A Brief History Of Gp2x?

[zodttd]

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.

 

[PoisonedV]

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.

 

[zodttd]

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.

 

[PoisonedV]

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...

 

[senquack]

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!

 

[zodttd]

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.de 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.de 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.

 

[grahf]

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.

 

[zodttd]

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.

 

[Cervante]

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.

 

[zodttd]

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.

 

[atomicthumbs]

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.

 

[Adventus]

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....

 

[slaanesh]

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

 

[saboteur]

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.

 

[grahf]

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.

 

[TheMinder]

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 B) )

 

[Parkydr]

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.

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi,

@ zodttd :


QUOTE
But did you know it will also be delayed due to the release of the F200? Why? Well think about it. Where does Craig get the funding for the Craiginator...from sales of the F200. If the F200 is a failure due to lack of sales, I am leaning towards thinking it will delay the Craiginator further, though thats my speculation.


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

 

[Tobriand]

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.

 

[woogal]

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...

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?