Thursday, February 25, 2016

Crickets from the Coleco Chameleon's Retro Video Game Studios

No news cannot be good news for the Coleco Chameleon and Retro Video Game Systems.  NLA reached out to multiple companies involved with RVGS and did not come away with a positive outlook.

On Sunday, February 21 Retro Video Game Systems, the company behind the Coleco Chameleon kicked off the week with an announcement.




Yes, an announcement to look forward to more announcements.  Unfortunately the only thing to follow was... crickets.  Nothing.  There was absolute silence from Retro Video Game Systems' Facebook page all week leading up to the launch of the Kickstarter campaign for the Coleco Chameleon.  What is going on behind the scenes?  Nintendo Love Affair has worked to find out.

In case you missed it, we successfully made contact with Piko Interactive to get more details about their involvement with the Coleco Chameleon.  While they seem excited to to put their games on the console, they also stayed very realistic.  The Chameleon is not a huge part of their market strategy and by no means vital to their company's existence.  Amidst all of the drama surrounding Retro Video Game Systems and the Coleco Chameleon, Piko Interactive has done an excellent job staying out of the middle and doing what they do best: making games.  


Wii U controller with the charging chord plugged in?

Following our interview with Piko Interactive, Nintendo Love Affair also reached out to InterWorks, the company that Mike Kennedy touted as responsible for the Coleco Chameleon dedicated controller as seen here in the provided video.  The link should lead you to the correct starting point in the interview.  Mike's strange behavior when discussing specific details of the system aside, he very obviously names InterWorks.  He also gives very muddy details for what he'd like to do to modify the controller for the Coleco Chameleon's game library.


The Coleco Chameleon controller they've been "testing"
  This is a pretty blatant admittance that, at the time of the video, Retro Video Game Systems did not have a plan for their dedicated controller.  The use of the SNES controller "hardwired into the system" is baffling as the InterWorks controller associated with the system has the exact same button layout.  Mike also states in the interview that they have been testing with the controller for six months and love it!  So, why aren't they using it?  Would Retro Video Game Systems go so far as to alter a InterWorks Pro U controller for the Nintendo Wii U to give the impression that they have a working model?  We tried to find out.




InterWorks was kind enough to respond to our inquiry but could not share any specific details about their involvement with the Coleco Chameleon.  It will be very interesting to see what Retro Video Game Systems unveils tomorrow.  My money is on a system that uses an SNES controller or maybe an InterWorks Pro U controller that has been hardwired into their system.  Most likely still, we will get nothing but more promises, smoke, and mirrors.

The mystery gets even more interesting as Nintendo Love Affair continued to get to the bottom things.  Collectorvision is also another company, much like Piko Interactive, that specializes in making new games for old systems.  They too have been heavily associated with the Coleco Chameleon by Mike Kennedy.  We began talks with Collectorvision over email and was excited to run a feature on their company.  Unfortunately, the interview stopped dead-cold mid week. Curious.

Could this all be linked together?  The silence from Retro Video Game Systems.  The neutrality from Piko Interactive.  The cold shoulder from Collectorvision.  Just what is going on behind the scenes and what could Retro Video Game Systems possibly unveil tomorrow?  We will just have to wait and see and I wouldn't get your hopes up.

What do you expect to see for the launch?  Let us know in the comments!

Related Articles
Coleco Chameleon Resource Page  (Everything we've written in one place!)
Peek Inside Piko Interactive
6 Crowdfunding Projects Every Retro Gamer Will Love

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