Well, that's kinda on you isn't it?
Sorry, even though Nintendo's current setup is a bit backwards, losing your games is on you, Nintendo didn't take them away.
Eh. Don't necessarily agree. If this is done well it should see some mild success. The Ouya isn't exactly a hard target to beat though. Did it get to 100,000?
I wonder if the failure of the ouya will make people a little more hesitant in backing this.
Let's compare this to traditional painting. It's like saying there's no point for that anymore because digital painting exists. When in fact, that isn't true. The two serve different segments of the art community, and there are still qualities inherent to traditional painting that can never be replicated digitally, and vice-versa.I just don't see the point of this. Old retro systems had their limitations, that is what made them unique, but those limitations were a product of their time. Those limitations drove the design of classic games in certain directions on certain systems and are why retro systems are so varied and fun to collect.
It was? Didn't know that. Thanks for the info.Ouya was already on par with PS2 modern ARM hardware should be able to easily push PS2 levels of polygons at 1080p.
Not sure how accurate this is in terms of correlation to the creator's actual plans but someone on another forum suggested that the cartridges won't actually be honest to god Genesis style super expensive to produce cartridges with like 4mb of data available or whatever. They suggested that they'll be more modern versions of cartridges so essentially a plastic shell housing an SD card. Hence the creator being confident in getting Shovel Knight on the system (which is what like 500mb?). I'd say this is pretty plausible.
Really can't see them going the Resident Evil 2 N64 route and producing one of the most expensive cartridges of all time just to get modern retro throwbacks running on their machine. There's gotta be a catch or compromise with this cartridge idea. I mean they're already cutting costs massively with this Jaguar licensing short cut. I can totally see them saying "hey look cartridges!" when really they're just glorified SD card holders. I mean weren't N64 game prices radically inflated back in the day due to the insane cartridge costs?
I could have sworn I remember reading it cost something like £15 to manufacture a high capacity cartridge. Really can't see them selling Shovel Knight for £60 just to cover unnecessarily inflated production costs. If I'm wrong however and this really is pure retro cartridges from the nineties then god help them. As for the console itself? Cool idea but an idea with a limited audience IMO. Echoing everyone else in that I think this thing will be massive on KS then fail to gain traction in the real world. So Ouya mark two basically.
I'd love to be proven wrong and this shit ends up setting the world on fire and Shovel Knight 2 comes out on this along with something ridiculous like Streets of Rage 4 but without a major hardware manufacturer behind this with some reputation and clout (like say Nintendo) something tells me the KS will succeed while the actual product will flop hard.
Will be watching their KS with interest regardless.
For what purpose? I mean, there was a reason people moved from cartridges to discs. And who needs this? Why would a buy a console to play games I can already play on other platforms? Because they're on a cartridge this time?
Nostalgia's powerful, but not that powerful.
See, this is exactly why they closed that vinyl section at local electronics store...
...wait, what do you mean they opened one?
I would rather just see this be a cartridge console. No need to arbitrarily restrict it to 16 bits.
I was interested up until I read the 16-bit part
I think it comes down to how carts are packaged. I would totally be into buying cartridge games on this thing with full color/art manuals. If they manage to convince Capcom and others to port games like Megaman 9 and get indies to bring over their retro-stylied wares they would have a lot of success with retro collectors like me.
I really hope the have RGB and/or component support for those of us with PVM/BVMs. I have concerns with this project but as a backer of the retro gaming mag I'm totally the target market for this. I wish them luck and reserve my negativity till we actually know more.
I wonder how many people are going to be willing to pay $30 or so for a physical version of the $5 -$10 game that they most likely already own on PC/ console.
This was mentioned before, but I'm sure many people missed it. For developers, this is kinda like some multi-game-system: each cartridge will be able to modify the hardware to act like a particular game system. For example, let's say someone wanted to write a Genesis-style 16-bit game for it, their cartridge would actually turn the console into a virtual Genesis and load their game onto it, running native Genesis assembly code. Or if you were skilled at programming actual NES games, you can turn the system into an NES just for your game. Do you want an NES that could do 512 colors per screen, you could alter the virtual system to have that capability. The cartridges program an FPGA to create the "hardware" that the game code runs on, and then loads that code into it.
So no, this isn't some Android system like OUYA or a PC, it's definitely something unique and retro. And yeah, it seems the cartridges will be flash-memory-based, so will still be fairly cheap for lots of storage.
This was mentioned before, but I'm sure many people missed it. For developers, this is kinda like some multi-game-system: each cartridge will be able to modify the hardware to act like a particular game system. For example, let's say someone wanted to write a Genesis-style 16-bit game for it, their cartridge would actually turn the console into a virtual Genesis and load their game onto it, running native Genesis assembly code. Or if you were skilled at programming actual NES games, you can turn the system into an NES just for your game. Do you want an NES that could do 512 colors per screen, you could alter the virtual system to have that capability. The cartridges program an FPGA to create the "hardware" that the game code runs on, and then loads that code into it.
So no, this isn't some Android system like OUYA or a PC, it's definitely something unique and retro. And yeah, it seems the cartridges will be flash-memory-based, so will still be fairly cheap for lots of storage.
Doing more reading about this I see that they're aiming to support very small print runs of games with a tentative minimum of 25 copies. If the company can allow developers to produce physical releases without having to commit to 50000+ copies I think the Retro could get decent support from smaller developers.
It's no secret there are developers out there who would love to make a physical release of their game(s) but with the cost barrier being so high it's just not feasible.
A minimum of 25 copies?
So if I buy this console will I be able to even buy games for it? Because at 25 copies minimum one person is going to buy all 25 copies and put on ebay for $300 a piece.
This is just like Amiibo but worse since once can just blame Nintendo's incompetence. This is playing right into the hands of scalpers from the get go?
The FPGA could be just programmed for a basic tile, sprite and sound system, and then you program your game for the standard ARM CPU the system natively uses. The advantage to an FPGA is, you create the game system you want, and there are already many useful things written for FPGAs. It's true you can't just take code for a PC game and recompile it for this device, but you should be able to create a graphics and sound system that will make it easy to recreate a 2D game if you wanted.Won't this make getting a game such as Shovel Knight onto the system a humongous pain in the ass though, as that game isn't running on an engine that could be emulated through a NES or Genesis?
Only if you are trying to emulate an existing game, which is not the point of this system. If you are writing a new game for the Retro VGA, this lets you program it in a retro way that you are familiar with, with retro limitations. Like, I'm experienced programming Gameboy Color games in Z-80 assembly, if I wanted I could write something for this in Z-80 and it would run.Honestly an exposed FPGA system is as retro as an emulator is.
Read some of the earlier posts in this thread. The retro scene couldn't give two shits about those generic architectures. We're just as enamored by the hardware as we are by the games, because the best games on older systems worked within (and around) the constraints of the hardware that tried to bind them.I'm with these guys. In this day and age of modern ARM and Intel Atom processors, I can't see any reason why they would try to use some customized underpowered hardware when it would be so much easier (and possibly cheaper?) to use something decent. Provide enough power for whatever and let developers choose what level of graphic fidelity they want to use.
I wonder how many people are going to be willing to pay $30 or so for a physical version of the $5 -$10 game that they most likely already own on PC/ console.