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New cartridge based non-emulated "Retro" console being kickstarted!

ultrazilla

ultrazilla

Member
Please read this first. This explains why the system "looks" like an Atari Jaguar. That's because the molds used to make the Jaguar were bought to make this system. Simple as that.
Please no more derailing the thread regarding Atari Jaguar sucking, etc.


GamesBeat: You’re using the shells of Atari Jaguar systems and cartridges. I really enjoyed the story about how you came across all of those.

Kennedy: Yeah. Love it or hate it, it saved us a ton of money. That’s the biggest thing. Just the tooling alone — the injection mold shop that currently has them — I brought them from San Francisco down to Orange County — they told me that would have been at least $300,000 in modern-day tooling costs. That doesn’t even count the design work that has to be done. If you’re paying a design team to come up with a whole new look. That’s probably half a million dollars in the end. Again, with the Jag tooling — it’s really the reason this is possible, at least for me to be able to do it. If it wasn’t for that, there’s no way this could be done. Like it or don’t like it or whatever, if you like this idea — this new life for the Jaguar console shell is really what’s making it all possible.
Click to expand...


retrovgs2.jpg


Did a search for "new cartridge based retro console" and got nothing. Blow the dust out of me if old.....

Basically, Mike Kennedy-a major force behind the excellent Retro Video Game Magazine and his team of industry vets will be launching a kickstarter "sometime this summer" on a brand new cartridge based video game system.

RETRO_Issue7_FC_Final_Small_large.jpg


Here's a quote:

GamesBeat: The magazine is definitely cool, but it’s kind of a big leap from a publication to making a console.
Click to expand...

Kennedy: Well, yeah. When we started this magazine everyone thought we were a little nuts. Actually, before the magazine was even an idea that we had had, Steve Woita and I were kicking around the new console. This goes back probably two and a half years. The timing just wasn’t right, I didn’t think, at that point, for the console I wanted to bring out, which was going to be a cartridge-based console to play new games on cartridges. It’s not like the Retron 5 where you can plug in your old NES carts. There are lots of ways to play your old carts on a variety of other clone systems. What I wanted to do a couple years ago was make a brand-new console that just ran off carts again. It’s all solid state technology, right? A cartridge-based system, just like the Atari. You can still find Ataris at the swap meet, cartridges, 30 years later, plug them in and it all works. To me that’s the coolest technology out there, with that longevity. A lot of us grew up with it. The kids these days are going to miss out on that.
Click to expand...

The system case will be Atari Jaguars!

GamesBeat: You’re using the shells of Atari Jaguar systems and cartridges. I really enjoyed the story about how you came across all of those.

Kennedy: Yeah. Love it or hate it, it saved us a ton of money. That’s the biggest thing. Just the tooling alone — the injection mold shop that currently has them — I brought them from San Francisco down to Orange County — they told me that would have been at least $300,000 in modern-day tooling costs. That doesn’t even count the design work that has to be done. If you’re paying a design team to come up with a whole new look. That’s probably half a million dollars in the end. Again, with the Jag tooling — it’s really the reason this is possible, at least for me to be able to do it. If it wasn’t for that, there’s no way this could be done. Like it or don’t like it or whatever, if you like this idea — this new life for the Jaguar console shell is really what’s making it all possible.
Click to expand...

Bullet points:

-He goes on to say they're aiming for 16 bit era graphics.
-They are talking to Yacht Club regarding Shovel Knight.
-Retro City Rampage is being aimed for launch.
-Highly likely working with Interworks on wired(yes!) controllers

One last awesome quote:

Kennedy: We’re trying to talk to some big-name publishers about bringing back old fan favorites on this thing, or sequels. That’s actually why I’m up here in San Francisco, meeting with a third party developer that’s done a lot of third-party development work for Sony and Capcom and Konami and Sega. We’ll be partnering with this group to lead our charge into those types of companies to work out licensing deals for some of these games that they haven’t monetized in 10-15-20 years. As you know, there’s a lot of games out there that people would love to see brought back. A lot of these games wouldn’t come back and play real well on mobile. You play retro remakes on mobile, right? The touch screen is horrible. There’s just no way around it. For retro-style games, you need precision control. You don’t want any controller lag. You need that zen-like experience that a wired controller can give you. There’s a lot of these games that we think, with the right treatment and the connections involved — it’s possible we might be able to go out and bring back some of your favorite NES-style or Super NES or Sega Genesis games as sequels. We’re putting down our wish list of what titles we would like to see brought back.
Click to expand...

My thoughts? I'm 43 years old and have wondered why someone hasn't attempted this yet. I'll wait for the kickstarter to see what choices we have and what not but I'll probably throw quite a bit of money at this. With the crappy direction the current industry is going in with DLC, game breaking bugs, major patch updates that chew bandwith and memory this would be a welcome system in my home.

Check out the rest of the article below:

http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/08/t...new-cartridge-based-retro-video-game-console/
 
T

Thomper

Member
Wait, so...is this just going to be like an Ouya except everything uses cartridges instead of downloading it? It sounds kinda fun but also hella gimmicky. I can't see developers making exclusive stuff for it unless it becomes huge, but if it's just ports of great games like Shovel Knight...why not buy it on the half dozen easier platforms that also sell it?
 
Ragnarok

Ragnarok

Member
I don't think this will have a large market and i certainly can't see publishers licensing out ip for sequels for 16 bit games, but who knows.
 
ultrazilla

ultrazilla

Member
Thomper said:
Wait, so...is this just going to be like an Ouya except everything uses cartridges instead of downloading it? It sounds kinda fun but also hella gimmicky. I can't see developers making exclusive stuff for it unless it becomes huge, but if it's just ports of great games like Shovel Knight...why not buy it on the half dozen easier platforms that also sell it?
Click to expand...

It's not just ports. Their plans are to get companies on board to actually make new cartridge based games and even possibly get sequels to classic games we never got...for example Axelay II from Konami that they teased but never gave us.

Then of course there's the "collecting" aspect of buying the cartridges along with the artwork on the boxes. I don't know how old you are and maybe it's an age thing but I loved the Atari 2600 boxarts.
 
Stevey

Stevey

Member
Why the fuck would I want to spend money on another new console when the devs could just release their games on Steam/Xbox/Playstation/WiiU?
 
H

hodgy100

Member
is is this going to be a legit 16-bit system or is it jsut going to be an arm device where the games just aim for a 16-bit aesthetic?
 
P

piratethingy

Self professed bad raider
Wait what. I totally assumed this was a Retron-like that just read carts with actual hardware instead of emulating.

This can't actually work, right? Who is making games for this thing?
 
ultrazilla

ultrazilla

Member
piratethingy said:
Wait what. I totally assumed this was. Retron-like that just read carts with actual hardware instead of emulating.

This can't actually work, right? Who is making games for this thing?
Click to expand...

This will be a working 16 bit system with games on cartridge. No emulation.

Hodgy- Kennedy says they're currently discussing exactly what they want to pull off with the graphics and such but have the 16 bit era basically locked down.
 
B

border

Member
How many retro-styled games would actually run on a 16-bit console? Don't most of them actually use sound and graphical effects that are beyond the capabilites of an SNES?

Why not build a console that is closer to NeoGeo or Dreamcast?

I think Ouya shit the bed for console Kickstarters....especially ones that lean heavy on nostalgia. Nobody will want to kickstart a new system now.....this thing may not make it off the ground.
 
T

Thomper

Member
ultrazilla said:
It's not just ports. Their plans are to get companies on board to actually make new cartridge based games and even possibly get sequels to classic games we never got...for example Axelay II from Konami that they teased but never gave us.

Then of course there's the "collecting" aspect of buying the cartridges along with the artwork on the boxes. I don't know how old you are and maybe it's an age thing but I loved the Atari 2600 boxarts.
Click to expand...
Yes, but why would developers release games like that exclusively for a tiny platform like that? Ouya was one of the most succesful Kickstarters ever and even they could barely attract any developers. Unless they somehow sell like a million of these in a month it seems preeetty hard to attract developers. You might have developers bringing their older games to it, like Shovel Knight, but would you wait a year to buy a cartridge port?

I love great boxes too, but...I just want good games, man. The type of physical media used is entirely irrelevant to me,
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Strangely. I'm quite interested in this.

I wonder how hard it would be to develop on this platform?
 
Ragnarok

Ragnarok

Member
ultrazilla said:
It's not just ports. Their plans are to get companies on board to actually make new cartridge based games and even possibly get sequels to classic games we never got...for example Axelay II from Konami that they teased but never gave us.

Then of course there's the "collecting" aspect of buying the cartridges along with the artwork on the boxes. I don't know how old you are and maybe it's an age thing but I loved the Atari 2600 boxarts.
Click to expand...
Sounds extremely pie in the sky. I assume they'll go after licenses held by companies like konami and capcom, who barely even care about games at this point. Are they expecting those companies to produce these carts? Are they going to develop and produce said games themselves after acquiring the license? In any case i just don't see a big enough market to sustain this. It's market is undoubtedly smaller than the Ouya. Interested in hearing more though.
 
H

hodgy100

Member
ultrazilla said:
This will be a working 16 bit system with games on cartridge. No emulation.

Hodgy- Kennedy says they're currently discussing exactly what they want to pull off with the graphics and such but have the 16 bit era basically locked down.
Click to expand...

yeah i mean more the hardware. is it going to be genuine 16-bit hardware with ~10mhz cpu's and a simple vdp ala the megadrive, or is it just going to be an arm system where the games jsut target 16-bit graphics?
 
T

Tenebrous

Member
cyberheater said:
Strangely. I'm quite interested in this.

I wonder how hard it would be to develop on this platform?
Click to expand...

No idea, but if they allow us to use consoles as dev kits with some weird cartridge that can connect to PC via USB, then I'd be tempted to give it a go for fun.
 
Z

Ziffles

Member
Yeah they're not even sure about the hardware yet. They best answer he had was "I know this guy". At best it's probably just going to wind up as just another ARM-based console, as if we need more of them.
 
J

Jamix012

Member
It's an interesting idea, for sure, but I don't think it'll see any success unless...

Well if it sees cheap ports of games like Snatcher, which goes for $300 and the like. Basically if it gets cheaper ports of games that go for $000's of dollars. Even then it's success will be limited.
 
Sorcerer

Sorcerer

Member
The idea isn't bad but they are making a huge mistake with the controller.


wiiupro-640x640.jpg






This controller is terrible. I had one for my Wii and its just bad, eventually the usb charging port just fell straight into the controller and I couldn't be bother to dig it out to try to fix it.

Plus one stick was to loose and the other was too stiff. Awful.

If this thing ever takes off I could see limited runs on the carts and ebay scalpers everywhere charging outrageous prices for them.
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
They totally should buy licenses to recent game IPs and do tons of cool 16 bit demakes. A sidescrolling, pixel art Assassins Creed game would be cool. I also wonder what indies would do with an actual 16bit system (as opposed to having way more power to simulate somewhat of an aesthetic.

Dunno, I like the idea. I don't believe in it yet, but I like it.
 
E

emb

Member
Sounds amazing.

I'm not a fan of destroying Jaguars (or maybe they were already extra shells? I dunno, didn't read the details.) But if that makes this a reality, then ok. Edit: Ok, so no old Jaguars going to waste, it sounds like (Atari had repurposed them for dental cameras apparently, and had been trying to sell the remnants.) But the cartridges are reused Jag shaped cartridges? Ehhhhh

I also don't see this being very popular or catching on. I also don't see it being a successful venture, even if fully funded. Seems like an idea that could easily go so wrong. And the quotes make it sound like they're hitting all the right notes a little too perfectly.

But hey, I'll probably back it. If it ends up not working out or being useful, oh well. I like the idea enough to hope for it.
 
N

NoFaceNico

Member
If they were smart, what they would do is make it possible to play Jaguar games on it, exactly like a clone system. Atari Jaguars are going for like $100-130 right now. If I could buy a new Jaguar that plays all the old games, I would be tempted to get on board with this. And how about the infamous Jaguar CD? Anyone who watches AVGN (a lot of people) knows that those are rare, expensive and prone to break. How about they find a way to add a USB connection to their Retro VGS so the user can connect just a regular CD drive to play Jaguar CD games? Plus, the Jaguar scene has a surprisingly big homebrew scene for being such a small community.

Talking to big indie studios and actually securing the rights to their games are two completely different things. I'll believe it when I see it.

I don't have a lot of faith in the project though. The guy who's doing this and bought the molds to make them is the guy who made Retro magazine. I backed that Kickstarter and it's the only one I regret so far. I only got 4 out of the 6 issues I was supposed to get and I'm not the only one that this happened to. The magazine is also consistently late. A full year that was supposed to have 6 issues and that year turned in to almost 15 months.

So yeah, I don't see this succeeding. I predict it's going to fail at the Kickstarter level, which is probably best for it. Some sources estimate the price to be at least $150, making that a tough Kickstarter to back. Think about it like this- it's as if you're asking people to pay $150 for a VCR that doesn't play their old movies but might have some independent films released later on. There, I just wrote their Kickstarter pitch.


Other obvious points worth mentioning:

-No indie studio is going to develop for this because 1) it doesn't run on iOS or Android; 2) the small install base is going to make it worthless to develop on it; 3) indies don't want to have to factor in the cost of manufacturing cartridges and even if they did, whatever they don't sell they have to eat.

-The $150 estimates seem too low for a low volume, homegrown console. My bet is that a pledge of at least $200 will get you a console.

-With the big three competing for the home console market and with Amazon and Nvidia trying to turn Android boxes into viable competitors, who's in the market for this?

-Seriously. How many people are regulars in the Atari Jaguar forums? Take that number, cut it in half, cut it in half again and that's your market for this console. I can't imagine anyone else being sold on this. It's purely a novelty for Jaguar collectors.
 
S

stan423321

Member
This looks like a terrible idea on the surface.

I'll wait for more information before I deem it doomed since I actually had a similar idea, but with some key differences from what the guy implies. I'll give him Jaguar design though. The thing is real nice.
 
indigo-cyclops

indigo-cyclops

Member
Unless there's a viable market for this thing, I don't see why we'd get any ports of any games, especially ones we may have gotten way back when. For newer games, will devs be familiar with working inside the limitations of carts? Who is going to cover the cost of manufacturing said cartridges?

I don't see this working in the long run; they should pivot and just build a solid hardware-based system like the RetroN or something. That may have more appeal.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Sorcerer said:
The idea isn't bad but they are making a huge mistake with the controller.


wiiupro-640x640.jpg






This controller is terrible. I had one for my Wii and its just bad, eventually the usb charging port just fell straight into the controller and I couldn't be bother to dig it out to try to fix it.

Plus one stick was to loose and the other was too stiff. Awful.

If this thing ever takes off I could see limited runs on the carts and ebay scalpers everywhere charging outrageous prices for them.
Click to expand...

Where does it say they'll be using this controller specifically? InterworksUnlimited is a company that makes a variety of peripherals and can presumably make other controllers if they wanted.
 
Sorcerer

Sorcerer

Member
ultrazilla

ultrazilla

Member
OnPoint said:
I like the idea but it doesn't seem to be as well thought out as I would like at this point.
Click to expand...

Folks, give the article a read. It's only 3 pages....more like a page and a half without pictures. Lots of good info in there I didn't post. The ideas are still be discussed behind the scenes to determine what they want to do/nail down before they launch their kickstarter...in other words they're not just gonna throw it up and see if it sticks. There is passion behind this.

Besides, with running Retro Video Game magazine...they've already ran two successful kickstarters for the magazine and circulation is up to 30,000 with them getting into Barnes and Nobles with the current Mortal Kombat issue. So they've at least proven to me they can run successful kickstarters and deliver on what they promised. Launching a print magazine can't be easy now a days and they've done it pretty damn good!
 
T

Takao

Banned
I like the sentiment, but this seems like just ideas right now. They seemingly haven't decided on the internals yet and have no content officially lined up. For a Kickstarter meant to launch around/after E3, it seems like they're cutting it close.

On the viability of this product, I'm of two minds. This thing might have a chance at a novelty market if it's cheap and has some well known games. My fear is that including 9-pin connectors and actual 16-bit hardware seems like a good way to ensure it's not. On the flip side, this machine seems intended for the collector's market. That's just going to be a really small one. I'm having a hard time believing anyone will want to create/port content for a machine with a super miniscule userbase, when you can do homebrew for once popular platforms or downloadable games on modern machines.

emb said:
I'm not a fan of destroying Jaguars (or maybe they were already extra shells? I dunno, didn't read the details.) But if that makes this a reality, then ok.
Click to expand...

They bought the Jaguar tooling, so it'll be new casing.
 
N

NoFaceNico

Member
emb said:
Sounds amazing.

I'm not a fan of destroying Jaguars (or maybe they were already extra shells? I dunno, didn't read the details.) But if that makes this a reality, then ok.

I also don't see this being very popular or catching on. I also don't see it being a successful venture, even if fully funded. Seems like an idea that could easily go so wrong. And the quotes make it sound like they're hitting all the right notes a little too perfectly.

But hey, I'll probably back it. If it ends up not working out or being useful, oh well. I like the idea enough to hope for it.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's a very interesting part of this whole story.

The shells are being remanufactured, so they're all new. Apparently, he bought the molds used to make them. But he's not the first to do this...

After the Jaguar went bankrupt, a company bought the shells and they were remanufactured and used to make dental camera equipment.

post-30830-0-67778900-1316144612.jpg


0jL20MR.jpg




I guess he bought the molds off them after they changed their design.

PRODUCTS_HR_NEWLOOK_BG.jpg
 
J

Jacksinthe

Banned
We do not need to ask developers to spend more money on manufacturing cartridges when a download will do. This will fail handily. Games aren't made the same way as they used to be. A small "indie" style retro game can be a few hundred megabytes to a few gigabytes. Good luck with manufacturing costs.
 
Hesemonni

Hesemonni

Banned
Yeah, I'd love this to be the best thing in the world, but I can't see this thing taking off. No chance in hell.
 
S

stan423321

Member
NoFaceNico said:
If they were smart, what they would do is make it possible to play Jaguar games on it, exactly like a clone system. Atari Jaguars are going for like $100-130 right now. If I could buy a new Jaguar that plays all the old games, I would be tempted to get on board with this. And how about the infamous Jaguar CD? Anyone who watches AVGN (a lot of people) knows that those are rare, expensive and prone to break. How about they find a way to add a USB connection to their Retro VGS so the user can connect just a regular CD drive to play Jaguar CD games? Plus, the Jaguar scene has a surprisingly big homebrew scene for being such a small community.

Talking to big indie studios and actually securing the rights to their games are two completely different things. I'll believe it when I see it.

I don't have a lot of faith in the project though. The guy who's doing this and bought the molds to make them is the guy who made Retro magazine. I backed that Kickstarter and it's the only one I regret so far. I only got 4 out of the 6 issues I was supposed to get and I'm not the only one that this happened to. The magazine is also consistently late. A full year that was supposed to have 6 issues and that year turned in to almost 15 months.

So yeah, I don't see this succeeding. I predict it's going to fail at the Kickstarter level, which is probably best for it. Some sources estimate the price to be at least $150, making that a tough Kickstarter to back. Think about it like this- it's as if you're asking people to pay $150 for a VCR that doesn't play their old movies but might have some independent films released later on. There, I just wrote their Kickstarter pitch.

(...)

-Seriously. How many people are regulars in the Atari Jaguar forums? Take that number, cut it in half, cut it in half again and that's your market for this console. I can't imagine anyone else being sold on this. It's purely a novelty for Jaguar collectors.
Click to expand...

This thing has less to do with Jaguar than PS2 had with Atari Falcon. It's just the shell. And manufacturing replacement Jaguars after TxK incident is very risky.

emb said:
Sounds amazing.

I'm not a fan of destroying Jaguars (or maybe they were already extra shells? I dunno, didn't read the details.) But if that makes this a reality, then ok.
Click to expand...

He bought the "machine" for making Jag shells and rights to the design, which were first sold to a dental company - Atari also sold a computer shell rights to Sony, who proceeded to use it in PS2. Nobody is talking about destroying Jaguars. Also, ninja'd.
 
Alex

Alex

Member
I cannot fathom how they would convince anyone to slave over genuine 16-bit hardware that will certainly have no userbase. Publishers won't be interested, indies couldn't afford it. At best you'd see a few stripped down ports and some hobbyist homebrew that no one genuinely wants.

There's a point where nostalgia becomes damaging.
 
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