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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?


phoenixdownita

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Sadly, if he just waited, and said 'we want to do this, tell us how you'd like it'...

It'd been all alot better.

 

I know i'd chime in with something like 'Well, in a couple of years... more powerful cheaper FPGA's will probably be included in an optional Pi add on (they just went 64bit, and FPGA is the new thing out there, Intel seriously bought into it).... so... this becomes easier in a couple of years.

Again, i'm all for FPGA Arcade style stuff.

People go reverse engineer old arcade boards (ones that were System boards that were used for several games is most rewarding) then goto those IP owners and say 'hey, we can make money, do you have your VDP's designs handy?'.
AND... with a Pi it could run alot of the modern and upcoming Indie games.

But, the system is only as good as... the games it can run and the platforms it can be in this case.

 

It's hard to get the vectors for old platforms to move new games on them, to get out to the GENERAL POPULATION, where, new games on this re configurable platform could have had an ecosystem for new buyers, new users, and a central source for people to look for new games to debut.

Piko and the like could ALSO release their new SNES/Gen/etc games on it, and take advantage of sales generated through their site, and they could work on debuting older arcade games on the system in Company X themed multi carts as they got agreements. Again, many here might not agree with that, but, if the numbers say you can make money with the cart on demand model they proposed, then, I think there was an audience for it.

I think that thing in Skymall and Fingerhut and the revised Montgomery Wards catalog, as well as in Pharmacies (maybe when it gets down to $100) and retro shops does well.

The world is so big that it's a set of varied sized Niches, most of which are still pretty big; you just need to know how to run at the right niche.

 

 

Yeah Im pretty convinced now of this.

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Yeah Im pretty convinced now of this.

 

You really stuck your neck out and gave us what you felt after you looked him in the eye. It's unfortunate that a mere eleven hours later he got caught in yet another fabrication. I've been there, done that myself so was definitely empathizing with you.

 

 

It may be too late for Mike to redeem himself, but I don't feel its too late for everyone associated with this project. However, some humility may be required.

 

44010677.jpg

 

 

I'm thinking that a documentary telling the story and the drama involved in the RetroVGS/Chameleon would probably net a lot more money than the Chameleon itself. Maybe Mike should just hop on that. Since it's an actual real thing.

 

Kickstart that stuff! I promise I'll throw money at the screen, or stuff it in the CD-player/cupholder or something.

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I'm sorry to read about this today. I have always been suspect about the Retro VGS and Chameleon, but more from a "doesn't seem like it would be successful in today's market" perspective than a fear of an actual smoke-and-mirrors-type scam. I also loved the first year of Retro magazine, but have found recent issues to not be what I'm looking for. In particular, the shift to modern retro-style games coverage over in-depth looks at history.

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There's no Hardware!!!

 

 

Phenixdownnita

 

Reading comprehension is tough I know, I have issues with it too.

 

 

I said and the key word here is "if" they finalize hardware meaning if in fact they "EVER (another key word here) come up with something is what I am saying. And yes they "technically" have hardware that clear and black jaguar shell they been toting around is considered "hardware" rather its filled full of lies and deceit or as empty as their promises to us about this project.

 

But its all moot anyway, I just heard that Mike K scrapped the Coleco Chameleon and is now working with Kanye West on a new console called the ihack grafx-32 featuring games developed and designed by no other then Mr West himself, also promised is exclusive and only available on the iHack of Kim Kardashian and family mini games and apps. The system will be funded off facebook likes since Mr West is 32 million dollars in debt and has no money and is potentually borrowing money from Mr zuckerberg (notice the lower case i in iHack?).

 

Each time you turn on the system you will be greeted with a high rez photo of Mr West with one of his many notable quotes to inspire the player to play and buy more useless shit! Also exclusive downloads of Mr West's music videos and inspirational short flicks too.

 

 

Anyway, lets do tea sometime, maybe when this console Mike and Kanye are working comes out we can sit down and fire up some Kim Kardashian booty adventures and chill.

 

/Cheers!

 

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So who are these people you spoke to on the phone? Any idea of whether they were in the US, China, etc.? I understand if you can't say, but taking the deceit to that level, if that's what Mike has done, is quite astonishing.

 

I'll put together more information. I am very pissed actually because a lot of things that "lee" has said have been confirmed 100% bullshit (as of this morning). And not eve things about the proto, just general conversation things; like WTF?

Edited by PikoInteractive
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I will say this, and this is not a defense of CollectorVision or anyone else, but when you have a very small fledgling business and have very little experience you are way more likely to be taken in by this kind of stuff. I guarantee you 9 years ago when I started SAG that if someone would have come in sell me some magic beans I would have been much more likely to fall for it. Part of it is just ignorance of the business and part of it is this desire to be at the ground floor of something possibly big. This can really blind you to reality sometimes because you are so desperate to succeed. Its so powerful in fact that it can drive what seem to be honest people to do dishonest things. It may be too late for Mike to redeem himself, but I don't feel its too late for everyone associated with this project. However, some humility may be required.

 

May? no. it is already too late for Mike, i agree on the rest, you are absolutely right.

 

Can anyone read the comments on their FB page? I can see most but not on the thread they started with the "prototype" images.

The comments are under moderation, is why you cant see any

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Can anyone read the comments on their FB page? I can see most but not on the thread they started with the "prototype" images.

 

 

The only comments you can see on their page are from people on your friends list who also liked the page. I see just a handful and all of them are on my friends list all the rest have been voided out and or removed.

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Someone posted a link to a gamester81 podcast where Mike says he has hardware manufacturers ready to go producing boards (GAF), short while later:

 

This video has been removed by the user.

Sorry about that.

 

Getting the idea that MK might be finding himself increasingly isolated going forward.

 

Rats-Ship-a.jpg

So Gamester81 is doing the smart thing and get himself away from the bullshit.

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Mike could of saved himself a lot of time and hassle and just had a word with the BBC Props department....

They were making fake hardware in translucent casing years ago...
Any Blake's 7 fans here?
ORAC anyone?

 

 

I am STILL not caught up, but yes... Another Blake's 7 fan. Plenty of transparent fake thingies with gadgets from classic Doctor Who, Space 1999, etc. My memories of Blake's 7 are great, but thanks to Hulu having Space 1999....

 

Carter: "Commander Koenig, this is Carter from Eagle 1, are you receiving this?"

Koenig: "Yes, Allen, we see it too. You are closer. What does it look like to you?"

Carter: "Hard to say. It's too small to be a ship. It is transparent, and there does seem to be some sort of circuit board in there. The big red light has me concerned, but it is just floating there"

Koenig: "Professor, what do you think? Any danger to Alpha?".

Bergman: "Hmmmmm.... You know, John, back before the moon base was built, we had that program of sending out rockets full of discarded electronics out into space, as the components tend to be toxic once they break down. I think what we are seeing here is one of those components. Hard to imagine how it came all the way out here, but we have seen stranger things happen already".

Koenig: "Helena, what you you think?

Helena: "John, it is too far away. I don't think it poses a threat to us."

Koenig: "Alright. Carter, go head and use the Eagle's laser to blast it away. We have seen a lot of transparent things on our mission with non functional electronics, but they don't see to do a thing. This looks like it is from Earth, so I don't want any other species to come along and think we make this crap too."

Carter: "Yes Commander, I'll get right to it. Over and out. See you back at Alpha."

 

(Cue in pre-canned explosion sound with burning magnesium)

 

Cut... next scene....

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I'm thinking that a documentary telling the story and the drama involved in the RetroVGS/Chameleon would probably net a lot more money than the Chameleon itself. Maybe Mike should just hop on that. Since it's an actual real thing.

 

 

Only if they hire the same people that put this gem together!

 

10938.gif

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Phenixdownnita

 

Reading comprehension is tough I know, I have issues with it too.

 

...

/Cheers!

Too touchy .... there's been an ongoing Matrix joke going around since the triverse picture of a spoon pushing down a SNES Mini dust cover to show the connector ... so there's no proto, there's no hardware are all in that vein.

 

Also the "IF" seems to indicate "possibility", but at this point EVEN IF they finalize the HW it's gonna be a fake, you know one time is on me, two I get suspicious, third time is a charm .... and a pattern. I know that it is profiling and that profiling is bad but 3 out of 3 times caught with your pants down is more than enough for me to see all your junk I'll even need to see.

 

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Greetings all,

 

Been following this for a while but I feel it's finally gone too far for me to not speak up on this.

 

I'm a full time professional peripheral developer/designer, from prototyping to engineering through to retail, so as you may imagine I have pretty extensive experience with manufacturing, development and prototyping. (if a moderator wants to PM me for verification of this, then by all means PM me)

When developing a product it's fairly simple to contract a third party factory to develop the solution for a PCB design, the timeframe for something simple like a programmable controller is around 3 weeks for a working prototype, for more complex products you're looking at months, for something as complex as a console with support for various systems, you're looking at 5-8 months and 15-20k usd.

 

The thing is, if you're going as far as developing a working prototype PCB, the finish line to having a finalized PCB ready to push in to manufacturing isn't that far away, the factory tasked with developing the hardware would already have taken payment for the majority of the development and thus not much more funding would be needed to finish up.

 

Now moving on to the lies and smoke and mirrors.

 

Using a SNES Jr inside an empty Jaguar shell:

This is, as people will no doubt be surprised by, is completely what was done here, they claimed the SNES controllers "hardwired", this is nonsense, these are OEM controllers, in order to support them they would have had to pay for the PCB development team to include support for the communications translation, and if you were not planning on keeping native SNES controller ports, this would be burning money for no reason at all, and if you WERE going to keep them, Shenzhen factories can still provide the ports.

 

Recent graphics card/DVR Fake:
Again, this is pretty much obviously faked, this is simply smoke and mirrors to try and trick the doubters who believe the previous prototype was just a Snes JR.

 

I have talked to my connections in all of the Chinese factories I work with and not a single one is currently working with or even been in communication with the CC team.

Ultimately, what I believe is going on here is that they have burned the majority of their funding buying the rights to the Coleco name, the Jaguar/Dentist tool molds, and because of the terrible reception of their first attempt to gain funding, they are now both trying to drum up hype for the system and basically put, outright lie to Kickstarter to feed the illusion that they do actually have a working prototype so they can actually have the kickstarter, they likely plan on actually hiring a PCB developer or contracting a factory to develop a PCB *AFTER* the project has been funded.

 

The controller they are showing off is simply the 3D for the Interworks Controller Pro U with some buttons / speaker mesh deleted.

 

At this point in time, I would say it's a pretty much safe bet to assume that all they have as of right now, is a reel of adhesive logos, a roll of electrical tape, the STL files for the tooling that they're using for renders, and some mediocre quality "best case scenario" T2 chassis plastics that they're basically stuffing with anything they can to trick investors/potential buyers/developers, this utter dishonesty and fraudulent misdirection is disgusting.

 

RetroVGS is not to be trusted.

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Gamester81 has shilled for RVGS & Chameleon and since deleted the relevant YouTube videos. Collectorvision was hand-in-hand with RVGS, as one of their titles (The Adventures of Tiny Knight) was to be the RVGS bundled game and RVGS-exclusive for something like six months or a year after release.

 

I wrote a synopsis of some of his RVGS shilling and calling AtariAge members "toxic" in a single podcast alone. If you follow the links, that podcast still can be heard(~1:26:xx). Judge for yourself.

 

While he was certainly more cautious this time around, I think you guys may be letting him off easy when he doesn't deserve it.

I can honestly, 100% prove that Lester had a financial stake in the RVGS/CC. He is the "PR agent" for Collectorvision, and possibly a partner in the company. Not sure how he can honestly state he is not in this financially when he works for, and possibly is partners in, the company that was supposed to make the pack-in game.

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Too touchy .... there's been an ongoing Matrix joke going around since the triverse picture of a spoon pushing down a SNES Mini dust cover to show the connector ... so there's no proto, there's no hardware are all in that vein.

Also the "IF" seems to indicate "possibility", but at this point EVEN IF they finalize the HW it's gonna be a fake, you know one time is on me, two I get suspicious, third time is a charm .... and a pattern. I know that it is profiling and that profiling is bad but 3 out of 3 times caught with your pants down is more than enough for me to see all your junk I'll even need to see.

 

Not touchy,

 

Just having some fun at the expense of Coleco Chameleon.

 

It's for shame that good names and people are ending up in flames because of this epic failure.

 

 

We are cool, all good here.

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Jean-François Dupuis of CollectorVision has been pretty strident in defending the RVGS/Chameleon team. See his comments in response to this post by Triverse:

 

 

 

 

 

So he's another drinker of the "just you wait, because all will be revealed soon and you'll all change your minds because it will be totally awesome!" Kool-Aid. He's got some explaining to do, too.

Right, like sometimes I should just shut the &$@$#%

 

My apologies to Carl of Retrogaming mag and all other people who follow this thread closely

And a huge thanks to those who investigated

 

Yes, I do feel like a asshole

 

At least, I've keep track (screenshots) of all my conversations with Mike and his "hardware guru"

 

 

Again. Sorry

Sincerely

 

 

J-F

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What do you mean 'on board'? Piko sells game cartridges, and claims to have talked on the phone to people that Mike introduced as hardware developers. Mike offered to resell his cartridges as part of the CC thing. Piko has been completely honest and transparent about everything that's happened so far. Just because he's not as skeptical as the rest of us jaded cynics doesn't make him part of the enemy.

 

Could have been a SNES, could have been a PC emulator, could be a real FPGA that they are developing but haven't delivered to Mike yet. Who knows? Mike is making the real FPGA option look less and less of a reality with each fake prototype though. If he is developing something real he is devaluing it with this fake garbage.

 

Some people like to take others at their word, and Mike is a great salesman. I'm sure in person it's a lot easier to be drawn in by his Reality Distortion Field. Other podcasters have said the same thing, basically something like "how did we look at that thing at the show and not realise what it was? It's like a carnival sideshow."

 

 

I didn't mean anything with 'on board'....really. I was just asking if he had any new information that would keep his interest in the project.

 

Sorry if it came out wrong?

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