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DOOMED?
MIKE KENNEDY ON HOW HE PLANS TO TURN AROUND THE RETRO VGS
After several months of press, the Retro VGS was announced on Indiegogo, only for it to fail spectacularly. After launching on 18 September, the project was quickly cancelled with the team announcing the project was “dead in the water” on its Facebook page. We spoke to Retro’s Mike Kennedy to find out what went wrong and how he hopes to turn interest in the project around.
Were you not concerned that a $2 million target was too high? It was a high goal and we were concerned about it. People need to remember in addition to [the] cost of goods needed to raise operating capital to run and found this business so we can continue to support the product for years to come. We weren't just crowdfunding a product but also a company to support the product.
Why create a cartridge-based system when featured games are cheaper on other platforms? We believe there is a market for tangible cartridges to Why do you think play new games. Even interest in your console if games are available was so low? digitally, there are The interest wasn't people that want to low, at least outside the own these games campaign. Thousands and have the right to » While we love the concept of of gamers were (and still play these games on the Retro VGS, we’re unsure a are) genuinely interested original hardware for the market exists for it. in the Retro VGS and the rest of their life. Cartridges prospects for a new cartridgehave value and can be based console. We just made a few collected and traded forever. They also mistakes in the final weeks prior come with some advantages in that to igniting the campaign – mainly there are no load times and games on launching without a prototype and them will have gone through extensive using Indiegogo instead of Kickstarter. QA to assure no bugs. In the unlikely We have just made some changes to event a game-hampering bug escapes our hardware team and have brought we will have a program to replace back on-board a couple [of] hardware those cartridges at no cost to gamers. gurus that we were working with last year in the early stages of this project. Was it a mistake to not have a They have a fresh eye and are helping working prototype ready? us engineer the cost down to a more YES! Even though we had a credible manageable selling price. team and believed we could deliver
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the product as we designed, it was a mistake to not have a working prototype. We will have a prototype in the next few weeks, which should address this mistake. How will you ensure the success of the Retro VGS on Kickstarter? We will be addressing our three main complaints: price, prototype and Indiegogo. Our next attempt will be a lower cost. We will have a playable prototype and a lower minimum goal. Judging by our Facebook page we will still have support. What exclusive games do you have for the system? Tiny Knight will be an exclusive packin. Getting exclusives is hard as we have no installed user base and we can't guarantee sales numbers. We are discussing with indies as well as established developers such as DotEmu and Wayforward. We have NG:DEV.TEAM on board and that is exciting to think we can lower the
WHAT IS THE RETRO VGS The Retro VGS is a new console that will deliver an offline, cartridge-based experience like the 16-bit systems of old. If it looks familiar, it’s because it uses the cartridge shell of the Atari Jaguar. Steve Woita, an esteemed games programmer from the Eighties and Nineties is one of the machine’s co-creators and developers and the system will hopefully include an FPGA with ARM architecture. It’s original planned price on IndieGoGo was $350, putting it in-line with today’s current generation systems.
prices of Neo-Geo ports. We also have contacts within Sega, Konami and Capcom and believe if we can show there is a market here, this will be a great platform to reintroduce sequels to popular 16 Bit and arcade classics.
» One of the key selling points of the Retro VGS was the complete lack of internet connectivity.