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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?


phoenixdownita

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I'll do you one better. Why didn't he open it up the second the show closed? He has no excuses at that point. There is no downside to opening it up after the show. If it's real, he can post photos or periscope or whatever the kids are doing these days and prove all the haters wrong. If it's not, then he has no reason to pay Sean an additional $4000 and he can save himself further humiliation. Now anticipating Mike's excuses for this question ("I'm not a hardware guy"), do you think if he sent a photo of the "prototype" to Steve Woita, that Steve wouldn't have said "Don't pay that guy another cent!"?

 

 

Regardless of Steve, that excuse has never, and should never hold water. Mike is (was?) a retro gaming guy and a collector. He's bought and sold hardware many times over himself, and runs a site dedicated to that purpose. He's had to get old broken crap working. There no way that he wouldn't recognize a SNES video jack, or the multi-power supply, or a SNES multicart which obviously only plugs into a SNES cartridge slot (and he was very cautious to have only the cartridge front facing the camera). It's dubious that he wouldn't know the various major SNES models, as a collector and as popular as that console was. It's ridiculous to claim that he never happened to peek into the holes where the controller cables were going to obviously see SNES controller connectors.

 

Even if he's just out to make a buck today, he's is certainly an informed retro console guy and in no way can feign ignorance about these sorts of major details.

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I myself have *gained* tons of laughs and enjoyment from this whole shit show. You really can't make up this kind of Tomfuckery. It's all been pure gold! :grin:

 

Right, so hardly something to complain about then?

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I think at this point all we need to "wrap it up" is a wall of text posted by Sean himself that explains, from his point of view, what happened .... both times.

 

Assuming he's half the sweet talker everyone that had to deal with him says he is, that story alone would be something else.

 

Something worthy of Tsoukalos

 

I-am-not-saying.jpg

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I'm sorry if this is unnecessarily harsh. I am just sick of this song and dance.

So sick of it that you joined AtariAge just to post about it? Other than one post in the CV thread, this is the only topic in which you've posted. If it makes you so sick, there are literally thousands of other threads on AtariAge. Maybe participate in one of those?

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If only MK had gone the honest route, here is an honest pitch from MK for a real product, I cannot understand the need to go otherwise:

 

 

If he hadn't F'd over his friends the console could have been as successful

 

Ego. As i stated before he somehow felt delusions of grandeur trying to be the man that brought back cartridge based gaming to the industry. He wanted to be remembered for that at all cost. As we have seen how he simply stated he wont be answering anymore questions, shows how humble he is.

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Ego. As i stated before he somehow felt delusions of grandeur trying to be the man that brought back cartridge based gaming to the industry. He wanted to be remembered for that at all cost. As we have seen how he simply stated he wont be answering anymore questions, shows how humble he is.

HA that humble part made me laugh :)

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One of the things that Mike's whole mess has given some of us is the chance to see some of the "loyal fans" get an education in the ways of the "big-bad-world" and, perhaps, to learn that the guy selling the bag of magic beans really isn't always to be trusted.

 

For example ... poor old Dan Iacovelli (who recently posted here) ... he seems like a good and decent guy, and he abandoned another forum back in early 2015 when some folks were questioning Mike's plan/statements from his original Retro VGS announcement/podcast.

 

Move forward a year, and ...

 

nathun nailed it, mike had no idea what going on which is why as rayik said no direct answers to questions because mike don't know the answer.

It's been a long road since then ... but if this whole debacle has done anything, I hope that it has helped some folks be a little more cynical, and to question the competence and integrity of people that promise a great deal, but then ask for the money in advance.

Edited by elmer
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Since I was one of the 'top 25' at the time a while back, I feel I should make one last post as we've finally come to the end of this saga.

 

Whether Mike specifically set out to create the fake prototypes, he's still fully responsible for them. Others have already hit the nail on the head that the leader is ultimately responsible for the failure of their team. I don't for a second buy the story that he was conned. There's absolutely no way he would be so naive, to ignore all the proof that was posted about the fake prototypes, after the mess the RetroVGS was. He knew what he was showing us, plain and simple.

 

I also have a hard time believing that Mike didn't know about Sean Robinson, given his involvement in the arcade community. Even if he honestly didn't know about him, a simple Google search would have provided information which would have made it clear he was not someone to work with.

 

What I am happy about is that Albert now has the moulds. That's great news, but I hope Mike doesn't expect to get any points from the community for this transaction. It was the only sane move, allowing him to recoup at least some of his money from this ridiculous venture.

 

From my experience, the retro gaming community doesn't forget stuff like this. It's going to be hard for Mike to continue being an active member of the community he treated as chumps. I don't think we've heard the last of him though.

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It's been a long road since then ... but if this whole debacle has done anything, I hope that it has helped some folks be a little more cynical, and to question the competence and integrity of people that promise a great deal, but then ask for the money in advance.

 

That reminds me of people (and by people I mean companies) that say if you "Cancel" before a specific date, they won't charge your credit card, but then they do anyway...(yeah, I'm looking at you Spotify)...

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Not defending Mike here but over and over people keep saying that you could find out that Sean Robinson is a crook by "Googling" him. You can't. He has a common name and most of his fraud is hidden by user IDs on forums. Almighty arcade, seanhq,commodore whatever. Trust me I have spent way too much time Googling "Sean Robinson" and fraud, scam, Vancouver, Portland, etc.. You have to do some serious digging to find the dirt. Maybe this thread will come up in Google searches for his name now and save people some money and headaches.

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Man... If only he didn't try to use people for his own gain. Seriously, it would've worked out if he just accepted the fact that a team would bring back cartridge based gaming, instead of himself alone. Even if this console was a success, it wouldn't have been nearly as popular as the mainstream gaming today. You learn from your mistakes, I guess. Only he built a reputation to the point in which nobody is going to want to work with him. :P

Edited by AtarinDave
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Man... If only he didn't try to use people for his own gain. Seriously, it would've worked out if he just accepted the fact that a team would bring back cartridge based gaming, instead of himself alone. Even if this console was a success, it wouldn't have been nearly as popular as the mainstream gaming today. You learn from your mistakes, I guess. Only he built a reputation to the point in which nobody is going to want to work with him. :P

 

I wouldn't either. Not now.

 

I turned sour when it was made clear the 2 million dollar kickstarter demand was to fund a startup company and pay the employees' salaries.

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I think the idea of cartridge based gaming could have been fun...Yet I really see it as a niche audience that's pretty small. It'd be kind of like buying homebrews for your Atari right here, except for a different console. I think that is what bugs me the most. The idea that now everyone would steer very clear of the idea. Then again it could just be like a lot of others have already said: That any idea, or maybe I should just say any console would have to come from a reputable company and appear in stores...And not start life as a possible KickStarter pipe dream...

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So sick of it that you joined AtariAge just to post about it? Other than one post in the CV thread, this is the only topic in which you've posted. If it makes you so sick, there are literally thousands of other threads on AtariAge. Maybe participate in one of those?

I'm sick of his lying. I'm sorry you chose to interpret it that way and maybe I wasn't clear.

 

Your creepy obsession with my post history is just that: creepy. If I see a topic that interests me then I'll post there. I don't need your validation.

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Maybe there's a way for the collective community to rescue SoCal Mike from this disease he picked up. How about we put together a plan of action and 12-step program? Because I rather liked some of his older vids.

For drunks you keep them away from alcohol, for gambling addicts you keep them away from casinos, etc. and one of the things that helps is when they hit rock bottom. Mike has already hit rock bottom and he can't sell big dreams anymore because none of us will give him his drug. So, him destroying his reputation is a good thing for him because the most he can do is talk about retro games, maybe post some videos, and just do the ordinary things that the average retro gamer does. Switching his mindset may be a struggle because habits are hard to break but he doesn't really have a choice now. He doesn't even need his salesmen reputation defended to post videos and the like as long as he isn't trying to sell something.

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