Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?

[Flojomojo]

(although one product this year will do something a bit different with its software mix).

 

You are SUCH a tease.

 

I'd love to see an all-Atari handheld, with software from the 2600, 5200, 7800, and 8-bit computer line and a microSD slot for adding your own stuff. There's no technical reason for them to be constrained to the wood grained TV console with rubber joysticks look. The guts of the Flashback is about the size of a pack of gum as it is, the rest is empty space.

 

VCS-style rubber joystick on a handheld would be SWEET.

[Keatah]

 

Suspicions confirmed, this project is on par with the kids who drew pictures of Sonic the Hedgehog on their letters to the editor of Electronic Gaming Monthly in the early 1990s, full of dreams and wishes. "Coleco" has no native skills, so they were hoping they could find some basement coder "out there" and exploit them.

 

How did this guy come into the "Coleco" name? More money than sense? It's like something out of a "what would you do if you won the Powerball" daydream. The stuff of underpants gnomes.

 

Sure, he sounds like a "decent guy," but so does Mike Kennedy. I think "nice guy" comes standard. Personally, I would aim higher than "not obvious evil psychopath."

 

The only skills the Coleco brand need to have is doing market research and asking gamers what they want.

 

Retro experiences recreated by a corporation are rarely spot on. And it should be "classic" and not "retro" in the first place.

 

The original Colecovision and VCS and Intellivision were good because there were more native skills at the parent company.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Keatah

[+5-11under]

Too bad that Starforce Pi didn't get going. Maybe it will come back.

 

I think it's the difference between having a handful of 10s and a handful of 50s to spare that did it in.

 

IDK, but mini-bartop units with 12-20 inch screens are in demand in my immediate neighborhood.

 

Agreed!

[Flojomojo]

The only skills the Coleco brand need to have is doing market research and asking gamers what they want.

 

 

To what end? What's the point of knowing what people want if you have no aptitude for delivering?

[Bill Loguidice]

 

You are SUCH a tease.

 

I'd love to see an all-Atari handheld, with software from the 2600, 5200, 7800, and 8-bit computer line and a microSD slot for adding your own stuff. There's no technical reason for them to be constrained to the wood grained TV console with rubber joysticks look. The guts of the Flashback is about the size of a pack of gum as it is, the rest is empty space.

 

VCS-style rubber joystick on a handheld would be SWEET.

 

I was always partial to the Neo Geo Pocket's joystick nub as the ideal handheld d-pad, but that really hasn't been replicated since. I don't think a joystick handle would necessarily be practical for digital control on a handheld, although it would be nice to see some more experimentation beyond plus pads.

 

It's unlikely we'll see many, if any, multi-platform combo systems from AtGames because they do have hard onboard ROM storage limits, among other technical considerations related to keeping the price as low as possible. There's also the simple fact that single brand systems still sell extremely well for them, so there's no real incentive to radically mix things up (at least for the foreseeable future). Again, though, I think much of the community should be happy with the products coming this year and next.

 

To wrap up this tangent, if anyone has a good source of Atari 8-bit, 5200, etc., software and their associated license holders, I'll be happy to pass the info on for AtGames to investigate/negotiate. There are lots of roadblocks to an Atari 8-bit-based system being created, but one of the big ones is finding enough recognizable games to license. While I'm not sure they'd be onboard with a physical product, they do have big plans for digital stuff, so that always remains an option should something work out and maybe one thing would eventually lead to another...

Edited March 7, 2016 by Bill Loguidice

[Flojomojo]

I was always partial to the Neo Geo Pocket's joystick nub as the ideal handheld d-pad, but that really hasn't been replicated since. I don't think a joystick handle would necessarily be practical for digital control on a handheld, although it would be nice to see some more experimentation beyond plus pads.

 

A short stick with a thick rubber jacket is what I have in mind. Remember the Generation NEX wireless control pads? Not a good design for d-pad button centric games, but would be neat for an Atari portable. Make the whole thing look like a rubber, woodgrain, and brushed chrome Tonka toy truck and I would be over the moon in love with it.

 

That's a pity about the limited ROM size. All the more reason to add a microSD slot!

[galax]

Kinda like I just said, you beat me too it. Make the mods "discoverable" by casual tinkerers and "just kinda happen" to provide solder pads to get easy access to signals.

A more ergonomic handheld, however ... Mmmmmmmmm

Handheld or tabletop MiST (or another similar dead simple and open FPGA machine). Preconfigured 'carts' (SD cards) would be just like using Multicarts. Should be cheap to manufacture in volume. If you (the end user) want to fiddle around with other cores and ROMs go knock yourself out - nothing to 'hack' or 'jailbreak'.

[gavvv]

Curious, Would Coleco's software be similar in copyright to that of Intellivision, in that it is dual ownership, that is the code itself is mattel/IProd and characters etc the original licensors?

 

A lot of the actual software and art design for CV titles were handled internally by coleco personnel ( Janelle Jaquays comes to mind ) with programming work done at various contractors. She talked about this at her 2014 Classic Gaming Expo panel.

[Draikar]

I wanted a new system so badly, even if it ran off cards like the DS. I see Nintendo going digital and wanted one last system that had games (CD / card or cartridge). I have a wall full of games and just wanted one last new system and games to collect and maybe make for. I have the BAD feeling RVGS could have done what they said but they were CHEAP !!! They wanted the money up front and they ask for people to give them money when they did not spend there own money. They gave me a dream but would NOT back it up with there money / skin in the game.

 

I know he had the money I was led to think he spent his own money but he said after posted (posted by a member here) that he funded one project with another, never his own dime. It was a good idea the system idea too but if you do a project you MUST spend your time and money, then ask for help and I feel he skipped it two times to do that. I was so desperate for new system and games I fell for it (I'm so stupid I would again). I have no regrets just sad that he could have made a system but fu+k it, not once but twice...

 

My last post to him in the end, we all lose... That he will never be taken seriously again and I (we) lost a new system to make games for / collect. No winners here...

[Albert]

I just discovered that the user Janus, who had been trolling in this thread (including repeatedly calling people here "haters") until I finally kicked "her" out, is actually Mark Kaminski, who works for RETRO Magazine. Janus had a previous account by the name Mr Retro, although he hasn't used that one since last September. In this interview with Mike Kennedy and Mark Kaminski, Mike Kennedy states about Mark:

 

Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. We brought Mark Kaminski around: hes our co-founder and Creative Director as well, responsible for what we print on these pages, and for pretty much anything to do with how it looks and feels and tastes and everything

You can look at Janus' posting history here. Here are some select quotes from him:

 

I wish you guys would cut Mike Kennedy some slack until the console is verified.

More sour grapes about Mike and his successful businesses. Call 911 we need a waaambulance

Just wait and see. Hopefully when everything is properly vetted, you guys will change your tunes and support this awesome product and the games on the system and give it a fair shake.

Blah Blah Blah... Coleco License, Gamester, Pico, Atariage negative press...

Ask yourself this... does any of this matter one bit if Mike Kennedy already has a signed purchase order for over $2M from Toys 'R Us?

Sounds just like another MK hater to me. Just wait until it's revealed. What everyone here fails to realize is that Daniel Kayser and David Giltian SAW the working FPGA board. Did you ever think maybe the DVR was just a clever marketing smoke-screen? Like I said, just wait and see, this console is a movement

Mike will release a working console and put all you haters to shame.

Have you thought just maybe HE INTENTIONALLY ADDED DVR FUNCTIONALITY to the Chameleon, hence "Making it better", DUH!

We will see who is laughing when this Kickstarter goes live today! It's going to be EPIC!

I hope I get first crack at a limited edition version and you suckers will be buying it off me for big bux in the future!

Prepare to get schooled haters!

Daniel Kayser is a long-standing authority on video game systems... 'nuff said!

http://readretro.com.../talk-retro-24/

Just wait until this Kickstarter breaks the internet tomorrow and Mike and Co. are RAKING in the cash!

Let's be fair, the Ouya didn't' have the dream team that the Chameleon does. You guys will be eating your words when this is the most successful Kickstarted Video Game System ever.

Just another dumb hater!

And so on..

 

Mark is now posting on the Digital Press forum using the same Janus persona. Here's the text of the post I just linked:

 

I really want the Coleco Chameleon and I really like Mike. I was a long time listener of his show, gamegavel, RETRO, met him at a expo. He's a nice guy. People are suggesting that he is some evil thief and that is just wrong. I know I'm new here, so I'll probably get booted. People can't stand to believe he has a following.

..Al

[phoenixdownita]

Kevin Bow first now Draikar ...... we are waiting for Janus to confirm that in his case he was being sarcastic and we're done here.

[of course he would need to be unbanned from the thread first]

 

EDIT: holy cow I posted at the same time as Albert, I swear.

[wf_]

Regarding inspecting the "prototype," going back through the Chris Cardillo interview, it sounds like it's not actually Coleco's Top Men™, but Retro is going to have to find Top Men™ on their own to manage it:

43:20 "Retro is required to show us an inspection of the product"
44:35 "We have an obligation to have them demonstrate this to a third party who is also in the hardware engineering field..."

 

 

To add my fuel to the fire, did the Mike K team expand right around the time of the Coleco rebrand? They're up to 5 or so executive-ish level people on board, plus apparently they're working with an external PR firm, and external hardware firm. All of that takes money, and they didn't seem to have jack before the rebrand. I would suspect that they got money from Coleco to start all this stuff, and if this project goes south, they're going to sue Retro VGS Inc for that money back as it would have been given under false pretenses. All of the hiring was for business side positions, and Coleco expected them to have the product end of things pretty well along already. From that expectation it makes sense to start talking to a volume manufacturer as well. This is all pure speculation, but it certainly fits all the puzzle pieces of Mike barging forward in such a financial agreement, desparately hoping that everything will work out while having absolutely nothing to bring to the table.

[Flojomojo]

Curious, Would Coleco's software be similar in copyright to that of Intellivision, in that it is dual ownership, that is the code itself is mattel/IProd and characters etc the original licensors?

 

A lot of the actual software and art design for CV titles were handled internally by coleco personnel ( Janelle Jaquays comes to mind ) with programming work done at various contractors. She talked about this at her 2014 Classic Gaming Expo panel.

 

 

re: "dual ownership,"

 

Not sure what you're getting at here, perhaps an example would help.

Like if I wanted the Star Wars Arcade Game, programmed by Parker Brothers, licensed from Lucasfilm, converted from an Atari arcade game, and released on ColecoVision to return ... I think you would need to get the permission of Disney (owner of Lucasfilm properties) as well as Hasbro (owner of Parker Brothers), but you probably don't need to ask Coleco. I don't know if you would need Atari Games to sign off as well.

Recent example: Super Star Wars (the SNES game by JVC) was recently re-done for the Sony PS4 and Vita. It has logos from Code Mystics (who did the port) and Disney (who owns Star Wars) but there's no mention of Nintendo.

I would think that Disney could do a mega "The Emulator Strikes Back" compilation edition of all their console and computer games if they wanted to.

[Flojomojo]

I just discovered that the user Janus, who had been trolling in this thread (including repeatedly calling people here "haters") until I finally kicked "her" out, is actually Mark Kaminski, who works for RETRO Magazine.

 

You are so awesome. Thank you for exposing the troll.

 

Hey Albert, would you agree that being a subscriber on AtariAge not only means you get all the benefits, but also a little more credibility since your identity can be traced back to a method of payment?

[Bill Loguidice]

I just discovered that the user Janus, who had been trolling in this thread (including repeatedly calling people here "haters") until I finally kicked "her" out, is actually Mark Kaminski, who works for RETRO Magazine. Janus had a previous account by the name Mr Retro, although he hasn't used that one since last September. In this interview with Mike Kennedy and Mark Kaminski, Mike Kennedy states about Mark:

 

Great job finding that out. Just when we think this whole situation can't get any more pathetic, something like this gets uncovered. I just don't get how a small handful of people could be so catastrophically unprofessional. It makes you think that if threads like this didn't exist and they were able to manage their messaging properly if this thing wouldn't have imploded all on its own. I mean, there appears to be so little competence originating from anyone on that team that it makes you wonder if they all didn't purposely seek each other out. It's stunning.

[Zyppy]

 

I was always partial to the Neo Geo Pocket's joystick nub as the ideal handheld d-pad, but that really hasn't been replicated since.

This! I couldn't agree more. I hope if there's ever a well made successor to the Neo Geo X Gold thingumy that it uses that style of input.

 

Really puzzles me why no other handhelds have used this style. The circle pads on the 3ds are just awful. I wish I could play Smash 4 with an NGPC input instead.

[goldenegg]

 

 

Atgames released the CV flashback too expensive.

 

MSRP should have been 29.99 tops 34.99. Then they would have sold out.

 

They didn't sell well because Atgames doesn't really know much about games (thus why they hire 3rd party consultants). So they thought it would sell as good as the Genesis ones.

 

 

Did the CV Flashback not sell well in the US?

 

In Canada, they were sold exclusively by Bed, Bath and Beyond for $40Cdn. The stores near me sold 500+ of EACH of the available Flashback models, as well as the Sega console and handhelds. I spoke to managers of 3 locations, so that's 1,500 of each model just in my general area. As far as I'm concerned, that's pretty good for a system like that.

[phoenixdownita]

 

You are so awesome. Thank you for exposing the troll.

 

Hey Albert, would you agree that being a subscriber on AtariAge not only means you get all the benefits, but also a little more credibility since your identity can be traced back to a method of payment?

You can use a burner paypal account so not sure about that.

[gavvv]

 

 

 

re: "dual ownership,"

 

Not sure what you're getting at here, perhaps an example would help.

 

Like if I wanted the Star Wars Arcade Game, programmed by Parker Brothers, licensed from Lucasfilm, converted from an Atari arcade game, and released on ColecoVision to return ... I think you would need to get the permission of Disney (owner of Lucasfilm properties) as well as Hasbro (owner of Parker Brothers), but you probably don't need to ask Coleco. I don't know if you would need Atari Games to sign off as well.

 

Recent example: Super Star Wars (the SNES game by JVC) was recently re-done for the Sony PS4 and Vita. It has logos from Code Mystics (who did the port) and Disney (who owns Star Wars) but there's no mention of Nintendo.

 

I would think that Disney could do a mega "The Emulator Strikes Back" compilation edition of all their console and computer games if they wanted to.

 

Just meaning that neither side could do anything with it without the other. Meaning disney couldn't release tron deadly discs for intellivision without IPs ok just as much as the other way around. But , IP could release a 'Deadly Dogs' version with changed sprites, just like Sydney Hunter started out as Smurf in CVs case.

[Keatah]

Remember also that RVGS had a lot of "likes" leading up to the IndieGoGo campaign, and look how much good that did them. Only a small fraction of those "likes" (assuming they were even real) translated to backers on the first day, and their numbers went almost completely flat after that.

 

[all likes] - [fake likes] = number of real backers.

 

[Flojomojo]

You can use a burner paypal account so not sure about that.

 

 

Ah, good point.

 

Well, it would still be a nice thing to do, because Albert and AtariAge are great and worth supporting.

[PapaStu]

I just discovered that the user Janus, who had been trolling in this thread (including repeatedly calling people here "haters") until I finally kicked "her" out, is actually Mark Kaminski, who works for RETRO Magazine. Janus had a previous account by the name Mr Retro, although he hasn't used that one since last September. In this interview with Mike Kennedy and Mark Kaminski, Mike Kennedy states about Mark:

 

 

You can look at Janus' posting history here. Here are some select quotes from him:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so on..

 

Mark is now posting on the Digital Press forum using the same Janus persona. Here's the text of the post I just linked:

 

 

..Al

As a DP admin, I can confirm that the Janus from DP is the same Janus from here. Janus didn't try to hide 'her' email when registering on the site. Mark@......

 

I was so caught up in checking out Flamdini, I didn't think to check the other elephant in the thread.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

 

Did the CV Flashback not sell well in the US?

 

In Canada, they were sold exclusively by Bed, Bath and Beyond for $40Cdn. The stores near me sold 500+ of EACH of the available Flashback models, as well as the Sega console and handhelds. I spoke to managers of 3 locations, so that's 1,500 of each model just in my general area. As far as I'm concerned, that's pretty good for a system like that.

 

I can't go into more detail, but sales were actually good relatively speaking, although neither the Intellivision or CV Flashback met retailer expectations. That is of course the pitfall with estimating production runs for physical goods. If you overestimate demand, there's unsold stock and retailers lose interest. This is why digital tends to be a much safer approach, i.e., there are no stock levels to manage.

[+madman]

Wow, the Janus thing is unreal. I was sure the account was just a troll messing with us, I would've never thought it to be a shill account.

 

I've seen some strange posts in the Jaguar forum over the years, but this saga takes the cake by far.

[Flojomojo]

[all likes] - [fake likes] = number of real backers.

 

FTFY

 

[all likes] - [fake likes] - [people who just liked it for the lulz] - [people who don't want to spend money on vaporware] = number of real backers

 

It's probably more than zero but probably less than what would be needed to get this going.