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

A Black Falcon

A Black Falcon

Member
Shaneus said:
Even if they did, they'd still have to design one themselves for all the different outputs, I'd imagine.
Click to expand...

Considering that the Jaguar has a giant open hole in the middle of the back, they pretty much had to do a new back panel, really. It's good that they did, it fixes one of the Jaguar's design issues. It's too bad that adding a flap on the cart door was too hard, but a real back panel is a good addition.
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
Don't know if it had already been posted but Songbringer has been announced as a Retro title.


Songbringer-Giant-Space-Minotaur.png
 
N

NoFaceNico

Member
Retro VGS will soon be launching their own Kickstarter and guess what? When backing the project one of the reward levels will be to get a Retro VGS console and a couple games. Among those game choices you will have Songbringer.

That's right. If all goes well with the Retro VGS Kickstarter, Songbringer will be coming to a cartridge near you as early as summer 2016.
Click to expand...

Interesting info.

So I guess the VGS Kickstarter will be planning to deliver in the Summer 2016.
 
D

dancrane212

Member
Saw that Retro VGS linked to another podcast interview with Mike Kennedy on Twitter. Mike mentioned during the interview that they are now looking into just using the 'HDD in a cart' option for everything and not using 100-year flash at all.

I understand why they would go in that direction but putting moving parts in every cart still seems like the antithesis to what they are pitching in terms of longevity.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
Well, he said in that interview that Steve Woita won't do an option that won't last like 50 years, he's very dedicated to long life cartridges. And it's not normal hard drives, he said it was some sort of long-life mini disc.
 
Kawika

Kawika

Member
Dreamwriter said:
Well, he said in that interview that Steve Woita won't do an option that won't last like 50 years, he's very dedicated to long life cartridges. And it's not normal hard drives, he said it was some sort of long-life mini disc.
Click to expand...

Well, if it last 50 years its likely to last longer than i might. Even still, makes me worried about the project now. I know everything is a moving target but I hope in the end that they go with the Flash option. At least its not optical media. I wonder how long we have till disc rot starts destroying our PS1+ collections.
 
ultrazilla

ultrazilla

Gold Member
Here they are tech GAF: the specs

So Tech GAF, how does this sound on paper? What kind of visuals can this produce? Early PS1 titles? PS2?

System Specifications

Disclaimer: We reserve right to make improvements and appropriate adjustments as necessitated by forces outside of our control.

Processing

Unprecedented massive parallel processing at bit level via FPGA (field-programmable gate array) with 49,000 logic elements (LEs), programmable via cartridge and/or media processor—the ultimate game enhancement chip!

Fast sequential processing through media processor with 32-bit ARM Cortex-A8 @ 1.2 GHz, 3-D processor, blitter, and more

Memory

1 GiB high-bandwidth dual-channel 32-bit DDR3-1600 DRAM (102.4 Gbps) via media processor

384 MiB fast 24-bit DDR DRAM and 32 MiB SDR DRAM via FPGA

1 MiB shared DMA buffer

Cartridge Interface

Durable USA-made application-appropriate edge connector with thick gold on contacts

Media independent, supporting multiple data bus widths and switching voltage levels

Bus transfer speed: variable, up to 1.6 Gbps

Game Controller Interface

4 USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports (standard A) for included game controllers, etc.

2 plastic DE-9P (male) connectors with variable pinout for any classic game controller with mating connector, or similar player-built game controllers

Host Connector

1 USB port (standard B) to host PC or other Retro VGS console for synchronized play

Audio/Video Output

Simultaneous video output via digital HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) and analog intermediate frequency (IF) NTSC (PAL support under consideration), so game sessions may easy be captured or recorded

HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) support planned

Connectivity

9-pin mini DIN: RGB or component using Sega Genesis MK II/Nomad/32X cables

4-pin mini DIN: S-Video (Y/C)

RCA (yellow): composite CVBS (color, video, blanking, and sync)

RCA (white): left channel audio or mono audio (if right channel not connected)

RCA (red): right channel audio

Power output for Sony RFU modules, for connection to televisions without line in

Resolution: up to 1920 × 1080 from media processor and/or FPGA; media processor may overlay, upscale, and otherwise process video from FPGA

Frame rate (maximum):

From media processor: 30 Hz and 60 Hz (up to 1080p/60)

From FPGA: 1080p up to 30 Hz (1080p/30) and 720 up to 60 Hz (720p/60), may be upscaled by media processor to 1080p/60

Color palette: up to 24-bit true color (>16.7 million colors) from media processor and/or FPGA

High-resolution audio output, with bi-directional audio interface between media processor and FPGA enabling flexible audio processing

Power

External global power adapter with cable/plug included for destination country

Cooling

Convection-cooled, no noisy fan to wear out

Regulatory Certifications

Global: CSA, EU CE, US FCC, US UL, etc.Type your paragraph here.
 
E

Evenball

Jack Flack always escapes!
With that ARM processor with built in 3D processing, I'm betting it'll at least be better than PS1 level graphics, but I'm not totally sure.

People were able to do 3D on the GBA with a far less powerful ARM processor (though at a much lower resolution).
 
S

Shaneus

Member
This thing is going to be some kind of beast. Hope someone finds a way to work out how to "port" certain arcade board titles to run on it. For some reason I can picture this thing being able to nail something like a CPS2 or Neogeo board. Assuming there's some way to "emulate" via FPGA (or even just certain typically CPU-heavy elements).
Worst case, smaller/indie devs could port their retro titles (I'm thinking Skullgirls here) to it.
 
S

superNESjoe

Member
stan423321 said:
It's supposed to be a retro styled console and it has roughly same amount of RAM Wii U games have after taking out web browser's share.

And you say it's a small amount? Geez.
Click to expand...

That's because it is a small amount. Not all "retro" looking indie games actually run on really low specs.

That said, limitations can be fun to work with.
 
S

stan423321

Member
...no. Just no. One gibibyte is in fact an overkill that only makes sense given the ease of porting.

What were you expecting, a PS4 using cartridges?
 
T

The Taxman

Neo Member
Just quickly whizzing through the specs, the ARM processor is about on par with the 1st generation iPad or iPhone 4. The level of 3D you could achieve will largely depend on how good the driver implementation is (I have no idea what kind of SDK this console will have beyond the optional FPGA emulator cores) but I'd say you could go somewhere between N64 - Dreamcast level.

The hardware is definitely pretty cool for anyone who likes to tinker with low-level stuff though. If I had more free time I'd love to see if I could get my Retro Engine running on an FPGA hah. Shame about the Jag moulds though, the weird cart handles and no cart dust flaps are a bit of a turn off.
 
N

NoFaceNico

Member
If it's on par with an iPhone 4 then yeah, it's right on the edge of what modern "retro" style games need. Two of my favorite modern retro inspired games, Risk of Rain and Luftrausers both require 1 gig of RAM.

I have to say though, the idea to use an HDD or some sort of mini-disc technology in the carts sounds incredibly dumb. The biggest thing that kills physical product Kickstarters is when production costs unexpectedly spiral out of control (or were underestimated to begin with). Making each cart an HDD is just asking for trouble, stick with simple stuff that works.
 
R

Ruud_Luiten

Member
NoFaceNico said:
If it's on par with an iPhone 4 then yeah, it's right on the edge of what modern "retro" style games need. Two of my favorite modern retro inspired games, Risk of Rain and Luftrausers both require 1 gig of RAM.

I have to say though, the idea to use an HDD or some sort of mini-disc technology in the carts sounds incredibly dumb. The biggest thing that kills physical product Kickstarters is when production costs unexpectedly spiral out of control (or were underestimated to begin with). Making each cart an HDD is just asking for trouble, stick with simple stuff that works.
Click to expand...
Luftrausers is on Vita, but the Vita has less then 1Gb memory; right.
 
D

Dicer

Banned
Evenball said:
With that ARM processor with built in 3D processing, I'm betting it'll at least be better than PS1 level graphics, but I'm not totally sure.

People were able to do 3D on the GBA with a far less powerful ARM processor (though at a much lower resolution).
Click to expand...

Who fucking wants 3D on this? certainly not me, it's not the point of this thing...
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
Freakboy3 said:
Not sure if any games would even have a reason to use it, but no networking?
Click to expand...
There's local networking - a USB port designed for hooking up two Retro VGS consoles together.

Dicer said:
Who fucking wants 3D on this? certainly not me, it's not the point of this thing...
Click to expand...
The people who are making the console were considering making it powerful enough for PS1-style retro games. So very simple 3D. Think of the 3D elements in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, for example.
 
G

GameGavel

Neo Member
Hey NG!

Great to see all the (mostly) positive discussions about RVGS over here. I wanted to address the cartridge options, of 100 Year Flash vs. Mini Disk. Our problem is for the very large games - pretty much anything over 48MB get's real expensive on 100-Year flash. The larger the game the more of these need to be mounted in the cart - up to 6 of them potentially - http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/SST38VF6401BT-70I/TV/SST38VF6401BT-70I/TV-ND/4860124

The mini-disks we are looking at have very long retention time and could store a massive game for low cost. That is why we are considering them. And masked roms at the low volumes we will most certainly start out at are just way out of our price range.

Obviously we would prefer to not have any moving parts we might have no choice on the much larger, modern day retro games. But, we are still on the hunt for flash type storage with long retention time. 50 years + has been our design standard. 20-Year flash is quite a bit less expensive but we are nervous putting that in our carts. Unfortunately there aren't many options in this class of Flash.
 
D

dancrane212

Member
GameGavel said:
Hey NG!

Great to see all the (mostly) positive discussions about RVGS over here. I wanted to address the cartridge options, of 100 Year Flash vs. Mini Disk. Our problem is for the very large games - pretty much anything over 48MB get's real expensive on 100-Year flash. The larger the game the more of these need to be mounted in the cart - up to 6 of them potentially - http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/SST38VF6401BT-70I/TV/SST38VF6401BT-70I/TV-ND/4860124

The mini-disks we are looking at have very long retention time and could store a massive game for low cost. That is why we are considering them. And masked roms at the low volumes we will most certainly start out at are just way out of our price range.

Obviously we would prefer to not have any moving parts we might have no choice on the much larger, modern day retro games. But, we are still on the hunt for flash type storage with long retention time. 50 years + has been our design standard. 20-Year flash is quite a bit less expensive but we are nervous putting that in our carts. Unfortunately there aren't many options in this class of Flash.
Click to expand...

That's good to hear the discs have long retention but how secure can the hard drives be inside those Jaguar carts? It's not a direct comparison but coming out of college and seeing external drives - with modern cases made to withstand a bit of a beating - take a tumble and never work again still has me cautious. It's not as if I'm home juggling my games in the air but I've certainly had moments where things have gotten knocked off a table or slipped out of my hand.
 
D

Dicer

Banned
Dreamwriter said:
There's local networking - a USB port designed for hooking up two Retro VGS consoles together.


The people who are making the console were considering making it powerful enough for PS1-style retro games. So very simple 3D. Think of the 3D elements in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, for example.
Click to expand...

Do not want, that whole era was awkward and ugly, don't need a return to it, IMHO of course...
 
L

Leynos

Member
GameGavel said:
Hey NG!

Great to see all the (mostly) positive discussions about RVGS over here. I wanted to address the cartridge options, of 100 Year Flash vs. Mini Disk. Our problem is for the very large games - pretty much anything over 48MB get's real expensive on 100-Year flash. The larger the game the more of these need to be mounted in the cart - up to 6 of them potentially - http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/SST38VF6401BT-70I/TV/SST38VF6401BT-70I/TV-ND/4860124

The mini-disks we are looking at have very long retention time and could store a massive game for low cost. That is why we are considering them. And masked roms at the low volumes we will most certainly start out at are just way out of our price range.

Obviously we would prefer to not have any moving parts we might have no choice on the much larger, modern day retro games. But, we are still on the hunt for flash type storage with long retention time. 50 years + has been our design standard. 20-Year flash is quite a bit less expensive but we are nervous putting that in our carts. Unfortunately there aren't many options in this class of Flash.
Click to expand...

I'm of the opinion that if your hardware isn't nailed down then you should not throw out any hints, or speculation. It just leads to people wanting one thing, getting another, and customers being disappointed/angry.

Cow Mengde said:
Very interesting hardware. I wonder how much something like this will cost.

BTW, is there support for digital download?
Click to expand...

No, there is no modem, or support for online. It goes against the very raison d'etre of the Retro VGS - to go back to a simpler time when patches, DLC, friends lists, achievements, etc. did not exist, and a game system played games, and nothing more.
 
K

Khaz

Member
GameGavel said:
Hey NG!
Click to expand...

I know nothing about this but what's wrong with SD technology? Or any other memory cards.

Also would you like to talk about the software as well? are you using any sort of OS? What is the process of porting games to your consoles?


Leynos said:
No, there is no modem, or support for online. It goes against the very raison d'etre of the Retro VGS - to go back to a simpler time when patches, DLC, friends lists, achievements, etc. did not exist, and a game system played games, and nothing more.
Click to expand...

One doesn't preclude the other. Modern technology allows patching cartridge games, you just need to allow the console to write on it, which if it's some sort of mini-disk should be easy. iirc cartridges can't be patched because A) they used to be mask ROMs and B) it would allow piracy as if it were a floppy. I would be very happy to be able to patch my cartridges, sometimes stuff is just buggy. And DLC can be barred, you just need to make the downloading process simple enough so that no info like credit card numbers or account identification can be passed to the website.

Is GameGavel concerned with piracy?
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
Khaz said:
I know nothing about this but what's wrong with SD technology? Or any other memory cards.

Is GameGavel concerned with piracy?
Click to expand...
No, they are concerned with lazy or rushed developers shipping buggy games that need updating, games/consoles requiring people to wait for updates to download to play them, games disappearing forever in 15 years when the servers are shut down (both full game download servers and patch servers). The entire point of the Retro VGS is a return to the old days where you stick a cartridge in the system, turn it on, the game immediately starts up. No fuss, no muss, no wait, no major bugs. And for games that will still work 20, 30, 50 years from now, just like Atari 2600 games still work now. Most SD flash technology isn't designed to retain data more than a few years.
 
K

Khaz

Member
I'm just saying you can do both, have games instantly playable and patchable. Several cartridge games from old times got revisions with subsequent printings, other were plain broken and never dealt with. Patching isn't inherently wrong, just need to be handled correctly. It doesn't need to be a walled garden either, the patches could be made public with the server location editable in the console.
 
L

Leynos

Member
Yes, adding the ability to download patches to the cartridge, or system would be easy enough to do, but then you leave the option open to developers who, if you give an inch, will take a mile. Why bother making damn sure that there are no bugs, and go through the expense of a full QA session when they can simply release the game as-is, and patch any bugs suckers customers come across? This way publishers have to make sure that the game is rock-solid lest they risk being known to the public as being the publisher that releases janky, buggy shit.
 
F

Freakboy3

Member
stan423321 said:
Nothing technically prevents you from plugging in a USB adapter.
Click to expand...

Still a little dissapointing to have one built in, firmware updates? Demos? Would give developers more options to multiplayer.

Dreamwriter said:
There's local networking - a USB port designed for hooking up two Retro VGS consoles together.
Click to expand...

I think the idea of having local system link is fun but having networking would add a whole lot more options to the console.


Cow Mengde said:
Very interesting hardware. I wonder how much something like this will cost.

BTW, is there support for digital download?
Click to expand...

Would be a good idea in my opinion, if at least for firmware updating.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
RGB makes sense if you have PVM or other CRT.

It's an afterthought if you're playing on a modern display. HDMI is just better.
 
mantrakid

mantrakid

Member
Im putting out a new 8-Track player that uses the shell of an old panasonic portable 8 track player. Im contacting record labels to convince them to produce and market new albums exclusively for my new 8-track player. The art will be so good on the 8-track cassettes. Im thinking to keep costs low I'll use airline headphones on the portable 8-track player.

This whole thing screams niche hipster market. Sure, cool in theory, but in my opinion you're a fool if you think this is not going to be a time and money sinkhole. Wait can you get out of a sinkhole? Maybe.. time and money quicksand i mean. Wait. Can you get out of quicksand? Lava, then. Time and money lava.
 
A

Adam Tyner

Member
mantrakid said:
This whole thing screams niche hipster market.
Click to expand...
Is it a bad thing to release something unique, different, and kinda crazy for a small but enthusiastic audience who wants it? This is a "wouldn't it be cool if...?" project. If it exists and gets even a handful of games made for it, it's already succeeded. No one's expecting this to sell hundreds of thousands of consoles or anything.
 
N

NoFaceNico

Member
mantrakid said:
Im putting out a new 8-Track player that uses the shell of an old panasonic portable 8 track player. Im contacting record labels to convince them to produce and market new albums exclusively for my new 8-track player.
Click to expand...

Does it come with optical audio out? Because if so I AM SO FUCKIN' IN!!!!!


Adam Tyner said:
Is it a bad thing to release something unique, different, and kinda crazy for a small but enthusiastic audience who wants it? This is a "wouldn't it be cool if...?" project. If it exists and gets even a handful of games made for it, it's already succeeded. No one's expecting this to sell hundreds of thousands of consoles or anything.
Click to expand...

... Ummm... then you might want to listen to those podcast interviews.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
Freakboy3 said:
Would be a good idea in my opinion, if at least for firmware updating.
Click to expand...
There is no firmware to update. And if there were that would go against the point of the console, because in 25 years good luck connecting to an update server to get the firmware you need because the used console you bought didn't have it.

NoFaceNico said:
Adam Tyner said:
No one's expecting this to sell hundreds of thousands of consoles or anything.
Click to expand...
... Ummm... then you might want to listen to those podcast interviews.
Click to expand...
The ones I listened to said it could sell 5000 or it could sell 50,000, they didn't know what to expect (they are of course hoping for higher numbers). None said anything about hundreds of thousands. And don't underestimate how many middle-aged gamers are out there with nostalgia for the old days, or how many game collectors are out there who love special edition games (here's an entire console designed around special edition retro games). I happen to be both :)
 
N

NoFaceNico

Member
Dreamwriter said:
The ones I listened to said it could sell 5000 or it could sell 50,000, they didn't know what to expect (they are of course hoping for higher numbers). None said anything about hundreds of thousands. And don't underestimate how many middle-aged gamers are out there with nostalgia for the old days, or how many game collectors are out there who love special edition games (here's an entire console designed around special edition retro games). I happen to be both :)
Click to expand...

You predict I'll be wrong, I predict you'll be wrong. We won't know until it happens.
 
X

xDUMPWEEDx

Banned
mantrakid said:
This whole thing screams niche hipster market. Sure, cool in theory, but in my opinion you're a fool if you think this is not going to be a time and money sinkhole. Wait can you get out of a sinkhole? Maybe.. time and money quicksand i mean. Wait. Can you get out of quicksand? Lava, then. Time and money lava.
Click to expand...
Cool in reality to many, including myself. Of course this is going to be a niche product. All of the games that are being released for it are also on other platforms, most notably PC. Not only are the games on other platforms, they will probably be significantly cheaper on these other platforms.

I still think this console is going to be fun. I don't think I've played a single indie game since Limbo, so I have the entire announced library to play/explore for the 1st time. If you already own all these games on PC then this console is mostly pointless to you, unless you just want the physical collection aspect.
 
R

Robert at Zeboyd Games

Banned
Adam Tyner said:
Is it a bad thing to release something unique, different, and kinda crazy for a small but enthusiastic audience who wants it? This is a "wouldn't it be cool if...?" project. If it exists and gets even a handful of games made for it, it's already succeeded. No one's expecting this to sell hundreds of thousands of consoles or anything.
Click to expand...

When it's a platform, then yes, it's a bad thing to be that niche if it means that every game that comes out on it loses money.

I just don't see how this is anything but an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen. Ouya came out and turned into a huge mess for everyone who released on it and Ouya had drastically more hype behind it than this does.
 
L

Lime_In_Da_Coconut

Banned
Was hoping that this was a retro console that would play old Genesis/SNES cartridges with actual chips, not shitty emulation.

Instead I just see Ouya 2.0

Can't wait for E3 when someone parks a truck in front of their booth...
 
S

Slermy

Member
Lime_In_Da_Coconut said:
Was hoping that this was a retro console that would play old Genesis/SNES cartridges with actual chips, not shitty emulation.

Instead I just see Ouya 2.0

Can't wait for E3 when someone parks a truck in front of their booth...
Click to expand...

You kind of have venues for similar stuff already such as the Retrobit Trio or Analogue_NT. I'm sure in time we'll get HDMI enabled Genesis/SNES clones.
 
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