Pre-orders for the Atari VCS went into overdrive yesterday, with it’s campaign on Indiegogo raising over the $2m marker in just a few days.
Now taking into consideration the company was only asking for $100,000 it’s still something I can’t get my head round (in both original target and the current figure!), just goes to show how the brand still maintains an appeal, although I have a feeling there’s a hipster vibe going on here..
So what next? Well, like many indiegogo console promises before, the company will have to deliver on it’s promise of a working console and 100+ included games, which as we well know, building a retro console isn’t just about whacking an OS on an Android/Linux capable hardware, and shoving an emulator in. With Nintendo, there’s a loyal fan base who respect the company for it’s designs and 1st party game line up, which is usually assured through QA testing will be as accurate as possible before leaving for dispatch, Sega however, prefer to licence their console IPs out to the highest bidder, but still regain control over a level of quality before release.
On the other hand, since it’s the 31st May today there’s the Sinclair ZX Vega+. It raised £512,790 and was meant to be released in 2016, but is still yet to see the light of day. Even after promising Indiegogo it would be released by the end of May or face third-party debt collectors to recoup backers’ money if they continue to drag out the non-production any longer, having shown no photo’s of the ‘version 2’ design so often promoted on their social media feeds, and removed many queries from backers asking for box photo’s, PEGI ratings, evidence of the working unit.
The company behind the project Retro Computers Ltd, blamed hardware issues, organised social media campaigns, A leak of the original games list and hardware spec and a legal dispute for the repeated delay..
Nothing to do with spending the money outside of the project then.
