Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?

[+Random Terrain]

Reading through this thread makes me REALLY glad that I have kept the RetroVGS/Chameleon completely away from my channel and website. I have nothing to apologize to fans for, nor have I attempted to make a name for myself by hovering over Mike's carcass like a vulture.

 

Haters and vultures and swears. Oh my! Haters and vultures and swears. Oh my! Haters and vultures and swears. Oh my!

 

youtube.com/watch?v=NecK4MwOfeI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NecK4MwOfeI

[Keatah]

3) Mike will still keep talking to hardware guys behind the scenes

But Mike won't reach out to a hardware/software guy, they'll reach out to him. Someone out there has an idea for their own Pi competitor or hell even just a new way to use an existing board like a Pi. They will contact Mike because they figure they can make Mike's dream work and get free publicity for using the Jag shells. Mike won't be able to contain himself, he'll be in hook, line and sinker.

 

I think it'd be a great project, never can have too many R-Pi rigs going out there. For the types of games this is targeted for R-Pi would work great.

 

There would be no problem with hardware development other than a little bit of connections and interfacing. And everyone knows the board. By using an existing platform nearly all the hardware is taken care of. Efforts could be focused on making a kick-ass operating system and front end. Complete and feature rich. This is where the differentiation would come in.

 

Really, R-Pi is all that's needed. No need for FPGA, no need for custom chips. In fact, right or wrong, custom chips made to do specific functions have fallen way to fast generic processors. Back in the day it was a different thing - custom chips were necessary.

 

I'm not an R-Pi junkie, I just see a lot of untapped potential that little $35 board. And people that bought the system would be doing their own mods and making their own upgrades too!

Edited March 2, 2016 by Keatah

[leods]

 

I realize that at this point it will take time to win back my trust for some of you. I am sincerely sorry for anything I may have done or said to upset any of you guys. The honest truth is that we were asked to port a game over to the Coleco Chameleon, and that we were not in the loop to the hardware side of things. I am humbled by this experience and have learned a valuable lesson the hard way.

 

Apology not accepted. You have YouTube subscribers. Make apologies to them on a dedicated Video with a clear title and use that Video to tell all your subscribers about all the lies. You gave Mike Kenedy time in your channel to pitch his bullshit, and you brought this to the Attention of thousdands of People who trust you. It is your duty to immediately inform all those subscribers about the whole Situation. It's pointless to apologyse in the Atari Age Forums. In this thread here we all know this is a scam, On your YouTube channel probably many People still don't know.

 

It's bad enough your apology Video isn't up yet. I'd fix that ASAP.

 

But then again, that's how YouTube rolls. Hide disclosure as well as possible, never disclose anything you don't aabsolutely have to, and always treat your subscriber as a friend, even if your channel is a Commercial endeavour and you're ultimately a salesman.

 

I don#t buy the cool guy stuff. I don#t care wether People are "good guys". The right is right. You dont do it, you're wrong. You shouldn't be apologysing to save yourself. You should be apologysing to save the community. (that's what AA, the "haters" did.)

[Andromeda Stardust]

Something interesting I pieced together...and who knows could possibly be still within their "plans" for this system.

 

If they were so hellbent on using SNES hardware, maybe if everything had gone smoothly and nobody was onto them they were planning to use "bootleg" SNES jr/minis/model 2's and just strip them out and put them in the jaguar shell at some point. Since they are bootlegs they could snag the systems dirt cheap and at $130 or $150 each for the kickstarter be potentially making $100+ on each system stripping them down like that.

 

Website below, and fake system is on the right in each picture. If someone had board pics of the snes innards in that one "prototype" system quite easily could see if this was their idea.

 

Couple posts online surfaced over the years of people obtaining these counterfeit JR machines. Who knows if a warehouse somewhere is sitting on a cache of these..buy em out for next to nothing then repackage them and profit on them.

 

http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=counterfeit_snes

 

 

Or quite simply it was a one time deal and they just used a SNES for that one time to prove they had something working.....who knows just an idea.

Neat. I wonder if those fake SNES2s are from the same company that made the fake SNES controllers. I own one of those fake controllers CIB. Also curious if this game triggers the Earthbound antipiracy "hard" mode.

[phoenixdownita]

Where's triverse interview with John?

 

EDIT: nevermind "403 forbidden" on the whole http://retrogamingmagazine.com/

Edited March 2, 2016 by phoenixdownita

[Keatah]

I'm going to have to strongly agree with Mike's preservation stance about having games forever as opposed to download only games that could be gone tomorrow. They don't necessarily have to be carts. They could be discs or even downloads as long as they are DRM free. In other words, as long as a game can be owned forever in some kind of offline storage and can be infinitely copied for back-ups then, in my opinion, that is good "cartridge preservation philosophy" which is a much better philosophy than the one that would inevitably make my OUYA games unplayable if and when their servers go down. Mikes intentions behind the ideal of the console makes sense to me. I just disagree with the scam stuff. I believe in his dream. I just don't believe him.

 

Yes I would tend to agree. That's precisely why I posted the video. The DRM and server dependencies are the number one reasons I abhor most modern games and consoles.

 

I just wish I could take the guy out to lunch and have him carte blanche agree to just 50% of what I have to say. It would set his project straight. I'd even coach him how to redeem himself.

[phoenixdownita]

 

Yes I would tend to agree. That's precisely why I posted the video. The DRM and server dependencies are the number one reasons I abhor most modern games and consoles.

 

I just wish I could take the guy out to lunch and have him carte blanche agree to just 50% of what I have to say. It would set his project straight. I'd even coach him how to redeem himself.

Either that or we'll see your name and picture on their "the team" page , I heard they need a new HW guy and you declared you are learning FPGAs ... I see a way out for Mike. Hire Keatah and blame the 3 fake proto on him. It wouldn't make sense but so it doesn't the story so far hence another surreal turn of events would be fitting.

Edited March 2, 2016 by phoenixdownita

[Schizophretard]

Either that or we'll see your name and picture on their "the team" page , I heard they need a new HW guy and you declared you are learning FPGAs ... I see a way out for Mike. Hire Keatah and blame the 3 fake proto on him. It wouldn't make sense but so it doesn't the story so far hence another curve ball would be fitting.

 

I get the impression that Keatah has an emulation rig that once seen in person would make Mike go,"What's a cart?". Once the Ark of the Keatah is opened there is no going back. That is why this collectard is terrified of the thing. This topic has got me interested in the Z3K and looking into the Raspberry Pi with Retropie. I already feel corrupted. The power of the Ark must be much worse.

[jconsolmagno]

 

That checks out with what Mike has stated, I believe you. I don't think we'll have any current "hardware" guys show up unless Mr. Li makes himself known.

 

However, the problem is that a lot of Mike's scheme from the get-go didn't revolve around hardware at all. It revolved around marketing. Hardware was his problem because he has none of it. But amazingly- that fact never bothered him! Why? Because he had a Rolodex of YouTubers and Podcasters desperate for a juicy story that would bring in viewers, listeners and subscribers. And that's where you did wrong, by giving him a soapbox to spout out his ilk.

 

This is embarrassing for you and a lot of people who got involved up to this point but they made the bed they sleep in. People will remember this story and come to their own conclusions. And if you don't believe me, there's a counterpoint to this- someone like Jag Bar who looked at this with a critical eye, didn't give up his principles, set boundaries he wouldn't let Mike cross and maintained his integrity throughout his involvement. People are loving him for doing what we all hope we would do in that situation. But it takes a strong person to lead by example.

 

 

Great post here. Will support you in your documentary or whatever next you do. Subscribed to your channel a few weeks ago and will follow you on anything else you do, done with Gamester81. He saw the scham coming and tried to think it wasn't by saying people were "haters". You have almost 100,000 followers by turn blind out to clear evidence, what a jerk.

Edited March 2, 2016 by jconsolmagno

[jconsolmagno]

It's not a "witch hunt" to call Gamester81 out for shilling hardcore for Mike during RVGS --which wasn't that long ago. I don't know what he's done since other than covering his tracks by deleting videos.

 

Gamester81 was like a huckster selling Dr. Mike's Magic Oil and using every tactic in the book to put down detractors. "Toxic." "Haters." "It's frustrating because I see the behind-the-scenes and they don't (paraphrased)". Suggesting that detractors may be doing it for money. All of these were in the podcast I posted earlier. Now we're saying that it's okay because we found out Dr. Mike's formula was just Kool-Aid?

 

Forgiving is fine--and indeed he may have been more cautious this time around; but his erasing videos suggests he wants you to forget too.

 

If it wasn't for Gamester81, I wouldn't have found the AtariAge or wasted all of these hours reading these great members dissecting these prototypes. It has been great, I used to like his videos but now I can't stand it anymore and feel betrayed, unsubbing today and not buying another thing from him or his team.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Not cool...

[Keatah]

I get the impression that Keatah has an emulation rig that once seen in person would make Mike go,"What's a cart?". Once the Ark of the Keatah is opened there is no going back. That is why this collectard is terrified of the thing. This topic has got me interested in the Z3K and looking into the Raspberry Pi with Retropie. I already feel corrupted. The power of the Ark must be much worse.

 

The strength of its grip IS awe inspiring to say the least. There are times even I myself can't escape!

[Newsdee]

I'm not an R-Pi junkie, I just see a lot of untapped potential that little $35 board.

I'm a big fan of the R-Pi just because it created (and maintains) the market for a sub-$50 computer. It's still a bit underpowered but I'm ok with incremental updates at the same price point (as they're doing).

[enoofu]

Not cool...

 

Don't take it out of context I was replying to a thread way above the one that said Mike may do suicide, which I didn't read till after I posted

 

It was relating to shooting the Retro VGS instead

 

I wasn't endorsing the death of any person and hope that anyone that feel suicidal should get help

Edited March 2, 2016 by enoofu

[UKMike]

StopDrop&Retro asked a good question... I hope he (Mike) is okay. Has anyone actually heard from him since the end of the Toy fair?

 

Yes. Yesterday morning.

[Merendino]

Apologies if this has been stated before.

 

I 100% feel in my heart that this whole thing began to unravel when Kevtris and Mike parted ways. I think Mike felt he had him on board 100% and banked on him to be the guy behind the system.

 

When that fell apart, he lost it. He didn't have a backup plan, just an idea. An illusion of grandeur. Can I blame him for having his head in the clouds?

 

No.

 

Can I blame him for trying to frantically stall so he could find a replacement?

 

No.

 

Can I blame him for how him and anyone else closely tied to the project handled this?

 

Yes. Yes. Yes.

 

This isn't 1986. You have to be humble with shit like this. You have to be honest. You have to be forthcoming. Even though your system avoids it's existence; the internet exists. People refuse to be duped. People are far more intelligent as they have knowledge available at their fingertips 24/7.

 

As soon as he realized his idea wasn't going to float he should have thrown down the sword, admitted defeat and openly asked for help.

 

It's sad. I know what it's like to see your idea, no matter how silly, die a slow, painful death.

 

I believe this whole debacle has done nothing but good for the video game community, however. It's brought us together in a way I've never seen before. I'm beyond impressed at the level of intelligence displayed.

 

Years from now we will dig up threads like this and laugh.

 

I'm not a fan of Gamester81's channel but I do applaud him for his open apology, that speaks volumes in my world.

 

Thanks go out to Ben Heck, Kevtris and others for shedding light on this situation and for being patient with us all, I know it's a tall order.

[sh3-rg]

Hey Guys,

 

Thanks for the post. Just for clarity, could you confirm if you are or are not one of the guys such as Pipercub who have a stake in the GameGavel and/or RETRO businesses, or maybe even the newer company Mike created to go forward with the CC project? Would go a long way to being able to accept your apology if the answer is "no" on all counts, as your involvement with RVGS then CC would begin and end with your long-term friendship with Mike, a desire to see him do well with some soft-ball interviewing/promotion and simply having your games made available on a secondary format.

 

Apologies if this has been stated before.

 

I 100% feel in my heart that this whole thing began to unravel when Kevtris and Mike parted ways. I think Mike felt he had him on board 100% and banked on him to be the guy behind the system.

 

When that fell apart, he lost it. He didn't have a backup plan, just an idea. An illusion of grandeur. Can I blame him for having his head in the clouds?

 

No.

 

Until he thought he didn't need him anymore and quietly ignored his input, redesigning the system to be FPGA-lite or FPGA-free.

 

That was all Mike's doing and, from what others have said, not a unique occurrence.

[Hannacek]

 

Actually, my 2 cents is that's why he had no kickstarter. I think kickstarter told him he was full of crap, and demanded proof of a working proto (like in video form). The clear shell bullshot we saw was probably what he submitted to kickstarter as "proof".

 

The reason why I think this is because he waited until the day the kickstarter should have been live to tell everyone it was being delayed. I think that shows you right there that he was waiting as long as possible to try to get kickstarter to bend to his wishes and let "this one squeak by". Not everyone can be so easily persuaded, though. And Kickstarter doesn't need the money THAT bad, so I'm sure they told him to take a hike.

 

If he waited till the day of the fundraiser, he HAD to have been in talks with kickstarter at that point.

 

Kickstarter believes you when you tell them you have a working prototype. He told them he had a working prototype, and Kickstarter's automated system believed him. Kickstarter doesn't have people to verify every project. They have an algorithm.

 

He believed his own lies that he could do a Kickstarter, and use that money to make the prototype. After people quickly discovered the SNES Jr. he realized they would discover the HD capture card. He knew his Kickstarter would have been suspended a few days after the launch, so he chickened out on launch day, and didn't launch it. I don't know why he released the pictures on facebook that showed the prototype was a capture card.

[Vormund]

No I don't believe he thought people would recognise the capture card after the snes debacle. He posted that pic the day the Kickstarter was supposed to launch. Which was a week later off the top of my head. After Albert identified the EXACT card, that's when he took the pic down. Judging by post times here it was a maximum of 16 minutes.

[AE35]

 

Yes. Yesterday morning.

 

Did he say anything interesting?

[Andromeda Stardust]

Okay all I am sensing we need to calm down a bit. So here is a picture of a happy kitty.

This thread needs more happy kittens...

[Pipercub]

 

Yes. Yesterday morning.

Just looking over this mess and I was about to say the same thing. But lets put come context into play, the night the video capture card in a Jag was nailed we like MANY shared that image showing just what was in that case. And like many of you we saw mere minuets later that same image pulled from the RVGS FB page noted here as aaaaannnd its gone. So someone in control of that page saw that image and deleted it in response to it being re-purposed as proof of a sham. Next morning UK and I get emails and a phone call from none other than Socal Mike. We didn't respond because we knew it would be more of the same, he claimed he saw the image that morning and freaked out. I suspect setting up the who what where ummm I didn't know defence. No doubt looking to apply some combination of words to the issue because he was on the spot for deeds.

 

And that is what this is all about, the endless use of language and words to create the appearance of a company, product, and world view, fix problems, address concerns, and rebut proof, but actions are no where to be seen other than parlour tricks to bolster the words. When we last spoke to Socal he was willing to apply any combination of words needed to "fix" the matter at hand but not the actions needed because those would possibly result in this thing not going forward. Now what do we have, hardware developers, software developers, business partners, former friends, the guy going to film the kickstarter and so many more all saying it was a cloud of words and when actions, proper and needed actions were demanded there was nothing.

 

This is a small and connected community and if the organizational chart of people connected to this fiasco (by actual involvement) could be drawn it would be more vast than most of the observers here can imagine, but that network is in place and many of those people are talking and sharing. Many of us did not know about the promo video guy until his excellent video was recently posted, and he has likely never heard of many of us that were involved, but now we know one more guy that saw the same thing. And that pattern keeps repeating itself. Maybe I am a bit more of a hard nose sceptic but I am amazed at how long it took some to see what was going on, but after talking with so many and reading their thoughts on the matter I have to give some slack to them. Would it have been easier if:

 

-Eli ran from the show floor screaming "Its a SNES, holy shit its a SNES" sure, but a young guy with a signed NDA and not being able to directly prove his gut?

-A Coleco RWB handed a screwdriver over at the end of the toy fair and said open that thing now, they are not technical guys and business isn't conducted that way in general.

-Gamester81, thenavguy, and so many other GOOD PEOPLE somehow arrived at the conclusion it was a sham earlier, ok they didn't

-Ben Heck, Kevtris and other notables called BS earlier, maybe there business is not going after other projects as a first response.

 

My opinion is after doubling down on the wrong choices and the use of words to fix things that action required (choices that would probably have meant no console) the thing just could not bluff its way over the guardrails and this project has arrived at a dead end, same result either way.

[UKMike]

 

Did he say anything interesting?

 

Erm, yes.

 

I was one of two recipients of the email which was a reply to one I had sent him the day before.

 

While brief, it seemed to suggest one of two things, neither of which I was inclined to follow up on.

(1) He was unaware the fake with the DVR card had been posted.

(2) He knew it had been posted but was surprised it had been uncovered as a fake.

[+Random Terrain]

This thread needs more happy kittens...

 

Here you go:

 

atariage.com/forums/topic/247145-coleco-chameleon-hardware-speculations/?p=3451094

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Terrible analogy. Considering there was no final product in this case. The minute you caught wind of this being what will go down in history as one of the top 3 hilarious video game related FUBARs of all time. You should have been running for the tree line with a JATO strapped to your back. You don't take a "wait and see" approach.

In your humble opinion, what are the other two video game related FUBARs of all time?