RF Generation Message Board

While Bil is off welcoming the birth of his new son, Crabby and Duke get together to do a show on their own. Of course there are a lot of your questions to answer, and then we discuss the upcoming Retro VGS and it's associated Kickstarter. Are we excited to jump in? Is there a viable business model behind it? Listen in to find out what we think.

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Show Notes
Music: Street Fighter II - Championship Edition (PCE)
Q & A - 9:45
Topic - 56:53
Outro - 1:57:05

The many uses of the Atari Jaguar plastic mold...

Thanks for another episode and good choice of music!

I would say the democratization of information provided by the internet has been a boon to all collectors. I wouldn't have a Famicom if it wasn't for the internet.

Blood Bowl 2 is coming to the PS4 and X1:

http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

No one mentioned Ice Hockey on the NES for a good sports game?

There's a fan made Phantasy Star V:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d51aaiS6FQ8

Shovel Knight was delayed until 11/3/15:

http://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/shovel-knight/123213

Also the Xbox one version seems to have vanished...  ???



Retro VGS Section:

Looks like they listed prices for the Retro VGS:

$299 = 500 early bird black RVGS. Our standard price is then $349 + color choice for the remainder of campaign. Not $399.

Official site for the Retro VGS here:

http://www.retrovgs.com/

I'm happy to hear that Crabby is supporting the project but I'm taking the Duke approach with the Retro VGS. If it was $150-$200 it would be a different story.

This is from the Retro VGS twitter account:

RETRO VGS@RETROVGS

@randomtw2013 it will not play original Jaguar carts. Unsure at this point if we will have an adapter for them.

Retro Gaming Roundup posted a new podcast about the RETRO VGS yesterday:

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/shownotes/current/current_roundup.php

I read today that Retro VGS is switching its campaign to Indiegogo, as Kickstarter requires a working prototype for hardware projects. This makes me even less interested in funding up front. I'm staying with the wait-and-see approach on this one.

Screw that.  I want to at least see a product, something working.  I don't want to give my money to something that may not even come out.  At least seeing a prototype would make me more confident that the item would be released.

Just went to the website, I sooooooo want one, though.

That's the risk in general with a crowd funding campaign. Its money up front for the possibility of something down the road. They didn't have anything beyond some concept art for Bloodstained and I threw my money at it. I'm willing to take the risk on this as I think the potential outcome could be amazing.

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

It is a good thing someone picked up a PS4 as you can now register for the Dark Souls 3 stress test...

http://cbt.darksouls3.com/en/

Gotcha.  I do really want one.  I like cartridge more than CD based games.  There is just something about a cartridge.  You guys forgot to add Double Dribble to the sports game.  And R.B.I. Baseball.  I played that game like crazy when I was a kid

What makes you think I haven't already? ;)

Man, I listened to the whole podcast and I am so excited for this.  The more I listened to it, the more excited I got.  These are the type of games that I love.  The price point is killing me, though.  I'm sure I'll get one some day.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that. 3% funded after 2 days. It seems like these get a big bunch of their funding up front.

It's odd that they haven't even bothered to update their web page to link to their crowd funding page. The FAQ still references Kickstarter. Not looking good.

Yea, I noticed that.  They still referenced Kickstarter.  If it was $200 I'd probably be in.  Like you, I don't think this thing is going to be funded.

Were NES games seriously that much?  I remember them being $40.  I wish I still had some receipts from the games I bought.  I do recall certain games costing more like a racing game for Genesis (Super Monaco GP was it?) and I believe Virtual Fighter was $70 when it came out.

Virtua Racing? That was more expensive due to having the SVP chip inside.
EDIT: Wikipedia says "US$100 in the United States and £70 in the United Kingdom."

Yea, Virtua Racing is the game!  I don't think many games were priced higher than the normal price if my memory serves me correctly.  I can only recall a few.

I was in until I heard this. You want $300 for a system that you wont even confirm works? Good luck. I will buy one if it ever gets made.

Also, Duke is correct. Shazam and Captain Marvel are the same character.

I'd been wondering where all the Retro VGS talk was, just listened to the podcast today and realized it must be here!

I am much closer to the Crabby side of things than the Duke side. This has been a pretty exciting thing to watch. The idea of this console is amazing and I love it. The only thing keeping me from pitching in is the upcoming VR stuff I plan to spending real money on, if it wasn't for that I would've bought in to the VGS first day. If the VGS was at the $140-180 price point which was originally hinted at, I would have bought in first day.

The console sounds great, I would rather have this than either a PS4 or Xbox One if I had to choose. You guys were talking about how this project may be suffering from 'feature-creep,' that's true but it's made it look so much better.....except it's now out of the range I'm willing to spend*  Although I normally think all the comparisons to the Retron 5 hurt the VGS' campaign, you did bring up the fact that the Retron also had an ever increasing price. When that thing was first announced it was going to be $99, I would have bought one at that price, I'll still buy one at that price if I get the chance. So, I guess there's conversation to be had over the 'added feature set vs. the higher price' issue. Seems like games will likely be spendier too. At first the story was they were hoping for $20-40, now it seems like $40-70 is the range.

This wouldn't be the first time I've "Kickstarted" a SoCal Mike thing. My 'Retro' magazine subscription is in it's second year now, subscriber since day one. I have the Atari 2600 game he stars in, CGE Adventures, and I've met him in real life. His true enthusiasm for games is so fun. You don't have to hear him talk for long to know that he really enjoys this stuff. Hopefully this campaign for the VGS turns out successful. You never know, if the story gets picked up by some major outlet, it could take off.

* Still, I'd almost get in on this. If it wasn't for my life long dream of flying a space ship while sitting at home promised to us by 90's sci-fi about to be fulfilled by Oculus and Valve, I'd be in.





Each week I listen to tons of podcasts, in a given month I'm sure I listen to at least 80 shows. 100 might be closer. Some are long, some short. Some are daily shows, others weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or random. The Collectorcast has something over all of them though. The amount of time spent on the 'telling people where you can find us!' segment. Easily the longest of any podcast ever made ever. I'm pretty sure there's been months were that one segment on the Collectorcast is longer than every other podcasts' segment I've listened since the last Collectorcast put together! Congragrations on having the longest segment.

Five Aside Soccer for the C64 was another great sports game.

I thought so...

@nupoile: I've met Mike as well at CGE. Really nice guy. After just listening to the last Retro Gaming Roundup Retro VGS special, it sounds like the feature creep might be Steve Woita's doing. Like you, the initial idea of a $180 retro console that used carts and played like a 16-bit machine sounded very appealing, but I'm wondering if Steve pushed this in the other direction. Once it is all said and done we may get to find out, but through all of their social media it has always sounded to me that there were multiple voices talking about the product, and they weren't always aligned.

Also, I don't know if having the longest where to find us segment is a compliment or a complaint, but I'll accept it as the former. It's only at the end of the show anymore, so I figure regular listeners will probably just stop by the time they get to the outro segment. I like to toss in the occasional odd piece at the very end when we have it just to reward those that go all the way through.

For those interested more information about Kevtris (he made the NES HDMI kit)  and his involvement in/departure from  the Retro VGS project see Post #1823:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/235430-how-has-this-not-been-posted-yet-retro-vgs/page-73



It looks like Kevtris is considering making his own system:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/page-3

Kevtris is a brilliant guy. If he can pair up with right business people I'd be interested in what he could put together.

$180 and I would have bought it.  I don't need all this fancy stuff.  I just want a cartridge system with games $30-$40 and from the 8-bit and 16-bit.  Done deal!

There's an interview with Kevtris regarding the Retro VGS here:

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

It seems the Retro VGS Indiegogo campaign has been ended early so that they can go back to the drawing board and fix the issues. I wish Mike and the crew the best, and I think this was a very wise decision.

I was just going to ask if anyone has put money towards that.  I guess it's a no now.

Crabby and I didn't. It really fell apart quickly.

I was quite excited about the prospect of the RetroVGS when I first read about it, but listening to all the exploratory conversation you guys had, it's obvious that it still needs some ironing out before they can really go to people and ask them to fund something that truly hasn't been fully formulated yet.  It's a shame, because the idea itself has a lot of promise, if implemented properly and offered at a reasonable price point.

I 100% agree.  I love the idea and concept but things need to be ironed out.  It's priced way too high, also.

Even the duders at Giant Bomb are talking about the Retro VGS:

http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/

Starts around 1:16:00

Retro Gaming Roundup talked about it on their latest podcast, Mike (Retro VGS guy) is one of the founders of that show, though he wasn't there when they talked about it.

This episode is 5 hours long but they talk about the VGS at the beginning of the "news" section, which, according to their show notes is at 3:44:29
Episode 92:
http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/shownotes/2015/roundup092_2015.09.php

They say they have more 'inside info' they'll talk about later.....

Lovers of physical media rejoice... there is hope:

https://twitter.com/LimitedRunGames

Yes they do have a prototype....  ;)

"From the limited games interview at http://www.pocket-console.com/2015/10/an-interview-with-limited-run-games.html'

MAC: What are your plans for working with other devs on limited print runs? Anything in the works already?

JF: We currently have a list of over forty games that we'd love to bring into the physical realm. It's a good mix of PS4 and Vita titles both upcoming and already released. We're already in talks with a few developers and their games are awesome - I wish I could say more! If any of your readers have a favorite game that isn't available physically, they should definitely feel free to drop our name to that game's developer.

It's good to see someone taking on the role of physical publisher. It's a tough market, but I think it is viable.

Enjoyed the Q&A portion of the show; Collectorcast is comfort food and the only gaming podcast I listen to.

I skipped the Retro VGS stuff - mainly because I knew they failed their funding (listening late), and the entire operation never seemed stable or prepared to go into a crowdfunding mode. While I admire their passion, this was simply asking for money based on an idea - nothing concrete was ever produced. No prototype is a huge failing.

Thanks for sticking with us! I'm curious to know if you'll pay any attention to it if it makes it back with a prototype for a more traditional Kickstarter. I'm not sure they've got enough trust left in the community to pull it off, but they are supposedly still working on the project.

Soooo...pointed out to Crabby last night that the Retro VGS, is now...A Coleco Chameleon?!? and their website says it will play 8, 16, and 32-bit games? Crazyness.

So weird!!