When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works

Home / News / Coleco Chameleon console runs into trouble, could lose Coleco branding

Coleco Chameleon console runs into trouble, could lose Coleco branding

Community points out series of apparent inconsistencies in prototypes

Fans of old-school gaming got a nice bit of news before Christmas: the Coleco Chameleon was announced, promising a new cartridge-based system that could run new and old games alike without the hassle of network connections and patches.

It’s an intriguing premise, albeit one that could be tough to sell to the average consumer. And surprisingly, it’s been a tough sell to the hardcore retro fans too, many of whom met the announcement with skepticism. That skepticism may have been well-placed, too, as some recent developments have shown that the Chameleon may not yet be a functioning product.

Retro VGS, the company behind the Chameleon, showcased the console for the first time at the New York Toy Fair last month, and eagle-eyed fans noticed that it appeared to have Super Nintendo parts crammed into an Atari Jaguar shell. The latter part makes sense: Retro bought the old Jaguar molds for the project, as it was cheaper than casting new ones for a fresh design. But for the former point was curious.

The company’s co-founder Mike Kennedy admitted that they were still finalizing the hardware, and thus used an SNES connector to help run their own software. Fair enough. But then the company showed new pictures of the hardware on Facebook last week, and one appeared to show a random DVR capture card shoved into the translucent shell simply to look like it was a functional game console.

When called out on that, Retro VGS quickly deleted the photo from Facebook. Frank Cifaldi, video game historian and developer, has been following the saga along with members of the AtariAge forums. On Monday, he posted the images with the capture card (seen above) on Twitter and added, "Do not support these people."

Now Coleco Holdings, which licensed the name to Retro VGS for the Chameleon, has posted a Facebook note saying it may pull out of its deal due to the growing community concerns. "In order to confirm or debase these concerns, Coleco has demanded to inspect the prototype units within a seven day timeframe. At which time, independent engineers will review their findings and determine if those units are up to our standards," reads the statement.

"We will report some or all of those findings to the community so as long as they do not interfere with proprietary information," it continues. "We remain hopeful that the community’s concerns are merely speculations, but if there is merit to the concerns, then we have no choice but to abandon the project rather than release a sub-par product."

Retro VGS said last week that it was delaying the planned Kickstarter campaign due a need to work out potential partnerships, but now there’s a very real chance that the Chameleon may not be released – at least not with the Coleco name attached. We’ll let you know as the story developers.

[Sources: Facebook, Twitter via Engadget, Gizmodo]

Profile image of Andrew Hayward Andrew Hayward Freelance Writer

About

Andrew writes features, news stories, reviews, and other pieces, often when the UK home team is off-duty or asleep. I'm based in Chicago with my lovely wife, amazing son, and silly cats, and my writing about games, gadgets, esports, apps, and plenty more has appeared in more than 75 publications since 2006.

Areas of expertise

Video games, gadgets, apps, smart home

Enable referrer and click cookie to search for eefc48a8bf715c1b 20231024b972d108 [] 2.7.22