RIP RetroVGS/Coleco Chameleon: Retro Console Epic Disaster (2015-2016)

[fultonbot]

Hey Digital Press! I've been a lurker on this site for almost 15 years (it feel like it's been that long anyway).
I've written a few retro history articles for Gamasutra.com in the past, and I have an "expert" (whatever that means) blog there, but my current job doesn't let me write about technology openly, so it's been sporadically dormant for a couple years (as has the web site my brother and I run, 8bitrocket.com).
Recently I've been looking for a new forum to participate in, and while I've sampled other places, I've always thought, correct me if I'm wrong, this site had a the best percentage of reasonable people participating.

So that's me and why I'm new, but not really new at all.

Anyway, I have a lot of feelings about this Coleco Chameleon thing, but I'll keep that to myself for now. I just wanted to point out that if there are any positives out of this, it's that people like me, who have kept silent for a long time, are now trying to find homes for their retro obsessions and become involved in a positive way.

[Steven]

Link?

It's in the comments section of gamester81's new coleco video.

[Speed Racer]

So if a company were to actually try and make another cartridge based console what would be the best way to go about it from a technical standpoint?

[Az]

I'm blissfully ignorant of how crowdfunding platforms work, so here's a question: how is this a "scam"?

Take everything at face value. Say they have nothing but some Jag shells, cardboard, random components and a lot of pie in the sky statements with nothing to back them up. Let's say the everyone behind this is out to scam money.

How exactly would that happen? The Indigogo campaign didn't result in them gaining one penny, right? With Kickstarter, if they don't deliver on what people invest in can't the investors cry foul and get their money back?

By no means am I taking up for these guys and I have zero interest in the product. I just don't see how there's an ability for this group to "scam" people out of money when they're not accepting any kind of preorders or anything else straight to them. Think about it... track record aside, several different groups take preorders for newly released retro games that don't even exist yet and you're shown absolutely nothing about, and even some that will flat out tell you a product won't be shipping for years. These places sometimes charge your credit card immediately, and if they do and then wait 6 months and fly the coop you've got zero recourse to get your money back.

Being so full of shit you could blow up an onion sack and being a thief are two totally different things.

[shawnphase]

mike straddles that line of being a thief and a conman. all you have to do to see this is to check out some episodes of his youtube show 'big game hunter' to see that. i went back and watched a few of em this week and theres some deals he makes which are quite pushy. going back and asking people if they'll take a lower offer on games several times after they said no, that kind of thing.. if mike is good at only one thing in life, its getting what he wants. though i dont know how he can get this big of a goal that he's set up for himself, especially not at this point.

[stardust4ever]

For anyone interested, here is an article I wrote that actually brought down my site due to sudden traffic and data transfer earlier this week. It collects everything from the big AtariAge thread discussing the third fake shown on the day of the Kickstarter's supposed start date.

Thanks Triverse. I think I remember reading this the other day on your site. I 'd at the "round doohickeys" Bit. They're called capacitors, by the way.

The distinctive chip layout is there, so are the round doohickeys (I am not a technical person), this is a match of a good 80%-

For anyone interested in listening to a really good episode of Retro Gaming Roundup (they all are pretty good) that covers A LOT of the stuff around the time of the Toy Fair, Kickstarter and such from behind the scenes, listen to this interview that Eli of Piko Interactive did today:

http://retrogamingroundup.com/blog/?p=1229

Anyone up for a good listen, I know the audio interview with Piko is two hours long, but IMO it is an awesome exposé with an inside look at Mike's world, with absolutely no filler or rehashed BS. If you have the time, I encourage you to listen it.

[stardust4ever]

How exactly would that happen? The Indigogo campaign didn't result in them gaining one penny, right? With Kickstarter, if they don't deliver on what people invest in can't the investors cry foul and get their money back?

Many kickstarter campaigns have failed, some of them somewhat fantastically. Although most start out in good faith, it is a sad fact that sometimes developers run into hurdles or out of funds and fail to deliver what was promised. In such an event, there is no recourse for investors. Kickstarter is a platform for people to invest in an idea or product. Just like in the business world, not all investments are sound and yes there is an inherent risk involved with any investment, as there is no guarantee that contributors will receive their rewards or legal recourse if they do not.

One guy famously got an anime book kickstarted and had them published and printed, but ran out of money and was unable to ship the books to backers. He ended up burning like the majority stock of his books which failed to ship. I am not making this up; stuff like this makes me a sad puppy.

WICKER PARK — A 30-year-old webcomics artist who raised more than $50,000 on Kickstarter has burned the books his donors paid for because, he says, he ran out of money to ship them.

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2014...rns-them-alley

[celerystalker]

So if a company were to actually try and make another cartridge based console what would be the best way to go about it from a technical standpoint?

The big thing would be to develop the system parameters and chipset first. Making another emulation machine is just lumping yourself into a crowded market. Create whatever hardware first. Have a functioning unit so that you can have development specs for developers to create unique content. This is expensive, and the reason that crowdfunding isn't always a good route for technology. Even major retail consoles leave little if any room for profit initially, but still sell even sometimes at a loss in order to get units into homes in hopes to make the money back in licensing fees and software sales. It's conceptually like building a PC with the desired parameters, then paring it down to a closed circuit board that consolidates the relevant components in an economic fashion.

That's not a quick, easy process, and should probably not happen without a real vision for what the console is going to be so that the build can be focused. It's not a simple hobbyist thing to do, and would a time consuming, expensive process in terms of man hours, and having unique parameters makes a situation that isn't so accessible to indie developers without a known toolset.

Point is, you'd really need to be able to fund the development of the chipset and prototype without any crowdfunding, and be able to make development tools available to software teams. The crowdfunding would be used in order to fund actual production runs and distribution, not development, and then sales revenue should be used to market and maintain necessary production.


As far as how it's a scam, there's two groups to consider. First and most obvious, the potential consumer. There is not a financial scam in that sense, but rather an attempt at a scam in that they have tried to create the illusion of having a working prototype, which Kickstarter requires. Should they have successfully convinced Kickstarter with these "prototypes," they would have been taking crowdfunding to fund a false product. As of yet, though, the public has been less scammed and more insulted by the attempt.

Secondly, though, you have developers and other external partners, whose brand identity is a valuable asset in marketing products. Any time they have spent developing for, helping to market, or making software available to this project is a loss of time, money, and brand value. Good faith with the customer base is invaluable to a small developer, and damages by this association due to the practices of the Chameleon team who are using their name and software to hype a fraudulent project scams the developer.

Overall, the whole thing has basically been an insult to consumers and a scam to their partners.

[Speed Racer]

The big thing would be to develop the system parameters and chipset first. Making another emulation machine is just lumping yourself into a crowded market. Create whatever hardware first. Have a functioning unit so that you can have development specs for developers to create unique content. This is expensive, and the reason that crowdfunding isn't always a good route for technology. Even major retail consoles leave little if any room for profit initially, but still sell even sometimes at a loss in order to get units into homes in hopes to make the money back in licensing fees and software sales. It's conceptually like building a PC with the desired parameters, then paring it down to a closed circuit board that consolidates the relevant components in an economic fashion.

That's not a quick, easy process, and should probably not happen without a real vision for what the console is going to be so that the build can be focused. It's not a simple hobbyist thing to do, and would a time consuming, expensive process in terms of man hours, and having unique parameters makes a situation that isn't so accessible to indie developers without a known toolset.

Point is, you'd really need to be able to fund the development of the chipset and prototype without any crowdfunding, and be able to make development tools available to software teams. The crowdfunding would be used in order to fund actual production runs and distribution, not development, and then sales revenue should be used to market and maintain necessary production.

Thanks for the explanation. What if it were situation where a company wanted to reproduce an older console but release it with the ability to support today's higher definition TVs? For example, if a company were to release a new licensed NES with upgraded display capabilities, could the homebrew community develop games for it or would dev kits still be needed?

[celerystalker]

Thanks for the explanation. What if it were situation where a company wanted to reproduce an older console but release it with the ability to support today's higher definition TVs? For example, if a company were to release a new licensed NES with upgraded display capabilities, could the homebrew community develop games for it or would dev kits still be needed?

If it was actually licensed by Nintendo, then it would depend on the nature of the contract between Nintendo and the hardware developer as to how licensing fees would be shared or not, and what software would be officially sold. Homebrew games developed independently in that case would have the opportunity to seek/pay for Nintendo's official license or to release unofficially much like the Camerica and Color Dreams games of the past. Officially licensed titles tend to at least access to support in game development and potential partnerships for marketing and distribution, but at the cost of fees and shared profit. Homebrew unofficial games yield their profit directly to the developer, but marketing, distribution, and production costs are all direct hits to their bottom line.

[Speed Racer]

If it was actually licensed by Nintendo, then it would depend on the nature of the contract between Nintendo and the hardware developer as to how licensing fees would be shared or not, and what software would be officially sold. Homebrew games developed independently in that case would have the opportunity to seek/pay for Nintendo's official license or to release unofficially much like the Camerica and Color Dreams games of the past. Officially licensed titles tend to at least access to support in game development and potential partnerships for marketing and distribution, but at the cost of fees and shared profit. Homebrew unofficial games yield their profit directly to the developer, but marketing, distribution, and production costs are all direct hits to their bottom line.

I see, thanks again. It's too bad the Coleco Chameleon has become such a trainwreck. I definitely think the concept could be successful if someone were to go about doing it the right way.

[Herb Tarlek]

Yeah, this will probably be my last post because I had underestimated just how stoogey this board actually was. Later.

I'm betting 99.9% of the members in here would gladly say their real name without hesitating. It's hardly the Justice League in here.

OK, I admit it.

*takes a deep breath*

My real name is Shemp Howard.

I'm glad that's finally out there.

[Steven]

The fallout continues... David G. who works on Retro the magazine as an editing manager, just announced he sent Mike his resignation letter. The dominos keep falling

Link?

[Tanooki]

Hey Digital Press! I've been a lurker on this site for almost 15 years (it feel like it's been that long anyway).
I've written a few retro history articles for Gamasutra.com in the past, and I have an "expert" (whatever that means) blog there, but my current job doesn't let me write about technology openly, so it's been sporadically dormant for a couple years (as has the web site my brother and I run, 8bitrocket.com).
Recently I've been looking for a new forum to participate in, and while I've sampled other places, I've always thought, correct me if I'm wrong, this site had a the best percentage of reasonable people participating.

So that's me and why I'm new, but not really new at all.

Anyway, I have a lot of feelings about this Coleco Chameleon thing, but I'll keep that to myself for now. I just wanted to point out that if there are any positives out of this, it's that people like me, who have kept silent for a long time, are now trying to find homes for their retro obsessions and become involved in a positive way.

Since people are involved in this torch and rope event here, I'll say you're right. At least it finally pushed you to sign up. I read the place off and on or hit the main site for useful info for years and eventually signed up a few years back as you can see from the date. You have a pretty low douche/useless to good person ratio here which is kind of harder to find in old gaming stuff as things have gone so far it makes people get defensive and testy.

[stardust4ever]

Thanks for the explanation. What if it were situation where a company wanted to reproduce an older console but release it with the ability to support today's higher definition TVs? For example, if a company were to release a new licensed NES with upgraded display capabilities, could the homebrew community develop games for it or would dev kits still be needed?

It exists (in the near future, the AVS will be available for sale at RetroUSB.com), and since patents are expired, no licensing in needed to produce clone systems! Unlike cheap clones, this is 100% FPGA hardware outputting pure digital signal with 100% compatibility with existing and future games...

If it was actually licensed by Nintendo, then it would depend on the nature of the contract between Nintendo and the hardware developer as to how licensing fees would be shared or not, and what software would be officially sold. Homebrew games developed independently in that case would have the opportunity to seek/pay for Nintendo's official license or to release unofficially much like the Camerica and Color Dreams games of the past. Officially licensed titles tend to at least access to support in game development and potential partnerships for marketing and distribution, but at the cost of fees and shared profit. Homebrew unofficial games yield their profit directly to the developer, but marketing, distribution, and production costs are all direct hits to their bottom line.

That's never gonna happen, unfortunately. Homebrewers are on their own...

[stardust4ever]

OK, I admit it.

*takes a deep breath*

My real name is Shemp Howard.

I'm glad that's finally out there.

Name is Alfred E. Newman...

[Bratwurst]

My real name is Shemp Howard.

So nice to meet you, my real name is Fisty McTwisty.

[fluid_matrix]

I'm blissfully ignorant of how crowdfunding platforms work, so here's a question: how is this a "scam"?

Take everything at face value. Say they have nothing but some Jag shells, cardboard, random components and a lot of pie in the sky statements with nothing to back them up. Let's say the everyone behind this is out to scam money.

How exactly would that happen? The Indigogo campaign didn't result in them gaining one penny, right? With Kickstarter, if they don't deliver on what people invest in can't the investors cry foul and get their money back?

I could be wrong, and I usually am. But I believe that on KS, if you don't reach your goal, then you simply don't get paid. But in IGogo you get whatever you raise regardless if you hit your goal amount. But, as stardust4ever mentioned, that still doesn't mean they will come thru with said product.

[badinsults]

I could be wrong, and I usually am. But I believe that on KS, if you don't reach your goal, then you simply don't get paid. But in IGogo you get whatever you raise regardless if you hit your goal amount. But, as stardust4ever mentioned, that still doesn't mean they will come thru with said product.

That is actually only true if the person setting up the IGG does it that way. At least Mike Kennedy had the integrity to set it so that it doesn't take people's money when the IGG failed.

Trying to pass off a Super NES as a "prototype" for the system at a major trade show? That is getting into scam territory.

[fluid_matrix]

That is actually only true if the person setting up the IGG does it that way. At least Mike Kennedy had the integrity to set it so that it doesn't take people's money when the IGG failed.

Trying to pass off a Super NES as a "prototype" for the system at a major trade show? That is getting into scam territory.

Ah, ok. I've never used any crowdfunding services before, so what I know is only what I've heard second hand.