If some company came out with a retro-style handheld or home console that had 16-bit or 8-bit graphics, would you buy it? Why or why not? Would you prefer handheld or home, 8-bit or 16-bit? Nothing's past a vague idea, but I have some basic sketches made for something, and need input from people on whether they would be interested in something like this.
If you want more info, just ask, but I'm not interested in disclosing too much yet, and frankly don't even have much to disclose...
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
Only if costs justified the power and not the price of nostalgia. No retro-styled console should cost any more then $30 and that's assuming it's got some sort of bell or whistle to make it more convenient to play the older style games. $50 if it had some sort of wireless or internet capability to buy and play the games on some sort of marketplace.
The idea is neat, but new games would be your weakness.
If your plan would be to have NES compatibility, you'd have to battle the many famiclones, which you can pick up for a song.
Stuff like the GP2X and Caanoo and Pandora are just a step above 16-bit though (in what past games they can play), and they seem to be kind of popular.
Actually, my plan was to have new games in the style of 8-bit or 16-bit, and no compatibility with old games, just to be safe. It wouldn't be anything huge, but I could make a few games and systems to sell somewhere. There are more than enough clones of old games, though I don't know if any of them have internet compatibility.
My idea was to have wireless internet compatibility, and make the games downloadable, as I don't have the resources to make small cd-ROMs or ROM cartridges...
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
Originally Posted by SiLVERFIRE Only if costs justified the power and not the price of nostalgia. No retro-styled console should cost any more then $30 and that's assuming it's got some sort of bell or whistle to make it more convenient to play the older style games. $50 if it had some sort of wireless or internet capability to buy and play the games on some sort of marketplace.
I disagree about the $30 pricetag. Something may be worth $30 in parts, but many things you buy are marked up severely. Thats like saying you should get everything for a few dollars over cost.
What I would be looking for is exclusive, quality games. If the console had tons of great exclusive games it would be priceless in my book. I wouldn't want them to half-assed port games like they did with the GBA (sonic, earthworm jim, etc.) and then have 10 good exclusives and 9456879674986749845 licensed games.
Would these systems be x86 based or custom? Some pico-itx boards are a possibility but it would just be a small pc at the end of the day.
I have always fancied devloping my own system. Developing your own game hardware is no walk in the park - it took me some time just to generate black and white compostite video (this was on an embedded processor, so you must consider timing of your sync pulses). I would probably use custom logic for this now, at least i could gaurantee timing!
In fact the biggest problem is video, sound is easy to create in comparison.
My girlfriend and I just bought a bunch of old NES and SNES games to play, and we'll be picking up one of those retro consoles to play them, as her old hardware no longer works well enough. Judging from the fact that there were still plenty of old cartridges on the shelf, I'd say there's a market for it.
However, key to recognize is this is a nostalgia market. Folks are reliving their youth when playing these games, either alone or with friends. I doubt they would care much for newly-developed games, unless they were extremely well-made or if there was some other incentive to play that console as opposed to some free internet game.
Things I would consider for such a project:
--Compatibility with old skool games, unlicensed or not. This is the strength of the retro console: it has compatibility with both NES and SNES cartridges. There's also a market for SEGA, TurboGrafx, and NeoGeo systems. Hell, even Colecovision and the other old skool consoles.
--Internet connectivity to facilitate networked games with others who have the console, or perhaps other MAME machines. Maybe a game connection/match-making service hosted on a website to which the console would immediately connect, so players could jump immediately into a game upon connecting.
--Ability to upload one's own games to a cartridge or console, so the user has control of development after sampling the flagship titles and launch titles. This could even be expanded further, allowing players and designers to sell their own games via the console website, and buy the works of other users.
--Memory capability on the console, perhaps in USB/memory card form; to facilitate all this downloading, development, and uploading.
--Four-player connectivity on the console, with ability for developers to create split-screen games.
With those kinds of features, you could make the console stand out from the "usual" retro stuff and provide even more to your customers.
@Hagar I was planning on using an x86, but it seems like Pico-ITX are smaller, which would be better for a handheld console. Correct me if i'm wrong, as this is the first time I've heard of Pico-ITX
@s-m-r If I go with the marketplace for games and a usb adapter for syncing a library, I could make it possible to install an emulator and play ROMs, but as far as making it possible to plug in your own old cartridges, I don't think I would want to, even if I could get my hands on the hardware to play them.
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
Pico ITX is just a small form factor motherboard. You could run windows XP on it if you wanted. There is nano and mini formats too. In fact my server is a mini ITX board (Dual core atom) as its cheap to run (power wise)
X86 means the architecture, it can come in any form factor .
I have just had a crazy idea, a catridge reader peripheral via PCI or USB. If the system contains no ROM/bios (like the Atari 2600) you would not be breaking any laws. All you would be doing is emulating the real hardware.
Originally Posted by Swiss Hagar Would these systems be x86 based or custom? Some pico-itx boards are a possibility but it would just be a small pc at the end of the day.
I have always fancied devloping my own system. Developing your own game hardware is no walk in the park - it took me some time just to generate black and white compostite video (this was on an embedded processor, so you must consider timing of your sync pulses). I would probably use custom logic for this now, at least i could gaurantee timing!
In fact the biggest problem is video, sound is easy to create in comparison.
Probably cheaper to buy an off-the-shelf video chip than to try to design your own.
- Ok, you must admit that was the most creative cussing this site have ever seen -
So you mean a usb attachment for the different consoles that would be able to read the data from the cart, and then have software for emulating each type of game so that the games would work, but you would need a hard copy of the game instead of a ROM? That sounds great and if I did that I could still have exclusive downloadable games... But, how would I go about making a usb cartridge reader? Just search junk shops for old parts? Or do people sell them and I would just make the system compatible.
About the motherboard, do you mean you could have x86 architecture on the Pico-ITX board?
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
Wireless multiplayer support would probably be cool enough to interest me. If you think about the SNES games that aged well in looks, those could totally still sell today. Even better if you were playing with friends.
Yes. I would by it because the woman I want to marry to (I'm not Freud you perverts) is addicted to gambling and I want to find her a good replacement.
Sega and such should be supported for their great work of giving people hours of entertainment instead of turning into child molesters, drunken gamblers and mass murderers... More credit is for the Wii who let you move your muscles to turn yourself more agile and in fit... This is on the price of African slaves who dig on mines for the Coltan that cables of these systems and some parts of it are made off. Isn't God is a fuck-turd for bitching us that way? Sorry, I can't stand that we have slaves doing the job for us. It's a subject to revolt... by the way, Please ask Club-Soft to enable a "Duckroll" option on this site, which user can turn on and off if they want... E.G. God is a "**** ****" or Scap-Scapped like they have in Deviant art and "Puzzle pie-rats", and please don't tell me you are so weak to make me curse: "Scap auto correct!!!" if you are done. I count on you or you be dead.
I don't see the point of making a handheld device that requires an USB add-on to run original cartridges. It would be terribly inconvenient.
Also why do you want a x86 architecture anyway? The original PC used it because you could write smaller code on it (which at the time was an issue because memory was limited), and since then PCs have been hanging onto it for backwards compatibility. There's a reason why the ARM architecture is popular with handheld devices...
- Ok, you must admit that was the most creative cussing this site have ever seen -
Why not x86? And I don't see how usb attachments would be a problem. But if they really do make a handheld too bulky, I can think of a way to make the games downloadable, probably by letting people connect the system to their computer for file transfer.
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
And? There are countless handhelds that play old games, but this was originally meant to play exclusive games, until the suggestion of also adding compatibility for older games came up.
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
Phred is correct x86 would be an awful choice for a handheld. I was thinking of small plug it into your TV size type thing, the pico itx typically is supplied from a 60 watt power supply - just think of the batteries you would have to carry around.
Even as an experienced hardware engineer I can tell you that this project would not be a easy even for me.
Well, I'm not all that experienced with computer hardware, so I guess trying to do this alone would be nearly impossible... I'll still keep my drawings just in case, though.
If you put a million monkeys at a million keyboards, one of them will eventually write a Java program.
The rest of them will write Perl programs.
Originally Posted by Swiss Hagar Phred is correct x86 would be an awful choice for a handheld. I was thinking of small plug it into your TV size type thing, the pico itx typically is supplied from a 60 watt power supply - just think of the batteries you would have to carry around.
Even as an experienced hardware engineer I can tell you that this project would not be a easy even for me.
i would definitely buy something like that. only if it also had cartridge or SD card slots for games. I'm not a fan of digital only media, steam and comedy albums on itunes are pretty much my only exception.
8bit-16bit console with internet connectivity and a nice form factor would be awesome. My friends love the shit out of nes games and agree some of them would be awesome with online play. Classic Mario Bros online? hell ya!
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Edited by OMC
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