Downing's Basement

Yeah…I know I’m a little late on the re-cap but life got a little busy in the past two months! But, I’ve had a bit of lull while waiting for the last of the parts for the kits, so I spent a few days cutting this video together with some of the key experiences of the weekend.

Truth be told, these past couple of months have been a little overwhelming in many ways, especially when it comes to the kit and the ever increasing “out-of-pocket” expenses that keep adding up due to tariffs and other economic vultures that keep trying to take a piece of the pie. But, the light at the end of the tunnel is nearly here and I’m very hopeful that things are going to all work out!

Anyway, as far as the convention goes, this was my 2nd year attending RWX and, just like last year, my son and I had an amazing time! Unlike last year though, I was actually going to have a booth on the vendor floor to showcase many of my console mods, as well as the N64 portable kits! To make it even better, Gunnar (GMAN) of 4 Layer Tech and Connor (Crazy Gadget) of Bit Built shared said booth with me, making our debut at RWX a fairly powerful taste of what our hobby brings to the table!

But not only was it great to share a booth with those two, getting to meet up with friends that I met last year (Like Tito and Ariel), but I also got to meet and actually have a meaningful conversation with voice acting Legend “Tim Kitzrow”, voice of “BOOMSHAKALAK” in NBA JAM and the announcer of my favorite N64 Hockey Game, Wayne Gretzkey’s 3D Hockey!

Again, it was such an amazing time and the video above does a good job at recapping the event in full. Now that it is over however, my focus has shifted to the kits. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be finalizing the whole kit layout and the testing the controller boards, if the testing station ever arrives which somehow made a freak trip to Colorado and I haven’t seen anything of it since!

In addition, over the next few weeks, I will be creating a post Kickstarter Pre-Order page for those that had missed out on the Kickstarter and want to be added to the next batch list. I’ll have another post when that is up and running as well!

So that’s a very minimized recap of what’s goin on and I’ll have more soon!

It has been an incredible couple of weeks since the Kickstarter came to an end! The campaign finished off at nearly 160% of goal and so far the kitting process and building of the kits has gone smoothly, albeit a ton of work! Which is probably why the last place that this announcement was made was…well…here.

With everything but the custom PCBs and the Display’s in house, packaging should be ready to go by the end of September if all goes according to plan. But, we all know how “according to plan” actually goes, so I’m expecting at least one or two hang-ups along the way just from experience!

I’ll be keeping my backers updated though and I’ve been taking some short videos along the way to document some of the process, with more videos coming. (see below)

HEADED TO RETRO WORL EXPO – SEPT 12-14th

On top of this, two weeks from now I’ll be headed down to Hartford, CT to be a part of 10th Anniversary show of The Retro World Expo at the Connecticut Convention Center. I went to this event as an attendee with my son last year and it was an absolute blast, but this year, I’m actually going to be participating in the show!

I’ll be sharing a booth with my buddies Gman and Crazy Gadget and we’ll be showcasing some of our old projects, as well as some our upcoming as well! I’ll also be doing a panel on Saturday at 4PM with Bob from Retro RGB about how the 5th GeN64 Kit came into existence and the 12 years of failure that came before it!

So if you’re in the Northeast and feel like checking out a cool event, come say hi! I’ve got a very busy couple of months ahead and I just want to thank everyone who has been a part of this ride!

Well guys, we’re on the home stretch and now is time for the big push! Though we’re sitting at 113% of goal, in the last week, anything can happen! So that said I really want to make sure that those who have already pledged and want to see this kit come to life have the opportunity!

So please forgive me if I’m a little extra annoying this week as I try and drum up a few more pledges to make sure this happens!

I wanna thank you all again for the help and if you haven’t visited the Kickstarter as of yet, click the link below to check it out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/downingsbasement/downings-5th-gen64-portable-nintendo-64-diy-kit

This past Wednesday, on the 8th day into the campaign, the Kickstarter officially passed it’s goal! I gotta say that I was not expecting it to happen as quickly as it did and with (at the time of this post) 19 more days to go, I’m feeling confident this is going to happen!

So, I just wanted to give a quick thank you to all those who have contributed and to let you know it means the world to me that you’re picking up one of these kits! So much time and effort has gone into this, more so than anything I’ve ever done before as a hobby, and to see it come full circle is exceptionally rewarding!

More to come soon on the status of the guide and as we get closer to the end of the campaign, I’ll be starting to order parts and transforming my little game room into a temporary fulfillment center!

Thank you again guys! More soon!

Well, 24 hours into a month long campaign and I am remaining cautiously optimistic! To be 65% on the way to the goal on the first day is not only exciting but also very humbling! For such a Niche market and not being an “inexpensive” product, to still have this kind of response before even a major tech blog has picked it up is pretty freaking cool!

But, I know full well how these things could work and it could sit just like this for the 28 days, no matter how optimistic I feel about it. hehe.

That said though, I just want to thank everyone who’s been a part of this, helping me out and keeping my spirts up when it all looked like it was about to crash out. I also want to thank Bob from Retro RGB for his article and small feature in his most recent POD cast that I’ll link below! Looking forward to meeting up with him again at Retro World Expo in September!

But yeah, I’ve very excited to see where this goes and can’t wait to share more updates! Talk Soon!

Retro RGB Article
Retro RGB Podcast

Hard to believe, but after so many years…so many attempts and so much uncertainty in today’s world, this has finally happened! As of 6PM EST today, the Kickstarter for my 5th GeN64 Portable DIY kit went live and I couldn’t be more excited! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/downingsbasement/downings-5th-gen64-portable-nintendo-64-diy-kit

And at the time of this post, not much more than 3 hours after launch, we’re already a quarter of the way to the goal! Not bad! It will of course be interesting to see how it plays out, but I can’t wait to see where it goes. And even if it doesn’t hit after the next month, I’ll feel pretty good about how this all came together.

I’ll continue to post updates, especially if and/or when the funding goal is hit, because that’s just going to be a moment for me like you read about!

Thank you all again for joining me on this little adventure of mine! Your support means the world! Updates soon!