It’s been eleven years since the Coleco name (that was widely known in the 1980s thanks to the Colecovision console) has revived. In 2006, the Coleco Sonic launched as a handheld that ran SEGA Master System and Game Gear titles. They planned something bigger last year. The past tense is used on purpose.

They announced a new console, the Coleco Chameleon. The Chameleon would have gone against the trends of digital downloads or optical discs, and instead, the games would have been available on cartridges. The last time we have seen this as a widespread solution for a non-handheld console, it was the Nintendo 64. This project got halted by Retro Game Systems, the team behind the Chameleon – but only after Coleco stripping their support. Is this story hard to follow? No wonder!

The Coleco Chameleon was planned to have a Kickstarter campaign launch on February 26 so that the retro fans would be able to support and fund the console. (The team previously tried to do the same thing on Indiegogo, back then the console was called the Retro VGS – out of the targeted 1.95 million dollars, they got 81 thousand!) The team showed a prototype on New York Toy Fair – this is where things get kinky.

It turned out to be an SNES Jr. duct taped into the case of an Atari Jaguar! No joke. Then, there was a Facebook post (which, of course, disappeared), which showed the inside of the console. It was a PCI capture card. You can look at these tweets below the article.

Colecovision quickly decided to strip the support on the Retro VGS. The console will not be made. Thankfully, Coleco reacted quickly, and the scam will not happen.

Update: They posted a picture on Facebook that turned out to be an old PCI capture card. Do not support these people pic.twitter.com/2A1tyLZ4bm

— Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi) March 1, 2016