How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS

[InnovaX5]

This all still reminds me of the "Phantom".

[+madman]

Perhaps when a really large (>$1000) pledge is refunded it trips something automated at Paypal?

 

Mr Kitchen's refund may have started an avalanche, both of automated Paypal refunds and of people who see the messages about mass Paypal refunds and attempt to pull out before their money disappears.

There was no "avalanche" or "mass" amount of refunds. I've been tracking the IGG to the best of my ability during the work day and I didn't see any massive withdrawals from the campaign. You can see the history by reading this thread.

[rob_ocelot]

There was no "avalanche" or "mass" amount of refunds. I've been tracking the IGG to the best of my ability during the work day and I didn't see any massive withdrawals from the campaign. You can see the history by reading this thread.

Fair enough. I was more commenting on how Mike's statement about these mysterious Paypal refunds might make people who have already pledged get cold feet and bail as well. Doesn't take much to get something like that snowballing.

 

Mr. Kitchen's pledge reversal isn't a good sign, especially when they were really trumpeting his support.

Edited September 25, 2015 by rob_ocelot

[jaybird3rd]

There was no "avalanche" or "mass" amount of refunds. I've been tracking the IGG to the best of my ability during the work day and I didn't see any massive withdrawals from the campaign. You can see the history by reading this thread.

I was going to post another update at midnight, but that's right: as I saw it, they started the day at 193 backers, they were up to 195 this afternoon, then back to 193, up to 194, and finally down to 192, which is where they are now. There hasn't been a mass exodus, but the backers they've lost have been big ones, as we've discussed. Personally, I'll believe the PayPal story when and if those pledges that were "canceled for no reason" come flowing back in, but for now, I'll count them as losses. So, they're beginning Day 7 at 192 backers and $65,970 raised, still hovering at 3% of their goal. That offsets almost all of their earnings from Day 5, putting them a whopping fourteen dollars ahead of where they were at the start of that day.

 

Here are their totals at the start of each day that I've been keeping track (in other words, the figures for each day are "snapshots" which show the state of the campaign at the beginning of that day, midnight CST):

 

Day 3 (09/21): 172 backers, $60041 raised

Day 4 (09/22): 186 backers, $66188 raised, +$6147

Day 5 (09/23): 187 backers, $65956 raised, -$232

Day 6 (09/24): 193 backers, $67580 raised, +$1624

Day 7 (09/25): 192 backers, $65970 raised, -$1610

[rob_ocelot]

Hopefully they pull the plug on this sooner rather than drag it out over the next month. The longer it stays up the more likely that mainstream non-videogame press is going to notice and use it as humour article click bait. More headlines means more google results with the co-founders names attached to it.

Edited September 25, 2015 by rob_ocelot

[KeeperofLindblum]

Everytime I looked at their 3D render... It kept making me think of something. I think I've finally cracked the code!



Isn't actually a game console... It's a time machine! THINK ABOUT IT!

 

Retro VGS isn't about playing old games or retro-style new games... It's about going back in time to fix this terrible current generation of gaming timeline!
Think about it... Even the previous generation (PS3/360/Wii(sorta)) was still pretty good... but the current one is awful. Why did it get so awful?
The Retro VGS team can't say anything more, or they'd have to worry about people abusing their time machine and making things worse.



EDIT - I think I should have put that back to late-70s, but you get my point. Xp

Edited September 25, 2015 by KeeperofLindblum

[jaybird3rd]

It's certainly an ugly-looking board. I'd hate to have paid extra for a transparent console shell, only to be able to see a board inside that looks like a green microchip-encrusted spatula.

(Assuming it even gets that far, which of course it won't.)

[Keatah]

I was thinking more along the lines of the PayPal story being an effort to save face; since Mike's post, I haven't seen a cavalcade of disenfranchised backers coming forward to say "yeah, my payment was canceled too, what's up with that?!". But you're right, it's also possible that someone could have reported them to PayPal. If so, they've got bigger problems because, as I've said before, the line between "well-intentioned but hopelessly misguided" and "deliberately dishonest" can be difficult to distinguish in cases like this, especially for outside observers who don't know the principals involved.

 

I don't even think the paypal story is a save-face effort. Can't be. Why not just come out and say it? ..that they need to reformat the disk and retry next year.

Can you provide a link so that I may read up on it?

 

 

This. Pushing 50 here; never occurred to me in the slightest that I would ever want to use my old computer stuff again, let alone someone else.

 

There's another factor at play though, I think. I look around me at the last- and current-gen consoles and wonder if they'll ever be "collectible". Even the NGC doesn't seem to be anywhere near as desirable as earlier consoles like the N64, nor the PS1 for that matter. Is it because of the sheer amount of shovelware available for them? Or the sheer volume of each title produced? Or is it more to do with the attitudes of the modern (younger) gamer? Do modern games generate anywhere near the level of excitement it did when we opened our consoles on Xmas day in the 70's & 80's in the youth of today?

 

I pretty much stopped collecting at the NGC & PS2. I own a PS3 because it was bundled for free with the TV and it got used as a media client. And I recently picked up a Wii because it was bundled for 'free' with a used TV and I thought my kids would get a kick out of it. But I have zero interest in collecting for these systems - in fact I'm really only interested in retro compilations for the PS2. I guess for me cartridge systems are really where it's at, hence my (initial) interest in the RVGS.

 

To be completely truthful there were times when I thought about how I would keep all my school stories, pirate warez notes, letters to NASA, and Estes model-rocket flight logs I so painfully entered. I transfered the material over to PC rather quickly when I got a '486 for $2,300. I still have that too. Yikes!!

 

In context of a chronological timeline I'm not confident of where & when to draw the line between what makes a system collectible or non-collectible. I might take a gander and stop at the PS1, Dreamcast, or Saturn.

 

Was it when systems gained optical media?

Was it when systems gained an ethernet port?

What about when they started having digital downloads?

How about the excess shovelware and endless supply of nonsense fighting/anime/manga games?

And how the hell can you collect digital smartphone games?

 

..all of that is detrimental to collecting and generating remembrances of the good times.

 

As far as a late-70's Christmas morning, snow piling up outside, the crisp cold air blowing, the wood paneling in the family room, frozen dinner smell coming from the harvest-gold accented kitchen. Worrying about if the car will start tomorrow? Those were the best of times. Videogames were bringing us a new form of, of, of something. (I'm hesitant to say entertainment.) Like when playing Sea Battle or Space Invaders while holed up because of bad weather. They allowed you to go on an adventure unlike anything else. And dare I say some of these games became a form of virtual friend that joined in whatever party we were conducting?

 

That doesn't happen with today's material, except for maybe 10 or so highly select and carefully selected titles in my case. Or when I gather parts to build a project.

 

I notice a lot of today's youth blasting through games mindlessly. And not really getting involved in a game or exploring possibilities and ways of doing things. Today's kids aren't hard up to build "elaborate" shelving or keep a hi-score book or talking about their latest score (gasp!) in Laser Blast! with everyone in school. Gaming was seriously part of the culture back then.

 

Today it is a time-waster and money conduit. Goddamned fucking Skinner boxes.. I hate that crap with a passion.

 

 

Mr Kitchen's refund may have started an avalanche, both of automated Paypal refunds and of people who see the messages about mass Paypal refunds and attempt to pull out before their money disappears.

 

Did he really pull his payment out?

[jaybird3rd]

I don't even think the paypal story is a save-face effort. Can't be. Why not just come out and say it? ..that they need to reformat the disk and retry next year.

Can you provide a link so that I may read up on it?

 

The only link that I have is Kennedy's post on IGG; that it's a face-saving effort is speculation, which could very well be wrong. To be able to admit to us that they're losing backers and that the campaign will fail, they first have to admit it to themselves, and I don't think they're there quite yet.

 

Did he really pull his payment out?

Open the list of project backers on IGG and see for yourself. He was there yesterday. He isn't there today. Draw your own conclusions.

[Keatah]

Retro VGS isn't about playing old games or retro-style new games... It's about going back in time to fix this terrible current generation of gaming timeline!

 

I love it!

 

..but the only way to fix it is to retrieve the old systems and bring them forward in time. Or do it virtually through emulation. No other solution is available to the mass public at this time.

 

 

It's certainly an ugly-looking board. I'd hate to have invested in a transparent console shell, only to be able to see a board that looks like a microchip-encrusted spatula.

 

(Assuming it even gets that far, which of course it won't.)

 

I really liked the Violet transparent case from one of the renders. It would have looked really sharp and unlike anything else in my "pile of tech".

 

But this board, it would even make the opaque cases look bad. I bet my screwdriver would turn to jelly if I asked it to open the case. Or maybe the fumes would get a head start on the corrosion process? When I'm done here I'm running CCleaner and wiping all slack space on my disk! Ugghh.. what a steamer!

[Andromeda Stardust]

I can design a fake board with squares that do nothing.

 

Hmmm... put big chips here, those will be the FPGAs.

Put some RAM chips over here next to the FPGA

Put a row of small chips here and here for buss isolation from the connectors.

Put connectors here, here, here and here.

We need a power LED at the front and a couple heat syncs for power circuitry

...

 

I don't even have to run a single trace to render something like that.

Just saying.

http://stardust4ever.deviantart.com/art/MotherBoard-123100184

Dream PC I cobbled together in Bryce back in 2003. No case because nothing could contain it's awesomeness. Massively overclocked dual Athlon XP 3000 with 3Gb RAM and a 500Gb harddrive. Note the extra thick PCB. Must have at least 100 copper planes in there. Pretty tame by todays standards but at least the girl warming her tush on the HD is cute.

[Albert]

I just removed a post from someone who wanted to start a witch-hunt against Mike Kennedy. I will not tolerate that here, if you want to have a witch-hunt, you won't be doing it on AtariAge.

 

..Al

[Keatah]

Maybe it was a shill pledge or something. An attempt at shoring up the campaign. Seeing it had no effect he then withdrew it..?

[Andromeda Stardust]

@Albert: Whitchhunt??? I always seem to be hours behind on this thread because it moves so fast, if I eat, sleep, goto class, or take a break from the internet I'll have 2+ pages of catchup to do. Good job regardless. Sorry you have to cleanup after us. It's fun to make jokes but I don't believe it's right to attack people personally. Be a shame if this epic thread got locked. I have enjoyed the live drama.

[Albert]

The thread will not be locked as long as it remains civil and respectful. I have not had to kick anyone out of the thread, and hopefully I will not have to do so.

 

..Al

[AtariNerd]

Actually, to my eyes, the circuit-board design reminds me more of a "Type 40"Time Capsule than one of Doc Brown's inventions. (Imagine the blue pin connector is the top of the TARDIS' sign, above the doorway and the two main chips are windows. (My bias is showing, perhaps - still waiting for The Underwater Menace to be released.)

[leods]

 

IMHO I think your above statements are a little at-odds with one-another.

 

I don't know how anyone can be happy with a base product when enhancements are dangled in front of them, especially a game-changer like the FPGA. Specify the hardware required to achieve your vision, and leave it at that. Why add a half-baked solution in the mix, other than because you're hedging your bets and want to mitigate the possibility that your vision isn't a viable product in this market.

 

I agree. The FPGA must be either in or out. But this Kind of Projects have Goals, because large quantities will bring Prices down and allow the makers to include more. That's why I said things like Outputs, or some extra Feature. The core experience must be the base model. Maybe in the case of the Retro VGS they could have had the 9-pin ports as a Stretch Goal.

 

On the other Hand I think you'Re right. The base System should be the perfect Balance and the Stretch Goals should be an extra Controller, another pack in game with no extra cost, colour choices.. I don't know.

 

Obviously anyone with a tiny bit of sense in their heads knows you can't back this Project. Whatever they do, they should pull the plug right now. I don't think they should come back. Specially not Mike. I congratulate him on making a Magazine, but he's completely unfit to lead a Project of this caliber. He clearly doesn't have enought technical knowledge and understanding of the gaming market to pull this off.

 

To Keep up the fight and to try to get more People talking about this at this Point is just spreading the word about their failure. No big media outlet would stick their necks out for a Project like this. Imagine the worse case Scenario: Kotaku does write a positive article on this, they get the People and fund the Thing, 18 months down the line (cause we KNOW they're gonna be late) they ship a lackluster System. Now Kotaku will have to explain why they were claiming this was a great product.

 

And what do they have to gain? I'd say nothing. So who would be insane to just jump into this sinking ship and try to salvage the Situation at this Point?

 

Mike, just let it go man. Sell Jag Shells, and Jag cartridge Shells, and get your Magazine up to Speed, cause the People who already backed you are waiting. I'm sorry to be rough, but this Project was done like how a Kid dreams about their perfect console, slapping ideas together with no thought for actual cost constrains, real life marketability or Appeal for wider audiences.

 

If you can't come up with a better Name than Retro Video Game System (and you'Re the Marketing guy for christ's sake!) it's clear you're not ready. It reeks of generic quickly put together crap. This Frankenstein of hybrid Emulation core, with generic ARM chip, with Jag console and WiiU Controller makes this Thing look like some cheap chinese 8-bit clone. And the Name is absolutely perfect for that too, in line with all the funstations, wiplay and nine-ten-dos consoles.

 

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you'Re a Genius of the Hardware design, you're just looking for the wrong demographic. Maybe you've made the perfect generic chinese crappy clone console. But if that's the case, maybe you should lower the Price? You know, the whole Point of those is that if you don't have the Money to buy a real Videogame, you just throu 20 bucks at some sketchy guy and take something home. If your product is more expensive than the actual Nintendo console maybe People might go for that instead? MAYBE?

 

I officially rename te RVGS to Rant Vial Generating System

[Amstari]

I made my own RVGS!

 

 

 

 

[+CyranoJ]

If they get their cart shells down to $2 (or preferably below) the homebrewers will be lining up at their door for them.

 

$8 is insane.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I made my own RVGS!

 

rvgs_proto.jpg

 

 

 

And this will be the closest it will ever come to seeing the light of day, sadly!

[Keatah]

[..]

Mike, just let it go man. Sell Jag Shells, and Jag cartridge Shells, and get your Magazine up to Speed, cause the People who already backed you are waiting. I'm sorry to be rough, but this Project was done like how a Kid dreams about their perfect console, slapping ideas together with no thought for actual cost constrains, real life marketability or Appeal for wider audiences.

[..]

 

How apt though.

 

As a child of the 70's and knowing nothing about electronics aside from switches, batteries, and light bulbs, we'd circuit-bend and mish-mash various consoles and relays and other simple electronic-y things together TO create the ultimate console. Of course whatever we did always became a monstrosity. A box with like 4 mainboards from 4 different consoles and a byzantine array of mechanical relays that would switch a universal control panel and various controllers in and out. A rat's nest of wires of which you couldn't see the bottom. It sometimes worked, mostly not. And I suspect it destroyed itself from static and back-emf from the relays as they'd snap open and shut.

 

But for a brief shining moment I had an all-in-one "console" that would play VCS-Intellivision-ColecoVision-Astrocade games. Of course if a BOM was made it would list the cost of 4 consoles + tons of other unnecessary parts. Totally not viable. But I showed it of to some people and visitors that came over and other kids. And they were all like meh.. And moving it around was not practical.

 

It would be many years later and after many refinements passed through the electronics and computing industry before I'd finally have the ultimate do-everything console.

 

Today when I have funky ideas they go through several iterations before coming to a solution that works. And that's what the RVGS teams needs to do. This iteration didn't work out. Stop. Hit the reset button (all videogames have them). And try again.

 

My concern, though, is that this backfiring project is going to spill over into their magazine if it hasn't already. Especially if they discussed it in previous issues. I'm not a subscriber of it so I can't say.

[+rdemming]

Well, I have decided to jump in feet first and develop my first game for this platform:

 

California Games:Surf Dogs?!

 

Surf Dogs.jpg

 

I welcome any constructive criticism on this game, like what color the cartridge should be.

 

Nice game but I'm not into dogs. But if the label of the game cartridge contains a pussy I would buy it in an instant. Better yet, make a special edition with different colors of pussies like black, brown and the extra special ginger pussy. And of course a cheaper "bare" edition with a Brazilian pussy.

[Keatah]

If they get their cart shells down to $2 (or preferably below) the homebrewers will be lining up at their door for them.

 

$8 is insane.

 

Well maybe that's their calling then. Marketing these sorts of things. Maybe electronics engineering and game designing in the current climate aren't for them anymore. It's no secret people change careers. After all..many former astronauts became politicians.

 

Does anyone recall the team ever saying they had an alternate source of funding that could be called into play in the event crowdsourcing funding failed?

Edited September 25, 2015 by Keatah

[GroovyBee]

If they get their cart shells down to $2 (or preferably below) the homebrewers will be lining up at their door for them.

I doubt sub $2 would be possible unless its manufactured in the 10K+ range.

 

$8 is insane.

Agreed!

[+CyranoJ]

I doubt sub $2 would be possible unless its manufactured in the 10K+ range.

 

 

Well, when I said 'homebrewers', there's only really 2-3 games in town. We ain't buying $2m worth of them, LOL.