ever seen in my entire life. He spends the first 4 or so minutes repeating that it is a prototype and not the final product.

 

He then continues with reading out loud the same official statements on the SNES matter and the FPGA-blurb we have all seen on RVGS facebook and use that as final "evidence" that the rumors are fake.

 

He could as well made a 10 second video saying "Read what Mike says, its the truth".

 

Might as well go back to the old Soviet "Pravda" newspapers from 1986 stating that the Chernobyl disaster was a "minor incident, we have it under control" and take that as official evidence that it really wasnt a big deal...

 

"Evidence" dismissed and thrown on the garbage pile.

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That is the lamest debunking video i have ever seen in my entire life. He spends the first 4 or so minutes repeating that it is a prototype and not the final product.

Maybe that entire YouTube account is a joke that I am missing. He has a video that shows how to add RAM your PC for better performance by increasing the amount of virtual memory: http://youtu.be/zLAXaS0pyFU

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Everybody is talking about the "hardware guy."

 

Who is the "hardware guy?"

 

Snuffleupagus, the Tooth Fairy, Voldemort? Why can't we speak his name? Is it a secret?

 

Is it someone listed here?

http://www.retrovgs.com/contact.html

I'm guessing that it's someone other than the team listed on the Web page; otherwise, there wouldn't need to be so much secrecy about the person's identity, since we'd already know who he or she is. But if that's the case, one has to wonder: who would set up a company specifically to create a game console, but not have a single full-time "hardware guy" on staff? Isn't that like opening a garage but not hiring any mechanics? One could say that they simply outsourced the design, that this kind of thing happens all the time, etc. But that only makes me wonder: if the "hardware guy" is doing all the work, and if the "management team" knows so little about hardware that they can't even tell the difference between an FPGA prototype board and an SNES Jr. board, then what do we need the "management team" for at this point? Why not just let the "hardware guy" call the shots and bring in the suits only after the product is done, like the Silicon Valley pioneers of yore ... the way it's supposed to be done?

 

I'm also troubled by the mentions of "100% trust" and "110% trust" that I've seen. It seems to me that a competent manager would give the "hardware guy" a job to do, but would also make himself informed enough about the job to be able to follow through and to ensure that the "hardware guy" executed it successfully. "110% trust" shouldn't be necessary. If Mike's story is true (which I'm sure it isn't) about John Carlsen going rogue and building a Ferrari that priced them out of the market, you'd think that he would be a little more careful this time about giving "110% trust" to an engineer that he won't even name publicly, especially since he himself admits that he is not a "hardware guy."

 

When a project as troubled by mismanagement and outright dishonesty as this one is getting ready to ask the public for funding (again!), anybody blindly giving anybody "110% trust" isn't good enough.

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That is the lamest debunking video i have ever seen in my entire life. He spends the first 4 or so minutes repeating that it is a prototype and not the final product.

 

He then continues with reading out loud the same official statements on the SNES matter and the FPGA-blurb we have all seen on RVGS facebook and use that as final "evidence" that the rumors are fake.

 

He could as well made a 10 second video saying "Read what Mike says, its the truth".

 

Might as well go back to the old Soviet "Pravda" newspapers from 1986 stating that the Chernobyl disaster was a "minor incident, we have it under control" and take that as official evidence that it really wasnt a big deal...

 

"Evidence" dismissed and thrown on the garbage pile.

I thought he made a good argument. maybe its was just cause he was wearing a tie i felt like he knew what he was talking about. :)

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The 100% trust thing sounds like a politician's answer- allows for the blame to be shifted later on if it all goes pear-shaped.

 

Potential future Mike quote: "I was as shocked as everyone else when I opened the case to find a SNES Mini inside..."

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If it turns out to be a SNES Jr or a Super-Famiclone in there, I'm sure they'll claim the FPGA part is inside the cart... like in the SD2SNES

 

If (and that's a big if) there are super nintendo equivalent of famiclone chips, they might be good enough to be paired with an FPGA cart to run several SNES games good enough.

I have a super cheap Famiclone that amazingly runs with an Everdrive, so this kind of setup is possible in principle (Subor D99 if you want to know, has the cheapest plastic I've ever seen on a console).

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I don't understand all the haters! Socal Mike is trying to create something awesome for the gaming community and everyone just keeps giving him a hard time. I met him at Seatle Retro Gaming Expo and he clearly knows his stuff. If you listened to his show or read his magazines, you would know the guy can rip apart arcade machines, so making a system would be easy for him. The guy should be praised for buying the jag cases and having the great vision to come up with a revolutionary product. He has single handily redefined Classic gaming. Look how awesome GameGavel.com ReadRETRO.com are. He was the best part of Retrogamingroundup.com as well.

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