SmaMan

And y'all thought I was crazy when I said this smelled like the Coleco Chameleon.

Ladies and gentlemen, we got vaporware'd!
Join us next time for everyone's other favorite console that might be emulation, might be FPGA, but will never come out regardless, the Polymega!

@JazzyPone
Actually that's a great idea. In case you don't want to unplug your Sega CD from the Genesis it's been plugged into for the past decade.

Looks like the Polymega has some competition for the Vaporware of the Year award.

@ThanosReXXX
Ever since a couple of con artists put a SNES Mini in a Jaguar shell and called it a revolutionary new retro FPGA game console, I think we've all earned the right to be skeptical.

@JeremyParish Did they give you any word on the BIOS situation? They've been very dodgy about this question, and they can't legally ship the official, copyrighted BIOSes that most of these consoles (especially the disk-based ones featured here) require.

@Thesharkfromjaws
I could only find one on their channel (the one you linked), as well as another from stitched together Instagram stories from Jeremy Parrish's time playing these games.

As we've seen in the past with previous retro console scams, you can run video of your fake UI transitioning into gameplay footage easily, or "rehearse" it in other ways. We can't get a good look at how this thing is even hooked up. Simply put, these guys have a history of being flakey on what their console actually is, while at the same time calling out legitimate manufacturers like Analogue. I wouldn't trust these people until an actual, real unit is out in people's hands, and given their track record, I'm not holding my breath.

So let's give a big front page of NL welcome to the Coleco Chameleon 2.

So, about 2 years delayed form their initial release date, we now have a series of emulator boxes that don't work completely well yet. We still don't even know if they have working cartridge ports/disc drives/modules as they only had a 100 game list to choose from of games already loaded to the drive at GDC, and even some of those had caching/stuttering issues?

For all we know, this could be RetroArch running in a custom frontend. It may not be "vaporware" but it's seeming more and more like the vapor has merely been contained in an expensive plastic box.

"The big problem with Sega Forever – and retro games on smartphones in general – is one of control."

No, the big problem is they've not lived up to their promise of releasing games regularly. This is confounded by the fact that all they've really been doing is updating their existing iOS apps from 6 years ago to make them iOS compatible... and they still managed to mess up the emulation.

So it's a half-baked controller for a half-baked service that they've all but given up on.

@youkoaoshi
I want you to be right, except we don't know any of that. All we've gotten from them is the occasional drop of marketing drivel, which according to that, this uses "Hybrid Emulation" which is supposedly a mix between FPGA and emulators (which makes no sense on its own.)

There's also the matter of BIOS for all these consoles. Unless they work out deals with these hardware manufacturers, or come up with a way to simulate them (not an easy thing to do and have every game work with it) then it's a no-go from a legal standpoint.

It has controllers. Yay. You know what else had controllers? The Coleco Chameleon.

We still don't have any concrete confirmation that this is a working console. Keep your eyes peeled for something akin to a SNES Jr. in a Jaguar shell, because that's how these things go.

Just came here to say...
AND HIS NAME IS ARYTON SENNA!
BRRRRAAPPPAADOOO!

...And I'm out...

Part NES Classic, Part Ouya... so it's the Coleco Chameleon?

@Guspaz Right, and that's where a lot of my skepticism stems from as well. Who the hell knows what "hybrid emulation" even means?

The BIOS issue is also concerning. I didn't see the PS1 bootup screen in the above clip, but I've seen PS1 emulators that can skate around the need for a BIOS file. Sega CD, not so much.

I'm far from being sold on this, but I've been checking on their site every few weeks or so. I'm interested in what I can do with the system's own features. Being able to stream right from the console sounds like a neat idea, for example, but if the emulation of the games isn't up to par, what's the point?

@Guspaz
To their credit, they have shown it running games at various conventions and the like. Here it is at SoCal Retro Gaming Expo:

But truth be told, the Coleco Chameleon did the same thing with SNES games and... we all know how that turned out.

My guess would be Dreamcast over Saturn. We've had the Dreamcast cracked open for over a decade now, while the Saturn just got cracked last year.

Still, if they manage to pull off Saturn, consider my interest piqued... hell as if it isn't already.

Sniff sniff... This reeks of Coleco Chameleon!

I mean, I really like this concept and want to be proven wrong here, but this is an awful lot to expect out of a company essentially starting out of nothing. We're talking multiple pieces of hardware, with particularly robust software to go along with it, not to mention an online component.

Methinks this story isn't over yet. Grab some popcorn and check out the AtariAge forum link to watch Kennedy further dig himself into a hole.

Also, while the identity of this Sean may actually exist, it's still unconfirmed at the time if the two have ever met, much less actually have worked on this damn prototype.

@Meowpheel
...Except for about $7000. Why the hell isn't Mike fuming over that? He's threatened so many lawsuits before, yet it sounds like he might actually have a case here.

It's almost like this Sean guy doesn't actually exist... whoops!

Good on Coleco for being a good holding company and making sure these hack jobs don't drag their (once) proud name through the mud.

I still remember when this thing got hacked within days of it being released.

We all know it's just running a Linux port of Final Burn Alpha, right? Well it turns out there's loads other working emulators in the system memory for GBA, PS1, SNES, and others. If one could get the roms in you essentially have an emulator to go.