A Proposition For The Current Caanoo Emulation Scene

[Eric2032]

So ive done some digging and ive poked around and it seems that alot of the developers for the Caanoo have given up on regular updates for several emulators in search of greener pastures. This to me is really sad but i can completely understand the sheer amount of man hours it takes to not only port an emulator, but to optimize it for a handeheld device, all for free. Alot of the emulators run well but there are still some pesky ones that no longer have support (3D SNES Game support, GBA and GBC Emulation) So my question to this board is what if we can entice developers to continue supporting the caanoo if perhaps they could choose to sell the emulators online? For instance the iphone and droid markets all have gameboy and snes emulators for like 99 cents or 5 dollars or whatever it is, and they run perfectly. I feel that having the motivation that "hey ill get paid for my hard work" Will be a great way to get developers to release several updates and rekindle the fire of this awesome handheld we have here. I know this kind of goes against what homebrew is about, but all you hear on the forums is how the developers are doing this out of thier own good graces, curiosities or whatever, and they dont seem to get the congrats they deserve for their hard work.

I would gladly pay for something i knew a developer stood by and put his heart and soul into.

 

[Reesy]

Most people that buy a Caanoo do so because they want to get everything for free....

The percentage of owners who would pay for software is going to be very small, when you add the fact that the total number of owners is already small ( when compared to Iphone, PSP, DS owners etc) the opportunity to make a reasonable amount of money disappears very quickly.

The Caanoo is what it is, an open source console. Its there for people to write software for and share with others, its just a shame that at the moment there are so few people who actually want to write software and have the ability to write software.

I miss the GP32 days there was loads of people developing for it. I hoped that the Pandora would be similar but the device was to expensive in the end and the number of devices available too small.

 

[Eric2032]

Most people that buy a Caanoo do so because they want to get everything for free....

The percentage of owners who would pay for software is going to be very small, when you add the fact that the total number of owners is already small ( when compared to Iphone, PSP, DS owners etc) the opportunity to make a reasonable amount of money disappears very quickly.

The Caanoo is what it is, an open source console. Its there for people to write software for and share with others, its just a shame that at the moment there are so few people who actually want to write software and have the ability to write software.

I miss the GP32 days there was loads of people developing for it. I hoped that the Pandora would be similar but the device was to expensive in the end and the number of devices available too small.

I'm new to the caanoo scene (honestly just got mine for the holidays sunday) and I think its a neat little device with a lot of potential. What direction do you think the dev community will go with this system? I hear a lot of people jumped ship to pandora, will the caanoo fizzle out and be stuck with the current level of support its seen so far or do you personally feel that it will get better? I know some new updates and emulators came out very recently.

 

[Reesy]

In my opinion the Caanoo has been fizzling out for months now already, I can not see it getting any better however other people disagree with me and believe lots of development work is going on in the background, so all hope may not be lost. We'll have to wait and see I guess.

 

[stmorri]

Sad to read as I just received mine as well. Luckily the majority of the emus work great for my needs. I wish Mame had more current rom support but I know that is asking a lot. I would be willing to support as well but I'm sure it would not be worth it given the man hours to dev stuff.

 

[rohezal]

Is there a number of sold devices? Btw. I asked the Flare coder if he want to do a port for it. Flare is an "open source" diablo 2 clone.

 

[Surkow]

[...] For instance the iphone and droid markets all have gameboy and snes emulators for like 99 cents or 5 dollars or whatever it is, and they run perfectly. [...]

Many of these paid programs are essentially ports of existing open source programs. If they run "perfectly" (which I doubt because existing emulation glitches are not fixed) and don't have any device dependent assembly you can probably get them to work on the Caanoo as well (if the Caanoo is fast enough).

 

[tibbo]

Sad to read as I just received mine as well. Luckily the majority of the emus work great for my needs. I wish Mame had more current rom support but I know that is asking a lot. I would be willing to support as well but I'm sure it would not be worth it given the man hours to dev stuff.

With Reesys recent port of FBA to the Caanoo over christmas you can now run many newer mame roms using that Check out the thread in the news section

 

[victomorga]

Full disclosure: I am completely new to the caanoo, I received mine a few days ago and haven't used it yet beyond what it came pre-loaded with.

After extensive internet research into the caanoo and other similar units (the dingoo, the wiz, etc.) I bought this system because I was comfortable with the cost of the unit, the quality of working emulators I had seen, and the additional perks (stuff I could use that weren't major draws: playing divx video, graphing calculator emulation, media viewing, etc.)

Getting more from the caanoo would be great, and personally I would have no problem paying a nominal price for improved software. However, with fringe, open-source consoles like the caanoo, I think anyone buying this late in the life-cycle should make sure they are happy with current capabilities, and not have an eye on potential future development that is contingent on a third party.

 

[chaddwith2ds]

with everything the caanoo currently has to offer, it has exceeded my expectations. i'm glad there are still occasional updates. how about more links to make donations to the developers?

 

[fishybawb]

There's already a great selection of emulators/homebrew available for the Caanoo, so I'd hate to think people might be put off by the lack of updates - what's there already is plenty to make it a worthwhile purchase.

with everything the caanoo currently has to offer, it has exceeded my expectations. i'm glad there are still occasional updates. how about more links to make donations to the developers?

Generally, devs will provide a link if they're interested in donations. I'm sure they would be appreciated, but most of the time a simple email to say thanks or provide some feedback would suffice.

This goes double for homebrew devs, most of the time they struggle to get feedback, never mind any praise/donations. I love emulation myself, but it's amusing how many people complain if (insert popular SNES title here) doesn't work properly, preventing them from completing it for the 30 millionth time