Direct link to my article relating to the importance of the F200 in relation to the disbanding of the GP2X community:
http://zodttd.com/index.php?/archives/13-G...-GP2X-F200.html

Please let me know what you think. All feedback is welcome. Only thing I have second thoughts about is the affiliate links at the bottom of the article. I will strip the links of affiliate tags if needed.

So let me know if you agree/disagree, or have something to add. Doesn't look too good.

I think a lot of the material in there is solid but much of it is... er, crap, imo. However, I have big doubts about the craiginator. BIG doubts.

Fair enough. Do you think this community is losing it's numbers, releases, and even simply just forum post counts? If so, do you think we'll all magically appear back at gp32x when Craig is ready? Hope so.

I have little doubt about the Craiginator's success. I just have to be careful with my words as to not release details on accident.

Well I don't see this...
Even if Craig bulk orders the pieces at very large amounts (which he will probably have tons left over since I doubt as many people will get the craiginator as the f 200, because craiginator is even more "underground" than f200), and gets discounts on them, he will still have to manually put them together, which will take massive amounts of time and effort. Components + effort = 360 dollars? GP2X's sell for about 200, right? And they are presumably produced in small amounts in a factory.
That is, craig maybe got some place to produce them?
I could be full of shit and not know what I am talking about (most likely) since I have rarely worked with electronics and soldering...

It's kind of depressing to see post counts a bit down. I just recently returned from a looooong trip where I was away from the Internet. I've always been a bit surprised about how little interest the GP2X generated. It is and continues to be a dream come true for me (its easy development environment, usage of non-proprietary SD and AA batteries).

That said, in the last 6 months there's been an amazing amount of awesome releases overall. Personally, I am very happy to be reunited with the 2X!! I am in the middle of two game ports, if it helps calm anyone down about dwindling release numbers. I spent my entire time in the woods thinking about possible ports.

I am anxiously awaiting the first F200 reviews. I love the GP2X so much I am going to get another regardless in case my first ever breaks. I plan to continue releasing ports for quite a while!

I'll be sure to review my F200 as well as possible and get it up as fast as I can.

I'll give that posting another writing as I might have written it too quickly.

But when it comes down to it, this is the path I could see happening:
- Developers need time to work on the "Craiginator". Not as much as in the cases of most, but I estimate we won't be seeing this handheld until first quarter 2008.
- Although many people are still visiting gp32x and other GP2X sites, most are not discussing much besides the Craiginator in "Our New Machine". Compare the reads/post counts in that thread to all the threads in the past week combined.
- If Craig sticks with gp32x.com for his customer base, he'll need an active userbase here to depend on.
- With fewer and fewer releases to keep the conversation alive, more people will move on from the GP2X.
- Look at how many people are selling their GP2X's in the Marketplace here as of late.
- Do you think they're selling their GP2X to buy a F200? Do you think they'll come back for the Craiginator? It's possible, but can't depend on it.
- Soon gp32x.com will be just like what was the XGP forums, a single thread of speculation. Only in this case people are hoping for the release.
- If there is delays, and nothing to keep interest going in the Craiginator day by day, people stop visiting that thread.
- Now we have a fairly inactive site that Craig will need for his customer base.

So let's play pretend and just pretend the Craiginator takes 3 to 6 months to be released. Will the GP2X community be as strong in 3 months? 4 or 5 months? 6 months?

Many aren't looking forward to the F200, but I see it as an excellent way to get new homebrew games to the GP2X scene. So many people want new games, not emulators. The stylus input gives people, especially indie devs, lots of new ideas to try.

If you don't get a F200, thats fine. But we need to get more ideas out there for things we can do with the F100. If the releases stop, the chatting stops. If the chatting stops, the potential customers leave. When they leave, who will be there for the Craiginator?

It's not that far fetched. And it's just a possibility of how events could go. But I do see things dying out like I did with the Tapwave Zodiac. Difference is, the GP2X just popped up, and the migration was easy from the Zodiac. Be aware that the Zodiac died out pretty quickly after the GP2X too! If the Craiginator has any sort of delay, a smooth migration to the new handheld wont be possible.

Forgive me for not reading your article yet. I will give my current thoughts on the situation, before I read yours:

I think the F200 will have quite a big impact on rejuvinating things. Matter of fact I think thats the main reason most people are selling there gp2xs. OF course they wont list that as the reason in their sale ads, because then you might have a potential buyer think twice about waiting for an f200 themselves. Usually its something like "dont use it as much anymore, no free time, etc".

There are also a ton of people who just dont use the gp2x as much as they used to because of the stick. If the F200 manages to have a decent workable dpad, It will cause a lot of people to use it more frequently. That may even churn up a few more sales due to increased exposure.

The current library of software is rock solid, with more than enough to interest classic gamers. I will probably buy one, but I can honestly say I am not excited about the craiginator. Like a lot of folks, I prefer the 16-bit and prior era to most of the newer 3D stuff. To this day, My SNES and PC Engine are used 100X more than my ps2/gamecube/+ ever are.

grahf: I can definitely see people upgrading to the F200. Would make sense for them to not give reasoning within ads to get the sale.

Im with Zod, yeah the craiginator sounds awsome but he has pushed the gp2x to its limits & continues to do so. Every handheld or gaming console should receive its respectable 5 year life span IMO. The gp2x had minor upgrades just like any other handheld or console re-release. The F-200 has more potential for mouse enabled emulators, homebrew touchscreen games and even ports of PDA games if the source code is available.

I mean cmon think about, Egoboo is updated with drawing puzzles to open up a dungeon. Brain age like puzzle games, first person dungeon and dragons games where you can spell out spells to cast, 2d platform game where you can freeze time and draw out lines going into multiple directions to attack with a slashing samurai sword and when time freeze ends, your characters zips and swooshes releasing his attacks.

Now its the time to truly show creativity in 2D games.

Not too mention I have a backlog of commercial PDA game sources.
Why would I or any other developer use the touchscreen in their stuff if nobody will be able to use it.

Something you haven't thought about:

Interest can come from places outside of the GP(3)2X community.

There are gaming forums out there with upwards of 80,000 users, interested in this kind of thing.

Engadget's already had a post on it.

Once it gets farther along, Slashdot, Digg, and Reddit will go for it.

The Craiginator, being what it is, will generate a lot more interest for being the most advanced handheld out there.

and I need to save for it, so I can't afford an F200.

Way ahead of you, ordered mine last week.

I bloody well hope the scene doesnt die, this will be the first GP2X i've owned. I'll probably be devoting all my free dev time to it aswell.

PS: ScummVM will be awesome with the touchpad....

I've ordered the GP2X - however I've done so from playasia.com which probably doesn't help Craigy.
This will be my third GP2X; obviously I need to get the whole set: MK1, MK2 and now the F200 :-)

I think theres another angle to this.

The touch screen and some ported software will make the GP2X a very, very powerfull PDA.

This is where I see great potential - and u can play games, music and videos on it YAY.

Even though I d-pad modded my 1st edition gp2x long ago, i'll still be picking up an F200. The improvements, while small, are enough to justify it.

Even if there was no new software made after today (which is really unlikely), the existing library is enough to justify having and using the hell out of a gp2x for years to come.

I've read the article and thought I'd throw a few thoughts into the discussion.

Firstly I've used bulletin boards and later forums for years and I have never been part of a board that hasn't gone through highs and lows of posting activity regardless of the topic of the board. People get excited about something and spend time being actively involved in it and then real-life kicks in or something else distracts them and so on. Sometimes this leads to a board dying but that doesn't always follow, and it doesn't appear that the GP2X community is disbanding as zottd fears.

Is the GP2X really the "hardware behind the largest homebrew community out there" as zottd says ? I'm not as actively involved as the vast majority of members but looking around the net it would seem the 2X has a pretty small community behind it (small in numbers and not talent that is).

Something I'm struggling to come to terms with in zottd's article could be seen as slightly more controversial. We should all buy something (the 200) to make a variety of businesses profit so that they can then use some of that profit to develop something that makes them more profit just so we have a new hand-held which will then lead to the 2X and the 200 being abandoned ? (Oh I forgot, that should be "a new open source hand-held"). That's just touching the tip of the iceberg with that discussion I know.

Ultimately as in every other scene that has ever been or ever will be, if the existing developers decide to jump ship and go elsewhere then other members will either step up to the plate and take their place or online nature will take it's course.

(There was more than that but that looks like too much text already and i got a bit distracted and so lost my thread )

We've been here before. There was lots of talk on this forum about the GP2X dying and the lack of new homebrew before the MKII was launched.

When it was, lots of new people joined and the scene picked up again. The same thing is happening now.

Lots of devs (or me anyway ) still have MKIs, you can't expect everyone to chuck their old GP2Xs away and buy the latest version (we're talking about the GP2X, not iPods).

I don't have large wads of cash lying around to keep updating every year, I won't be getting a Craiginator either.

Hi,

@ zodttd :




I disagree with you on this point because in the first thread about the new handheld craigix said that it has already been paid for. I think F-200 sales will have little effect on the craiginator project. And I believe the OMAP3430 to be the real reason behind this delay...What about asking craigix directly if he needs more money ?

But I do agree with you when you say that the F-200 could help keeping the community alive while waiting for the craiginator.

Bye !

Magic Sam

To be honest, I'm only seeing the lack of releases at the moment as a little bit of a slump. As ever with this community, until a new handheld actually comes out, there's big periods of no-one releasing stuff, followed by a thread about the system dying, followed, usually ironically quickly, with a slew of releases.

Whether this'll happen quickly in this case, I don't know, since it'd be logical for any developers planning on including touchscreen functionality in their apps to wait for the F200 before releasing them.

Also, there's only around 10-15 people actually posting in the Craiginator thread. There are usually significantly more than them active on the boards at any one time, and/or posting elsewhere. It just happens that that is a particularly big thread.

From the look of this post I think it's quite rare that you even visit the real world. Why in fucks name would Craig be single handedly putting devices together himself? Did Bill write every line of Vista on his own, before sitting in front of a laptop burning millions of dvds and putting each one into the boxes by hand? Never heard of companies, factories, production lines?

There are always slumps on software releases and forum posts. A lot of GP2X software was entered into the GBAX coding compo so the turnaround for the next 'batch' of software will be a little later. Combined with summer holidays and start of school/college year, usually means people are away for a few weeks so this affects software releases but mainly forum posts. My guess is the next big batch of releases will be november/december, maybe a coding competition will hurry things along

It happens every year but I do think there is life left in the GP2X at least until craigs console is out + 6 months after, like what happened with the GP32. I am unsure about the F200 and the support it will get, I don't think many devs will upgrade just to get one and support the touchscreen? Has there been a discussion or poll for this yet?

I am, for the first time in ages, getting bored of coming here because there is little to read about anymore.
Sorry, but it's true.

I agree with GuyFawkes, We've been here before. Those few of you since the beginning can remember the same posts and things happening when the Gp32 was at its End of days. Its the same old everytime. Some people stay, some go, New arrive and on and on. All because of a period of transition from one handheld (this time) into a potential 2 handheld swing.

I've had the gp32, MK1 Gp2x, buying the f200 and certainly will save up for the craiginator. Although iam not a developer, I have have some doubt about the success of the next 2 machines. BUT I have little doubt about the continuing success of this community.

Then play the new version of my game...

I think about selling my MK I at some point to get a F-200. And I'll keep an eye on the Craiginator as well. But the F-200 is my priority.

It's true that there haven't been that many new releases lately but I believe it will improve again and there's still a lot of stuff in the archives I haven't tried out yet. And I'm still hoping for that Rockstar ate my hamster remake.

Nice article, though a bit on the misleading side. The only reason you seem to want people not to abandon the GP2X and upgrade to the F200 is so that more will be around to buy the Craig2x when it will come around. The F200 should serve more than just a bridge between the F100 and the Craig2x. The GP2X still has a lot to offer, and this will constantly be seen as time goes on. Even after the release of Craig's handheld, it will hopefully continue to thrive in parallel with it, after all it will continue being the most affordable open handheld around, with a very mature software library to boot. It will likely hold its own for a while yet, not just for "months upon months"

I'm sure a lot of people have a lot of software that they're working on and that they will release in due time. As Guyfawkes said, summer just ended and school started, there's bound to be a slump in releases. I remember this being said last year before the Community Game Contest, and of course let's not forget GBAX 2007 with 60+ releases!

I think the F200's touchscreen will be a great addition to the GP2X that will encourage creative homebrew. However, you can't expect all-around support for it considering that the majority of users will be F100 users.

I just hope people here will continue supporting both the Craiginator and the GP2X, if that's at all possible

People also forget.. touchscreen means X11 means more game porting options from that route, not to mention SDL mousey games.

PDA options are still out unless therees a useful real-time-clock in there; I forget offhand if these guys can know the date after being turned off and losing batteries and such.. I seem to recall not? Still, address books and such might gain some traction .. but I really think thats a red herring -- whose carryign around their 2x everywhere .. its too bulky for PDA availability. *shrug*

I think for Battlejewels GBAX victory I'm getting a Craiginator, so I'll likely buy a F200 and get BJ and OutCast and such gussed up for it.

jeff

Zod my man -- you should be clear though; when you're saying a backlog of PDA commercial software, you mean software to sell for a F200; you didn't imply you meant to give it away as freeware (since it is not yours to do so with?), but I'm betting some might be misled there ie: You have some personal but also commercial interest in your plea for people to buy a F200, so to be impartial you have to reveal this information

-- another post, but the boards merged them --

zod -- I shall have to post on my blog too, and do my little piece of promotion.

The f200 is more than just the screen; as per usual, GPH blew somethign critical about their device.. the GP2x was the joystick and its bad rotation. (Seriously, wtf guys. w. t. f.) So I am hopiong the F200 has better controls, and that they're not installed sideways.

A gp2x with better controls? that alone is worth the upgrade

I'm not pre-ordering though, since obviously GPH has to screw _something_ up, and I'm waiting for the first mover to find out what it is

jeff

The headphone jack

I'm going to sell my GP2X F100 soon and get a F200 after I hear some of the initial reports. Probably will wait for the second revision, knowing our friends in Korea.

Craig's machine sounds awesome, but it's just too expensive, IMO. Under $200 USD is the sweet spot for handheld gaming. $300USD+ for a console from an unknown manufacturer? Way too much. The PSP debuted at $249USD, and it now sells quite well at $169USD. NDS:$149USD, now $129USD.

I don't doubt that some hard core gamers will buy Craig's machine, and I'm certainly not trying to discourage anyone from buying it. I just wish the price were lower so that it would be more accessible to a wider consumer base.

I won't be ordering mine until I have heard about the d-pad quality, and ease of touch screen programming, from others. I wish they would send pre-release samples out to SOMEONE.

I remember the quiet days when the gp32 was oldish and ppl got bored, as alot of people are saying highs and lows!

I have no doubt that these forums will be buzzing again somtime in the future

If they need to raise cash, I think i would rather pay for my craigawhatever upfront, then buy a redundant system.

ah them were the days, i still miss gimp

Haha - he always had something interesting to say...

I miss being a young member ,

im sure ppl are in hiding they might not be posting but i reckon they are keeping up to date with things ready to become vocal again when the time is right.

I miss being young.

the problem is that it's not feasible to hit that price target unless you can produce millions of machines the way that nintendo and sony can. also, both companies make money off of millions of copies of first-party software and licensing for third-party software. so whatever the cost difference ends up being, i personally will view it as support for the business model (just sell the hardware & leave it open).

there's still a market for commercial indie games for the pc. there's also a market for pda games...a similar market for straight-up handheld console games that don't need a nintendo or sony sticker would make me very happy.

$300 is a lot though. and obviously the high production costs are not your or my problem (until we choose to buy a unit). but a gp2x with a built-in battery might have cost at least $250. i hope craig's system becomes a reality, and that it rocks, in which case i'll just pay first and justify later

I added a response to this on your blog but the gist of my post is that I don't think the F200 will be the kick in the pants some people are expecting it to be. If a friend seems interested in joining our scene, I'll recommend it to them in a heartbeat but I don't think it's worth an existing GP2X customer dropping $170 or more on, there's not sufficient incentive for it.

man geez some of you are just horrible...guess everyone of you expect your handhelds to be the best thing since sliced bread and make waffles in the mourning for you...

geez f-200 won't be a kick in the pants....why did you state the obvious...I'm not trying to be sarcastic or mean but geez way to rub it in the face?

geez and the craiginator looking like a price tag of 300 dollars, I mean is that just the console alone????

geez I never spent more then roughly 230 on a handheld I think...anything over 250 seems a bit farfetched...granted I hope it becomes a reality to but still I think we should continue to support f-200

Nobody expects these to "make waffles in the mourning" for us. But the F200 seems like it's being presented as an upgrade from the F100. It's not much of an upgrade, though, as it offers little in the way of new capabilities and any new homebrew that takes advantage of the touchscreen will leave the existing install base in the cold. Beyond that, it offers no improvements to make it worthwhile to the existing GP2X users, and doesn't go far enough to attract new users from the DS and PSP scenes. Like I said, for GP2X noobs it's as good a buy as any, but for those of us already in on it that $170 is probably better off put towards Project Craiglebee or whatever it's called now. It will be a genuine upgrade that will well exceed the capabilities of our humble handheld, which automatically makes it more worthy of consideration than the F200.

I'm sorry you take such offence to one person's opinion. Maybe you should grow thicker skin. Geez.

Geez, I thought you said that the Craiginator had a "good chance" of getting off the ground.

At the birth of the GP32 reincarnate.....the Craiginator!

So... basically we should buy this thing just because it gives Craig money? The GP2x community isn't some kind of charity you know.
Many people are still in school/university, and can't afford to go spending £125 just to make people happy, and I assume many developers can't/won't either. I know I certainly won't be upgrading, since it's nothing more than a touchscreen and a clunky d-pad, one of those features already moddable for £30 (which is cheaper?) and the other probably not used a hell of a lot or mainly just for computer emulators.
I'm sure Craig doesn't bet on people giving him money just as an incentive and already has a financial backing for Project Bumblebee, as he has clearly been working on this for many months. Craig isn't stupid, and no serious businessman particularly in this field would rely on charity.

I will not buy an F200. I wil save my money for the new Craigix&Co Handheld. But I will never sell my GP2X. I don't know what other peoples do with their Handheld, but I use my GP2X Every Day. Lets say from 365 Days/year I use it 360. Since 1,5 Years by the way. I think My GP2X has a very high "Operation Hours" ratio, maybe much more than some older PSP's or DS out there. ^^
For me, my GP2X gave me back every Euro-Cent I put in buying the Handheld and this in a relative short time compared to other machines.
I don't need the F200, this thing is nice but just to late. So I'm hoping all the coders here will also work for the Craigiator, so we can play for example OpenTTD on it to
And Maybe the new Craigiator will have an "Operation Hour Counter" so we can see, how long the device is enabled. I'm sure mine would have an Top-10 Ratio

But I will ever love my GP2X. Don't forget: without the GP2X and all his faults, maybe the new Craigix Handheld never was born.

Well, what I was wondering is what is the scope of this? Is this a small homebrew project a few people are working on, or is it being backed by a big company? Comparing cragixs "company" to Microsoft is a bit out there.

Oh I'm pretty sure it will get off the ground its a "bitchin handheld" as I said, I was just wondering about the price. and I'm serious when I said I never spent more than 230 on a handheld...

And ravnos man thats a good one thick skin lol (canadian humor at its finest)...man I better chill out before it becomes a flame war and get banned because me and ravnos opinions differ on the borderline of pure b.s.

I will be purchasing the f-200 model, but it will be after the first of the year. My money is being focused in another direction right now. My main interest is in retro 8 & 16 bit, GP2X homebrew, and Mame. I am not much into the 3D gaming on a portable unless it is racing.

When I think about the new Craig3X portable, I feel that maybe a lot of the programmers will have to work together to produce original games that would satisfy part of this community that has a craving for 3D portable gaming. Other than that all I see is emulators for its future. The 3D games that we are used to on our commercial portables and consoles were produced by teams of programmers. An individual programmer would have to work very hard (and have some deep love) to produce anything of the same magnitude. (spare time would factor heavily into this)

I really don't think the GP2X has reached its full potential, especially with the new touch screen and D-pad.

Can such a community as we have here not support two systems? One a 3D and the other a 2D?

edit: I cringed and gritted my teeth when the console industry left 2D for 3D.

I totally agree.

I have serious reservations about the new machine being a viable success if craigix is banking on sales for the F200.
Hopefully he is looking for some investers with deeper pockets compared to our small and generally broke community.

Does it have a clock built-in (like a proper pda)?

I will probably buy an f-200 but I think the death of the scene is also due to lack of new emulators. And the reason for lack of emulators could be because there is better hardware out there to play with. So craigix is trying to counter that by releasing something new. Although his early announcement was a big mistake imo...

I bought a gp32 for emulators and I bought a gp2x for emulators (amiga specifically). I will not buy a craigenator until there is a solid amiga emulator released though. I practically bought the gp2x because of squidges blog post that he was working on an amiga emulator that got abandoned. I love homebrew games too but I wouldnt go and shell out for a new unit just for homebrew games.

I dont give a damn how much certain devs like to say emus suck etc.. etc.. emulators sell units!

P.S. Craigix killed the scene once before when he gave away zodiacs.