Commercial Games Part Deaux

[Grench]

The original thread:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/46818-commercial-games/

Started as:

After reading thought the Gizmondo liquidation details I was surprised to see just how cheap they obtained some of their game ports for the console. Of course having those games didn't save the system in any way but...

If we could throw some money at having a commercial game or two ported over which ones would they be and why?

Which do you think would get the Pandora the most attention or the most sales?

Or is the money better spent elsewhere?

This resulted in 20 pages of more or less good feedback on what the community would like to see.

After what I considered to be a suitable time elapsed for something to have happened, I posted back to it to see if this effort, which would take months, had shown any fruit.

This resulted in 2+ pages of meaningless posts that had nothing to do with the topic, but rather in finding new ways that we can eat our own.

So... I have bowed to the forum police (both self appointed and official) and created a new thread with properly referenced old thread and waved an ancient Blackberry at a rate of three times every 8 seconds over my keyboard while repeatedly whispering the theme to Gilligan's Island for no less than two minutes. Now can we simply stay on topic without any slams/flames/BS so that people who want to use these forums for information can have a chance?

Back to the question:

As we are getting closer to launch, I was wondering if the team had any luck getting a few commercial games in the pipe line. So, any luck?

Thank you.

 

[monkeyo2]

There's already a topic about this.

You should learn how to use the search function.

 

[kuru]

There's already a topic about this.

You should learn how to use the search function.

OP knows this.

You should learn to read before you comment.

And, btw, we're doing what OP wanted not to happen, eating each other.
So let's be nice and let ppl talk here who want to contribute to the topic. Many thanks.

/edit: Oh my, I only just noticed that you are from Reading, U.K.
Makes it even more embarrassing, doesn't it.

 

[tristan.clark]

It would be interesting to get some ports of some commerical games. Need many many more Pandoras out there if the software house are to make any money off sales, so I think they'll wait and see if the Pandora REALLY takes off.

 

[alucart1984]

It would be interesting to get some ports of some commerical games. Need many many more Pandoras out there if the software house are to make any money off sales, so I think they'll wait and see if the Pandora REALLY takes off.

Personally I don't see the Pandora being a commerical success....well not enough to garner the attention of major developers/publishers like Sega, Capcom, Square-Enix, etc.. I could see maybe the makers of World of Goo, Braid or any of those other developers making games for the Pandora or porting current games. I agree with the person in the original conversation about that open source morrowind engine. If I could play Morrowind on the guy on the Pandora, I would sell my DS and my PSP in a heart beat to get the money to buy a Pandora and I wouldn't even think twice.

 

[gp32rich]

It would be interesting to get some ports of some commerical games. Need many many more Pandoras out there if the software house are to make any money off sales, so I think they'll wait and see if the Pandora REALLY takes off.

That wasn't the point.

The aim was for OP to buy the rights to a commercial game to port it to Pando

The software house isn't bothered about 'profit' because they sell the rights, not the software
OP worry about making money from the port.

 

[Mutilator]

come on who wouldnt want to see Deathspank come out on pandora

 

[SirAileron]

I would kill to see some Dark Forces running without x86 emulation.

I mean, who doesn't want Kyle Katarn in their pants?

 

[Trevsweb]

tbh with the current trend of indie games (iphone apps, wii ware, xbox live arcade, psn games) as long as its a painless process of porting a games nothing really should turn a developer off from poritng their little project to another market.
theres another thread about this but it makes sense to start getting the cogs moving towards ideas on a commercial market. as developers dont need the hassle of selling their software.

quick and dirty ports would make me very happy.

anything current gen would be cool to see... quake and darkforces is cool and everything but would love to see some newer software. (when i say current gen i mean wii ware etc not GTA4 )

 

[monkeyo2]

/edit: Oh my, I only just noticed that you are from Reading, U.K.
Makes it even more embarrassing, doesn't it.

Oh, you've been to Reading then. Yes it's not the greatest place in the world, although we have had a McDonalds here for at least 10 years now. We're twined with Düsseldorf, who clearly didn't check us out before agreeing to that.

I suppose now that I've posted twice in this thread, I should probably at least try to add something vaguely relevant (other than my facetious observation about the demise of the other topic), so:

I would be surprised if there was any news about commercial games at the moment, the manufacturing delays and lack of hardware would seemingly make development difficult, and even if there was something interesting happening, I doubt anything would be announced at the moment.

But notwithstanding, and if we’re fantasising, I would be in heaven if GTA San Andreas came out for Pandora (I would think technically feasible, but highly unlikely). Perhaps marginally more realistically (or perhaps not), I would also love to see KORG make something somewhere in between KORD DS and The KORG Legacy Collection for Pandora that could be used with the nanoSERISE (not technically a game I know, but much more fun than Guitar Hero I would think).

 

[tristan.clark]

It would be interesting to get some ports of some commerical games. Need many many more Pandoras out there if the software house are to make any money off sales, so I think they'll wait and see if the Pandora REALLY takes off.

That wasn't the point.

The aim was for OP to buy the rights to a commercial game to port it to Pando

The software house isn't bothered about 'profit' because they sell the rights, not the software
OP worry about making money from the port.

So the question becomes can OP afford to buy the rights?

 

[WizardStan]

So the question becomes can OP afford to buy the rights?

Some games can be gotten for pretty cheap ("cheap"), $20'000-30'000 in some cases. Plus maybe royalties per sale, I would suspect, though I'm not sure. If they skim $5 from the sale of each of the first batch Pandora, then it's easy. They then do the work to get it working on the Pandora (which could be as easy as a recompile, or require a lot of library changes and rewrites) and charge $20 (or whatever is fair), sell it to even just 1/4 of the user base, and they've recovered their money, and proved that the Pandora can be a commercial platform, eventually.

 

[Grench]

It would be interesting to get some ports of some commerical games. Need many many more Pandoras out there if the software house are to make any money off sales, so I think they'll wait and see if the Pandora REALLY takes off.

That wasn't the point.

The aim was for OP to buy the rights to a commercial game to port it to Pando

The software house isn't bothered about 'profit' because they sell the rights, not the software
OP worry about making money from the port.

So the question becomes can OP afford to buy the rights?

Yes, I know how to search. Yes, I posted to the old thread and was flamed and that thread was locked because of it. Yes, I followed the moderator's suggestion to create a new thread. I did that and got flamed for it anyway. For whatever reason the OpenPandora forums have gotten hostile - its a shame.

I have never purchased the rights to source code / porting - so I have no idea what that costs. From Craig's original post, he was surprised how cheap they can be for a previous generation console. My basic assumption is that current release ($60) games would be much more expensive to buy the rights to than older games that are now in the $10 discount rack.

We would all love it if all of the major console game manufacturers suddenly put millions of $$$$$$$ in current release games onto our platform. The above posters are likely right that this is not going to happen. You can always dream of course.

So, what older, now in the $10 rack, game - that I'm assuming the team might be able to purchase the rights to port, would you be willing to shell out a fresh $50 for if it were ported to and ran fully on the Pandora? What game would result in thousands of other people saying, "I gotta have that!" and shelling out $350 for a new Pandora AND another $50 for the Pandora/ARM version of the game that they might already own for PC or console.

For me, that would be Neverwinter Nights Diamond edition (NWN 1 + expansions). It is perfect for the dual analog controls. Drive your character with the left control, run the mouse with the right control, left shoulder click to open the radial menu, right shoulder click to simply attack. It has already been binary ported to Linux - no WINE needed to run on X86 Linux. It was at one time licensed to port to the Tapwave Zodiac - but it did not make it to market before Tapwave died. There are still tens of thousands of people playing it actively. It plays both local stand-alone and over the internet as a MRPG. There is near infinite content available as the original game shipped with a world builder. The PC version is available at buy.com for $10. Include CEP and PRC (open source) in the build. The drawback? Full install with expansions, CEP, PRC, etc it is a ~10GB disk footprint game. I'm not sure if the Pandora has adequate CPU and memory to play it, but if rumor has it right there was a working scaled down prototype for the Tapwave Zodiac - so maybe.

However, all of our preferred games aside, I'm still wondering if the OpenPandora team had the time to ask or got any response from the game property owners from any of the suggested commercial games. So, how is this going? Any luck?

 

[SHEEPGODODOOM]

I don't think we are going to get delicious commercial stuff until a while after launch.

what I see happening is somebody in a developer getting one and loving it and showing his buds in the office how cool it is and then all of those said office buddies getting some too. eventually one of them will get the idea of developing for it and maybe pitch it for development or something. so maybe in the summer of 2010 we will get sweet wind smelling of daisies that a dev is porting a game. I really hope we get to experience starcraft and diablo on the go and all shed tears of joy.

and to neverwinter nights, i played that on a 800 mhz p3 forever and i know it will at least run ( not exactly playable) on a 450 mhz p2. NWN is one of my favorite games of all time. it is a perfect candidate and i think it is well within playable for a pandora without a special dumbed down port. so we need to send some pandoras and treats to bioware in canada and pray to the gaming gods. heck maybe even KOTOR would work on it, it started on the xbox i really think pandy can pull it.

 

[bzar]

Yes, I know how to search. Yes, I posted to the old thread and was flamed and that thread was locked because of it. Yes, I followed the moderator's suggestion to create a new thread. I did that and got flamed for it anyway. For whatever reason the OpenPandora forums have gotten hostile - its a shame.

Judging by the image he posted, I'd say he said that deliberetely. You did just the right thing.

 

[God Ginrai]

Yes, I know how to search. Yes, I posted to the old thread and was flamed and that thread was locked because of it. Yes, I followed the moderator's suggestion to create a new thread. I did that and got flamed for it anyway. For whatever reason the OpenPandora forums have gotten hostile - its a shame.

Judging by the image he posted, I'd say he said that deliberetely. You did just the right thing.

Yea, his post seems to be more a joke rather than a flame. (That's how I understood it, anyway)

-God Ginrai

 

[valhalla]

Some games can be gotten for pretty cheap ("cheap"), $20'000-30'000 in some cases. Plus maybe royalties per sale, I would suspect, though I'm not sure. If they skim $5 from the sale of each of the first batch Pandora, then it's easy. They then do the work to get it working on the Pandora (which could be as easy as a recompile, or require a lot of library changes and rewrites) and charge $20 (or whatever is fair), sell it to even just 1/4 of the user base, and they've recovered their money, and proved that the Pandora can be a commercial platform, eventually.

AFAIK they are already losing money on 1st batch pandoras, so they couldn't skim any money from it to buy porting rights; of course they could just decide that they can afford to lose a bit more in the hope that this encourages other commercial ports and thus more sales.

Hoping that 1/4 of the user base buys a single commercial game sounds a bit optimistic to me, however.

 

[musicalwoods]

So, what older, now in the $10 rack, game - that I'm assuming the team might be able to purchase the rights to port, would you be willing to shell out a fresh $50 for if it were ported to and ran fully on the Pandora? What game would result in thousands of other people saying, "I gotta have that!" and shelling out $350 for a new Pandora AND another $50 for the Pandora/ARM version of the game that they might already own for PC or console.

Anything from Blizzard, especially Diablo I or II.

 

[tristan.clark]

We shouldn't forget that some source code has been released to open source and more may follow. Even a handful or ROMs IIRC have been released. The progress that has been made is fantastic, it shows off the hardware and the talent that there is in this community. Having any kind of DreamCast game running on an emulator at all is fantastic, that does show off the Pandora very well. IIRC someone ages and ages ago said they had access to the source code for some DreamCast games and would look at porting them. There is a lot of evidence showing the Pandora as a very capable piece of hardware, and we have some very capable coders around. Which is something I'm sure these companies will take notice of. I'm not saying that commerical games can't or won't happen, but like the project so far we are going to have to be patient.

 

[WizardStan]

Hoping that 1/4 of the user base buys a single commercial game sounds a bit optimistic to me, however.

They're already gambling on needing to produce a lot more, upwards into the 50'000 mark and beyond. What's a little extra compared to that?