Hey,

In a recent thread, Dave C mentioned that he'd shortly be running out of Ngage rockers to make the Dpad mod. Well, I was looking at the VGPocket Caplet, and it seems as far as I can see that the rocker used on that device is remarkably similar to the Ngage one, see for yourself.



I was thinking that maybe, as this console retails at only $30 already, and maybe there is a possibility of getting a job lot of them from somewhere, it shouldn't be too costly. And yes, I know that they are an ugly white colour, but with the use of plastidip,They could be made pretty much any colour required.

I am also aware of the possible significant price increase involved with this, but short of manufacturing dpads ourselves, this could be one of our only choices to continue with the dpad mod

The major distributors should simply demand that GPH revise their hardware to include a proper stick. People shouldn't have to pay $50 to get their devices to work as they should have worked from the moment they bought them. There's no way in hell all major distributors put together don't have any sort of influence over GPH, regardless of what they say.

True, can we get a list of distributors and have them all mail GPH on behalf of us?

They don't pay any attention to us though, no matter how much we want them to. Apparently Craigix and ED already showed them the DaveC mod, but they can't understand we want them to build it.

I was under the impression that Dave C had sent GPH a 2x with his new pad (or perhaps just a new pad, or modded it for them, or whatever). Long story short, they were impressed, and they have decided to implement a similar pad with the release of their new handheld, but altering he current designs of the 2x would simply be too costly, and hence unfeasible.

EDIT: from this thread- "The main system will still run under Linux, but this time, it will have a 640x480 Touchscreen TFT and a DPad (thanks to DaveC who sent a unit with a DPad to them)."

double edit: , I had no idea that it was posted on April 1st! Thanks Khatoblepas

That's an April Fools, triks. And the VG-Pocket looks like a really cute console. =P But.. didn't someone manage to put on a Nintendo DPad onto their system at some point?

I'm just saying as far as I can see from the pics, the rockers seem to be of a similar size as the current Ngage ones Dave uses, maybe if we can get hold of VGPocket's distributors or something, it maybe something to look into.



EDIT: Alternatively, I just came across these for the PSP, and am especially interested in the bottom left one, they would obviously require a bit of playing about to get to work, but I'd buy Dave a set to have a fiddle around if he wanted...




Buy 'em here

I think that he needs the rubber pad under it and a nub for it to rotate on. If we were talking mass-production we should re-design it to our own specs so it doesn't need the alignment pins either.

DaveC was working with what he could source, and that didn't include a plastic mold.

Obviously GPH molds plastic to build the GP2X, and there are already 8 regular buttons on the face of the GP2X, so they have the ability to do a d-pad. It seems that they don't want a d-pad because they are weird. They need to face economic facts, we want a D-Pad. I personally have a hard time using the crap stick from my MK1, and the MK2 isn't much better. I wonder if we got "I want a D-Pad" postcards with a picture of DaveC's mod on the front and mailed a million of them to GPH what they would do.

They might tell us that it's meant to be a media player not a games machine...

and hence there's no point in changing the design? that's a definite possibility. However since having a dpad or a stick doesn't affect any of the other aspects of the gp2x, AND they have intended for games to be run on the unit then I think the best decision is to go to a dpad and win on all aspects!

It is indeed fun with all the misunderstanding, wrong spelled words like "stero" for stereo and such, but now it has gone too far. I have built up a rage inside me, and I really wanna go manhunt in Korea...!

how would that help?
I noticed that dead people are usually slightly less productive than living ones.

I hear you, I grew to resent them

Edit: that's too harsh, after all I greatly enjoy the GP2X, and use it every day in a way or another. However, in the one and a half years that it's been on the market, they should have done something radical about the stick. Neither Shadowrun nor Sensible Soccer are playable on my MK2, a pity really. Thankfully though, a lot of other great games are.

It's a shame that GP went bankrupt, people always work harder and better when there's a little fire under their toes...

Well, seeing as most of us in the U.S. aren't going to get a d-pad 'upgrade', I'm holding out for a BOB ... at least a USB Joypad will be an improvement.

I suspect the PS4 will be out before the commercial BoB...

I'm so desperate I might have to build my own!

I'll be the first to pre-order it

I hate d-pads.

why?

Would the dpads from the first nokia n-gage fit just as well as the second one? I only ask because if you really didn't like the colour you can still get a few of the replacement faceplates for the first one off ebay.

Link to ebay

some of them even come in black, if you were really that keen on getting a matching one that is. Probably not enough for DaveC to buy loads of them but I am sure if you asked him or ED nicely they might incorporate it into a kit for you.