Retro VGS Game Console

[HailingTheThings]

Anyone else think Mike Kennedy will pull a Bruce Caitlyn Jenner and then get into politics?

Nah, I think he'll consider suicide for a while and if that doesn't work he'll manage a BestBuy or something.

Implying he's too dumb to pull it off? lol

[NightWolve]

Did he even really have new hardware guys working on something after throwing the John Carlsen guy under the bus and dismissing Kevtris' console idea as a failure from the start

I understand what happened, he REALLY wanted to be at the Toy Fair but had no prototype, he had NOTHING, so he faked it with an SNES to get by, but I wonder if someone, ANYONE, was actually putting something together for him in the meantime post-John Carlsen ?

[crazydean]

Did he even really have new hardware guys working on something after throwing the John Carlsen guy under the bus and dismissing Kevtris' console idea as a failure from the start

I understand what happened, he REALLY wanted to be at the Toy Fair but had no prototype, he had NOTHING, so he faked it with an SNES to get by, but I wonder if someone, ANYONE, was actually putting something together for him in the meantime post-John Carlsen ?

I've been wondering this as well. I don't think so, though. Otherwise, he wouldn't have tried to cover it up so many times. He was simply waiting for the cash to come in, then he would pay someone to design it.

I suppose he found the molds for the old Jaguar shells and saw the dollar signs. He thought that the console revolved around those damn shells and refused to acknowledge when he was wrong.

If nothing else, this has been quite an interesting experiment. Look at how much this RVGS has affected. There are long threads on many gaming forums, Youtubers are showing their true colors, Coleco and Atari are making appearances. Also, didn't this thing get like $800k worth of backing the first time it came out? Even then it was nothing but promises in an empty shell. I must say, that's a much larger number than I would have expected. Hopefully, this means good things for people like kevtris and will keep them motivated, knowing that there is a market.

[NightWolve]

Even then it was nothing but promises in an empty shell.

Well, a shell with an SNES motherboard inside, and then a DVR capture card later... Not exactly empty, but yes... Ah man, so many lulz, so little time to explore them all.

Like you, I don't believe they were scammers, but definitely dopey and greedy (and capable of lying to not miss marketing opportunities and buy more time, then repeat lying when called on it with fake mockups)... When you don't even know exactly what you're gonna put inside, and thus the building cost per unit, yet the first things you're coming up with are collectard "special edition" gold-colored consoles and $350 pricepoints, f--k you, frankly!!! Never seen such a blatant cart before the horses example such as this... But yeah, it was a "give us money now, we'll build it later" thinking process that started it and having to build something now per Kickstarter's standards was too much of a curve-ball for them after the IndieGoGo failed miserably...

Definitely, I'd like to see Mike Kennedy's playbook in areas of marketing/promotion/etc. I dunno how a guy who seems so "dumb" pulled this off... He's not dumb in all areas is the thing. Somehow, he had the right email addresses to contact, he traveled when necessary, shook hands, made the right pitches that were just appealing enough, etc. to get a pretty powerful marketing blitz going in gaming news media for something that was so specious from the start... On the way down it made it to my Facebook trending list, so not exactly the "making it big" he was envisioning, but I am impressed how he and a few of his "beer buddies" pulled this off!!!

I think they'll be writing about this for years, how did this f--king guy pull this off to have even gotten as far as he did ?? That's kind of fascinating to me...

[Desh]

I just want a full on Barbara Walters interview with Mike Kennedy so we can get a timeline breakdown and find out 100% what was going on and why he did what he did.  It would be interesting to hear his take on why each lie was told and why he seriously thought any of the "prototypes" were believable.

[MrBroadway]

I just want a full on Barbara Walters interview with Mike Kennedy so we can get a timeline breakdown and find out 100% what was going on and why he did what he did.  It would be interesting to hear his take on why each lie was told and why he seriously thought any of the "prototypes" were believable.

Or we could just forget about the guy and he'll go away. 

[Bloufo]

I don't know the man but from what I've heard it doesn't quite sound as if he's the type to just go away.

Just when you think he's done, he resurfaces with another crazy venture.

All the while taunting the detractors.



BAM! IN YOUR FACE



 

[KingDrool]

The moment I saw this guy show up with his Jag shells, I smelled bullshit. I wasn't completely opposed to the concept of the project. Sure, it was flawed, but whatever. But him trying to sell the Jag shells as a good idea just immediately struck me as half-assed nonsense. And, as it turned out, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

[Jibbajaba]

I just want a full on Barbara Walters interview with Mike Kennedy so we can get a timeline breakdown and find out 100% what was going on and why he did what he did.  It would be interesting to hear his take on why each lie was told and why he seriously thought any of the "prototypes" were believable.

Or we could just forget about the guy and he'll go away. 

I'd be fine with that.  He got his 15 minutes.  Time for him to go back to a life of obscurity as a shelf salesman.

[Lost Monkey]

I just want a full on Barbara Walters interview with Mike Kennedy so we can get a timeline breakdown and find out 100% what was going on and why he did what he did.  It would be interesting to hear his take on why each lie was told and why he seriously thought any of the "prototypes" were believable.

Or we could just forget about the guy and he'll go away. 

I'd be fine with that.  He got his 15 minutes.  Time for him to go back to a life of obscurity as a shelf salesman.

So that is his angle - getting people to fill up their shelves with COLLECTIBLE games so that he can swoop in and take care of that too.... lol

[KingDrool]

A few more details:

http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/8/11180670/coleco-chameleon-terminated-retrovgs-closed-down

In an update posted on Facebook, Coleco's ownership noted that it had separated from the retro gaming system's maker, RetroVGS. "Retro VGS has decided that the work that they have created is not sufficient to demonstrate at this time," the post stated. "Consequently, we can no longer proceed with the project and the Chameleon project will be terminated."

The Coleco brand, well known for the ColecoVision console and ADAM computer system of the early 1980s, is now owned by River West Brands of Chicago.

"It just wasn't what we had thought it would be," Mark Thomann, River West's CEO and Coleco's owner, told Polygon. "We thought it would be an originally developed console, and the indications were that it just wasn't."

Thomann said engineers contacted by a River West representative examined the console "and we weren't satisfied with it."

But, "We're going to continue looking for someone who can develop a unique, original console that is the real deal" Thomann said.

And then there's this:

Todd Shallbetter, COO of Atari, contacted us with the following statement:

"Atari does not have, and never has had an agreement with RetroVGS to release Atari 2600 games on their product."

[xelement5x]

I hope that if Mark Thomann really wants a console like this to market he decides to talk with kevtris about it.

[NightWolve]

Also, didn't this thing get like $800k worth of backing the first time it came out?

Almost forgot, but no, the IndieGoGo campaign failed miserably at $60,000 before the plug was pulled... People were starting to see these guys as clowns with the embarrassing "prototype" video their first hardware guy put together best summarized as "power goes in, video goes out" which they later deleted. After that failure is when they went back to the drawing board and decided on capturing the Coleco brand and going at it for another round, but they didn't get very far after their Toy Fair stunt of faking a demo using a SNES which finally brought this to a conclusion...

In short, this experiment was a miserable failure from start to finish unless you count their success of capturing the Atari Jaguar molds and selling some cases they made with them to generate working money or at least return on investment - who knows if Mike even made all his money back for what he paid for them. For his sake, I hope he did, but it's all hilarious to me either way.

[Medic_wheat]

I hope that if Mark Thomann really wants a console like this to market he decides to talk with kevtris about it.

He did. Then he burnt his bridge by acting like a cunt to him and the. Threw him under the bus publicly.

Kev's response was pretty much "whatever" and left it at that.

[SephirothTNH]

I hope that if Mark Thomann really wants a console like this to market he decides to talk with kevtris about it.

He did. Then he burnt his bridge by acting like a cunt to him and the. Threw him under the bus publicly.

Kev's response was pretty much "whatever" and left it at that.

Mark Thomann wasn't even in the picture then.