Things have been rather quiet for us at Opcode Games these last couple of
months, and it's not from a lack of customers or a lack of ongoing projects.
No, the answer lies with the recent changes in Eduardo's life: Since last
February, Eduardo's job has changed, and his responsabilities have increased
to the point where he no longer has the energy or motivation to continue
working on his ColecoVision projects. So you could say he is effectively
retiring from the ColecoVision homebrew scene.
Does this mean the death of Opcode Games? Absolutely not, as it is my pleasure
to announce that I am officially taking over Opcode Games as of today. I will
be teaming up with some new people, in order to pick up where Eduardo is
leaving off in terms of production and customer service.
So what does this mean for you, our ColecoVision-crazed customers? First of
all, if you sent us e-mail and haven't received a reply yet, rest assured that
you will get a reply soon, if you haven't already. And from now on, since I
will be in charge of everything, there will be no reason for me not to reply
promptly to all future communications. To insure the fastest response, however,
I would encourage you to contact me directly from now on, as Eduardo will no
longer be providing any kind of customer service.
As for Road Fighter and our other past releases, all sales operations are
hereby suspended until I've had a chance to acquire Eduardo's remaining
material, and to set up my own cartridge assembly operation. In Road Fighter's
case, Eduardo no longer has any assembled cartridges in stock, and it will
take several weeks before I can make more on my own. So again, I must beg for
your patience while these changes in production and customer service are being
put in place. These days, Eduardo replies to my e-mails only once a week, so
things are likely to get resolved very slowly.
There's one thing I need to mention right away: Eduardo has always strived to
keep the price of his games in the 30-35$ range. As the new guy in charge of
Opcode Games, my main concern is to recoup all manufacturing expenses, so
once we resume our sales operations, don't be surprised if the price of our
games goes up a few dollars. I'm not looking to make a profit, but I will not
lose money either, obviously. Prices will be set according to real production
expenses. Another thing I would like to mention is that, from now on, we will
not take any pre-orders for any of our future game releases, and all previous
pre-orders are hereby null and void. We will start to accept orders when our
games are actually and officially in stock, and not before.
What about Pac-Man Collection, you ask? Eduardo has vowed to complete the
software, although he didn't commit to any specific deadline. I want to see
Pac-Man Collection released as much as every other ColecoVision fan out there,
so you can be sure that as soon as Eduardo completes the software, some basic
beta-testing will be done, and then we'll go into real production. But as far
as PMC's release date is concerned, your guess is as good as mine, and that's
all I can say about that, for now anyway.
So beyond this production setup phase, you might be asking yourself what the
future holds for Opcode Games. Long-term plans are hazy at this point, but I
can already make one official announcement: Later this year, if all goes well,
we will release a full retail version of Konami's Ping-Pong, with box and
manual! As you are probably aware, Ping-Pong was originally produced in very
limited quantities, and since it is now clear that Konami Sports Collection
will likely never be completed, releasing Ping-Pong as a stand-alone cart
suddently makes a lot of sense, as many fans have enquired about this game
in the past.
As a final note, keep watching this blog section, as my next blog entry will
likely be an indication that sales operations will have resumed normally.
