It is no secret that I have been covering the RETRO Video Game System, pretty much from day one, up to its demise on IndieGoGo.  It is also no secret that I have followed up with the Coleco Chameleon as it was announced (at this time it is just the RETRO VGS with a new name).  I have made it public, my request to do another interview with anyone in control of the Coleco Chameleon (no answer on that one yet, folks).  Mike Kennedy has finally broken radio silence on the Coleco Chameleon with the team over at Arstechnica.  This is interesting because recently (in the last two days) I was in talks with a third party developer for the Coleco Chameleon discussing their game that is coming when abruptly they said the interview was over as far as the CC was concerned.  When I asked why, they simply replied with “I was just told to not talk to anyone about the Coleco Chameleon.”  The interview/discussion ended on that note as other things arose and they had to leave.

According to quotes from Arstechnica.com, Mike mentioned problems started for the RETRO VGS as far back as August.  This was when the price point was announced at a popular gaming expo.  Mike also mentions that he was wrong in thinking the most support would come from communities such as AtariAge (massive forum thread discussing this) where cartridge gaming is still very much alive- just on a smaller scale than Sega, Capcom, Konami or Bandai-Namco would prefer.

As you can hear in my audio interview, or read in the transcription of that interview with Mike Kennedy, Steve Woita and John Carlsen, the team was quite disjointed.  According to comments made by Mr. Kennedy to Arstechnica, the price point problems that the RETRO VGS was experiencing were solely due to Mr. Carlsen adding more, costly, features as time went on.  Mr. Carlsen even made a video from the “RETRO VGS Labs”, preserved on our Youtube account for informational purposes.

Mike continued stating that he feels they are being singled out for trying to “bend people over” in regards to getting money out of them for a retro product.  He, laxly, compares the RETRO VGS campaign to “similar” projects in the retro gaming community such as “remakes”, “old school homebrew” and “retro compilations”.  The difference between those and the RETRO VGS is the successful crowdfunding campaigns that are in those categories have working product to show potential backers.  We have yet to see anything tangible of the RETRO VGS or Coleco Chameleon, even after a failed attempt on IndieGoGo to raise at least $2 million for the “basic” model and $4 million for the much better version.

The price point is mentioned by Mr. Kennedy to be sub $200, preferably in the $150 range.  For a retro product that is going to be a tough challenge, even at $150- especially after the way the previous attempt was handled by the management team.  Apparently the Kickstarter minimum will be in the $250,000 to $300,000 range.  Mr. Kennedy is not a stranger to Kickstarter, he is currently batting a .666 average on the service.  Twice he has taken his publication, RETRO Magazine, to Kickstarter and succeeded but he has also spearheaded a severe failure with an attempt to fund updating Intellivision games for PC/Mac.

Now onto the fact that we will no longer be bringing you updates from Collectorvision (site link) in regards to the Coleco Chameleon (site link).  While I was talking with Jean-Francois Dupuis, owner of Collectorvision/Acclaim, he abruptly ended the interview.  When asked why he said he was just told to not talk to anyone about anything regarding the Coleco Chameleon.  He did not elaborate on who told him this but since he is the owner of the company and was ending the interview, I can only assume it was someone from another company- take that as you will.

It is sad that we are experiencing this regarding the Coleco Chameleon.  I have covered this thing for over 130 hours of research/writing time so far and can tell you, based on the traffic we see- fans want to know about this.  There are people that want more information.  With the New York Toy Fair  about two months away, now is the time to build interest and support for the Coleco Chameleon (link to the press release from RVGSystems).  The best way to do that is to talk with the press, show games off, or at least announce third parties.  I broke the news of possibly the first third party to sign onto work on the Chameleon, which was not connected to the RETRO VGS.

I will continue to gather news, interviews, etc and give my critique on them here on Retro Gaming Magazine.

Carl Williams

It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams