Another day, another retro crowdfunding project – but this time it’s a little different, as the people behind the Retro VGS want to bring back cartridge-based consoles. The use of the retro medium is designed to offer users an experience with “no patches or scratches” – ownership of a durable physical copy of a game, which won’t be made obsolete by online updates. Essentially, it’s a home console unlike any since the N64.
The hardware is the brainchild of Steve Woita and John Carlsen, industry veterans who have experience at Atari, Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment America and other major companies. You’ll no doubt have noticed that the Atari Jaguar shell has been used to create the system, with the team behind the project having purchased the tooling from the dental imaging company which purchased it from Atari. The system employs an ARM processor as well as an FPGA (field-programmable gate array), which is intended to enable it to imitate various older systems.
The line-up of games comprises existing and forthcoming homebrew games for vintage platforms, as well as retro-inspired indie games. Amongst the announced games are Pier Solar (2010, Mega Drive, Dreamcast and modern systems), Gunlord (2012, Neo Geo and Dreamcast), Knight’s Chance (2014, Neo Geo) and Adventure In The Tower Of Flight (2015, PC) for some time. The only actual retro title announced so far is the Double Dragon Trilogy compilation, from DotEmu.
The Retro VGS team is looking for $1,950,000 to make the console a reality. If you want one of your own, early bird backers can pick up a standard black model for $299, while other models are available for $349+.