Perhaps in my weakened state this month and being physically tired I'm in some screwed up forgiving mood, but I decided to check back with the atariage forum thread that's cross linked into this mess and the main admin of the site locked it up tight and had a member form a new thread over the Coleco Chameleon. Now what's interesting is the starter post, seems Mike opened his mouth just a wee bit and decided to show some level of humility and remorse over the RetroVGS. If one cares to take him at face value it maybe worthwhile to read the thread now:
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247...-speculations/ and then perhaps give the dude a soft pass up until the trade show 2 months from now when this is supposed to be unveiled. I find it interesting that the owners of Coleco Holdings appear to be neck deep in this and aren't just licensing a name supposedly for a fast buck but want to revitalize the Coleco name with a good working system and bring it to market. Mike says he worked with them(and others?) to trash the old VGS, keep a few components though, and have greatly reduced the price of the system so that $300 thing is dead and buried.
Here's what mike said if you don't want to go link trolling:
Hello Everyone.
It is the end of a very tumultuous year for me and in the spirit of Christmas and the holidays I wanted to come in here and ask those of you who will listen to let the past be the past as it relates to this (ad)venture. RETRO VGS is the past and COLECO Chameleon is the future. The Chameleon is not just a rebranded Retro VGS. Despite sharing some of the same internal components the hardware has been completely redesigned to lower the cost while maintaining much of its ability to play a wide variety of games in a variety of ways. To boil this all down to its essence we just want to produce a product that is different, affordable and will bring joy to people’s lives. The market will ultimately decide if we are crazy enough to believe a cartridge console can stand its ground in this age of digital delivery. There are clearly lots of people on both sides of this fence and ultimately it will all come down to the games that can be played and if they are compelling enough to vie for peoples hard earned money.
The COLECO branding was a business decision I made to bring instant brand recognition to the Chameleon. But I did not enter into this licensing agreement lightly, knowing that if done so, we have a lot to live up to. COLECO made some very influential, high quality and fun video gaming and electronic products during their time and we will try endlessly to carry on that tradition with the Chameleon. The recognition of having the COLECO logo on the system and the (game and console) boxes will make the Chameleon immediately identifiable by millions of people right from the beginning. In the end this is a good thing for all involved including us, our customers, our suppliers and distributors, our contract manufactures, potential retailers and probably most importantly to game developers. Mark and Chris at River West/Coleco Holdings are also very behind this product and will be helping out in a variety of ways, beginning by inviting us into their booth at Toy Fair which is where they want to officially begin rebuilding this brand in more concrete ways.
We know we have a mountain to climb and are prepared to do what it takes to plant a flag at the top. I will once again apologize to all of you for at times dissing some individuals and this community but it was hard being criticized by a group of my Atari and classic game lovin’ peers. I let it get to me on occasion and I do regret all of it. I am aware that we gave you all plenty to poke fun at and criticize but in the end, I believe the product will be much better for going through all of this. In my mind, the best way for me to apologize once and for all is to ultimately create a game system that will make most of you turn a 180 and win over your support and positive influence. And given the chance that is what I will do.
All I ask is moving forward into the New Year is you try and give the Chameleon a fair chance to stand on its own, and again forget about the past. Let it speak for itself when we reveal it to you all early this New Year. And finally, let’s respect one another and our opinions (some advice I am directing towards myself) and that goes for both believers and non-believers of what we are trying to do. In the end, we all love and are passionate about video games and sometimes this passion causes us to do uncharacteristic things.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and I hope you all have a very Happy New Year!
- Mike
I'm willing to give it a couple months. Up until the crap over it being $300, the macaroni and cardboard project board, and the vaporware game promises I was in for a new console when I figured it would be Retron5 priced or less with cheap (GBA-ish - $30~) games. Maybe they figured out something that actually could succeed with the added help of the Coleco side of things and perhaps others. Supposedly before the VGS went off the handle into overpriced hell the original project was based directly upon Beaglebone BLACK
http://beagleboard.org/BLACK ...considering what those cost individually for a consumer ($50-55), and what costs could drop bought in bulk of 10s or 100s of thousands of systems, that could do it and it's not weak either. Something I think that could be interesting, Coleco licenses stuff out, that's why there's the Coleco Flashback which has some great games on it. Perhaps if it's not a BeagleBlack setup, perhaps it will be a cheap Android box (like Flashbacks or Retron5) with some moderately decent cheap parts inside to keep it in price between the flashbacks and R5 at retail and you'll see some Coleco console 80s games released perhaps all on 1 cart to help sell it, or a few compilation carts which would be pretty cool.
Originally Posted by Gentlegamer
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