The Shrine

The idea sounds interesting on paper, create a new, cartridge based system designed to run all the retro-styled games that are being released these days. As more details have come out, the worse and worse it has sounded and gotten. They are running an Indiegogo campaign right now, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/retro-vgs#/story.

As of this point, they do not have a working prototype. Plus they are estimating the cost of the hardware to be around $300, and yes, they got their hands on the Jaguar molds and are using that as the shell of the system. They have raised about $68000 in 4 days of the campaign, out of a targeted goal of $1950000. Somehow I don't think they are going to come close.

This just strikes me as poorly conceived. It's an interesting premise, but hardware almost as expensive as a PS4 or an XBO, with cartridge based games that are going to cost 40-60 bucks while the digital downloads on other platforms are going to be 10-20, and trying to raise that much money for a product that is only going to really sell to an ultra-niche market.

Honestly I am surprised they haven't already pulled down the Indiegogo just to try to save face at this point it is doing so poorly. Has anybody else been following this car wreck? I am curious as to your thoughts.

Hey, I guess that's the benefit of crowdfunding. Freedom of choice. If enough people freely choose to give their money to a project (they think it's "worth" it) then it gets funded.

I don't think I'd give my money unless they could show a working prototype though.

Card tech has advanced rapidly over the last 5-10 years. It would have been far better to have a console that gives a digital download option, or an option of card-tech based carts.

But retro style games are widely available on every platform, not to mention the best examples of games from the 80's and 90's are all over the place. You could get any console and have access to all that stuff, or just get it on your phone or steam.