5624 replies to this topic

[DisgruntleElf]

Can the "Craiginator" survive long enough for the average consumer to afford it? There are production costs among others. The US market is big. It can't be ignored. The average consumer will sit on the fence and wait to see what the "Craiginator" can do before making that big of a purchase.
Take a look at the Gizmondo. That was a gaming machine trying to offer too much. It outpriced itself. It didn't survive long enough to make it to US shores. Will history repeat itself with the "Craiginator"?

[foft]

Surely $320 isn't much at all for most working people is the US anyway? Few days work? Sure it may cut the audience down in the younger members who are asking for it for christmas/birthday or saving, but...

I'd like the Craiginator as planned with all its power. It will be a substantial leap forward in portable, openish, handheld gaming for the first time in years. No I don't count phones or PDAs, I mean things with proper controls! Much more than the GP32-GP2X transition was. I'm actually shocked its so cheap (if it ends up so cheap) given what it is expected to do.

Mark

[morrissey2k7]

Blah!

Why is this thread in General GP2X Talk section? Shouldn't it be moved to Other Stuff/Other Consoles?

At least when everyone's complaining about the F-200 they're talking about a GP2X unit!

[Eolair]

Can the "Craiginator" survive long enough for the average consumer to afford it? There are production costs among others. The US market is big. It can't be ignored. The average consumer will sit on the fence and wait to see what the "Craiginator" can do before making that big of a purchase.
Take a look at the Gizmondo. That was a gaming machine trying to offer too much. It outpriced itself. It didn't survive long enough to make it to US shores. Will history repeat itself with the "Craiginator"?

Gizmondo failed because the company was run by Stefan Eriksson, a well known crime lord from Sweden. He just stuffed his own pockets and cared nothing for the future of the company. I think that's a bit different from Craigix and the Craiginator

[DaveC]

It's likely to be around $320 in the USA, and we have USA/Canada distributors lined up. The power of this machine really is next gen, (ie beyond the PSP). We are tweaking and pushing things to the limits in terms of battery life, size, controls etc.

It's very likely we wil release some major details/videos at the end of this month or in Dec.

While the device has been code named the craiginator it isn't just me working on it, it is an excellent devoted team of people from the scene.

And finally yes, it is a shame for the americans that their currency is almost worthless, but there is nothing we can do about that. If it was a couple of years ago this system would be around $240 for you.

Actually the thing that has me the most concerned about this new device is the almost rabid obssesion with making it small and super thin etc. While nice for portability, it may be *too small and too thin* to actually make it comfortable to actually play games on. That will be the primary use of this is to play games right? This is likely to have concequences on control placement, size of controls/keys, the orientation of games that work well, etc. The Zodiac was like this. While nice to look at it had absolutely horrid ergonomics to play games on. It was so thin you had nothing to hold on to. It was like playing games on a wafer and after about 10 minutes become very uncomfortable. Please don't blow the ergonomics.


As for the price I think it will be a deal for what it does. It is better if it comes out a bit higher in price now and has the power than come out cheap and be crippled from day one. Costs will come down as manufacturing costs are reduced and more are made. For those of us Americans complaining about the price, well that is what we deserve. You voted for a war mongering oil industry president that cares nothing about running up the national debt to record levels to make his cronies rich, and you did it *twice*. Next year when you elect Guiliani it will only get worse. Now you pay the price.

Edited by DaveC, 10 November 2007 - 07:36 PM.

[Nr.56]

...
As for the price I think it will be a deal for what it does. It is better if it comes out a bit higher in price now and has the power than come out cheap and be crippled from day one. Costs will come down as manufacturing costs are reduced and more are made. For those of us Americans complaining about the price, well that is what we deserve. You voted for a war mongering oil industry president that cares nothing about running up the national debt to record levels to make his cronies rich, and you did it *twice*. Next year when you elect Guiliani it will only get worse. Now you pay the price.

Standing ovations from here for this statement. Only the half of Americans knows how to make a stupid babbling trigger-happy cowboy to a president. Maybe the next president rules the states as a part of the world and not against the rest.
Normally europeans pay more for electronics in spite of a strong euro. This time you have to pay the same price. In my opinion no reason to cry.

[Peter R]

I'm actually glad the US consumers have to pay a greater price, and I hope this trend continues. It was about time the price conversions became for even.

[Dubya']

1. For those of us Americans complaining about the price, well that is what we deserve.
2. You voted for a war mongering oil industry president that cares nothing about running up the national debt to record levels to make his cronies rich, and you did it *twice*.
3. Next year when you elect Guiliani it will only get worse.

1. Not me.
2. I sure didn't, either time.
3. I won't.

The current b*stard tarnished one of my nicknames, the very least of his impeachable offenses. And the issues with the dollar are the result of many decades of foolish monetary policies on the part of both of the totally corrupt and OWNED (but not by the people) mainstream parties.

I've got a JXD301 on the way to hold me over until the Craiginator is available. I think that it would be pure justice if the best of the Chinese gaming PMPs (the Blackfin-based ones for now and probably for the foreseeable future) were reverse engineered and "opened up." Their firmware is already known to be in violation of the Gnu GPL, so what are they gonna' do about reverse engineering efforts? If they're as ignorant as GPH apparently is, they won't even notice it.

[atomicthumbs]

It strikes me that the one-click on-device install system is PROBABLY still on the table (this was mentioned waaaay back at the start of the previous thread to this one).

Assuming this uses the GP32x archive as it's repository (ED was making noises to that effect), the one-click system will already know emulators and interpretters (which are the hard ones to configure).

If ED were to add an extra couple of fields for uploaders to fill in, then you could do some very cool stuff indeed in terms of dumbing down. Specifically, a "rom path" and a "rom type" field for emulators, a "skin path" for things in general (with associated checkbox of "skinnable", of course), and a "data path" for interpreters.

The package manager or what have you would then be able to point it to where your roms are on your HDD, it scans for compatible roms, and you select which games you want from a list.

With appropriate matadata kept on playing, you could even do an iTunes esque thing of "play-frequency" to pick out favourite games. All without the emu author having to worry about extra standards of config files for the installation manager to interpret.

A "pick me a game I haven't tried before" feature would also be incredibly cool, but I think that would require the feature to be implemented by the emu author...

I think that the best way to go with the package manager would be to set up an apt repository for the archive site, then configure it to have a different section name, i.e. "Craiginator Software" for use inside Aptitude/Synaptic.

On a related note, is there going to be some sort of compatibility layer to use GP2X programs which the author hasn't ported over because they're too lazy/an ancient martial arts master living in the mountains/dead?

[DisgruntleElf]

Higher prices don't dictate bigger sales. The PS3 is proof of that. Though I am certain that part for part the "Craiginator"'s price is jusitified from a manufacturing stand point. However the longer the "Craiginator" delays the tougher the sell. I'd say it's still about 6 months to a year off. During that time the PSP, NDS, iPhone, and iTouch will all drop in price not to mention have a stronger emulation scene. If the "Craiginator" is going to survive it's going to need more than the usual emulator suspects. If it's claiming to be able to deliver Quake 3 and the like, then it's going to have to do that right out of the box.
The publicity of a crime lord backing the "Craiginator"(the name would really fit then) could actually help drive sales.

[sephiroth111]

1. For those of us Americans complaining about the price, well that is what we deserve.
2. You voted for a war mongering oil industry president that cares nothing about running up the national debt to record levels to make his cronies rich, and you did it *twice*.
3. Next year when you elect Guiliani it will only get worse.

1. Not me.
2. I sure didn't, either time.
3. I won't.

The current b*stard tarnished one of my nicknames, the very least of his impeachable offenses. And the issues with the dollar are the result of many decades of foolish monetary policies on the part of both of the totally corrupt and OWNED (but not by the people) mainstream parties.

QFT.

i didn't vote for him either, so i dont really want to hear it.

[zaffercharles]

Let's see a nice ad with Craig in a pair of 5 inch soled doc martins, denim jacket stuffed with pillows and huge shades coming back from the future to terminate the current console market with his Craiginator.

bad austrian accent: "Sony PSP?" breaks door down etc

[Squidge]

On a related note, is there going to be some sort of compatibility layer to use GP2X programs which the author hasn't ported over because they're too lazy/an ancient martial arts master living in the mountains/dead?

Doubtful, as most gp2x programs are statically linked with code that attacks the hardware directly, whether for the frame buffer, blitter, etc. Things like that will not work as the new hardware is completely different.

[Tobriand]

Squidge has hinted already that Spot (the GP32-ifier) was likely to appear on whatever replaced the GP2x.

But as to a GP2x compatibility layer... I'd imagine that the archetectures are too different. Which is not a comment on the ARM9-->CortexA8 move (that's still ARM-->ARM) but more as to the specialised hardware in the 2x, and particularly the second processor and h/w accelleration features of the MMSP2 which Paeryn put into SDL.

Something tells me those might prove awkward in getting GP2x software across which uses them. Maybe one would surface for software-only single core programs, though...

EDIT: see above comment by Squidge himself

Edited by Tobriand, 10 November 2007 - 09:48 PM.

[Julius]

The publicity of a crime lord backing the "Craiginator"(the name would really fit then) could actually help drive sales.

You mean like the Gizmodo? Didn't work out for them... but maybe it was a little late.