The Coleco Chameleon is a video game console promising to take a stand against downloadable content (DLC) by shipping non-upgradeable cartridge games just like systems from the 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, the Chameleon may never see the light of day.
Following its public debut at the New York Toy Fair, the Chameleon was set to launch through a Kickstarter campaign starting February 26th. The campaign was going to be used to build interest in the new game console and would be used to release details about the console such as price and launch titles. But last week, instead of launching the new Kickstarter campaign, the company building Coleco Chameleon, RetroVGS, announced on Facebook that it was delaying crowdfunding indefinitely.
We have decided to delay the pre-sell, i.e. Kickstarter, campaign in order to finalise our prototype and work with developers on having the best possible content,” said Retro VGS in the post. “We’ll keep you posted on any major news on our Facebook page and will let you know when we launch a pre-sell program leading up to the Christmas season.”
The delays don’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that’s been following along. As we noted in our New York Toy Fair post, Retro VGS announced the project in early 2015 after acquiring the original toolkit for the 1990s gaming system, the Atari Jaguar. The project was later cancelled due to crowdfunding issues and complications that occurred while building the initial prototype.
RetroVGS’s failed IndieGoGo campaign brought lots of scepticism about its newly rebranded Coleco Chameleon launch plan. When I asked RetroVGS co-founder Mike Kennedy about the apparent scepticism the company was facing, he brushed off many of the concerns. I asked him specifically about accusations that he’d actually fit an SNES board in an Atari Jaguar case at the New York Toy Fair. Here’s exactly what he said:
“Often times with early prototypes/proof of concepts hardware designers utilise salvaged “legacy” parts. Since our HDMI output (our standard output) wasn’t quite stable enough to get us through the show they opted to use a SNES connector to allow us to quickly get Composite output just to use for the show demonstration. It was however, running on our software. As we have told everyone, when the Kickstarter campaign is up, it will clearly show a more near production prototype and boardset (something my team has continued to work on before), during and now after Toy Fair has ended.”
Now that February has passed and the Kickstarter campaign doesn’t appear to be coming anytime soon, it’s getting harder to believe in the viability of the new gaming console. We reached out to Mike Kennedy for comment and will update when we hear back.
Comments
13 responses to “Retro Console’s Launch Is Being Delayed Indefinitely”
Things like this, the various steam boxes, the Ouya etc all make me think back to the 80’s….you know, the time when video games were taking off and the market was flooded with consoles. It feels like history is repeating itself. There’s only so much room for consoles in the market. People really don’t need additional platforms to play the same games unless there’s something extraordinarily different that sets it apart.
As for eliminating DLC…that’s here to stay by this point. It makes way too much money and people are too accustomed to paying for it now for it to go away. Producing a console that doesn’t allow it just means a lot of AAA titles won’t end up on the system and it’ll tank.
Vilifying dlc is stupid anyway, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of it, it’s the horrendous executions we’ve seen which ate the problem.
Adding meaningful content to a game with a great core is welcomed! Before dlc the only way to do this on consoles was via knuckles carts or just waiting until next year’s $120 sequel.
The good old days weren’t actually that good.
Absolutely agree. The militant anti DLC crowd are nauseatingly dull. Like college kids who need something to tally against at every turn.
Smooth talking about the back of the console being from an SNES, so how does Kennedy explain the insides being from a DVR capture card?
https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi/status/704506008513581056
Guess it means the console is great for saving replays 😛
It wasn’t just the back of the snes. Someone has actually taken apart a snes junior, lined it up insode a jaguar case, and guess what?
Pat the nes punk has a great run down on his youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1wdop56K-ORxh37G6-fs7A
FTFY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_4qn52MHI8
The actual video link would have been more helpful than the channel link…
Well duh, of course it would of !
*whoops*
You can see why this console has (seemingly) failed in the first line of the article.
People who live in the ‘gaming bubble’ such as Kotaku, Reddit, NeoGaf, etc. generally don’t like DLC because they feel like it should be in the game to begin with.
But this is not representative of the majority of the market who enjoy DLC, as they see it as an update to their favourite game before the next iteration comes out.
I don’t like DLC because most of it is just a cash grab. The $10 to $30 you spend usually gets you pretty much nothing new or exciting and at tops 1 to 2 hours of extra gameplay. They should just save their ideas and effort for the next game they work on.
Let us take the Black Ice expansion for R6: Siege for example. People who got the Season Pass ($30) have only got 2 new operators (Buck & Frost) and one new map (Yacht). But everyone can play the new map regardless of Season Pass or not. The operators can be unlocked for 25000 renown each, which only would take a week or two of playing around 3 hours a day to accumulate. Now the game was released on the 02/12/2015 so it took around 3 months for this 1st DLC to drop so I could expect maybe 3 more before the end of the year. But if they all follow this pattern of 2 operators and 1 map. I could just keep playing at my current pace and have all the points I need to unlock everything on release.
I know some DLC does give you same bang for your buck. But a fair amount is just crap you don’t need.
I agree. A lot of DLC is poorly handled and not worth the money. I suppose what I am saying is there is not as much of a negative perception around DLC in the greater games market. Probably because many people don’t analyse the value of DLC to the same point that gaming ‘enthusiasts’ do.
Yeah if people didn’t want it they wouldn’t make it.
But I do think a lot of people have been burned by season passes and just dismiss DLC as garbage now even though some devs are putting a lot of decent stuff into them.
Just back on R6: Siege I don’t think charging people money to play as new characters that anyone can eventually unlock is the way to go for DLC it just seems so lazy to me.
True. I suppose that’s how new business innovations work. Companies jump on board to see what they can get away with until customers become more discerning and then the companies actually have to provide value to get people to part with their money. As you said, people have been burned now, so it looks like we’ll start turning that corner.
As for R6: Siege, haven’t played it so can’t really comment, but yes that definitely sounds like some half-arsed DLC! More akin to the micro-transaction model of booster packs.
That Jaguar casing is cursed.
They should have known better than to gt it out again, haven’t they watched Jumanji?