Retroblox

[thedoppelganger]

They have gone quiet on Twitter. They often seem do so after an announcement attracts flack as the streaming one has done.

 

[godslabrat]

1 hour ago, thedoppelganger said:

They have gone quiet on Twitter. They often seem do so after an announcement attracts flack as the streaming one has done.

 

That's an understatement.  I can find only literally one comment that's positive.  

[XtraSmiley]

To the surprise of no one with a brain, delayed until "November". But pre-orders still open!!!!

[phoenixdownita]

10 minutes ago, XtraSmiley said:

To the surprise of no one with a brain, delayed until "November". But pre-orders still open!!!!

Is there a year attached to that? Or is it just "a November", you know .... they keep on coming every 12 months or so!

[XtraSmiley]

8 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

Is there a year attached to that? Or is it just "a November", you know .... they keep on coming every 12 months or so!

Walmart site says November 2020. All the cheap to make add ons, such as a plastic cart adapter (ie the "modules") are still showing July ship date. For all the good they will do you without the base unit.

[godslabrat]

4 hours ago, XtraSmiley said:

Walmart site says November 2020. All the cheap to make add ons, such as a plastic cart adapter (ie the "modules") are still showing July ship date. For all the good they will do you without the base unit.

It would be hilarious if the modules are the only thing that ever gets released.  

[phoenixdownita]

8 hours ago, godslabrat said:

It would be hilarious if the modules are the only thing that ever gets released.  

If they miss another holiday season I don't think anyone would or could care about them any more.

We are all addicts of this "videogame-itis" desease and get foaming mouth when these types of systems get announced (I think I was about-to-have/having an orgasm during the Retro VGS/Coleco Chameleon pre-debacle) but then again after a couple of coitus-interrupti (snes-in-a-jag & capture-card) I sobered up .... there's only so much "blue-balls" one can take. Amirite?

[Keatah]

IMHO these kinds of things are piddly stuff. Bits of insignificance here and there. You know..?

[Steven Pendleton]

I haven't seen any official announcements of the delay on their website, Facebook, or Twitter, but I did check the retail stores that are selling it and it does seem that the console itself is delayed but the modules are still showing July 9th. The Genesis/MD one has been sold out on Amazon Japan for quite some time for some reason, and it's still sold out.

 

You'd think that they would actually announce a delay like that since that's what any other company would do if they had a product with an announced release date that got delayed, but I guess not, in their case. I'd laugh if the adaptors did actually ship on the 9th of July. I am guessing that they need more preorder money to actually build the number of systems that got ordered or something like that because they ran out of cash in the development phase or something. Just a guess, though.

[godslabrat]

9 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I haven't seen any official announcements of the delay on their website, Facebook, or Twitter, but I did check the retail stores that are selling it and it does seem that the console itself is delayed but the modules are still showing July 9th. The Genesis/MD one has been sold out on Amazon Japan for quite some time for some reason, and it's still sold out.

 

You'd think that they would actually announce a delay like that since that's what any other company would do if they had a product with an announced release date that got delayed, but I guess not, in their case. I'd laugh if the adaptors did actually ship on the 9th of July. I am guessing that they need more preorder money to actually build the number of systems that got ordered or something like that because they ran out of cash in the development phase or something. Just a guess, though.

They're in a really bad trend now, though.  Because they have fixed costs, every month they DON'T ship a product, the product itself gets more expensive to produce.  And at some point, they'll run out of idiots to hand them money and the component costs will only go so low.  
 

I say this being generous enough to assume they have *ANY* of their VC warchest left.  There's a considerable chance they're bleeding green and ducking phone calls.

[Steven Pendleton]

10 hours ago, godslabrat said:

They're in a really bad trend now, though.  Because they have fixed costs, every month they DON'T ship a product, the product itself gets more expensive to produce.  And at some point, they'll run out of idiots to hand them money and the component costs will only go so low.  
 

I say this being generous enough to assume they have *ANY* of their VC warchest left.  There's a considerable chance they're bleeding green and ducking phone calls.

Yeah, they have to pay overhead and stuff somehow. If whatever money they are making from preorders isn't enough to cover production + overhead, they have a relatively large problem. At that point, they are basically dead as a company unless they somehow suddenly get a lot of cash from somewhere.

 

It's quite sad to see what was once a promising and interesting product become... this.

[thedoppelganger]

8 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, they have to pay overhead and stuff somehow. If whatever money they are making from preorders isn't enough to cover production + overhead, they have a relatively large problem. At that point, they are basically dead as a company unless they somehow suddenly get a lot of cash from somewhere.

 

It's quite sad to see what was once a promising and interesting product become... this.

It seems to have become a pyramid scheme although not originally intentional. I suspect its now collapsed. Glad I never paid them anything and sympathy to those who have lost money.

[Steven Pendleton]

20 hours ago, thedoppelganger said:

It seems to have become a pyramid scheme although not originally intentional. I suspect its now collapsed. Glad I never paid them anything and sympathy to those who have lost money.

The worst part is that the thing actually works as advertised, and it did so over a year ago when they brought the thing here to Tokyo to demo it in a few stores. It was, from what I could tell, essentially finished at that point. Everything looked, sounded, and ran beautifully.

 

I didn't know anything about the Saturn at the time, but some Japanese dude who apparently did chose some high-end Saturn game that apparently breaks on most emulators and put it in and it worked perfectly from what I could tell. I don't remember what game it was, though.

 

I think at that point they might have still been at the point where they were making game-specific fixes to get everything working, but from what I saw, it was mostly finished. I didn't stick around for too long, though; it was hot inside Super Potato and I didn't want to take up all of Bryan's time asking 6 million questions about the thing when he had other people to talk to.

 

The thing absolutely has/had potential... but not at its current price, and with the delays, I wonder how many preorders have been cancelled in favour of buying an Analogue system or building a MiSTer. Those won't help with Saturn or PS1 games, of course, but at least they have support for the Famicom.

[imstarryeyed]

I honestly think its still going to come out, they have come really far.  Its a great concept to me and I am looking forward to it, if / when it arrives.

 

I really do want it for my Saturn collection honestly but the other systems are a big plus to me.

 

I guess I will just have to wait and see.

 

[Keatah]

The keyword above is "waiting".. Could be decades, centuries even!

[XtraSmiley]

On 6/24/2020 at 5:29 AM, thedoppelganger said:

It seems to have become a pyramid scheme although not originally intentional. I suspect its now collapsed. Glad I never paid them anything and sympathy to those who have lost money.

I've been saying it forever, it's a Ponzi scheme (not pyramid). The thing about a Ponzi scheme is that a product can ship, but it will take the money of new suckers, I mean investors/preorders, to make it happen.

 

When though? Who knows.

Edited June 27, 2020 by XtraSmiley

[godslabrat]

2 hours ago, XtraSmiley said:

I've been saying it forever, it's a Ponzi scheme (not pyramid). The thing about a Ponzi scheme is that a product can ship, but it will take the money of new suckers, I mean investors/preorders, to make it happen.

 

When though? Who knows.

I don't think it's intentionally a ponzi scheme, but that is the net result of poor planning and lukewarm customer interest.  

Edited June 27, 2020 by godslabrat

[thedoppelganger]

12 hours ago, XtraSmiley said:

I've been saying it forever, it's a Ponzi scheme (not pyramid). The thing about a Ponzi scheme is that a product can ship, but it will take the money of new suckers, I mean investors/preorders, to make it happen.

 

When though? Who knows.

I say Tom-A-tow

You say Tom-R-tow

Lets just agree the whole things off.....

☺

[XtraSmiley]

9 hours ago, thedoppelganger said:

I say Tom-A-tow

You say Tom-R-tow

Lets just agree the whole things off.....

☺

I've never said Tom-R-tow in my life! Maybe Tom-ah-tow, but R? Nah...

 

A pyramid scheme is different than a Ponzi scheme. Here you can read why and how:

 

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/ponzi-vs-pyramid.asp

 

Now with the Modern Vintage Gamer fucking pushing this shit, I guess you could argue they are beginning to delve into the pyramid side of schemes...

[Steven Pendleton]

November 15th is next release date that they will probably miss

 

 

[godslabrat]

24 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

November 15th is next release date that they will probably miss

 

 

I would be very curious to see if any of the next round of "beta testers" fall outside the category of "influencers".

 

Also, apparently this second beta test is supposed to be for the software update system.  I'm at a loss as to why the current beta testers would be inadequate to gather this data. Do their units not have LAN ports?  
 

The real head-scratcher is, why would  you need a beta for this, when the industry has basically moved to the model of giving everyone whatever software you can on day 1, and turning your entire customer base into involuntary beta testers?

 

Here's the thing... if I assume

polymega is honest, apparently I also have to assume they're stupid.

[derFunkenstein]

I'm selling my Polymega on eBay right now.

 

Oh, sorry, it's a 7th-gen Core i3 Dell Inspiron. Same thing... LOL

 

I missed this thread for a while, so I have to back up: what the hell are they going to be streaming? Retro game streaming? Why that and not just, you know, download the ROM and run it locally? Or is it streaming high-end games? Those services have been flailing around for a long time now, not really getting any interest, because nobody has overcome physics yet. 

[godslabrat]

30 minutes ago, derFunkenstein said:

I'm selling my Polymega on eBay right now.

 

Oh, sorry, it's a 7th-gen Core i3 Dell Inspiron. Same thing... LOL

 

I missed this thread for a while, so I have to back up: what the hell are they going to be streaming? Retro game streaming? Why that and not just, you know, download the ROM and run it locally? Or is it streaming high-end games? Those services have been flailing around for a long time now, not really getting any interest, because nobody has overcome physics yet. 

No one is really sure, but I get the impression the streaming service and the ROM store are two distinct features.  

[XtraSmiley]

14 hours ago, godslabrat said:

I would be very curious to see if any of the next round of "beta testers" fall outside the category of "influencers".

 

Also, apparently this second beta test is supposed to be for the software update system.  I'm at a loss as to why the current beta testers would be inadequate to gather this data. Do their units not have LAN ports?  
 

The real head-scratcher is, why would  you need a beta for this, when the industry has basically moved to the model of giving everyone whatever software you can on day 1, and turning your entire customer base into involuntary beta testers?

 

Here's the thing... if I assume

polymega is honest, apparently I also have to assume they're stupid.

There is no such thing as a beta tester. It's a Ponzi Scheme. Here's how it works:

 

1. Get money, promise X.

2. Money runs out, X not delivered, promise X+Y, get money.

3. Money runs out, X+Y not delivered, promise X+Y+Z, get money.

4. Money runs out, DELIVER X to a very few, say 6 people with YouTube channels. Money runs out, promise X+Y+Z+Streaming, get money.

5. Money runs out, DELIVER X to a very few people, say 100 with money from step 4, promise X+Y+Z+Streaming, get money.

6. ??? Money runs out, maybe, maybe not. DELIVER X to more people, say 100-300, again, money runs out. Promise ???, get more money.

7. Rinse, repeat step 6. Maybe if enough people keep giving money, deliver for all pre-orders. If not, claim bankruptcy and it's over.

 

The whole time this is going on, I'm sure the team is working hard, but also paying themselves to work hard. How much money is left over to deliver on promises? Who knows.

 

What I think, a $400 CD emulation box that needs $80 modules to play more games coming out during PS5/XsX release, is not going to sell well enough to deliver all those pre-ordered systems...

 

It may not have STARTED as a Ponzi Scheme, but the way they seem to be managing it indicates it is. They are mis-leading people who give them money (FPGA, shifting specs, shifting release date, raising prices, etc). That's the mark of intent to deceive.

Edited July 8, 2020 by XtraSmiley

[Steven Pendleton]

On 7/8/2020 at 2:37 PM, godslabrat said:

I would be very curious to see if any of the next round of "beta testers" fall outside the category of "influencers".

 

Also, apparently this second beta test is supposed to be for the software update system.  I'm at a loss as to why the current beta testers would be inadequate to gather this data. Do their units not have LAN ports?  
 

The real head-scratcher is, why would  you need a beta for this, when the industry has basically moved to the model of giving everyone whatever software you can on day 1, and turning your entire customer base into involuntary beta testers?

 

Here's the thing... if I assume

polymega is honest, apparently I also have to assume they're stupid.

I'm guessing this beta test next shipment won't be much different from the previous one. We'll see, though.

 

Still, going against the trend of releasing a broken and unfinished pile of garbage and then patching it later is a nice thing and I wish more companies (all companies) would do it.