Keatah Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Occam's Razor Time... He wants a way to quit his low paying 9-5 job (hint: nerd patrol) expending the least amount of effort. Preferably with someone else picking up the tab. It's no more complicated than that. That was stated in one of the RetroVGS tech brief vids last year. Exactly that! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob_ocelot Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 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. Even North Korea's Dear Leader is pretty chatty right through till the day of an illegal missle test. Mike Kennedy's North Colea? They go inexplicably radio silent on the eve of what should be a media blitz and a Facebook/Twitter love fest. Crickets, drowning out the sounds of the tumbleweeds rolling. They should definitely ask for $3Million again. (Thank you for your candor, Pipercub.) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newsdee Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 To me this is just mind boggling. I mean if we put tech aside for a second, if you ask for crowdfunding people will want to know 1/ what are you getting, 2/ when, and 3/ what guarantees are there it will deliver. Instead it's all vague promises, they fail to commit to one concise tech vision (so far) and just build hype on a brand name which they are mostly licensing from somebody else. Last time they even admitted the money was to work out what to do in the first place, but hey it's gonna be awesome. IMO crowdfunding is better used to cut out these kind of middlemen and fund people with the actual technical skills. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StopDrop&Retro Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 I'm sure plenty are interested in it but there are also a handful that are full blown obsessed. Oh, I take that as a compliment! Let the normal people continue to be boring, that's what golf courses are for. Some of the most fascinating people you'll meet in your lifetime are obsessed with something. You get obsessed with something so you don't have to golf. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+madman Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 You get obsessed with something so you don't have to golf. What if someone is obsessed with golf? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 What if someone is obsessed with golf? There isn't a single person on the planet who is obsessed with the game of golf. They just like holding long hard things in public. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godslabrat Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 IMO crowdfunding is better used to cut out these kind of middlemen and fund people with the actual technical skills. One of the advantages of crowdfunding is it makes managers and marketers less Important. The people with the skills can go directly to the people with the money. That's kind of the point. The fact that the CC never actually got a vision together shows it's a poor candidate for crowdfunding. Kickstarter really needs to make an example of these guys. It's an irresponsible and unethical use of the crowdfunding model. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bretthorror Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) I finally got to open up my Nuclear Throne IndieBox from last month and inside there was a DRM free USB "cartridge" in the shape of Chicken from the game. Isn't that better than carts... because you know... infinite possibilities? Along with it being individually numbered in box (with slipcover, this month) and having a full color manual, it also included a bunch of stickers, an original soundtrack CD, a plush maggot from the game and 3 mini figures of game bosses. Oh yeah, also includes a Steam Key and a PS4 download code. For $24.99/mo shipped with a 6 month subscription. I'll take Chicken over Chameleon any day of the week. Edited February 26, 2016 by bretthorror 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) One of the advantages of crowdfunding is it makes managers and marketers less Important. The people with the skills can go directly to the people with the money. That's kind of the point. .... It goes both ways though, it also tells to people with skills and lots of ideas that in many cases the other people, you know prospect buyers and such, don't care or don't get it. In those cases some marketing guy would be a boon. Note I am not in marketing at all just saying that many skilled people would gladly ship you stuff in an easy self assembly kit, no matter what because anyone home has a mini-mill, a power saw, rubber molder, ...... Edited February 26, 2016 by phoenixdownita Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reaperman Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) I'm launching my new automobile kickstarter tomorrow. I know last time, you laughed at my kickstarter where I bought the ford pinto tooling and said I was going to stick an electric motor in it. I figure it was mostly because I didn't have a proper prototype, and had never built a car--much less an electric one, but if you'll look, I've made some changes. Now I have a prototype. See, I've spray painted my original pinto case, and taped lightning bolts to the chevy V8 that I've dropped inside for no identifiable reason. I've also licensed the Trabant name, because what eastern-European comrade didn't love driving those back in the day? Extra recognition, fo' sho. I call it the Trabant Stallion. ...and this totally isn't exactly the same picture from that other post several months ago... Edited February 26, 2016 by Reaperman 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenegg Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) I finally got to open up my Nuclear Throne IndieBox from last month and inside there was a DRM free USB "cartridge" in the shape of Chicken from the game. Isn't that better than carts... because you know... infinite possibilities? Along with it being individually numbered in box (with slipcover, this month) and having a full color manual, it also included a bunch of stickers, an original soundtrack CD, a plush maggot from the game and 3 mini figures of game bosses. Oh yeah, also includes a Steam Key and a PS4 download code. For $24.99/mo shipped with a 6 month subscription. IndieBox really understands the market and generally delivers in spades. If I collected physical PC games, I'd own all their releases. Here's the thing ... I enjoy buying physical releases of console based Indie games when available. Having physical copies of Shovel Knight and Retro City Rampage is pretty awesome. With that said, I wouldn't buy a new console for the sole purpose of buying physical copies of retro games. That seems silly to me. I'm happy to buy them for systems which have a broader exclusive library, but that's it. The original concept Mike had for the RetroVGS was one which sounded much better on paper than it would have worked in reality. He's not even going that route with the Coleco Chameleon, as all the games they've been talking about so far have (or will have) physical releases on other platforms, making the system even more pointless than before. That's all for me today. I'm off to bed. Looking forward to the festivities tomorrow. Edited February 26, 2016 by goldenegg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 There isn't a single person on the planet who is obsessed with the game of golf. They just like holding long hard things in public. I'm obsessed with Gorf. Is that close enough? 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 I'm obsessed with Gorf. Is that close enough? What a coincidence. Gorf is what I call my long hard thing. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RupanIII Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 You'd think their Kickstarter would be up taking orders by now? ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StopDrop&Retro Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) Sorry if I'm out of the loop, but do we know when the Kickstarter goes live? The only thing I could find on the facebook page is this: It's funny that he claims to quote a prior statement because his original post doesn't use those words at all. Or maybe he edited it since and now it won't be in the morning? Edited February 26, 2016 by StopDrop&Retro 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipercub Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Occam's Razor Time... He wants a way to quit his low paying 9-5 job (hint: nerd patrol) expending the least amount of effort. Preferably with someone else picking up the tab. It's no more complicated than that. Sure, and Mike has said that he wants to work in this industry to his friends in private and to the community in public. And I don't think that has any wrong attached to it. If you could leave your day job and be a leader in your passion would you not do it? I wouldn't fault anyone for making that move, but how you do it, that matters. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+madman Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Sure, and Mike has said that he wants to work in this industry to his friends in private and to the community in public. And I don't think that has any wrong attached to it. If you could leave your day job and be a leader in your passion would you not do it? At this point his passion seems to be lying to potential investors and introducing a product that doesn't do anything that existing products don't already do. Not very compelling to me. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newsdee Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 In those cases some marketing guy would be a boon. A good marketer is worth his (or her) weight in gold, but I see crowdfunding as a rather direct way for people to show support. In your example if people don't want a DYI kit they just won't fund the campaign. The tech guy doesn't need to go hire a firm to do a market study to convince a bunch of investors your idea is going to fly (and not get sued if it bombs). Don't get me wrong, these things have their place when millions of bucks are a stake, but building a corporation without any production ability (as we seem to have here) and then ask community funding like a random DYI'er seems backwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoofu Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) Believe the problem is he trying to do to much, as a lot of people here would lay down $200 for a AVS, which is a fpga based NES/FC Edited February 26, 2016 by enoofu 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipercub Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 I bought a Generation Nex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_NEXand have one in the studio next to the replica of the Toy Fair prototype, they all deserve a place in history. While NES's are available cheap and readily I would buy a nicely made modern interpretation of the original. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RupanIII Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 While we wait, oh i love this thing! https://www.facebook.com/beautifuldizasster/videos/1112201838831934/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnovaX5 Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 I hope the KS Tier that includes a Coleco fedora is announced today. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClassyGamer Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) Believe the problem is he trying to do to much, as a lot of people here would lay down $200 for a AVS, which is a fpga based NES/FC Holy underwear! Where can I get one of those? Edited February 26, 2016 by TheClassyGamer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Here's my two cents… I like the IDEA of a new 2D console. If someone put say, a Raspberry Pi 2 in a box with some nice controllers and a nice 2D api and a convenient format for games (I don't care if it's a cartridge or not, although cartridges are easy to manage) that would be fine with me. If such a box were build and was cheap enough to sell a few hundred or so, it would be fun to write games on and see what could be done with a fast modern 2D style console… But, it's never going to happen. Because of EMULATION. Anytime someone makes such a machine, it gets quickly filled up with emulators, and all people do on it is fool around with emulators and run emulators, and there is no interest in new or original games…. The Coleco Chameleon seems to be ALL about emulation. I see no hint of any "Native" mode to program for. So this machine (if it ever ships) will probably have 1 or more faster than 1 ghz ARM processors on it, but if I want to write a game for it I will have to write programs for the 250 times slower SNES processor (a 4 mhz 65816 (essentially a stretch 6502)) . Why!!? The coolest machine to come out in the last few years (IMHO) is the GameBuino. The greatest thing about the Gamebuino is that it has a super low res monochrome screen, so it can't emulate anything. Over 1000 have been sold, so people make quirkly little original (or sometimes not so original) games for it. It has a 16 mhz processor with floating point, so there is more than enough processing power to fill the low res display with sprites and special effects. Games have to fit in the processor's 30 k memory, but new data can be streamed off the build in SD card. It's like a "new-old" system - reminiscent of old systems, but a unique combination of features that leads to new and different games... That is what I would like to see…. Catsfolly Basically like an Uzebox. Uzebox uses 2 player SNES controller protocol and consists of a single 27Mhz Amtel 8-bit processor (8x NTSC colorburst) which uses a racing the beam approach to transcode an NTSC picture as a 256x240p rastor display. There is no GPU so the processor handles the entire display, physics, sound, everything. A resistor ladder converts 8-bit color output to 332 RGB which is encoded to composite by a special chip. Sound is likewise updated every scanline at 15khz sample frequency. The CPU also handles the NTSC colorburst every scanline. There is 4kb RAM and a 4kbyte write protected kernel which handles display, sound, boot, and SDcard access. Then a 60kbyte game ROM or app is loaded from the SDcard. All game logic occurs during the Overscan period, but at 27Mhz affords a good deal of cycles. Only the upper 60kb of the 64kb flash ROM memory is writable to protect the kernel from getting corrupted which would brick the Uzebox without a separate programmer to reflash the console. It basically has technical abilities and graphics on par with the NES but uses a modern C+ development toolchain and a number of people wrote games for it, mostly ports of old arcade and computer games. While fun for a while, I eventually bored of it because the ports and original games weren't that good compared especially to classic console homebrew available. Some were just demos prooving that 16-bit graphic engines such as Mario World or Sonic were possible, devoid of actual gameplay or collision detection. Remember game ROMs have a hard limit of 60+4 kbytes, and instant bankswitching is impossible without a cart interface. Worse, many developers only developed on the official emulator (100% accurate thanks to fully documented features) rather than physical hardware, and ignored the safe area rule, resultng in many games which displayed important data outside the safe area when played on a real tube TV. Yet something like Uzebox is a million times more practical and innovative (new retro platform!) compared to Mike Kennedy's Shameleon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 I was just thinking about this yesterday. I love my Raspberry Pi for emulation it's an amazing machine for that, but there are also ports aswell. I mean there is Cave Story, doom and quake. I was thinking to myself the potential of just making a game for the Raspberry is there. It would have to be an online purchase of course. I like the idea, it's a good inexpensive machine to do it with. That in itself makes it a better platform than the Coleco Chameleon. Raspberry Pi does have it's own store, and each Pi has a unique serial key for the purpose of locking software content. I've never bought anything or used it though as my Pi 2 is primarily used as a MAME cab. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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