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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?

phoenixdownita

By phoenixdownita
in Modern Gaming Discussion

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jaybird3rd Quadrunner

jaybird3rd

Posted
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Lemmings... :roll:

When Mike Kennedy was waxing rhapsodic about the "whirlwind of interest" that the Coleco Chameleon was supposedly getting from distributors and investors at Toy Fair, I bet that's the exact picture he had in his mind ... or maybe it was the picture that he wanted us to have in our minds.

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toiletunes River Patroller

toiletunes

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If it had worked: (it, in this case, meaning the crowdfunding of the idea. I suppose we can all ask what 'it' really means, but in a sense, this is 'it'.)

Ahem... If it had worked, we'd be up to our armpits in semiplausible PR BS as to why the product isn't delivered yet. Things like "one of the launch titles had a bug, so the executive vice muckity muck in charge of wingdigits had to reinstruct the programmers. Simple as that!"

"During my continuing courtship with Konami, I was begged to delay the launch so they could be included, so I just had to help the poor guys out."

"We are delaying the launch to make it even better!" (oh wait, that's a real one.)

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godslabrat Quadrunner

godslabrat

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If the project had been funded...

 

The BEST CASE SCENARIO would have been for Mike to order clone SNES or Genesis boards, or a Beaglebone-type board, slap them into Jaguar shells, and call it a day. This would have achieved the barest of the bare minimum to be able to say he fulfilled his promises. Granted, Mike would never be able to achieve all the features of the RVGS he'd claimed, but that ship had already sailed. The best he could do would be to deliver a product that said "You bought a system, here it is."

 

However, 99% of the scenarios I come up with involve Mike getting 2 million, then immediately funneling it into GameGavel and Retro Magazine. He then starts up his company by dumping cash into booze labor, whores consultants, and wild vacations marketing initiatives. After two years, he decides to check his e-mail, sees a lot of angry letters, and says to some college kid "Hey, I'll pay you $20 to design a system for me by tomorrow."

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enoofu Stargunner

enoofu

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Posted (edited)

also another of their sites is down http://coleco.visionhas 404 error

 

ColecoVision belongs now to N-Fusion Interactive

http://www.n-fusion.com/page/projects/

Source:http://www.colecovision.dk/

 

Not sure if its true

 

I check the trademarks for

COLECOVISION FLASHBACK

is still a live mark

 

COLECOVISION

is still a live mark

Word Mark COLECOVISION.COM Goods and Services (CANCELLED) IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Information in the field of games. FIRST USE: 20000301. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20000301 Standard Characters Claimed Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK Serial Number 78442519 Filing Date June 28, 2004 Current Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Published for Opposition October 25, 2005 Registration Number 3045078 Registration Date January 17, 2006 Owner (REGISTRANT) River West Brands LLC CORPORATION DELAWARE 141 West Jackson Boulevard Suite 3620 Chicago ILLINOIS 60604

(LAST LISTED OWNER) COLECO HOLDINGS LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY DELAWARE 300 NORTH LASALLE AVENUE CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60654

Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record Brett M. Tolpin Type of Mark SERVICE MARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). Live/Dead Indicator DEAD Cancellation Date August 19, 2016

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-birns-ba4108

Jeff Birns

CEO / Creative Director at N-Fusion Interactive

Edited by enoofu
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Flojomojo Quadrunner

Flojomojo

Posted
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This is a bit late, but here's Pat and Ian on Mike's intrepid new ventures:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm1RrSK6pKQ

 

I'm glad these guys are keeping up the pressure. 28,768 views (as of right now, sure to climb) is a very powerful anti-advertisement!

All I'm going to say is this.

BUY THIS ANYWHERE ELSE!

 

You can pre order this anywhere. This isn't a Retro Magazine exclusive, you can order it from Amazon or any other reseller. Don't give them a cent. It's not letting bygones be bygones. DON'T REWARD BAD BEHAVIOR! This isn't haterade, this is 'why would you do that.' Don't let someone who lied multiple times and screwed people and changed their story and made YOU look foolish continue to try to fund a sinking ship that is not going anywhere. This is the last pipe dream there is and it's not going to fix anything. This isn't going to right a sinking ship. This isn't making amends by becoming a retailer for things you can get anywhere on your site. Hey, f it, I'll put them on my site, you can buy them from me then! I'm not trying to be a shill, you can buy these anywhere. I can get these from Luna. You can get these from your local mom and pop games shop. You can get them from a big corporation like Amazon. This is nothing exclusive. You can get this controller from someone who set up a booth at a convention. Help them make their money back!

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Flojomojo Quadrunner

Flojomojo

Posted
Posted

also another of their sites is down http://coleco.visionhas 404 error

 

ColecoVision belongs now to N-Fusion Interactive

http://www.n-fusion.com/page/projects/

Source:http://www.colecovision.dk/

 

Not sure if its true

 

I check the trademarks for

COLECOVISION FLASHBACK

is still a live mark

 

COLECOVISION

is still a live mark

Word Mark COLECOVISION.COM Goods and Services (CANCELLED) IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Information in the field of games. FIRST USE: 20000301. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20000301 Standard Characters Claimed Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK Serial Number 78442519 Filing Date June 28, 2004 Current Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Published for Opposition October 25, 2005 Registration Number 3045078 Registration Date January 17, 2006 Owner (REGISTRANT) River West Brands LLC CORPORATION DELAWARE 141 West Jackson Boulevard Suite 3620 Chicago ILLINOIS 60604

(LAST LISTED OWNER) COLECO HOLDINGS LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY DELAWARE 300 NORTH LASALLE AVENUE CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60654

Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record Brett M. Tolpin Type of Mark SERVICE MARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). Live/Dead Indicator DEAD Cancellation Date August 19, 2016

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-birns-ba4108

Jeff Birns

CEO / Creative Director at N-Fusion Interactive

I would assume it takes a long time for the brand to go fully dead. It's still advertised on RiverWest Brands' site (http://www.riverwestbrands.com) -- they're a company that takes old trademarks and tries to do new things with them.

 

It's probably going to be a long time before they come out with something new with the Coleco name on it. Seems to me Chameleongate has pretty much torched any remaining value it once had. I were the CEO of RiverWest Brands and Mike Kennedy had any money to take, I would sue his guts out for destroying my property.

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enoofu Stargunner

enoofu

Posted
Posted
Get pretty fun when you compare Christopher Cardillo the current CEO of the Coleco Brand to Birns

 

 

Study Less & Earn A's Without Effort

Dec 2003

by Christopher Cardillo
He owns a Ghetto Record studio in which he acts and makes Sega CD quality music and videos
But mainly earns all his money from his
Castle Windows a Home Construction home
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Pipercub Moonsweeper

Pipercub

Posted
Posted

If the project had been funded...

 

The BEST CASE SCENARIO would have been for Mike to order clone SNES or Genesis boards, or a Beaglebone-type board, slap them into Jaguar shells, and call it a day. This would have achieved the barest of the bare minimum to be able to say he fulfilled his promises. Granted, Mike would never be able to achieve all the features of the RVGS he'd claimed, but that ship had already sailed. The best he could do would be to deliver a product that said "You bought a system, here it is."

 

I gotta disagree with that. The crew over at RVGS had one simple agenda, fake their way past the gatekeepers and then take that money to build the real thing. The problem is that the same mismanagement and B movie like technobabble was what they would have taken to the far east fab plants to have them design and produce it for them. The Chinese plants are a chore to deal with for the most savvy of organizations. They do all sorts of moves like swapping components, materials, and specs and pocketing the difference, you send a list of 10 questions and they cherry pick 4 and slow roll the rest until you are deadline or budget crunched, it takes an eagle eye and a firm hand to get the right product on the boat at the end of the process. Picking the right entity that can deliver the product and ensuring they do so was a skill set completely absent from the core group and the phantom cloud of Linkedin participants. They would have been eaten alive and left with insufficient money to make a second try. Partial refunds, MAYBE, a sob story similar to the mysterious Mr Lee, CERTAIN.

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phoenixdownita River Patroller

phoenixdownita

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If it had worked: (it, in this case, meaning the crowdfunding of the idea. I suppose we can all ask what 'it' really means, but in a sense, this is 'it'.)

Ahem... If it had worked, we'd be up to our armpits in semiplausible PR BS as to why the product isn't delivered yet. Things like "one of the launch titles had a bug, so the executive vice muckity muck in charge of wingdigits had to reinstruct the programmers. Simple as that!"

"During my continuing courtship with Konami, I was begged to delay the launch so they could be included, so I just had to help the poor guys out."

"We are delaying the launch to make it even better!" (oh wait, that's a real one.)

...and they would be taking restraining order against each others because I do not think sharing "consultants" over a weekend amounts to too much wrt brothers in arms feelings (or more likely brothels in arms ...whatev...!!!)

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Schizophretard Quadrunner

Schizophretard

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Posted

After all this...

 

Do you guys ever think back to, What if it had worked?

 

Like right now, we'd have Jaguar shaped systems with a big COLECO logo on the front...And we'd be playing cartridges...Maybe just SNEZZZ games we already have but....Cartridges!

 

With these projects from Kevtris with working on clocks with GPS modules he is presently doing them for fun:

 

 

But in the future he may discover that he left himself some bread crumbs to locate his exact locations in space-time in his past. So, if Mike's tricks would have worked to bring a successful Kickstarter and if the butterfly effect of that shit storm would have had a negative affect on Kevtris's future then he would know exactly what to set up and when. Things like setting up a time traveler that has a base of operations in a "Golden Eye room" to sabotage the project, setting up someone to talk to Kevtris about Zimba so that he would use it as a joke name for the Zimba 3000 to remind himself so that when Kevtris "coincidentally" comes across a time machine by that name he will know how to use it to keep the new time line intact without paradox, etc. to ensure a future where the Chameleon never happened but the Zimba 3000 did. Kevtris just may discover that his reverse engineering skill set will apply to things much more complex than video game consoles.

 

 

Granted, this hypothetical scenario would be a pretty far fetched "what if?" to a successful Chameleon Kickstarter but any hypothetical scenario that includes a successful Chameleon Kickstarter is far fetched. ;)

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Flojomojo Quadrunner

Flojomojo

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Posted

In the ReadRetro page on Facebook, under the announcement of the Retro-Bit Generations, a fan writes, "I wish this thing played cartridges."

 

Sigh. Do these people visit new car dealerships and say, "I wish this thing ran on oats." Do they look inside and say, "I wish this thing had an 8-track player." Do they take a seat and say, "I wish this thing didn't have seat belts or air bags."

 

post-2410-0-04321200-1477250720_thumb.png

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StopDrop&Retro Dragonstomper

StopDrop&Retro

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The comment right above is a guy who's shocked, SHOCKED! that B&N stopped carrying RETRO Mag. People on Facebook are so strange. Do they just read what's spoon fed to them from companies without doing any research of their own whatsoever? How can he be an avid follower of RETRO and not know it's on its deathbed?

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