That holding company licensed the coleco name to Mike Kennedy, now they want to know if he is trying to rip them off too.

They talk about abandoning the project and releasing a sub-par product, but they're not really involved at all in that. So they can't do anything other than revoke the naming rights, correct? Seems like they'll just re-brand this abomination again and continue trying to pry money from people.

Coming soon! The new RCA Studio III!

Would be enough for them, I imagine.  It's a holding company, all they have is brands.  Can't do much if those brands are shat on by charlatans.

It amazes me, really.  they could have made a fully faithful SNES component clone (none of this "on a chip" shit) with HDMI output, and that would have been enough.  The SNES has a good cottage industry of homebrew and hacks on carts now.  All they'd have to do is make sure it works with reproduction boards from tototek and the like, and that would have been more than enough.  That would have been a successful indiegogo, I imagine, and it's not unfeasible now that the patents are long expired.

But no, gotta promise the world in an outright scam...
 

nope is gonna be the sega Dreamcast 2

I agree a snes clone would be cool, but TBH, I don't think Mike's original goal of bringing cartridge gaming back could be achieved with a clone of an existing system. By definition, all clones are not new systems and any new games for them would have to compete with existing games. Homebrew developers already have this problem---that is why it is a niche market that is sustained by nostalgia.

Mike needs to create a new system for which 100% original games would have to be developed. I agree with many others it is not feasible to get developers on board FOR LAUNCH. That's why I think a different approach would be required. Create a system for hobbyists which is "retro" insofar as it supports primarily 2D games (though 3D a la DOOM and such should be possible in software), works with modern HD Tvs, and is really, really easy to program---with just a simple SDK that consists of a C compiler and maybe a simple media library like SDL or what not. Kickstart this product----market it well, and then promote game jams around the product.  Make it so popular that eventually you get really talented folks building original games for it. THEN...you get consumers.

I sincerely hope somebody tries this eventually---it would be really neat to see what happens.

Yeah it definitely doesn't meet Mike's original goal, but it could have worked at least. Seems like he just wanted to do something with his Jaguar mold and an AVS-esque SNES could have worked. Unfortunately Mike's goal is not viable financially, I think, but that's what's been debated time and again.

And that was the main barrier right there.  Nothing about Mike's grand scheme seemed feasible.  Hell, even a system with its own architecture instead of this frankenstein of FPGA cores would have made the system a great spot for hobbyists.  Honestly, I don't see a market for the Chameleon/RVGS.  All the boxes are checked by other, more profitable avenues.  Whether you're making a new (S)NES/Genesis/GB(C/A) game, or you're putting out something on PC, you have a lot more eyes on your game than you do with a mystery box by an untested hardware maker.

Seriously, what does Mike Kennedy think, that it's 1991 again?  No one wants to buy this generation's CDi.

I agree with what Bunnyboy said earlier that FPGAs are great for systems like his AVS, but for what Mike Kennedy was after an SBC running some kind of custom Linux or BSD system would have been ideal. He could have still had his carts and multi system compatibility, but people could update them and patch the software as well. It could have worked like modern disc based consoles. Both the carts and discs are just storage mediums after all. Those Unity and Game Maker games he was pining for would have been easier to get on the system also. I still don't understand why he was so hung up on FPGAs. Didn't any of his engineering teams try to tell him this stuff, or was he just too stupid and stubborn to listen? From the way all this has played out I'm going to guess it was the later with a big emphasis on stubborn.

I also can't get over all the ways he's tried to lie and cheat to get people on board with his crazy plan. Even back in the beginning of the Retro VGS days, it's obvious now that they had no concrete plan whatsoever, and all that stuff getting posted on facebook, from the developers claimed to be working on games, to videos hyping their games, it was all just one big sham. This man has no shame.

I just don't get how he thought it'd fly... Like how?! It'd be really interesting to hear the whole story of what happened internally.

I think he believed his tech wizards to be actual wizards and they would use actual magic to conjure something up.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm actually thinking about just buying one of those clear jewel console cases with no board inside of it just to put it on my shelf and laugh at it everyday. Its the non-existent console. I say call this console "Ghost in the Shell". As it is really nothing, but a plastic shell with nothing on the inside.

I would take it one step further and buy a bunch of random boards and every month i'd switch out one for another to simulate the saga.

 

Has anyone tried that with any platform?  The closest I can think of is the funds matching that Ouya did to try to get exclusives.  Don't know if anyone tried to target or generate a community with a games console.  Unless you count more general computing stuff like Arduino, where new companies are willing to sell hardware at a loss to get the environment built.
  He is a sales guy, so it was probably just a buzz word he could latch on to without really knowing what it meant.  He just saw "it transforms into anything!" and was sold, even though all his original concepts work much better on something like ARM instead.
  When one team said they couldn't/shouldn't do it he just got a new one, which is why he went through 4 of them.  Then he can blame the hardware guys for not building what he wanted when he doesn't even know what he wants.  

Oh man look at this, Gamester81 is PISSED.

I watched that today at work.  He was not happy.

It was nice to hear his take on it and get a bit of clarity from someone a little closer to the situation.  He wasn't blindly bashing either.  His points all seemed developed and informed.  Overall a well done video discussing the situation. 
 

Launching with half life 3

It seems like a Pat vs. Gamester81 war is brewing.....at least on Twitter.

Maybe this whole thing is a big elaborate publicity stunt so that when they finally reveal the real prototype then everyone will already know about it.

I'll buy either one

 

20mins in I give up. He feels sorry for Mike after producing a third fake prototype? Seriously? Lets feel sorry for the guy caught in three blatent lies?


 

So funny how many people (me included) see the exact opposite.  So many contradictions, targetting blame elsewhere, and just ranting in general.  I get that he still wants to be best friends with Mike but he will lose lots more because of it.

 

Closest I could find in Pat's video was this point.
 
GDI, it won't post at the time. Jump to 5:22.