Retro VGS

The Retro VGS (Retro Video Game System) is an upcoming video game console created by Mike Kennedy, creator of RETRO Magazine and video game auction website Game Gavel, as well as game developer, Steve Woita. It will be inspired by the Second to Fifth Generations (1976-1999) of home video game consoles, and like most consoles of those Generations, the Retro VGS will run all of its games on individual cartridges, as opposed to optical discs and digital download. The Retro VGS will not support any manner of online connectivity whatsoever, meaning all hardware and software released will be the final product, and will not be updated after release. The reason for this, aside from inspiring feelings of nostalgia, is because one of the primary points of emphasis in the console's design is on longevity, following the examples made by the cartridge-based consoles of the First to Fourth generation, of which many are still completely operable today. The Retro VGS's development team has expressed expectations that the new console's hardware will outlast most consoles from the Fifth to Eighth generations by several decades, if properly maintained. (Fifth to Eighth-gen consoles tended to be more prone to breaking several years after production due to many moving parts, and many consoles from the Sixth Generation onward require internet connection to access certain console and game features, as well as to play certain complete games, which eventually become permanently inaccessible once the online servers are shut down.) The Kickstarter will begin in summer of 2015.
The console will use the main console and cartridge shells of the 1993 Atari Jaguar to house completely new hardware to play brand new games, as opposed to being a "clone console" that uses emulation to allow the play of old game cartridges, like the popular RetroN series of multi-platform consoles from Hyperkin. The use of the Jaguar's molds for the Retro VGS was for cost saving reasons, as purchasing the Jaguar's molds from Imagin Systems (A company that specializes in dental imaging cameras. They had purchased the molds in 1998 before Atari could dispose of them after the Jaguar's failure, as the shells they produced were the right size to house certain digital cameras, and the cartridges could be utilized as external memory storage devices) was a far cheaper alternative to designing completely original molds. The purchase saved the Retro VGS's development team an estimated $500,000 in start-up costs, and Mike Kennedy has expressed that the acquisition of the Jaguar molds was "the entire reason is possible". The console will support both USB and 9-pin controllers. Two USB controllers will be shipped with the console, based on an SNES-styled third-party controller for Nintendo's Wii U console. In addition, the Retro VGS will be running off of an FPGA with ARM architecture.
According to an interview with Venturebeat, Mike Kennedy said that he started planning the console after seeing the surprising amount of attention and reception towards the retro-inspired indie games at E3 2014, and believed that "Now is the best time to develop a new console". In the same interview, he said that they will try to focus on making many of the games inspired by the 16-Bit Era In a YouTube video by user Gamester81, the first ever gameplay was shown of the Retro VGS's first confirmed launch title, called The Adventures of the Tiny Knight. It was also said in the video that a sizable list of developers already plan to start making games for it, and the Retro VGS's graphics may be able to simulate "anywhere from Atari 2600 to PS1" levels of quality.

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