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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?


phoenixdownita

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A single device for non technical self styled retro game enthusiasts, busy adults in their 30-50's, which hooks up to the HDTV that provides arcade chip compatible replica hardware for actual original arcade games to run on , served up in durable cartridge format in, presumably, multi cart configuration, as well as a single system for games from various home platforms to get a second life such as english patched RPGs and other game classics never brought stateside due to previous economic pressures.

Games are produced on demand at reasonable (or at least stated set) prices.

No fuss, no muss, minimal interference from the wife, and she may be one of these people too as many women who play JRPGs.

 

And for a $1000 they will personally send round Big Cev to shaft you personally

 

For an extra $10 he will lube up........................

 

 

What is the target audience for this anyway?

 

Idiots with more money than sense? (or general come and go collectors as they are known)

The first idea for it to be a play anything machine had my interest, but in its current state im more interested in buying another Action max than it

Edited by RupanIII
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So..... Let's set aside the obvious problem (demoing a flash rom cart on an snes jr) during the toy fair. And let's set aside the idea that it's just a money-grab and they have no intenion of delivering a product. It's conceivable that they panicked and cobbled this thing together to buy time, as many have said.

But buy time for who? Steve Woita?

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

The only technical resource listed on their website is a guy who's only developed some games. There's absolutely ZERO mentions of him ever being involved in a hardware project. And we're to believe that this guy spearheaded the development of hardware that's capable of doing what's promised? Unless he's got mad project management skills and a team of serious brains behind him who can develop the kind of hardware that it takes serious TEAMS of people to do, what we're going to get from the Chameleon (if anything) is some wrapper around someone else's functionality.

If we ever do see a product, my guess is that it's some android-based hardware that runs emulators that are burned into roms and put into carts. That's really the easiest way to pull off usb controls mapped to emulators, and HDMI output for free (on a raspberry pi or similar cheap android device).

And that's pretty much something you can build (minus the cartridge slot) for like $50, if you include a cheap USB controller.

I don't see any path to the finish line for them than to license (or steal) other technology and duct-tape it together and throw it in their jaguar shells. The only real work is rigging up the power switch, and anyone with basic skills can do that.

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Intellivision Productions is selling standalone Intellivision Flashback hand controllers for $8.49 each, and optional adapters to use them on old hardware. There goes the RetroVGS Chameleon's unique value proposition.

 

The adapter cable (to use them on the original INTVs) is priced a little out there? What's in it?

https://intellivision-productions-inc.myshopify.com/products/hand-controller-adapter-cable-flashhback-to-intellivision-ii-super-video-arcade-1

https://intellivision-productions-inc.myshopify.com/products/hand-controller-adapter-cable-flashhback-to-intellivision-ii-super-video-arcade

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A single device for non technical self styled retro game enthusiasts, busy adults in their 30-50's, which hooks up to the HDTV that provides arcade chip compatible replica hardware for actual original arcade games to run on , served up in durable cartridge format in, presumably, multi cart configuration, as well as a single system for games from various home platforms to get a second life such as english patched RPGs and other game classics never brought stateside due to previous economic pressures.

Games are produced on demand at reasonable (or at least stated set) prices.

No fuss, no muss, minimal interference from the wife, and she may be one of these people too as many women who play JRPGs.

 

 

Oh, I know where I can buy something like that. Do you prefer the Japanese, or American flavor? There's also a kid-friendly one.

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Intellivision Productions is selling standalone Intellivision Flashback hand controllers for $8.49 each, and optional adapters to use them on old hardware. There goes the RetroVGS Chameleon's unique value proposition.

 

Can't complain about that price.

 

 

I can, however, complain about the cost of the adapter.

Edited by dj_convoy
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We have to do whatever we can to stop this. We have to get the truth out there. That shyster will take advantage of people. Even if he comes up short of his goal the Chameleon project will be bad juju for the retro scene. Nostalgia is a powerful thing... his words might sway the casual and leave a bad taste in their mouth after it fails.

 

You are right... the truth is out there

 

truthisoutthere

 

 

I want to believe, but caraway flavored Kool Aid is not so tasty. I hate the taste of caraway seeds.

 

iwanttobeleive

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Anyone else having a creeping sense of dread that tomorrow with come and go with no kickstarter and no news?

 

IMO, that's now the slightly better bet. Something really big is going on behind the scenes. I wouldn't be at all surprised to wake up tomorrow, see Mike running his trap, and all the CC graphics on his FB page again revised to show the IndieGoGo logo pasted over the Kickstarter one.

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Nope, those are more expensive, rely on emulation and the internet, require an internet connection as well, and games are distributed via the internet for the most part.
Their target audience is the modern 3D gamer who mostly plays online gun shooting variants with constant voice chat bullshit and various latencies throwing off their gameplay.

 

 

Oh, I know where I can buy something like that. Do you prefer the Japanese, or American flavor? There's also a kid-friendly one.

 

No, Tomorrow, Mike Kennedy takes it off, he takes it all off. He's gonna lose it and just show us everything! ROFL.

 

IMO, that's now the slightly better bet. Something really big is going on behind the scenes. I wouldn't be at all surprised to wake up tomorrow, see Mike running his trap, and all the CC graphics on his FB page again revised to show the IndieGoGo logo pasted over the Kickstarter one.

Edited by RupanIII
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IMO, that's now the slightly better bet. Something really big is going on behind the scenes. I wouldn't be at all surprised to wake up tomorrow, see Mike running his trap, and all the CC graphics on his FB page again revised to show the IndieGoGo logo pasted over the Kickstarter one.

This reminds me of the joke from the first "Nostalgia SH-IT" parody video, about switching crowdfunding platforms at the last minute from Kickstarter to IndieGoGo to the ISIS recruitment forums. History repeating itself ...

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The project I am talking about starting is a quarterly magazine dedicated to the Coleco brand itself. 20 pages, or more if content warrants it, four times a year, available in digital PDF and physical print. Content would range from historical articles (such as company milestones, interviews with former staff, etc), reviews of product they launched, are launching etc and of course games and yes, the Chameleon would be covered as well. There are a ton of games being made, or have been made in the last decade and they have been missed by tons of potential fans of the ColecoVision console. I want to change that.

 

...

 

Thoughts, anyone?

 

I love the idea and I would jump on board in some capacity if needed. Like many here I have a strong childhood emotional connection to the company, and I'm interested in the historical content as well as a lot of the stuff that has developed in the years since Coleco called it quits in 1988. I am, however, so far not extremely enthusiastic about the way the current brand owners conduct their business, so I'm not sure if that would disqualify my help. Not meaning to trash River West Brands at all, I'm just not interested in them as a "brand licencer" in the whole historical context, and I fail to see how they should be regarded in the same way as the original Coleco company. Not the same at all in the slightest, and marketing themselves as such is an inaccuracy that I wish they would correct. However, I am hopelessly attached to the old Coleco, and always will be. I hope you can actually get something going here it would be a great read I'm sure.

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On the sad side we lost comments from triverse for conflict of interest, PikoInteractive [hopefully it is just a pause until the KS], we likely scared thenavguy off [we should be respecting his friendship], Pipercub is getting super hermetic and UKMike also is not writing much.

The last 3 are all people that know Mike and may be able to offer some insight on how's the mood on the CC team .... and we do need some kind of gossip/rumors/news to keep us sane.

 

Hopefully if someone feels like saying something positive he/she should feel like she should be allowed to do so in this very thread as opposed to feeling intimidated, threatened or worse.

 

Nope, did not scare me off. just have nothing to say. Saying anything either for or against the Chameleon Project ends up being toxic for me, I am trying to respect Mark and Chris for the Coleco brand as I wish to continue a relationship with them for The ColecoVisions Pocast to talk about new Coleco products and such. I am saddened this issue seems to be polarizing the community as I enjoy retrogaming as a hobby and want it to be fun. It has taken a lot of wind out of my sails for podcasting and making vids on my favorite subject retrogames! I recently was asked to start contributing articles to a website (which I always wanted to do after getting a taste of writing for RETRO magazine in the first two issues). I am not a writer by trade so I know my crap is probably not that good, but I enjoy it :P

 

 

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Hey, i just thought of something.

 

Earlier on they were toting it as being able to handle 8, 16 and 32-bit era gaming. For quite some time now we have been shown some technically spoken quite antiquated early 8 bit games from the CV and Inty and a bunch of more or less graphically exciting 16 bit games.

 

Whatever happened to the 32 bit part? Did they realize that a SNES only does 16 bit gaming or did they drop it for other reasons?

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On the sad side we lost comments from triverse for conflict of interest, PikoInteractive [hopefully it is just a pause until the KS], we likely scared thenavguy off [we should be respecting his friendship], Pipercub is getting super hermetic and UKMike also is not writing much.

The last 3 are all people that know Mike and may be able to offer some insight on how's the mood on the CC team .... and we do need some kind of gossip/rumors/news to keep us sane.

 

Hopefully if someone feels like saying something positive he/she should feel like she should be allowed to do so in this very thread as opposed to feeling intimidated, threatened or worse.

 

I wouldn't read too much into things like this, UK has been busy with family, I have family and hobbies that are honestly more interesting than commenting on this daily, would I rather take the plane out and fly the Blue Ridge mountains on a sunny day or rehash this, I'm going flying! I am not deliberately being hermetic, some things need more words than others and I'd rather not repeat myself over and over, many people are doing a great job of making the important points all over the web. I also don't want to play into something that MK has been working at very hard, putting a face on a large groundswell reaction to claim that its just this one guy, or this one podcast or that one forum. I also know allot that I can't or won't comment on for various reasons, simple honest reasons such as people asking to be left out of it, or that the source is communications sent in confidence which I will keep. But I will say that there are a few more people than UK Mike and I that are reading and even commenting on this thread that are stakeholders in all this. I think UK Mikes response to thenavguy's questions was spot on, and summarily ignored. I also bear no ill will toward the Coleco brand, it was my first console and I would love to see good things for that name. Those of us "in the know" are astonished that they did not look into what they were putting their name on closer, there was so much bad news already tied to this thing. I will do my best to explain what you asked though, what are they thinking with some of the issues discussed here.

 

Phases of participating in an MK project. One thing that has been touched on is how John Carlson was thrown under the bus, and backed over. I was amused and annoyed by him but now he is in the same boat that quite a few of us are in; an MK project alumni club. I would sit down for a beer with John if I saw him, he probably had no idea what he was getting into. There is a very clear pattern of how things progress in one of these projects and almost anyone involved in one would have the same story. A few years ago I was looking for a Subaru Baja turbo and they have been out of production since 06 and not easy to find so that meant dealing with the used car market, I found a clean one at a dealership in Manassas and went to look it over. It was one of those buy here pay here kind of places but the truck was clean so I wrote them a check and left with it. While I was there I could not help but feel like I was on the set of some reality show, things felt scripted and contrived as if the employees were playing roles and working from a script. I posted about this on a car forum that I am on and someone responded that I had seen a "system store" in action. As it turns out there are consultants that will come to your dealership and teach you how to process customers to get the highest number of sales with the least effort and there is a flow chart that customers are passed along resulting in getting them into a car or out the door very quickly. I think that MK has developed a system store method for utilizing talent for turning his dreams into reality. The first phase is that he has an idea for a entrepreneurial venture but only that, not the means or methods to make it into a real thing. Phase 2 is finding the people that can and offering them future value in the form of stock or other benefit such as one company paying back the other. There is allot of "WE" in this phase, your damn near partners and it is the two of you 51% and 49% all the way baby. The we is also you working while he is learning what you know and then popping off for a wine tasting while you get the work done. Phase 3 is looking for your replacement while your still involved, that person is given the same deal and story and never told about you if at all possible, if needed new promises of future profits are created, In his own words quoted on this forum, ran out of stock to sell, created a new company. Then your off the project, maybe you just stop getting calls, maybe your called hard to work with, maybe the company is dissolved, but whatever method it is your promises of future compensation are up for re-interpretation. Phase 4 is denial and diminishing. Any negative aspects of the project are attributed to you while your role is continually downplayed "Yeah, yeah, he wrote a few articles but wasn't really a part of it" or "He just made a few phone calls but wasn't really a part of it" etc.

 

Controlling the narrative. Big time issues here and this is not the MIke I knew. I recall one time we made up a poster to promote RetroGaming Roundup at shows we attend and part of it was quotes from iTunes reviews. Of course we put in some of the best positives but we also had a crop of the negative reviews just to be cheeky, one of my favourites is "There are so few retro gaming podcasts out there, it is a shame this is one of the biggest" still makes me laugh to this day. We have never deleted posts or kicked people off our forums/FB/etc. This is all new behaviour but the cause and effect is apparent, there is a huge and very deep backlash to the things that they are doing and people are talking about it, which is of course bad press. If you add up the negative Vs positive youtube views for example it is obvious that the community is not loving this and they simply cannot accept that is the legitimate reaction to the project. That email about him trying to have a video taken down was very telling. The 24/7 deleting and banning on FB coupled with what is very obviously a small and contrived positive group mixed in with a few casual questions is a desperate attempt to control the appearance of legitimacy where they can. What I am seeing is a N. Korea type farcical presentation of legitimacy, so absurd and easily seen through but clearly crafted to be presented to crowdfunding as look we are real, have a real prototype, and have an adoring fan following, hoping that they don't look at anything other than those sources.

 

Lying. I can only factually tell you what I dealt with. When he came up with the idea for Retro mag I had recently bought part of GameGavel, which with me being in the denial and diminishing phase he has referred to me as a "small minority shareholder" also known as the only one of his friends who gave him money, and I asked him if this was a separate venture or part of GG and he affirmed that it was part of GG so I said "Ok". When he was launching it he utilized the RetroGaming Roundup show and its media outlets heavily, on a daily basis and there was allot of promising about how the show was going to be integrated and see advertising and representation but when the first issue came we were no where to be found other than in a top ten listing. UK and I called him up and asked WTF was everything we were promised. At first it was a "yeah you know we really had to rush to put this together and maybe in the future ....." but UK and I pressed him on why he had everything else done and pointed out that we could have prepared those things but were never asked. Finally we got the email where we were addressed in a very cold sterile and stiff manner and were told that magazines simply did not do those sorts of things and thats the way it was. That is when and why UK and I stopped writing for the mag. So when he came up with the idea for the console, if you search this thread I have discussed my role in that already, I asked him a similar question, is this studio (which is what it was at the time, a studio to be followed by a console by that studio) a new business or part of GG/Retro and he affirmed that it was part of GG/Retro and as I recall the phrase was something like "Yeah, yeah, its got the RETRO logo stamped right on the front of it" and I said "Ok". And this is what I believed right up until the Indigogo/kickstart of the Retro VGS. If you search the other thread which is now closed you will find my comment that I stood to make money on this system if it succeeded, at that time I was still unaware of the new company that had been created about a month before the kickstarter/indigogo and the RETRO VGS assets transferred into that, and speaking for myself and two other GG/Retro shareholders we were never told about that. When we found out and confronted him about it the response was absurd and has been quoted in this thread. He claimed that it was always going to be a separate venture but that GG would benefit at arms length by free subscriptions to the mag and such. So quite frankly I don't care if it is the greatest console on Earth. If you look at the dates the companies were created and closed and overlay that with the various announcements and claims made you can clearly see that all but the last month prior to kickstarter/Indiegogo #1 of development of concept and the actual product was done prior to the new companies existence with the logo stamped right on it totally disproving the notion it was a separate thing. When confronted by this his response as UK Mike put it was a Coke and a Smile of how we just don't understand why what it did is Ok and good for us. If not illegal it is certainly unethical so any of this talk about the outrage and indignity at how people are reacting to the project is the most pompous and arrogant position that could be taken.

 

System designed and molds purchased under this company: GAMEGAVEL LLC Entity Number:201029410278

Assets move to this company one month prior to launch: RETRO ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY, INC. Entity Number:C3823713

Assets were moved to this third company that is selling it as the Coleco Chameleon: RETRO VIDEO GAME SYSTEMS, INC. Entity Number:C3850998

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Is my view of this, as a commercial version of FPGA Arcade, entirely unfounded or unwanted?

Yes, it is unwanted because you need to be specific about the details.

 

The FPGA Arcade and similar FPGA boards are open platforms. You are buying a computer with mutant powers that you are free to use as you see fit without any additional cost. A "commercial" version would only have value as a high volume low cost alternative if it is as open.

 

But consoles are not supposed to be open. They are subsidized DRM platforms designed to deliver content to a captive audience. If you're somebody like Apple, Sony, Nintendo, etc. with hardware skills and a reputation I'd be willing to get one. But otherwise I'd just prefer to be agnostic to hardware (like Steams gives you) and not pay a premium for having to cover hardware costs.

 

The question you ask is one a lot of people trying to make money off the community are asking themselves. If you want to appeal to me to fund your project then I expect to get something that works for me (player), not the content creators. It needs something unique but then you are only targeting a niche of the market.

 

FPGAs are actually not new, but there are many commercial projects that failed or failed to sell volumes. I think the C64 DTV was brilliant (with its hardware "easter eggs" allowimg expansion) and yet they apparently failed to make much money out of it. If that doesn't work that leaves the mass market cheap products for impulse purchases, or go for top quality and high margin. But in the latter case don't be surprised if your audience is extremely demanding.

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