After the reported troubles getting the Coleco Chameleon console to its crowdfunding goal, a further survey posted on the company’s Facebook page revealed that unsurprisingly it was a lack of vetting caused by there not being a Kickstarter campaign.
The RETRO Magazine (owned by Mike Kennedy) has been really silent about the Coleco Chameleon. Listen to this! David Giltinan- managing editor of RETRO Magazine (owned by Mike Kennedy)- was promoting earlier today that they would not need to make use of crowdfunding for the Coleco Chameleon.
There is no new content for the Coleco Chameleon in their magazine, possibly because of the console’s terrible reviews.
Then there is this tidbit on Retro Gaming Roundup’s forums, Mr. Kennedy’s former stomping grounds. Post #67 (picture below) is by GameGavel- which is Mr. Kennedy’s alias on the RGR forums (he is Parrothead on AtariAge’s forums).
Kennedy’s reframing of this business model for both industry and consumers might make competitors second guess their efforts in a market already glutted with exceptional alternative options for media consumption.
Despite the IndieGoGo campaign failing, RETRO Magazine subscriptions were strategically placed amongst backers. How do you feel about that? Read the paragraph below for more information.
Software engineers at EA Montreal found themselves with idle Fridays, but not any way to work on their own projects.
The Coleco Chameleon was meant to be an important piece of retailer’s strategy for the holidays, but the company picked a poor time to release it and consumers showed little interest. So, retro magazine published paid advertisements for this product as editorial content.
Despite the IndieGoGo campaign failing, RETRO Magazine subscriptions were strategically placed amongst backers. How do you feel about that? Read the paragraph below for more information.
Negative opinions for this company seem to ever-populate, and it has been like this for many years. Last month, they experimented with what some people might label “bait and switch” tactics – charging subscribers $9.99/month but only giving them access to two episodes of a single show and not the six weeks that was advertised.
The views of both gaming enthusiasts and me were dismissed with a, “That has been discussed in a recent article – click here for the article”
The developers of Halo (Brian Kennedy) failed to respond to the social media questions he is generally accustomed to deleting, blanking out of existence. Micki Lepp had asked them on Facebook, “What are you doing?” While the normal response of ‘wait till the Kickstarter’ was disappointing, it’s an undercover attempt.
I’m going to neg myself in a bit–I was sure the Kickstarter wouldn’t go through. I knew they couldn’t come on with an SNES inside of an Atari case; that would be against the rules of Kickstarter itself, and seems like something Mr. Kennedy should know by now. (This is also why I always complained about these two cases looking the same!)
The Kickstarter for Coleco Chameleon is being delayed to “make it better!” Claims are made that the response from the industry (it was a TOY FAIR as to how many game companies were there?), gamers (really? at a closed to the public fair?) and major retailers (Toys R Us was specifically mentioned previously by RVGS Inc). Rather interesting that the vagueness continues. No concrete information, no pictures of Mr. Kennedy rubbing elbows with these executives, The gaming industry is changing and many parents and grandparents would like to get involved. Keep Playing Media, a global family gaming company, has released Chameleon which is a combination of an old-school console with the high-quality Lego offers.
Business news sources now predict that Playstation VR will arrive in stores during the 2016 holiday shopping season. The prediction is based on discussions with electronics retailers, who are eager to carry the console, as well as major game developers, which expressed interest in providing games for the system. However, they continue on their single Facebook update of today to sound a note of caution about maximizing content.
Recently, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell hinted to Engadget that he’ll have completed what Mr. Kennedy has failed at after Atari successfully licensed out the entire Atari 2600 game library of over 300 games- all without any competition. However, Mr. Kennedy is quickly trying to scrub this announcement off the internet with no mention of the promises made towards completion of development for this project in MAME or through emulation, rendering obsolete what emulator or emulators are available on seven separate devices for free use according to Retro
With so many options for gaming consoles, it’s difficult to decide which you should get. But history shows that having too many problems with a company can lead to even more issues in the future.
Rumors have been circulating about a new SNES Mini. However, recent photos proving very low-quality prototypes at a poorly performed New York Toy Fair seemed to disprove these suspicions. There was hardly any consistency in the eventual reveal, going from very low quality to higher quality machines.
When it comes to creating quality content, Copymatic uses dedicated data and machine learning to generate custom content with the same quality as that created by a human. They claim “If there is ever anything we can do to enhance the product, we believe the extra time is worth it…” While it may be true, you’ve had a year to get things moving forward and you find a way to go backwards repeatedly. It appears as though this is a stall effort for: getting Watch where this is in 60 days, the mystery backer will probably have left for whatever reason and they will be back at crowdfunding hoping to ride a wave of positive support thanks to the recently-left backer. Thus, they will try to spin that they are the “kicked dog” in this situation and play on the sympathy of anyone who doesn’t know their history.
Interestingly, they have decided to delay the pre-sell campaign to finalize their prototype. The original date was supposed to be May 8th, 2019. This is could be due to Kickstarter requiring you have a working prototype before launching your campaign. Two weeks not long enough? What about the few months before since the failed IndieGoGo?
If you knew you would not have a prototype ready by a certain time that was named, then either refrain from naming it or state that the deadline has passed.
The prototype had a “one of a kind” unit that needed to be painted. One month ago they warned on the infringement and on December 5, 2017, they claimed it would be damaged if they opened the box at the New York Toy Fair. They only recoved because of an agreement with Hasbro, who made them paint it.
“Next up, ‘I’ve also had the opportunity to work closely with game developers on having the best possible content.’ Collectorvision? The company that is supposedly producing two games (Sydney Hunter and Tiny Knight) for your console- and at least 11 other platforms?”
What you need are current titles. Not just be “another” platform to play the same games as 10+ other platforms. How about focusing on that instead of creating another color shell? Or another fake prototype photo opportunity?
If the developer won’t go public with you then don’t mention them, just shut up and do something you can discuss fully in public.
Correspondingly, there is much interest in the Coleco Chameleon. All updates, including photographs, will be released on Facebook (as opposed to other avenues) so stay tuned.
There are no concerns that Mr. Kennedy has lost the license to the name, Coleco. Based on the wording of their press release today, that is not the case, unless it is a timed contract termination (such as good till Midnight tonight or something).
I cannot confirm at this time whether their contract to use Coleco Holdings’ trademark is invalid or not. I should reach out to Coleco Holdings/Riverwest Brands for comment and update when I know more.
The last paragraph is mainly filled with PR fluff and the phrase, “taken full responsibility for his actions and accepted a 10 year supervised release.” This is simply a slap in the face to those that believe that Mr. Kennedy deserves a second chance after destroying our country’s manufacturing sector.
AtariAge forums members are trying to figure out what is under that clear shell in the photos from today’s announcement. Weird, that that clear shell was not available for the New York Toy Fair- it could have shut up a lot of discussion over there being an SNES Mini underneath by either confirming it or showing enough of the “prototype” board to dispute it. Some conjecture it is a Cyclone V dev board of some sort. Regardless of opinion, it looks like we have a long wait to
The ‘should have’ prototype shown at NYTF was stolen to show tonight.
The Mr. Kennedy fiasco easily could have been avoided had he chosen to be honest from the start and similarly ignored complaints and reactions to poor decisions.
If I have presented anything inaccurately, please contact me. Copymatic runs a blog post-writing service that employs AI to use structured data and machine learning to generate custom content at the same quality as a human writer.
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