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There's also https://www.vintageisthenewold.com/ I'm a retro news junkie (microcomputers especially), would contribute to a News thread/feed or any other feature, should it appear here.

So, he basically can see the future? Wow. It's like Avengers or something. With guys like that onboard, how could they possibly fail? ... I mean, okay, we probably are a bunch of schadenfreude-addled sad circlejerking trolls, and posting here is a bad thing. But, by gods, the entertainment value this whole debacle provides is just too delicious Comedy gold feed. Todd Shallbetter, the corporate seer. You couldn't make it up. Mike Judge, South Park and The Office writers should take notice.

@ Rane I recall there was a 199$ VCS offered in the initial campaign. Now of course it's 239$. Surprise, surprise Anyway, please remember that all I said about it in my previous post was strictly an "Alternate Reality: The Console" what-if hypothetical kinda exercise. The UDOO version which is used for their AAA benchmarks (720p lo-med) costs 480$. The basic one with RAM =300$. Sure it's better than the nonexistent VCS, but my hypothetical scenario was about an emu box anyway. For that, the VCS specs would be enough, unless somebody really needs to go down a high end PS2-era emulation route. But for that you will be always better off with a dedicated proper mini PC anyway (unless UDOO prices drop). I think a better comparison would be Arcade Dreamplay (or Dreamcade Replay, whatever). Their specs are Apollo Lake 2.4Ghz, with 4GB RAM & 32GB SSD. HDMI, VGA. for 130$. That is, a preorder for one, they also have yet to deliver. I'm pretty sure it could handle anything 2D just fine.

Does it really? Those are Early Bird prices, with no RAM or PSU. Start adding and all of a sudden you're over 350$, more if you want to do stuff they shout about, like AAA games or VR. For that money...well. The other thing is, I'm a great fan of modern micro-computing but today is the first time I 've ever heard of them - and apparently they've been around 5 years now. I looked on ebay and there were four () UDOO thingies for sale. They didn't exactly set that market on fire, then. I'm not bashing them, indeed at least they make and release real stuff - just putting things into perspective a bit. Meanwhile the bare VCS costs 200 bucks. The truth is, if they actually managed to deliver it in a few months time, working flawlessly within the IGG specs, refocused as a dedicated emu box+a mini PC, with solid UI/frontend, truly open environment, great support/updates, even greater community, perhaps a few decent indie exclusives then...hell, I still wouldn't buy it myself but it wouldn't be such a wishy washy and pointless catch-all concept as it is now. It could even succeed, of course never on a Sony et al scale, but in a niche, moderate way. For that to happen the parent company would have to consist of people with actual vision, expertise and dedication in this field - not a bunch of clueless 3rd tier suits, who scrape a living from licensing old IPs to just about anybody, no matter how ridiculous their plans for said IPs are.

I'm sure some percentage of the backers are genuine old Atari fans who do not follow the in-depth news as we do and are unaware of all the warning signs, Atari SA sad history and the pattern of similar crowdfunding failures. They also do not mind this box being unattractive regarding price vs specs vs usability - again, as we do. Now, this is perfectly fine and I (and hopefully most other "haters") do not judge or feel ill will towards these people. Not everybody is a retro gaming news junkie and sometimes it's fine to just blow some dosh on a whim without doing tedious research. No problem here. The problem is with the other types of backers: firstly, the thirsty speculectors/scalpers who only care about getting the ridiculous "certificate", will never even open it and already calculate future profits based on some delusional "rarity scale". The other type is a blind zealot who despite knowing all the facts goes the three-monkeys route and refuses to acknowledge anything substantial, instead hand waving away the facts and acting as free mouthpiece on the behalf of the crowdfunders . Dunno, there must be some sort of bias involved here, such as a need to believe, notsalgia overdrive, protect-the-investment or some other ones, perhaps all at once. Crowdfunding is actually about 10 years old now, fairly old in modern fast moving times and we've witnessed enough spectacular failures to perhaps wise up. And yet, the same patterns emergerepeatedly, from Chameleon to Vega, through Smach Z to this one here. The aforementioned backer types are a big part of the problem, they justify and enable these things to happpen over and over again and for that they deserve all the scorn and derision.

Oh, enough with this trend of uninformed RPi bashing already. The "premium emulation software" on a PC can be also tricky to set up if you do not follow guidelines and read manuals. Windows itself can be an illogical nightmare (ever tried to update the 10?), only we've been conditioned for that in the decades it's been around. As it is, it really is a simple case of doing some reading. RPi emulation is based on custom Linux/Retroarch builds and it's a community-driven constantly evolving effort - so you just can not expect to simply jump in and see a beautiful Win/Mac GUI that you're used to and which behaves in the same way. But it's also not so bad as some paint it, especially with the Linux-CLI horror stories. I only edit advanced configs because I use a CRT - niche stuff. If not for that I doubt I'd ever have to fiddle with anything deeper than the menu-driven stuff. Regarding the OPs particular issues: I'm a Retropie user so the following pertains to that frontend. You can also try Lakka, it's praised by msny and apparently offers middle ground between Recalbox (simple) and Retropie (advanced) -"unprofessional transitions to the games" - not sure what that means, I'm using the basic version and they're perhaps not flashy but serviceable and not that ugly for me. Anyway, you can customize UI, gamelists & some transitions from the carousel-level menu (press START or SELECT where the system names are). Plus there are different, more flashy frontends such as AttractMode or Pegasus - but these will probably require some advanced fiddling to install. -you do not update or change cores from the Retroarch menu. This can be confusing since heaps of options from this menu do not work on Pi, I think these may be Windows only. Just skip them, and head for the Retropie > Retropie Setup > Manage packages. There you have to find the emu you're interested in. Eg Stella is in Main Packages as "lr-stella" and in Optional Packages as "Stella". The difference is that "lr" is a libretro version and you can use the Retroarch menu in it. "Stella" would be just the normal emu. These also sometimes differ in version numbers - one may be older/newer better/worse than the other. -you may need to install additional emus from Optional/Experimental sections yourself. After that you can also choose them from the game-launch level: press fire when the runcommand menu (white square rectangle with text) appears after you launch the game. -to save settings permanently go to QuickMenu (in game in Retroarch) and choose either Save Game/Core Overrides. There is also separate Save in Controls submenu if you change those. Also in Retroarch menu, go to Settings>Configuration and set "Save Configuration on Exit" to Off, otherwise it may mess up your set up. -If you want to tweak advanced emu settings either: a) use the Retroarch Menu mentioned above, for standalone emus use their in-buit menus b) from carousel-level: go to Retropie>Configuration Editor c) SSH from your PC, then edit manually: most of the important configs can be found in /opt/retropie/configs Overall, RPi mostly appeals to people who like to tinker with stuff, but on the basic level it's really simple to set up. Demonising this process has become quite a trend in some quarters, despite the fact that unless you get a dedicated system like Flashback or Mini (with all its downsides) there will always be a need for some learning/tweaking. Unless you wait for the new VCS of course. I've heard it will solve all emulation (and gaming in general) problems - it's so next gen:P

VGA/RGB?

I do not think PC Gods look favourably upon such sacrilegious projects. Not saying the backers brought this on themselves, but...

Umm...I think it's one or the other, guys.

My background is RPG/strategy first, then twitch games, so I have no problem with manual reading. But yeah, as you say it's often not so bad as it looks at first: in CCC's case you just need to get your head around how to move the monster - it's bit of a "tank" style where head can swivel independently - and keep the keyboard commands page open. Rest is pretty straightforward (unless you want to build your monster from scratch).

Why not simplify things a little and just do a random game every week or two (kinda like we do here). Perhaps it would liven up this section a bit. I could run something simple like that, though atm I'm limited to the RPi's 0.78 set and it will be a while before my MAME mini PC is ready.

The Movie Monster Game reminded me of Crush, Crumble and Chomp! (aka the only game I managed to write up on my "website" - which is kind of its predecessor. The premise is the same, you unleash various monsters on a few US cities, the difference is in top-down, sort-of-RTS gameplay. I love it, very advanced for its time, with varied gameplay and you ca neven play for high scores. You need to read the manual though - the control scheme is a bit puzzling.

Hah, this reminds me that I actually sent them a message thorugh this contact box while checking the "website". I included my real email and some mildly normal/polite question such as "is there a website section dedicated to the new VCS console you guys are working on?". And promptly forgot about it. ...no, of course they didn't.

https://forums.libretro.com/t/an-input-lag-investigation/4407 Like I said, perception is a funny old thing. I followed enough of these hardcore enthusiasts debates to attest to that (I recommend the 24bit audiophile ones, most fun). Numerous biases present do not help at all, the invested-$ one and groupthink/elitist factors weighing the heaviest. And if you, or anybody else can show me in a blind test that 1-2 frames of lag make a difference to you and it really affects your scores, then fair enough. The rest of us, who stay within a reasonable lag zone, would still just shrug and go back to playing. Then of course you have the little niggles, like comparing a cheap multi-emu solution to a real hardware or a 10-15 times more expensive PC. And we are still talking 1, 2 maybe 3 frames of lag, even on SNES Mini/Classic. Unobservable difference to most people. Well, I did mention trade-offs earlier, for RPi the slightly weaker performance is mitigated by cheap price, portability, huge community, lots of documentation and so on. That matters to some. Anyway, I've done one of these pointless exchanges not long ago (Retron thread) so I will say my bye-byes here. My final advice to OP is to think about it carefuly - while the lag definitely matters it's not as bad as some obsessives paint it, and the danger is it's easy to go down a deep rabbit hole with this. Ultimately, if you have the funds and ability, I definitely recommend building a mini-PC. Or even buying a cheap laptop, though that is more limiting. But, other solutions are totally viable too.

Perception is a funny old thing. Everything has input lag - RPi, Wii, Xbox, x86 and even some original hardware like SNES: https://forums.libretro.com/t/an-input-lag-investigation/4407 Obviously, the degrees of it vary and so the original will have the the lowest value, followed by a powerful PC and the rest. It's not exactly news. That does not mean the other solutions should be discredited because the frame difference is often very small, even on an RPi. It all depends on a multitude of factors though and personal tolerance. Then of course is your choice of controllers and display, both which may add substantial amounts of lag. So, in an extreme scenario some Beefy PC with crappy LCD and wireless controller can theoretically have more lag than my wired RPi hooked to a CRT. The only way to have near-lagless setup is to get original hardware (good luck with MAME) and a CRT. After that, it's all a question of trade-offs and these are very relative.

Haha typical hardcore Coinbox stan atttitude. These guys crack me up...it's sort of commendable, to be so dedicated to your machine....but it's also mid 2018 and there are really better options than ye ol Xbox for an emu box. I definitely wouldn't pay 300$ for one! I've researched it thoroughly about a year ago and Xbox was also an option (though my main angle was CRT connectivity) but ended up with a Wii. It's more modern/powerful, lightweight, you can use SD cards, easy to mod, native Gamecube/Wii games, no faffing with HDDs and so on. Downside is, MAME stuff sucks on it for some reason. But, you'd probably want Wii U if you need HDMI (very similar deal as with Wii regarding the rest). Then I moved onto RPi, needed something portable, and it has dedicated RGB options. MAME works much better than on Wii. People run PSX/N64, even Dreamcast on it, though for me it's not powerful enough for that. Overall you need to ask yourself what level of emulation are you happy with? RPi/Wii can handle anything up to, and mostly including 16 bit (there may be slowdowns in some SNES games, depending what settings you use to deal with lag). For anything more the only option is a mini PC (what I'm building at the moment). Dependng on what your level of tolerance is for glitching and inaccuracy you could probably run PS2/Dreamcast on something i5 based with a moderate GPU, so it's possible to do it for that silly 300 bucks Xbox budget. Personally, I just want MAME and 16-bit so for me i3+any GPU is fine.

It's always nice to meet people who appreciate the value of education. I've rather enjoyed your attempt at schoolin', it's perhaps a bit laboured and overwrought, but - practice makes perfect .You'll get it, eventually. I'll include my own bit of advice though: firstly, I'd also be careful with using the "you didn't get the joke/irony" defence when there's very little (nothing?) in the source material to indicate that it really was. It makes you look a bit desperate. Secondly, your reply indicates that you're one of these individuals who post on public forums but at the same time harbour a delusion that it's actually some sort of private conversation. It's especially amusing when it happens in a fast moving megathread with countless praticipants - such as this one.

Reading this and recent Lodmot's comments makes me think that the much derided WHO classification was perhas not so far off after all.

A leading industry professional & his "team" can not be bothered to go past the Wordpress stock template on their site? In 2018? Wow Yeah, it's just too fitting. Personal gripe: Tin Giant is obviously a reference to the Iron Giant (see their lame logo and the original film). It's one of my all time favourites, not sure I'm happy about this corporate appropriation.

HOW DO YOU FEEL NOW, HATERS? Well, not too bad actually, thanks for asking. None of the things that bothered me - such as the lack of aim, software, silly price, specs, general pointlessness - have changed. It's now slightly more probable that it will see the light of the day, but for me it's still a damp squib.

Dunno, only played it for a spell now. Maybe a little bit more than the original EA, you do have to shoot a lot. I loved the fact it was a bit different and has all these pointless little things like sitting in a chair or clock chiming...charming and unusual.

These cover arts totally rock, maybe even better than originals

Nah, I move a lot atm so can't lug anything bigger then Pi with me and also was a bit stingy at the time. Now I see what foolishness it was since you will not find a better designed and reasonably priced retro-gaming machine out there. Faithful FPGA recreation + extra speed and gfx modes + cracking design + community support + REAL bells & whistles such as VGA or ability to use RPi as an accelerator. And, they delivered A blueprint for this kinda operation. Just wish Sir Clive threw in with this lot instead of the conmen.

Mission Elevator - it's an awesome Elevator Action clone, less arcade and more action-adventure though. The main mechanics are unchanged, you still move/shoot/ride elevators same as in the original, only now you can search the surroundings, find items and solve some simple puzzles. I've played as a kid on Amstrad CPC and I think this version is still my favourite. Gfx not as good as Amiga but better than C64. Still, very playable and fun across all formats.