How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS

[Keatah]

As a consumer I take a rather simplistic view. If I want Intellivision games I will seek them out via original cartridges or emulation. I'm going to want to play the original game. Not a remake of it. Not an improved version of it. But the original game code. Emulation or cartridge on real hardware are the delivery mechanisms.

 

If you program an Intellivision game and start making use of additional hardware present in a modern-day console you are not doing an Intellivision game anymore. You are now making a remake or clone. Whatever term fits.

 

Back in the day these system changers and adapters failed to make their host systems popular (on that merit alone) because both systems were equally available. And IIRC (but am not sure) that some system changer adapters wouldn't work with competitor's games.

 

Personally I think the RVGS concept is good. And it will require some forward thinking on the part of the consumer to accept and appreciate its capabilities. And developers today have so many platforms to pick from, there should be absolutely ZERO complaints. Back in 1978 there were but a couple of major systems and that was it. You could count them on one hand!

 

We all see things differently and that is how I see it. Right or wrong. Does it matter? And RVGS may not be for every gamer or every developer.

[RupanIII]

Current SSD's apparently have an issue with data loss if they aren't powered up for a time, which sucks. But, in a few years that is expected to disappear largely, meaning losing data on SSD's will become much less an issue.

If the cost of XXROM chips is too high for them to fit something like Tower of Flight on it at the moment then it's too early for this system still.

[Keatah]

Mid 2017 is when SSDs will be ready for the consumer market. It's taken 10 years of testing to get there, but get there we will.

[RupanIII]

Exactly. And they have no support for Genesis/SNES yet, so 16 bit is out!!!?!!?
Hopefully they can get some old arcade games. I was hoping it'd be a legit Pandora's Box alternative. I'd buy arcade games never released on home systems and arcade versions of my fav arcade games if that legitimately went back to the current IP holder if there was one.
So, if there are HDL's that will run truely abandonwared games, i don't mind buying abandonwared games on cart either, if there are no owner companies anymore.

 

Then we needed the home system HDLs to support homebrews on those platforms.

 

Nope, I argue the opposite, by adding the adapters they are doing nothing except adding RetroN 5 style support to claim a larger library. They open themselves up to the same emulation/simulation accuracy complaints the RetroN and Flashbacks get, and I have no issue with that as I won't have to buy a Retron5.

I am fully aware of the current size of the audience for Intellivision and ColecoVision games...Approximately 250-500. Releasing it as a VGS release title does not stop me from releasing it in traditional ways to those collectors, but I lose out on any of the benefits of being an official VGS release that will catch the people of my generation who would buy a VGS but wouldn't buy a ColecoVision from a used game store, for the same reasons they bought a FlashBack and not a readily available original console. I also expect the size of even the first wave of VGS owners to larger than the current homebrew audience and while I don't expect every VGS owner to buy my games, I do expect the number to be higher than 250 especially since it is in the best interest of VGS to publish what games are available on their style carts. Hell, I'd consider throwing in an actual Intellivision cart in the package with the VGS one.

They have not published what HDL cores are available and they have access to, just what are possible give the HDL. At this point I should be able to sign up as a developer, get the HDL's I need so I can test my existing games against it and tweak around any inaccuracies in the HDL. The adapter announcement makes it sound like they are going to rely on the adapters before dealing with HDL cores for developers to include on carts.

 

[Reaperman]

Since we're a good chunk of the target audience, how about a poll to show what percentage of us geezers are 'down' with this thing?

Or I suppose we could just let kickstarter sort that out, but that sounds like less fun.

[glazball]

Up until basically today, there was little or no mention of adapters (which I have no problem with) I have a problem with that announcement seems to have replaced the big selling feature for developers that caught my attention, The HDL on cart with the game, and copping out to say "just put it on the native system's cart and ask your buyers to buy our adapter"

 

Which also says to me: "make your own games, don't ask us to produce VGS style cart and box runs on demand in California like we said we would."

I'd love for the VGS team to prove me wrong.

 

I never got that impression. I think publishing your games as RVGS carts is always an option, but just wanted to let developers who want to produce their own carts that they will be supported with the adapter.

[Andromeda Stardust]

This is correct. Now that we've introduced the cart adapters that will negate the need to port any "Legacy" system's new(er) games to our carts. We'll update the FAQ.

 

So technically Noah's Ark 3D et al are no longer launch titles?

 

But the idea of the cart adapters does have merit. There are a number of consoles I would like to experience but cannot due to space, budget, or reliability issues. The "third wave" or "2.5 gen" consoles 5200, Vectrex, and Coleco are among them. I also have a Turbografx but the games are retarded expensive so I had to get the Everdrive for it.

 

Regardless, I've already got a dozen+ consoles and nowhere near enough space to hook them all up simultaneously, so I'm constantly unpluging things to play games. High quality adapters for rarely played game consoles would help to fix that.

 

Also if you're doing cartridge adapters, I would consider the 16-bit generation (SNES, Genesis, and possibly Turbografx) mandatory. People are looking for a Retron5 substitute that supports flash carts and doesn't suck. Do whatever you can to get cores designed for the 16-bit systems if at all possible to get the hipster collectors interested. While I can appreciate Atari and the precrash consoles, many people believe retrogaming started with NES. I used to be one of them.

 

Also if you can get a Neo Geo core running, it would be a God send for RetroVGS even if a cart adapter seems too expensive to produce. Affordable licensed Neo Geo games on RetroVGS carts would sell systems like hotcakes since the Neo Geo is considered the king of 2D home/arcade systems and collectors pay insane amounts for games, making them unattainable on a budget.

 

Lastly, while I understand your stance on software upgrades for games, the cart adapters themselves need to be upgradeable. Somebody inevitably will find a bug with the FPGA core that will rear it's ugly head when game X or Y is played in it. If the adapters are permanent or require sending back to RetroVGS headquarters to reflash or exchange the boot ROM, it will be a PR nightmare when people find bugs in their cores and must either accept the bugs or repurchase a new one after hearing the bugs have been fixed in the latest revisions. Otherwise it will be like every cheap SOAC clone out there where it is a crap shoot whether certain games will be compatible and cannot be updated or fixed.

Edited September 6, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Keatah]

Videogame historian my ass.. Pre 8-bit? WTF? And the VCS is now 4-bit. How did that happen? Have we been duped all these years?

 

• RT Chambers Question: why go back as far as Atari in the first place? Other than Adventure (which wasn't the best looking or controlling game in the world at that time, I give that to AD&D) Atari had a grand total of six games that weren't shovelware bullcrap.

  1 · August 20 at 12:31pm
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    Chris Cantrell Now that's just not accurate and if you were around when Atari was new you'd know that. Yeah, the machine was home to a LOT of junk titles, but it has a nice library of titles that (for their time) were really good games.

    1 · August 20 at 3:23pm
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    RT Chambers Dude, I was a VG historian/archivist for Riot Games a few years back. I'm simply sharing my opinion from everything I've looked at and handled personally.

    1 · August 20 at 3:31pm
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    Ron Muldowney I'm a historian/archivist for my personal collection and I agree. Pre 8 bit is trash, and almost made the video game industry a fad, due to greed and poor quality control, instead of the ultimate metahumanity, so that era should be classified as proto console video games

    August 21 at 1:50am
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    Jeremy Holloway You don't know what you are talking about then. Atari created the industry. You seem to think that "8-bit" means the "NES". Sorry, but Nintendo was a johnny-come-lately. Even the 2600 is an 8-bit console. Pfff, some historian.

    August 23 at 7:40am
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    RT Chambers Actually, there were lesser knowns before Atari. Atari copied their software and gave them no chance to recover
    Then they proceeded to flood the market with shit for almost a decade.

    August 23 at 7:41am
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    RT Chambers And by 8-bit, I mean anything before 16 bit. Like the Master System, Atari systems, Commodore 64, Intellivision, things like that. Jump off your high horse, homie.

    August 23 at 7:43am
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  Jake Chapman That's a fantastic looking retro game. smile emoticon

  1 · August 20 at 11:29am
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  Michael Ponder Jr. Does that go for NES games to, as they were 8 bit? Gotta say.. i never was a fan of atari games nor the graphics the atari produced. NES and up though, that's another story. Just not interested in Atari games. I consider Atari 2600 graphics to be 4 bit as they were so bad and blocky compared to the NES which was also 8 bit. And before anymore smart asses come running up being dipsticks. I am well aware that atari had more than the 2600 but the games mentioned above look to be like OLD 2600 games, and i'm just making a point. I'm more into NES 8 bit and onwards..

  August 23 at 8:23am · Edited
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  Xander Yates I know it probably saves some money, but I'm kinda bummed some of these games labels are going to be just 8-bit sprites. I guess it does help the capture the feel of the era, though, seeing as old box art for atari games and such were just pixels.
  
  Regardless, I'm excited by this project and the dedication and passion coming from the people at Retro.

 

 

 

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

 

Michael Ponder Jr. Does that go for NES games to, as they were 8 bit? Gotta say.. i never was a fan of atari games nor the graphics the atari produced. NES and up though, that's another story. Just not interested in Atari games. I consider Atari 2600 graphics to be 4 bit as they were so bad and blocky compared to the NES which was also 8 bit. And before anymore smart asses come running up being dipsticks. I am well aware that atari had more than the 2600 but the games mentioned above look to be like OLD 2600 games, and i'm just making a point. I'm more into NES 8 bit and onwards..

4 bits LOL. My friend and I used to fathom back in the day that bits doubled with each generation, but somehow skipped 32 between the SNES and N64. It went something like this...

 

PONG consoles - 1 bit (1st gen)

LCD hanhelds (Tiger, G&W) - 1 bit

Atari - 4 bit* (2nd gen)

NES - 8 bit (3rd gen)

SNES, Genesis - 16 bit (4th gen)

Windows 95 - 32 bit**

N64, PS1 - 64 bit*** (5th gen)

 

* 4-bit = obvious misnomer but Atari looked like "crap" and didn't deserve the coveted 8 bits the NES had

** not technically a game system but it was 32 bit and came out between SNES and N64

*** technically PS1 was 32 bit but it looked like N64 so must be the same bitness

 

And naturally the (6th gen) Dreamcast, PS2, and Game Cube blew the N64 away graphically, so they had to have "128 bit" graphics inside. And whatever came next would be 256-bit. I also erroneously predicted that by 2010 or shortly thereafter we would be gaming on "1024 bit" machines...

 

Unfortunately, my friend got an Xbox for Halo and swore it was so advanced it had "320 bit" proc / graphics. Which didn't even make sense because "bits" had to be binary powers. I guess he pulled the extra 64 bits out of his ass or something. Math was never one of his strong points. Either way I hated microsoft with a passion so it was a miracle our friendship survived...

 

Yet I find it ironic somehow umteen years later, people are still mistaking the Atari as 4-bit as we did. Did 4-bit microprocessors even exist?

Edited September 6, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Keatah]

Yet I find it ironic somehow umteen years later, people are still mistaking the Atari as 4-bit as we did. Did 4-bit processors even exist?

 

Ohh yes indeed. The Sharp CMOS SC43177 and SC43178 comprise a two-chip CPU used in the TRS-80 Pocket Computer PC-1. It was 4-bits and operated at low speed around 250KHz.

 

If you get into bit-slicing via the AMD Am2900 series you can make a "cpu" from several discrete parts, with a "bitness" of a multiple of 4. Or in rare specialty applications 3 through 7.

Edited September 6, 2015 by Keatah

[Austin]

Since we're a good chunk of the target audience, how about a poll to show what percentage of us geezers are 'down' with this thing?

Or I suppose we could just let kickstarter sort that out, but that sounds like less fun.

 

lulz....

 

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242452-how-many-of-us-geezers-are-down-with-the-retro-vgs/?p=3315834

[+madman]

Also if you can get a Neo Geo core running, it would be a God send for RetroVGS even if a cart adapter seems too expensive to produce. Affordable licensed Neo Geo games on RetroVGS carts would sell systems like hotcakes since the Neo Geo is considered the king of 2D home/arcade systems and collectors pay insane amounts for games, making them unattainable on a budget.

There are a couple people who have/are attempted/attempting a Neo Geo core, but not much development. I would be surprised if it happens in the next 5 years or so. If a hardware clone of the Neo Geo were possible, the Chinese would've released one by now. That crap Neo Geo X system is software emulation. The Neo Geo also has 5 ROM buses, almost every console has 1, the NES has 2. That adds another layer of complexity into physically making the carts along with the technical challenges. Even if this was all physically and technically possible, the chances of Playmore giving a crap and actually licensing their IP for a system like the RVGS are about zero.

 

As for Neo Geo on a budget, get a consolized MVS and MVS carts or one of the new Chinese warez multicarts. It's really only the AES carts that are prohibitively expensive.

[phoenixdownita]

How about we wait to see what happen to the kickstarter?

After all people speak with their money so it'll be obvious.

If it gets build and only sells 7K, it won't make a difference whether you have it or not past the useless boast rights as no new sw will appear for such a small userbase. Also at 7K only I don't see many "cores on cart" appearing either.

Edited September 6, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[Andromeda Stardust]

As for Neo Geo on a budget, get a consolized MVS and MVS carts or one of the new Chinese warez multicarts. It's really only the AES carts that are prohibitively expensive.

For me, Turbografx is borderline prohibitively expensive. Neo Geo (AES or MVS) is rediculous. To be honest, never been a fan of fighters either, although from my limited experience playing on Retro Pie MAME, there's a lot of other kick ass games released for it, run and guns, areal shooters, etc... Also don't AES have limited continues whereas with MVS you can sink as many virtual or real quarters as you want?

Edited September 6, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Draikar]

How about we wait to see what happen to the kickstarter?

After all people speak with their money so it'll be obvious.

If it gets build and only sells 7K, it won't make a difference whether you have it or not past the useless boast rights as no new sw will appear for such a small userbase. Also at 7K only I don't see many "cores on cart" appearing either.

 

I hope it dose well, I'm buying one....

[+madman]

For me, Turbografx is borderline prohibitively expensive. Neo Geo (AES or MVS) is rediculous. To be honest, never been a fan of fighters either, although from my limited experience playing on Retro Pie MAME, there's a lot of other kick ass games released for it, run and guns, areal shooters, etc... Also don't AES have limited continues whereas with MVS you can sink as many virtual or real quarters as you want?

I have 40-50 Neo games between the CD and MVS, Only 2 of which are fighters and they came with my CDZ. The AES and MVS ROMs are 100% the same, it's just the system BIOS and you can get an alternate BIOS to switch between the modes. But yes MVS is unlimited continues as it was made for the arcade, the home mode has limited continues otherwise people would just blow through the games and get bored.

[Parrothead]

Exactly. And they have no support for Genesis/SNES yet, so 16 bit is out!!!?!!?

Hopefully they can get some old arcade games. I was hoping it'd be a legit Pandora's Box alternative. I'd buy arcade games never released on home systems and arcade versions of my fav arcade games if that legitimately went back to the current IP holder if there was one.

So, if there are HDL's that will run truely abandonwared games, i don't mind buying abandonwared games on cart either, if there are no owner companies anymore.

 

Then we needed the home system HDLs to support homebrews on those platforms.

 

 

We are funding more core development. 16-bit would be next. In talks with Kevtris about all this but contingent obviously upon a successful KS campaign.

Edited September 7, 2015 by Parrothead

[Parrothead]

Nope, I argue the opposite, by adding the adapters they are doing nothing except adding RetroN 5 style support to claim a larger library. They open themselves up to the same emulation/simulation accuracy complaints the RetroN and Flashbacks get, and I have no issue with that as I won't have to buy a Retron5.

 

I am fully aware of the current size of the audience for Intellivision and ColecoVision games...Approximately 250-500. Releasing it as a VGS release title does not stop me from releasing it in traditional ways to those collectors, but I lose out on any of the benefits of being an official VGS release that will catch the people of my generation who would buy a VGS but wouldn't buy a ColecoVision from a used game store, for the same reasons they bought a FlashBack and not a readily available original console. I also expect the size of even the first wave of VGS owners to larger than the current homebrew audience and while I don't expect every VGS owner to buy my games, I do expect the number to be higher than 250 especially since it is in the best interest of VGS to publish what games are available on their style carts. Hell, I'd consider throwing in an actual Intellivision cart in the package with the VGS one.

 

 

They have not published what HDL cores are available and they have access to, just what are possible give the HDL. At this point I should be able to sign up as a developer, get the HDL's I need so I can test my existing games against it and tweak around any inaccuracies in the HDL. The adapter announcement makes it sound like they are going to rely on the adapters before dealing with HDL cores for developers to include on carts.

 

 

 

Tarzilla, our plan is to have a centralized location, ecommerce shopping cart site, to sell the games that can be played on our system, from our proprietary carts to homebrews on original carts from their respective systems. So to answer your questions, we can include your game as well as other homebrewer's games or AtariAge carts, for sale on our page. We will then also include carts from companies like Collectorivsion and Elektronite, etc. All on one place for RETRO VGS shoppers to find and purchase. Hopefully, this will open the market up to a new lot of gamers who were unaware that new games like this were being made for the systems they grew up with.

[+madman]

We are funding more core development. 16-bit would be next. In talks with Kevtris about all this but contingent obviously upon a successful KS campaign.

More future nonsense. In order to get funding we must first get funding. Tell us more unspecific things like how the console will allow programmers to do things never done before.

 

I've asked this question countless times: Why don't you post a photo of the hardware in development? Show us that this console physically exists. Not 3D renders. Certainly if you hope to raise over 2 million dollars, you have something to show us, right?

[+Tarzilla]

Tarzilla, our plan is to have a centralized location, ecommerce shopping cart site, to sell the games that can be played on our system, from our proprietary carts to homebrews on original carts from their respective systems. So to answer your questions, we can include your game as well as other homebrewer's games or AtariAge carts, for sale on our page. We will then also include carts from companies like Collectorivsion and Elektronite, etc. All on one place for RETRO VGS shoppers to find and purchase. Hopefully, this will open the market up to a new lot of gamers who were unaware that new games like this were being made for the systems they grew up with.

 

So is the HDL core on VGS carts to be loaded my game still an option as originally announced? Will HDL for Intellivision and ColecoVision be available to developers or is the HDL based cart adapters the only option?

[Pixelboy]

More future nonsense. In order to get funding we must first get funding. Tell us more unspecific things like how the console will allow programmers to do things never done before.

 

I've asked this question countless times: Why don't you post a photo of the hardware in development? Show us that this console physically exists. Not 3D renders. Certainly if you hope to raise over 2 million dollars, you have something to show us, right?

OBJECTION, YOUR HONOR! The prosecution is badgering the witness!

[gozar]

If this thing is just going to be an emulation machine, count me out. I thought it was going to be a new retro style console...

[+madman]

So is the HDL core on VGS carts to be loaded my game still an option as originally announced? Will HDL for Intellivision and ColecoVision be available to developers or is the HDL based cart adapters the only option?

I wouldn't worry about it. This system doesn't actually exist and most likely never will, let alone the cart adapters. Everything is vaporware backed by 3D videos.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I wouldn't worry about it. This system doesn't actually exist and most likely never will, let alone the cart adapters. Everything is vaporware backed by 3D videos.

So I suppose this is just another "vaporware" 3D video...

https://www.facebook.com/RETROVGS/videos/792533447482594/

[Austin]

So I suppose this is just another "vaporware" 3D video...

https://www.facebook.com/RETROVGS/videos/792533447482594/

 

An empty shell doesn't do a whole lot of good when you have nothing to put inside it.