Hey All,
I wanted to come in here and address the RVGS pricing issue. It really all comes down to what gamers want to play on RVGS. For us, gamers ourselves, we want RVGS to have the ability to play all these incredible larger Retro inspired titles that are hitting the market these days, and will continue to hit the market for years and years to come -- on cartridges. We also want to see what developers can do to create their own custom effects utilizing the FPGA/Arm combo we are supplying. This chipset will give them unlimited potential to do things we've never seen before in a game.
If all you want to do is play games up to a limited file size, like 50 MB for example (tbd), and do not care about the cool things developers will inevitably be doing with the very large and capable FPGA / Processor chipset then we can have a console option for that under $300.
BUT, if you do care and understand the benefits of having the first ever FPGA enabled console that will also have the ability to play these larger retro games then we can have an option for that at a higher cost.
Is $100-$150 less really worth it to limit the size of the games you want to play and is it also worth it to eliminate the games that will be created using the FPGA/Arm of our console? In the short term it may seem like a lot of money, but in the long term, we will all be shooting ourselves if we cheapen this console up.
Even though we are calling this RETRO VGS, there is nothing RETRO about the hardware. It's a NEW, modern day system, with the capability to play many of the same games that will only be available digitally on the systems from Msoft, Sony and Nintendo.
Look at the Mist and FPGA Arcade Boards. These are FPGA only and basically bare boards with no contollers, no pack-in game, limited output options and significantly more limited in what they can do and they are $250-$300 alone. You aren't going to see any modern day games running on those. We have created a console with so much more potential than those and at a much more competitive price.
RVGS may not be for everyone's checkbook, but for those gamers who want to play the latest and greatest retro style games coming from some incredible design teams and play these games on long lasting cartridges then this will be a choice packed with long term value.
We are still addressing the cart storage issues. Masked ROMS might still be a viable option but might not be an option for the larger of the retro games on the market, so we are continuing to look at our options but we are limited by today's technology which seems to all be going more disposable. This is something we can't control. I can only tell you we will provide the best option for game retention that is available today at an affordable price.
We have a few other ways we will be structuring the Kickstarter campaign to benefit the founding backers and make it worth while so please stay positive until the campaign goes live and you have all the information.
I can tell you we will have a minimum goal in the $2.5-$3MM range which will reflect about 7,000 backers minimum. This is a minimum quantity we have guaranteed our initial batch of game developers in this campaign period. We will then build on that the balance of a year until the consoles ship mid 2016. Keep in mind we aren't an existing company with other sources of income. We are not only Kickstarting a product but our company as well. And we don't have the luxury of taking a loss on RVGS out of the gates.
To address those wondering who would make games for a console like this. The one thing I can tell you is developers are coming in droves excited about the potential of having their games preserved on cartridges. Most have said it's a dream to have this and something they never thought they would have had the opportunity to do. Dev's are in line waiting to learn how to make and bring their games to RVGS. Getting an abundance of quality games on this will not be a problem. We will carefully make sure to not saturate the market and keep the ratio of games to the # of users in check.
This is going to be a very trick piece of hardware that will do some amazing things and play some amazing games for a very long time. We can guarantee you all that. If you are a gamer that could care less about owning a physical cartridge of some of your favorite modern day games, in lieu of the limited life of a digital version than so be it. Dollar for dollar we feel RETRO gamers will get more value with RVGS than any other modern day console.
- Mike Kennedy
I wanted to come in here and address the RVGS pricing issue. It really all comes down to what gamers want to play on RVGS. For us, gamers ourselves, we want RVGS to have the ability to play all these incredible larger Retro inspired titles that are hitting the market these days, and will continue to hit the market for years and years to come -- on cartridges. We also want to see what developers can do to create their own custom effects utilizing the FPGA/Arm combo we are supplying. This chipset will give them unlimited potential to do things we've never seen before in a game.
If all you want to do is play games up to a limited file size, like 50 MB for example (tbd), and do not care about the cool things developers will inevitably be doing with the very large and capable FPGA / Processor chipset then we can have a console option for that under $300.
BUT, if you do care and understand the benefits of having the first ever FPGA enabled console that will also have the ability to play these larger retro games then we can have an option for that at a higher cost.
Is $100-$150 less really worth it to limit the size of the games you want to play and is it also worth it to eliminate the games that will be created using the FPGA/Arm of our console? In the short term it may seem like a lot of money, but in the long term, we will all be shooting ourselves if we cheapen this console up.
Even though we are calling this RETRO VGS, there is nothing RETRO about the hardware. It's a NEW, modern day system, with the capability to play many of the same games that will only be available digitally on the systems from Msoft, Sony and Nintendo.
Look at the Mist and FPGA Arcade Boards. These are FPGA only and basically bare boards with no contollers, no pack-in game, limited output options and significantly more limited in what they can do and they are $250-$300 alone. You aren't going to see any modern day games running on those. We have created a console with so much more potential than those and at a much more competitive price.
RVGS may not be for everyone's checkbook, but for those gamers who want to play the latest and greatest retro style games coming from some incredible design teams and play these games on long lasting cartridges then this will be a choice packed with long term value.
We are still addressing the cart storage issues. Masked ROMS might still be a viable option but might not be an option for the larger of the retro games on the market, so we are continuing to look at our options but we are limited by today's technology which seems to all be going more disposable. This is something we can't control. I can only tell you we will provide the best option for game retention that is available today at an affordable price.
We have a few other ways we will be structuring the Kickstarter campaign to benefit the founding backers and make it worth while so please stay positive until the campaign goes live and you have all the information.
I can tell you we will have a minimum goal in the $2.5-$3MM range which will reflect about 7,000 backers minimum. This is a minimum quantity we have guaranteed our initial batch of game developers in this campaign period. We will then build on that the balance of a year until the consoles ship mid 2016. Keep in mind we aren't an existing company with other sources of income. We are not only Kickstarting a product but our company as well. And we don't have the luxury of taking a loss on RVGS out of the gates.
To address those wondering who would make games for a console like this. The one thing I can tell you is developers are coming in droves excited about the potential of having their games preserved on cartridges. Most have said it's a dream to have this and something they never thought they would have had the opportunity to do. Dev's are in line waiting to learn how to make and bring their games to RVGS. Getting an abundance of quality games on this will not be a problem. We will carefully make sure to not saturate the market and keep the ratio of games to the # of users in check.
This is going to be a very trick piece of hardware that will do some amazing things and play some amazing games for a very long time. We can guarantee you all that. If you are a gamer that could care less about owning a physical cartridge of some of your favorite modern day games, in lieu of the limited life of a digital version than so be it. Dollar for dollar we feel RETRO gamers will get more value with RVGS than any other modern day console.
- Mike Kennedy