Jump to content
IGNORED

How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS


racerx

Recommended Posts

I’m not sure why everybody is tarring and feathering Mike Kennedy. It’s pretty clear that his being part dreamer and part salesman turned out to be an unsuitable combo for the PR guy on such an ambitious project. It’s also clear in hindsight that he was in way over his head, and that the whole RVGS concept probably lacks real-world viability (let’s be honest here).

 

A salesman is going to try to sell, and in doing so there is a tendency to stretch the truth and convey information in the absolute most favorable way possible. Is this really a revelation to anybody? Doesn’t make it right, but take a “sales pitch” for what it is—you deal with it almost every day, no matter what you’re buying. I really think he just saw his campaign as a means to an end—to get his dream project to succeed—not so that he could abscond with $2mil, move to Thailand, and live under an alias.

 

It’s still in your power to sift through what a salesman says and make a choice. For RVGS, the people did just that, voted with their wallets, and the project sunk like a stone. Move on.

 

Forums and social media sites just make it too easy for people to pile on and be anonymous dicks. Being human and a fair bit over his head on the whole thing, I’m not surprised he lost his cool a few times in the face of it all. Most of us here would have too, in his position—I’d encourage everybody to think about that for a second before joining the chorus of indignation. It’s not like RVGS had the luxury of a high-priced marketing/PR firm to manage the press.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’m not sure why everybody is tarring and feathering Mike Kennedy. It’s pretty clear that his being part dreamer and part salesman turned out to be an unsuitable combo for the PR guy on such an ambitious project. It’s also clear in hindsight that he was in way over his head, and that the whole RVGS concept probably lacks real-world viability (let’s be honest here).

 

A salesman is going to try to sell, and in doing so there is a tendency to stretch the truth and convey information in the absolute most favorable way possible. Is this really a revelation to anybody? Doesn’t make it right, but take a “sales pitch” for what it is—you deal with it almost every day, no matter what you’re buying.

I've been in technical sales for over a decade, I have never once exaggerated or lied to a customer about a product's capabilities. Why? Because it's not ethnical and because sooner or later, the customer will find out that they've been lied to. That lie would hurt my current employment situation and also my name in my industry. It's not worth it. So saying that lies are part of a sales pitch is simply not true. Mike told outright lies, there's a line between hyping/pitching a product and lying about its capabilities. And it's not a thin line.

 

Edit: There's a difference between a subjective exaggeration and objective. Saying "this is the greatest hamburger ever made" may be an exaggeration but it's an opinion. Saying, "this burger contains 1/2 pound of beef" when it contains a quarter pound would be a lie, because it's factually untrue.

  • Like 18
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting bit of hearsay from Gamester as a reply/update below his RetroVGS infomercial. Emphasis, mine:

 

 

Hey Guys, just an update: The campaign is being ended early, and all those who pledged will be refunded their money. The guys are going back to the drawing board to come up with a less expensive console around $200, and are working on a playable prototype before they try bringing it back. I honestly don't know anything more than that, but your guys' concerns and feedback have been heard from these guys, so that's a good thing.
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

As Mike had alluded yesterday, after about seven months of hard work I have recently decided to leave the Retro VGS team.

I have yet to see the results of this "hard work" except for two dev boards stuffed under a Jag shell with rainbow ribbon cable going nowhere, and an unrouted PCB exported from Altium. I hope most of that "hard work" wasn't submitting patent applications.
Unfortunately, we also learned that outsiders would fraudulently claim to be part of our team and accept credit for our work, sometimes while defaming it and us in the process.

 

If you're referring to me, you're way off base. If you are, it's interesting that I was an "outsider" to the project. To hear Mike talk, I was an integral part of their complete breakfast. Nearly everything Mike said about the FPGA end of things came out of my mouth originally in our discussions about what I have done and where it was going. I had no plans and continue to have no plans on integrating an ARM CPU into my project, so I can't see how I'm directly competing.

 

Eliminating the FPGA from the finalish design at the very last second pretty much did make me an outsider after the fact, though the web page still continues to extoll the virtues of FPGA cores (as of an hour or two ago anyways) and how they were going to basically revolutionize how you play old games. Leaving John up on the "team" page, and his quotes on the FAQ was a nice touch, too.

 

During this whole ordeal and after, I found it amusing how they were using their Facebook megaphone to shout down the critics and people with legitimate questions, and editing/deleting posts that didn't toe the party line. Stay classy.

  • Like 18
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since they are in listening mode now I thought I would help them out by writing their community apology for them.

 

This is not an official statement from the RVGS team (but in my opinion something like it should be).

 

Here's the statement I think needs to be publicly delivered as a first important step in making things right with the world again.

 

If they wish to use it in whole or in part they may freely do so.

 

--------- RVGS Copy-Paste BEGIN HERE ----------

 

Folks, a lot has happened in just one week.

 

All we ever really wanted was to make a new old school console. Founded on the same core principles as a lot of the old systems you already love.

 

We've since learned what seems like a simple idea is actually quite complicated.

 

But it's not impossible. It requires careful planning, laser focus, and the proper mix of talented individuals.

 

We honestly thought we had all that. Clearly, we didn't. While we take some time to reflect on the road that got us here I want to also make a few things right.

 

I apologize to the retro community for overhyping this project early on. I was just trying to give it the momentum I thought it needed to push through to completion.

 

I want to apologize to Kevtris. Your public forum comments caught us totally off guard. In hindsight we should have included you more and treated you more like a key partner and less like an interchangeable vendor.

 

I want to apologize to Pat, Ian, and the other media outlets I criticized simply because they dared to point out our vision for the product didn't quite match up to the resources and information that we ourselves were willing to put forth to back up our claims. It was hard to hear after all the time and energy we've sank into the project to date.

 

We've learned a lot. Mostly that we need a bit more humility and proof than "trust us" and possibilities. Especially if we're asking you the community to believe in our project enough to front load the cost and risk of making them a reality.

 

I sincerely hope to address you all again in the future with happier news and a functional prototype that shows you our vision in action and sparks your own imagination to wonder at the other possibilities.

 

--------- RVGS Copy-Paste END HERE ----------

Edited by dashv
  • Like 14
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dashv, That was thoughtfully composed and seems totally palatable from both sides of the fence. There are a few other people they would need to cover with the same humility as well, but nice work! (holding my breath to see this actually used)

Edited by Chuck D. Head
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, yeah, guess that makes it okay to be mean-spirited and dog pile on them. Oh, no, wait, this isn't your forum, so how about let's not all be assholes?

 

..Al

 

Was not trying to dog pile, just pointing out that the majority of the weight is self inflicted. Sorry for the miscommunication on my part.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saying "this is the greatest hamburger ever made" may be an exaggeration but it's an opinion. Saying, "this burger contains 1/2 pound of beef" when it contains a quarter pound would be a lie, because it's factually untrue.

Mmmmm... hamburgers...

 

To hear Mike talk, I was an integral part of their complete breakfast.

Mmmmm... breakfast...

 

Leaving John up on the "team" page, and his quotes on the FAQ was a nice touch, too.

Maybe they adjusted their web development team, too. :ponder:

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saying "this is the greatest hamburger ever made" may be an exaggeration but it's an opinion. Saying, "this burger contains 1/2 pound of beef" when it contains a quarter pound would be a lie, because it's factually untrue.

 

to quote joe rogan:

 

 

if I gave you a sandwich, and it was 99% sh** and 1% ham… would you be willing to call that a ham sandwich?

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

MiST costs a bit too much IMO as it is, can't imagine a CIB release with SD, and cores for every system released prior to 1998, which is what people will demand!

 

Yes, that's where there's a key difference. If I'm not mistaken it's open hardware (i.e. anybody could build and sell their own) and the cores are all independent open source projects.

It is extremely easy to setup (all core binaries are provided ready for use), but technically you are just buying the hardware and not any promise that core X will have feature Y in the future.

 

I suppose a retail product would have to clearly label which cores work well and have customer support ready to help people out. That's going to increase cost, even if you manage to make the hardware cheaper?

In any case it's pretty exciting to see FPGAs are rising in public awareness. if unit costs go down enough, making cheaper generic devices will be possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In any case it's pretty exciting to see FPGAs are rising in public awareness. if unit costs go down enough, making cheaper generic devices will be possible.

 

Things are likely to change soon, China stepped into the game recently...

 

http://hackaday.com/2015/08/24/two-new-fpga-families-designed-in-china/

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

@ ~12:18

 

 

i've got here like every console pretty much ever made on the wall here in the studio, and every one of them that i look at, and i can think of "what's the achilles heel on it", other than the optical based ones, it's the connector

 

you must have a wall full of toaster-model NESes (busted zif design) and jaguars (no dust cover on the console), as i've also laid hands on every nintendo and sega console released since 1983, and the only one with a truly faulty connector was the toaster. if you don't touch the cartridge pins with peanut-butter covered hands and put the cartridges in its dust covers, the connector shouldn't have any issues, even today. only exception is the handhelds, because they're left open and shaped for the exact dimensions of the cartridge. they're designed to leave a cartridge in them. the jaguar on the other hand, was just a terrible design because atari got lazy, and having to leave a cartridge in there was an unfortunate necessity. :?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The wear and tear on the carts it produces was my point, NES carts take allot of abuse for a so called ZIF. That is one reason I am a big fan of the multi carts, for the most part one insertion and just remove the SD card for updating on the ones you can update. Now with multicarts available for most systems, even the Channel F, the originals can sit on the shelf wear and tear free.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

@ ~12:18

 

 

you must have a wall full of toaster-model NESes

Wow, I was JUST thinking that. Unreal. I also liked the rip on the consoles with hardwired controllers. Yeah, that Famicom was just a piece of garbage alright! I also love how they went on and on in previous comments and interviews on how much money it would cost to modify the jaguar cases with dust covers. They then later added the back dust cover to the rear of the console. When I commented on their new pictures of the added port door in the back they never replied to it on facebook. Thank god they saved so much money buying those molds ~

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any hope for a final video? To wrap it all up? :)

 

Yes! I do plan to do another episode and it should be up this weekend. Plenty of people have been posting post-mortems and "what RVGS should have done" but I want to do something different. In the last video everyone saw, we took a journey into Mike's head. In this weekend's video, we're going to go into the heads of the supporters. I don't want to spoil too much, but I'm also going to answer a weird question I have: modern retro indie games have their classic era counterparts, but does Mike Kennedy also have a classic era counterpart? Stay tuned to find out!

Edited by StopDrop&Retro
  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

how much money it would cost to modify the jaguar cases with dust covers. They then later added the back dust cover to the rear of the console. When I commented on their new pictures of the added port door in the back they never replied to it on facebook. Thank god they saved so much money buying those molds ~

 

speaking of the famicom, they could take a quick look at one, the dust cover was just a flap. all they need to do is drill two holes in the cartridge slot and fab a small piece of plastic.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Yes! I do plan to do another episode and it should be up this weekend. Plenty of people have been posting post-mortems and "what RVGS should have done" but I want to do something different. In the last video everyone saw, we took a journey into Mike's head. In this weekend's video, we're going to go into the heads of the supporters. I don't want to spoil too much, but I'm also going to answer a weird question I have: modern retro indie games have their classic era counterparts, but does Mike Kennedy also have a classic era counterpart? Stay tuned to find out!

The mastermind behind the Ultravision?

post-30018-0-43671700-1443660811_thumb.jpg

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The wear and tear on the carts it produces was my point, NES carts take allot of abuse for a so called ZIF.

 

i think you have that backwards, the zif was what took the abuse, that's why the zif fails. if the cart was taking the abuse, then we'd have chunks of cartridges breaking off inside the socket. (and in the very odd occasion that it actually did happen, it was on the top loader, and usually from a unlicensed cartridge)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...