Postponed Coleco Chameleon Kickstarter campaign

What's going on with the Jaguar-like console?
Text: Jonas Mäki
Published 2016-03-03

Retro Game Systems bought the rights to the Atari Jaguar mold and was going to use it to bring back the Coleco brand (owned by another company) by creating a retro console called Coleco Chameleon.

Plans were to launch a Kickstarter campaign on February 26, which never happened, and on Facebook the company has explained this by saying they are going to "make it even better".

But as it turns out, it seems like the whole thing just might have been a scam. Tech savvy fans on AtariAge have discovered that the circuit board used for the Coleco Chameleon is in fact a PCI capture card.

Retro Game Systems themselves says it was just a prototype (but removed the picture of the hardware) and that unspecified "major retailers" saw the console at New York Toy Fair and have "expressed real interest in carrying the product". And it doesn't stop there, because (once again unspecified) "major game companies" want to develop games for the system.

This appears to be the reason why they haven't started the Kickstarter campaign, and they end their message by declaring that this "delay will not affect our overall launch date for the Coleco Chameleon."

If you think this all smells very fishy, you're not the only one. The company who actually owns the Coleco brand has ordered Retro Game Systems to send them a unit so they can try it out within seven days. They will then communicate whether there actually is a properly working product.

Thanks, Gamespot.

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