New Cartridge-Based Console incoming?

[L___E___T]

For those that may have heard:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/retro-vgs#/story

What do you guys think?  Something you'd try out?

[UglyJoe]

I was pretty ho-hum about it until I heard about the FPGA.  It's a really unique idea.  The project is in good hands, so I really hope they get their funding.

[Ghegs]

I wish it would succeed and be everything they want it to be because I'd love it, but I don't believe it'll happen. Maybe if this had started before Ouya and how it crashed and burned fairly soon after its release, Retro VGS might have had a better shot.

[L___E___T]

2 million seems like a bit of a longshot...

[zmaster18]

I think this console is a failure already! First of all, it is the Atari Jaguar casing. They could have had a unique style but instead they reuse the crappy Jaguar.

This looks like it will sell 10x worse than OUYA.

[L___E___T]

 

Sadly I also feel like it's fundamentally doomed.

Jaguar tooling saved them 500K setup cost apparently but could easily lose them more in the longrun from lack of aesthetic appeal.

Ouya has already tried the idealist approach and proven that it is as unsustainable as soviet socialism, so I'd tend to agree there as well.

[UglyJoe]

Ugh, Ouya comparisons.  This has so little in common with the Ouya.

I am a bit doubtful that they'll get their funding, but I really hope that they do.

[fcgamer]

I have no interest in this, and I think it will fail.

Who is this marketed towards?  Retrogamers?  I don't know about the rest of you, but with a library so wide as Sega MD, Famicom, Super Famicom, Game Boy, etc, my retro game choices are unlimited.  Why buy something that tries to mimic the old style (but cannot truly copy the old style) when I can buy the originals, that carry the true style of the time? 

[zmaster18]

I have no interest in this, and I think it will fail.

Who is this marketed towards?  Retrogamers?  I don't know about the rest of you, but with a library so wide as Sega MD, Famicom, Super Famicom, Game Boy, etc, my retro game choices are unlimited.  Why buy something that tries to mimic the old style (but cannot truly copy the old style) when I can buy the originals, that carry the true style of the time? 

This. Also the games shown so far don't look very impressive. I also doubt indie developers would want to release games on the system when they can release them in the digital marketplace for much cheaper.

[NintendoKing]

I was interested a month and a half ago when they promised a price tag under $200. But in the last 3 weeks since they have stated now that its gonna cost 350$ and $60 for every cart; I will be skipping it.

OUYA is more technically advanced and it only cost me $100. $350... Psh.

[L___E___T]

Yeah they're not exactly making it easy on themselves...  Key point is, they're trying to replicate what is much more than just a case of games on cartridge.

On Ouya comparisons - I know they're both very different machines - but they are both trying to deliver something of an impossible dream, and are (were) both new players, hence the reference

[NintendoKing]

Honestly with the tech behind OUYA they could have easily added a cartridge port and it could have been what RETRO vgs is trying to be.

Their price tag is beyond stupidly expensive, it's as costly as a Wii U...

[zmaster18]

The appeal of playing games on cartridge isn't enough to buy this machine... especially if it uses those butt-ugly Atari Jaguar cartridges. Those are probably the worst cartridge design that was ever made.

People mostly like to buy games on cartridges because they are pop-culture artifacts and also have playable value. They are collectible because they were actually part of gaming history. This new console won't have that significant impact on gaming and won't be appealing.

$350 is a joke. You don't need to pay this much for a console that plays your regular indie games but on a Jaguar cartridge in a modded Jaguar case with your typical LED mod.

I wonder what the specs on this system are like? I think choosing to do something with more limitations like 8-bit could have been better? People get creative when working with limitations. If this system was 8-bit, it wouldn't be a clone of the NES but instead something with subtle difference. Like a mix of NES, MSX/SG-1000//Colecovision, Atari, and Master System. Some kind of new 8-bit system to program for would have been a great way to intrigue and challenge developers to make games for it.

[muckyfingers]

You can read about the debacle that this is here

http://nintendolegend.com/2015/09/interview-kevin-kevtris-horton-on-the-retro-vgs/

and here are more keypoints where the flames began

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/235430-how-has-this-not-been-posted-yet-retro-vgs/?p=3326949

the thread is 85 pages long now.

[Zycrow]

What a weird thing!

I do think some of their reasoning behind this is seriously flawed. I am a die-hard retro gamer, and I'll argue the qualities of many older games over modern ones at any time. But: the industry moved beyond cartridges for very good reasons - new games are now cheaper and more accessible than they've ever been.

And the idea that games are released without need for patching, etc. is also kinda flawed. Think of all the older games that had balance issues or had easily-fixable gameplay flaws, or had areas that were incomplete...in the modern gaming environment, these flaws could be patched. Why is this a bad thing?

(Yeah, sure, it means that you need access to the Internet and some modern games will not be as archival as older ones. Well, OK.)

So basically you're paying 350 bucks for a system using the body of one of the worst retro game consoles, to play an iffy library of games that have no chance of being improved after release.