Retro VGS Console Controversy (Part 2) -  

Going back to these old videos is really interesting, especially with what we know now - with the Retro VGS becoming the best selling console in history with more than 500 million units sold

Honestly, Kevtris is the kind of guy who you can trust when it comes to this kind of stuff and he's really respected in the modding community. He really knows what he's doing. When he backs out of something, that's a good sign that it wasn't something good to begin with.

@7:00 Ian called it.

Ian, Thank you for being honest and awesome. Pat, you're still my hero.

This thing sounds like one of the drunken discussions I have with my friends in the pub. even down to the "all the games will be bug free! and "no updates, I bloody hate updates!""It may sound really awesome while your drunk, and a nice little dream, but that doesn't mean your drunken ramblings should actually ever go beyond that.

I was out as soon as they started the campaign without a working demo unit.

kevtris is a golden god of electronics engineering.

I'd love to see someone just license the FPGA systems that Kevtris already made and put that out. Especially since it's already prototyped.

I like how on the IGG campaign page they show you the estimated time of delivery for the consoles for those who contributed: November 2016. You don't even have a prototype yet and think you can get it done within a year plus all the launch games? Please just get the hell outta here.

Thanks Pat and Ian. I think you guys are on point with a lot of things and this being one of them. I wish many of the people who donated to this would have thought this through.

You'd have to be a complete fool to invest in this system. Thanks for the info.

The drama surrounding this system is truly incredible. I was honestly really excited about it until the price was revealed. -Fanta

For those trying to find kevtris's post it is on page 60.

Beautifully stated. You guys were on-point, this misses the target consumer entirely. I think the RVGS would have a much better chance if it had the artificial limitations (as mentioned) to give you the legitimate retro feel. A good example is the Minimig, a brand new FPGA implementation of the Amiga.... but it has a 68000 CPU running at 14MHz. Making brand new "retro" chips at fab would be far too difficult and expensive, so you'd almost certainly have to design your core hardware in code and write to FPGA. Marry this to a slow (by modern standards) processor (68000!), add a sound chip with limitations (Yamaha OPN or OPNA perhaps?), and set your graphics core in FPGA.

Ouya with cartridges and no updates sums it up pretty well

Where is your coaster Ian??? Really great discussion, just thought I'd ask 😉

The Retro VGS seems like vapourware to me,, it's fine to make a limited edition version console, but it's once you made a working prototype, i'm afraid they will get the money and just run away with it.

Hey Pat, I really enjoyed this long form CUPodcast. It would be nice if once in a while you and Ian can do more like these. Thanks for all the great work you guys do.

I love my Ouya. Even though it's most definitely gone down a shit path, it's wonderful to have a tiny box in my living room with a 64GB Flash Drive plugged in LOADED with classic games, which play on free emulators, with PS3/360 controller support. For all the shit it's gotten (and, yes, deserved), it was a WAY better investment for hassle-free retro gaming than THIS piece of crap will EVER be. EVERYTHING about the Retro VGS seems completely backwards and misguided. Thank you guys for these two videos full of insight and info. 100% agreed with EVERYTHING you said.

The pic of the console looks like a Bucktoothed Batman

Thank you so very much for making these videos. It is very well done and insightful.

Dude, just leave the cap off of your water bottle and you won't have to try to quietly screw it off and on.

Ian, your comments about a system that plays SNES, Genesis, NES, etc were right in line with what I envisioned when the Retro VGS was first announced months ago. I was expecting a ~$150 system that could play retro-styled games in 720p widescreen from cartridges. I am totally willing to pay more for physical over digital (including discs) if the game is *mostly* bug free, and I'm willing to wait for it since I have a backlog that'll last me a good long time. Unfortunately, the thing that launched last Saturday is not at all what I was willing to sign up for. I was hesitant to fork over $150 for something completely unproven; $300 is just out of the question.

So essentially, if you get an ouya and a retron 5, you have this thing. Great.

I feel like modern "retro" games that indie devs are making are fairly uninspired. Sometimes you get one that's really decent, made by people who understand older games. Most of the time I feel like it's an excuse for devs to put a game out without spending a lot of money on artwork. It seems like 99% of modern retro games are made stupidly hard, and have none of the charm or fun of the older games they're based on.

"Cartridge games don't need to load". =)) Civ and Batman Forever on the SNES say 'hi!'. It's not JUST the storage media that dictates load-times.

This system seems like a waste of money to me.

It's like trying to build a brand new classic car. None of the nostalgia, all of the problems.

Seriously...Shovel knight's FREE dlc (or, as i like to call it,"content update") was simply amazing...i can't imagine having shovel knight without it...it's 50% of the whole product

They shit talk Kevtris on their indigogo page. "I'm disappointed by his apparent lack of professionalism" If they really want backers they should not be shit talking Kevtris. This project is never going to get enough backers.

The Ouya kickstarter asked 950 00$ for something "similar" except the FPGA thing, but it had a full OS. and the people had the console shipped to them (a bit later than expected, but not that much). Anyway, you guys nailed it when you mentioned they only worry about milking their clients with a blue cover for the console, etc. I'll play my indies on PC and PS4, thanks.

It seems all of these retro console fund raisers have had questionable practices

Ian should have his own podcast. Pat's just keeping him down.

Forgetting the RetroVGS, I'm curious if the fellow over at Atariage who designed the FPGA board has thought of retooling it and selling it in a similar fashion as the Apple 1. Just add headers to allow someone to add a Raspberry Pi (2) as the "Amazing ARM processor" and then build their own case around it.

"Bought the Jaguar mold and didn't know what to fill it with." Ya know what, that made me think of the impetus of Action 52. Not the same but similar premise. Seeing a glimpse of something that makes a ton of money and trying to take it down a misguided route that never works for anyone because their judgment is clouded by dollar signs. It almost seems plausible because let's face it, the Jaguar mold doesn't have a lot going for it, least of all it's lack of a dust cover on the cartridge slot. If they were serious about having a passion for the product they wanted to make instead of just looking for a shady cash grab, they would have just had a new molding designed to fit the scope of what they were building.

it does not cost $1200 to get a PCB printed!! More like $20

A Raspberry Pi 2 coasts $35 and comes with a 900mhz quad core + a dual core gpu. It plays OpenArena pretty well and handles emulation up to PSX and even N64. And since this thing has no exclusives.... There is no market for it. Also i wonder how they will have devs working on games when they don't even have a damn prototype...

You're talking about how it seems to have started with the carcass of a Jaguar, and I'll readily admit it has some great nostalgic value (if nostalgic can include the communities that still develop, seel and buy for Jaguars and/or just love the style. But... Isn't the Jaguar's carcass famous for coming without dust protection, something that every game system has had since the thrid generation of games? And doesn't that mean that even the one thing that can get people's attention is in itself not an entirely good idea?

Thanks for having this a topic of discussion on the podcast! Now I have officially decided to wait and see how this console pans out. If it becomes successful then I'll pick one up. What they are asking for now, is way too much to gamble on a possible flop console.

Totally with you guys aside from the bit Ian said about enforcing some kind of arbitrary hardware/software limitations. Limitation can be good as it encourages additional, creative problem solving; but that's the last way you want to go about this... especially if you're trying to court indies. Besides, anyone clever enough to work successfully within those limits will likely be able to bypass them. The problem alluded to with 'retro styled' games now is actually that many people only have a very superficial understanding of how they work, why certain design choices were made, etc - sound, visual aesthetics, base mechanics, difficulty, the whole lot. If we want more games that look, sound and play like the classics, the solution is to get more people that really know their shit. If the folks behind this system could find an elite cabal of neo-retro game-making wizards, keep them employed and give others a high standard to live up to, that'd be great. That's a high bar to set, though, and it'd be a shame to limit people with that kind of talent to such a potentially small audience when they could be thriving elsewhere.

There's honestly no reason they couldn't add online support and a (replaceable) hard drive so that games could be updated. Obviously that would drive up the cost of the already expensive system, and games that used this feature would take longer to load than ones running solely off a cartridge with no updates, but it'd make for a much better and more realistically marketable system, and in the end should still load even updated games much faster. But at the end of the day, as you guys said, the best way to do it would be a good processor with other limitations to the system, cartridges maybe on optional version, so that they can sell the system cheap and force retro style games to be made for it. Plenty a big market out there for a cheap system with retro style but better than SNES looking games, especially in countries where expensive consoles are even less affordable. You'd basically be making a quality version of the knock off consoles the Chinese already make in their country.

They forgot the "make it like NG Devteam made their carts for the Neo Geo" part from my idea.

Still sounds better than the kickstarter "fixed" cheetahmen 2 cart you pimped out Pat.

What Retro Gamers REALLY want aren't new games done in a Retro style. What they want is the ability to play all the Retro Games on one console. Develop a console that supports all Retro Consoles (Up to AT LEAST the 5th Gen), add the ability to play games off of: SD Cards (pretty much for any console released before '92) Flash Drives (for the larger games) and Hard Drives (for those who want to store thousands of games), 4 USB Controller Ports and Adapters for all the controllers. Essentially, they want a Low-end PC.

There are a lot of profiteers in the collecting scene. Some of these people buy important artifacts and try to prey on the collecting scene with them. It's sad that the molds are in the hands of people like these. Who knows what will happen to them after this fails. The people will move on to their next scam and it may have nothing to do with the molds and so the molds will sit on a shelf somewhere, forgotten, maybe sold to a company just looking for something to put their product in regardless of the molds' history, maybe thrown away or melted down as a worst case scenario.

Not sure if you guys already mentioned it, but when is the release date for this console?

I do want to thank you guys Pat and Ian. I was going to put my money toward this but this part of your podcast made me say no. I do feel you guys are looking out for customers....Still a little sad about it.

The thing is, there's already a system that does it, the Retron..... The Retron 5 plays 9 different cartridge game systems. The nes, snes, genesis, gameboy, gameboy advance, super famicon, sega mega drive and the gameboy colour. Oh, and I don't work for them, but I've seen this in my local used game store. I know they sell this online too.

Man, I love Ian so much. Not afraid to admit it. I could listen to this guy talk all day. Does he have his own show as well? How do I get more Ian?

The Plague Knight update was even one of the team's original stretch goals, so...if Shovel Knight were on the Retro VGS when it released, who would even buy it? "Hey, we're promising additional content to the game later that every version except Retro VGS would get." This thing's a scam, and the worst kind: one meant to prey on nostalgia.

So rewatching this 2 years later, I'm asking why this Kevtris hasn't done something himself with the prototype boards. Why not start his own kick starter?

This sounds more like a story of a couple of folks who one night got way too excited talking about "the good old days of gaming" and proceeded to hype each other up until they popped and finally just decided to give it a go with little to no thought process about anything other then the concept itself lol. In all honesty, I hate DLC. I hate where games have gone and for the most part I don't like the industry as a whole as much anymore. I can see the appeal to what they may have originally envisioned but the fact of the matter is technology has provided way too many improvements in just the way games are distributed and developed to make this idea any more then just a fantasy. DLC may suck but that's because it was used the wrong way, the concept itself is actually remarkable and really could have been a blessing for games...too bad such is not the case. Paying so much money, for something that literally has no solid foundation to stand on is just reckless, no system prototype,no games,no proof of quality assurance, I mean when you look at the project as a whole what exactly are you paying for other then wishful thinking? All that being said, I truly would LOVE if something like this could exist in this world and not just be a sink hole in which to toss your money haphazardly inside of. Eh, maybe someday...

One thing that seems suspicious to me... they referer to existing systems like Neog Geo, Atari 2600... but why would anyone code a game for this new console in limitations of Atari 2600? I t does not make any sence at all. Give us a powerfull retro hardware of its own... that makes sence then. And do not forget to support 15 kHz RGB video output otherwise it is going to suck.

They'll probably need a couple of hundred bucks to buy a Jaguar on eBay they can paint black to make the prototype...

Pat having mascara issues at 7.20 ;-)

Well at some point one has to be reasonable and accept the truth: As much as I do love game cartridges, there is absolutely no denial that cartridges are and always have been the most impracticable form of content distribution ever.

Starting with a shell is the complete, ass-backwards way of doing things. It's like the guys said. Start with the board, refine it, collapse it, make it as small and efficient as possible. The design the casing.

Arm wrestle Ian vs Pat....who wins?

While I don't disagree with Pat and Ian that $2 million seems high, I feel like they're underestimating the costs of doing a typical hardware prototype. It cost a rockstar hardware engineer $2000 to develop the FPGAs but that doesn't factor in the cost of his time. Sure, he's seemingly doing it for fun, but any other person doing that work would want to be able to afford to eat. People, not parts, are the expensive aspects of any business. Now scale the prototyping operation up to an entire console, not just an adapter, and the complexity increases; ARM-based or not. Just look at the Ouya with all its bluetooth controller problems. I think $2 million is pretty high for a prototype, but $100K isn't unreasonable.

I was initially excited about this, but a lot of things including the high price point have killed it for me. I agree with you guys on most things, but disagree as far as updates are concerned. With nearly every 6th gen and earlier game, I can pop it in my system, and it plays without issues. Sure, almost every game ever made has some kind of bug in it, but not many that I consider game-breaking.

The only reason I would by a "retro" console that plays old carts is two reasons. HDMI cable for my old games and not needing more than one system plugged into my TV to play more that one system. There already a system that does that, but I can't be bothered to buy it, cause I can already play all the systems that it can play, and I don't think it is worth the price. This system has the same appeal to me: not much. If it plays old games, it needs to be cheaper than just buying an original system.

If the OUYA had been a valid dev platform, that would have scratched this itch better than any cartridge based system could be.

On their most recent update, the folks behind this stated that, "the Indeigogo campagin is dead in the water and thusly will be shut down early." They are pulling the plug.

I think the largest growing gaming industry is for the smartphone. Nintendo should just re-release games for that rather than developing portable consoles. Maybe add a gameboy/snes like controller to it.

Do you think Nintendo would stop going after RU-vid gaming personalities if the Wii U had been a more successful console. I.e. Wouldn't need the money.

The concept is good in theory, but it falls apart in practice. Too bad since it seems like a good idea...

The whole thing stinks: even if they reach their stretch goal, that means that they sold approx. 5000 consoles. That is just laughable, who the fuck is gonna put out games for that many machines, especially on cartridges? It just doesn't make sense. So the guy made the FPGA board which is awesome and it shouldn't be that hard to do the rest, I mean there are consoles made from dirt cheap Rasberry Pi-s, for less 50 dollars and they play everything from odyssey to playstation 1 and n64, or even retro styled steam games.

It was apparent from the very beginning this thing was going to be a disaster. How is anybody still being duped at this point?

I completely agree with you guys. The amount of money they are asking is ridiculous. If it were a large team of people, it might be understandable. Deciding colors of the shell before actually making working prototype also makes me cringe. No Deal.

I am a Dev and I actually been thinking to put my game on Retro VGS once its done. Why? Because its the only way to get my game on a physical cart.

The guy who made the FPGA board, she should just release it himself as the console everyone wanted.

I like the concept of the console, but find that some of the assertions of the dev team to be largely unfeasible. Besides, there's nothing that the they can do that I cannot do on my PC.

As someone who's been following this from the start. Its a huge flop. Once they moved from $150-1$80 to $300-$450 it was doomed. If you ask me they should pull the plug now, work with kevtris and start all over with a working prototype they can mass produce and sell for less then $200. One with updatable flash memory instead of the bullshit they are trying to push now

There are too many little computer systems coming out from bigger companies as well in my opinion. The PC/console blend systems like all of the steam based systems make no sense to me.

Making a bugfree game may be too much to ask, but having no update-function for games could at least reduce the amount of release with severe, crippling bugs, at least in theory. If it actually works, then I don't think it's such a bad idea. Updates can be a very good thing, but frankly, there is also a drawnback.

Couldn't this be done without a cartridge system, with an internet connection, and for less money? There are some really cool things about this system that I would like to see such as configurable hardware and ease of independent development.

Pat, What page on that forum post?

Where do you go to ask them a question everyone?

I think you guy should annotate a link to Gamester81's channel interview with the RVGS dude. Also since Pat knows the dude maybe it would have been a good idea to talk to him before recording this and further igniting the hate machine... at least they'd have solid information to dump on.

Honestly, if the price were lower and it if were able to play games from several of the older systems with accurate results (no software emulation, but on real boards or well-produced clones), this might have a chance. The Analogue is a really neat idea, but is so horribly overpriced and niche that nobody can either afford it or they wonder why it costs so much to do so little. At this point, I think Kevtris needs to get a team around him and make this system on his own. Obviously he knows how to do such things and can do it for amounts far less than the ridiculous markup that the Retro brings.

great discussion, the point you made that it looks like its for collectors and not the average gamer was very true at the end of the day for the amount they want to sell these at i could go on ebay and but most of the old systems and a laptop that would run indie games for the same (well pretty much everything, not counting neo geo), i would personally like to think cartridge gaming wasnt over, maybe something like a ds cart with a larger memory and an update would be great, and as for them not even having a prototype that is ridiculous what if they never get it to work what then, and my last complaint would be at least be original in the design surely part of that $2m could go on new injection mould tooling.

So, it basically a Raspberry PI for 200 with prereloaded software and cart slot

2 million bucks is like 10ish full time workers for a a year!

SKnight DLC was not to thank the fans it was a kickstarter goal along with King Knight if they didn't do it we all be pissed about them lieing about it then

Is it me or does the Retro VGS look like the Atari Jaguar

I do not buy digital games, therefore I miss out on a ton of games. So although I disagree with a lot of the points regarding "people can just buy those elsewhere" When I am so tired of the "Digital" crap. The business stuff you mentioned has made me decide agasint this system for now :\ I was unaware they still did not have a prototype.

They just recently explained why the secrecy on their facebook page. interesting.

I liked the idea of it, but your right what if doc comes out the system owners are screwed

Yeah I sort of like this idea because of being able to play older systems, but yeah steam big picture mode hooked up to my 40" tv with hdmi cable is a free console and I can get games like axiom verge, environmental station alpha, Odallus dark call for $20 or less and then even cheaper during steam sales. Then throw in unable to patch and locked on a cartridge for $30-$60? 2 million? Same cost as a Wii and most likely PS4 Xbox one when they price cut? Yeah never going to work.

As I said on their Facebook when they started to have an identity crisis with this console an upped the price. Does anyone remember the "Phantom" console and all the hype? I do. Welcome to the 2015 version.

This thing is going to be such a failure that it'll make the Jaguar look like the PS2.

A video game counsel is just a low priced computer you can hook up to a TV!! If they wanted to sell any type of counsel they should have marketed it to the big box stores for a price that undercuts the current top counsels prices! if you wanted it to play retro games its called EMULATION!! any modern CPU can emulate 30 year old counsel or computer!

So emulation is still the way to go?

A $35 rasberry pi and $10 SD card can do the same thing :P and I can buy an altos tin and a can of gold spraypaint for $6

Lol the three people that thumbed down are probably the dev team for the console

From Retro VCS Facebook page: "Their drunken commentary was filled with disinformation beginning with our shipping costs and going on from there. Very little of what they discussed had anything to back it up and they did little to no research. And their opinion there is no market for cartridge gaming and that games these days can't be made without bugs is their opinion nothing objective. Cartridge gaming thrived and we all loved it for nearly 20 years. It can happen again. We feel there is a need for this product and a market for this even though it will cost gamers a bit more to actually "own" the games they love to play. They could have easily invited me on like Gamester81's upcoming video and we could have had equal ground. But they didn't afford us this benefit even when Pat has my email address and could have asked me."

Would rater have higher quality retron 5 or a disc based system that can play ps 1 or 2 and back with hdmi would be amazing

Why couldn't the Dev who want to thank the buyers of the game send out an updated cart? thus making the 1st iteration of the game all the much rarer .. think GOTY editions .. everyone that bought the cart in the 1st 12 months will have a "1st pressing" so to speak .. and then the following year after game breaking bugs are found reported ( even those that report said bug could get a earlier build cart with all the current fixes (upto when his fix was implements *so there are still bugs possibly).. i think it would make it even more of a pokemon console .. gotta collect them all ;) just throwing in my 2 cents

The thing is Ian, you said that all these poor people who put there money into this will get it back, but with IndieGoGo, a project doesn't need to be fully funded to be able to still keep the money.

These guys probably want to pay themselves... So 20,000$ is for the hardware and 1,980,000$ for the salary. R&D is not cheap.