Commercial Games

[Drack]

Commercial publishers and developers are likely to wait until Pandora is shown to be a successful platform with plenty of users willing to pay for their games.

That being said, I think pestering Konami, Capcom, or Sega might result in some great games. All three have been making great games lately, and I know all of those companies are no strangers to mobile gaming, having plenty of titles out on portables already.

 

[Vimacs]

guys, forget about those big fishes, they probably wont even talk to the Pandora team.

 

[Trip]

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Arms

Good for all ages as it's violent but you blow up robots so it won't make the kiddies cry.
Good single player + Multi-player.
A lot of maps and different weapons included.
Can possess other robots to accomplish different tasks.
Fantastic sense of humour to it.

A unique game that didn't get half as much attention as it should have done. Might take a bit of work for the Pandora though as it was released for xbox, ps2 and Gamecube.

Always thought that it would make a great portable game

 

[streak]

guys, forget about those big fishes, they probably wont even talk to the Pandora team.

Of course, and this is the ugly truth. Only small dev studios/ 1 person dev'ers will invest in pandora segment, but without good and central marketplace [ or two marketplaces ], it will fail, thats for sure.

BTW. After seeing the opinions about casual poll and advert games poll, i dont even thing its good option to ask anybody about commercial releases. Better solution in my opinion is: to track gameindustry on another handheld consoles and make similiar move on the pandora. Trends in gaming are always the same on each system. This time casual games rocks, retro-graphics games aswell like geometry wars, tempest 2000.

 

[Zeno Arrow]

I could say, invest in Liero - clone with multiplayer options. This one will catch the attention of hardcore gamers, and it will be cheaper to gain the license than big commercial hit.

Teeworlds is similar enough and is already coming to Pandora.

guys, forget about those big fishes, they probably wont even talk to the Pandora team.

Of course, and this is the ugly truth. Only small dev studios/ 1 person dev'ers will invest in pandora segment, but without good and central marketplace [ or two marketplaces ], it will fail, thats for sure.

You would think this is true, but look at the Gizmondo. Less than 25,000 units were sold (according to Wikipedia) and yet it had a couple of releases from EA, which is the biggest of the big fishes.

 

[drD20]

Deathspank would be cool, indy enough for the pandora

 

[Svartalf]

- World of Goo.

They're more than interested in something, but they're concerned that it'd run on the Pandora properly. The game's pretty physics calculation heavy and they're unsure if it'd work on any handheld right at the moment.

guys, forget about those big fishes, they probably wont even talk to the Pandora team.

For now, yes. Later on might be a different story.

As it stands, quite a few of the big fish ARE watching- unwilling to do anything right at the moment, but...

 

[garethofthedead]

oddworld strangers wrath since EA ported so games to the Gizmondo

Alien Hominid

Beyond Good and Evil, they give a way with cheese see http://www.giantbomb.com/news/get-beyond-g...withcheese/946/ so I thing it won't be hard to buy the SC for it

Resident Evil 4, it coming out for the Zeebo

Sonic Adventure, it coming out for the Zeebo as well

 

[Eolair]

Crayon Physics Deluxe!

I would kill for Pac-man Championship Edition. Unfortunately Microsoft owns the rights :angry:

Something similar to Mutant Storm/Geometry Wars/Vektar would be fun.

I'm all for casual games.

 

[Svartalf]

Actually it seems that the dev studio themselves own the rights to it.

Then you've got at least a snowball's chance in hell of getting it...

Oftentimes studios, so long as the publishing deals don't preclude it, are MUCH more amenable to things like Linux and/or Pandora ports. (For them, unless you're talking about someone like iD or Epic, this segment equates to 'more money').

QUOTE

I think that makes it way easier then dealing with a publisher?



Indeed it does. Doesn't make it that easy, but it makes it possible where it was impossible before and makes the possible sometimes a done deal. Caster's that way. I'm probably going to talk with Wolfire about Lugaru and 2DBoy once I get the handful of projects done. Those wouldn't happen if it was aligned with EA or 2K.

QUOTE

Also its probably good to mention that they arent hostile towards linux, in fact some of them would probably like to see it on other platforms but dont think its financially worthwile (who can blame them...).
So maybe if someone from LGP (im looking at you svartalf) contacted them with a win-win situation we actually have a good chance.


Heh... I can't vouch for Michael Simms or talk to projects that have licensing deals in progress- I'm something of a consultant under contract with them to produce and support specific titles right at the moment with the prospects of more. IF I get 1-2 that do reasonably well on the Pandora in terms of time to develop Pandora-centric versions of things and at least reasonably well on sales, there'll be more from LGP.

 

[dsleaf67]

Along the line of exclusive comercial titles (or at least first out) on the giz one stands out as awesome and I believe appealing to the masses is Johnny whatever. This I would love to get a completed port to Pandora.

Former giz games have currently ended up on iphone (ie. Chicane and interstallar flames II becoming fastlane street racing & Rebel onslaught).
Two more great games.

Gizmondo motocross (formally Mototrax franchise) was originally developed for Zodiac but then switched to Giz when Zodiac fell. I perfered it on the zodiac because of controls. Its a great games.

 

[drD20]

it may be still a stupid question and i risk bein laughed aut :blink: but:

Hey it may be a pretty dumb questions but i have read this about brew
QUOTE
On the phone itself, BREW is a thin client (about 150K) that sits between a software application and the Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) level software. Thus developers can write to BREW without knowing or caring about the device's chipset or air interface

here: CODE
http://www.developer.com/ws/brew/article.php/1454711

Does that mean we could make something like a brewine(BRINE)/ reverse engineer the client and run BREW games without emulation? :unsure:

So however wouldnt it be good to get a port of brew to encourage the big ones to release games for the pandora theyr also porting for zeebo or some phones. Its easier to port with BREW, or am i'm getting it totally wrong?

 

[Svartalf]

You would think this is true, but look at the Gizmondo. Less than 25,000 units were sold (according to Wikipedia) and yet it had a couple of releases from EA, which is the biggest of the big fishes.

1) It might have been sweetheart deals.
2) They may have waved a quarter mil under their noses, either per title or for both of them.

If you know someone high enough up in the publisher and can sell them, they can get your foot in the door and you can get a sniff of a port project at the least. Wave enough money under their noses and you can do the same thing.

So however wouldnt it be good to get a port of brew to encourage the big ones to release games for the pandora theyr also porting for zeebo or some phones. Its easier to port with BREW, or am i'm getting it totally wrong?

Unless you license BREW from Qualcomm/Sony, you might be in for a rough ride there.

1) I believe they have patents on pieces of that system
2) BREW's not simple.

I think trying to attract studios via BREW support is a dead in the water thing. Unless you're affiliated with that industry (mobile phone...) you're NOT likely to get anything other than a legal fight on your hands there.

 

[streak]

QUOTE

You would think this is true, but look at the Gizmondo. Less than 25,000 units were sold (according to Wikipedia) and yet it had a couple of releases from EA, which is the biggest of the big fishes.



If we only know how many cash was pumped into contract deal from gizmondo side, we could speak about it, otherwise its not the good start to talk. Mainly smaller handheld or console companies pays a lot of money to big software companies to make a deal with the "port" of a game. That was also the issue with nokia ngage who firstly invest a lot of money in big titles [ tony hawk / tomb raider ], and then dropped it [ and give free hand to smaler devs ] because it was pointless to pump the money and see an n-gage stayng niche system.

 

[Username]

I think Peggle would be an awesome (and somewhat realistic) commercial port idea. They have it for PC, DS, iPod (Classic 5&6 +Nano 4), and XBLA.

 

[WizardStan]

I wonder if it might be worthwhile to convince ID to do an official Doom3 port. Yes, it's turning open source eventually, so anyone could do it at that point, but think of the marketing potential. If ID is doing the port, the press will take notice. Not just the niche markets and those already interested, you'll hit a major market. If massive sales are what you're after, I can't imagine a better way of breaking out of the niche market than to have such a well known and highly publicized company step in and back you up, even if they're only doing it because you paid them to.
Also to think about, only the engine is going open source. You'll still need a copy of Doom 3 for the data files. BUT, the data files for the PC are meant for a large, high res screen. Ideally, the models and textures should be reduced according to the Pandora's features. This saves space from smaller textures, and also CPU power from less processing.
Now, ID does the port, modifies the models and textures, and releases the whole thing in a single, easy to install PND package, and a huge press release to go with it.
The alternative is waiting until it goes open source, someone outside the company does the port, and anyone wanting to play it has to somehow combine the new executable with the existing data from the game they have to install first on their computer, and likely the only people that would know about it are those that were already watching and/or waiting on the project.

 

[jens.l]

Craig, you should ask "TheGoodDoktor" from Bizzare Creations.
Maybe he can tell you what is possible and what not.

 

[cobaltage]

A few thoughts:

1.) There are a few indie games on Steam that would be great on a handheld device, even better than on a PC. Two that people have already mentioned are Geometry Wars and Peggle. Also, Lumines would be great of course, but is already so closely associated with PSP that it might not have the same impact.

In other words, games that are considered to be prototypes of their kind. But at the same time, games that are a little older, from smaller developers, currently distributed online (through XBox Live Marketplace or Steam, etc.), frequently already on multiple platforms, lower in price, less complicated (i.e., do not need a full KBM set up or benefit from gaming controls), and with lower system requirements. These games are often known only through being early adopters of online distribution. Not only does that make it seem more likely that a company would be interested in the Pandora, it makes the Pandora better recognized by gamers in general. E.g., Steam is better known than any of the indie games on Steam individually, so by associating the Pandora to one of those games, the Pandora becomes associated with Steam secondarily in the minds of gamers.

Further, a mobile version of a game that has been only available by download on Windows or a major console would be good for everyone. It will make gamers more interested in the Pandora, and for those who do not have a Pandora or will not buy one (i.e., most people), they may be more likely to buy the game on a different platform. Win win.

2) World of Goo would be killer in a lot of ways, because of how successful it has been and because 2D Boy just released that Linux version. If that developer made an exclusive Pandora release, whether an optimized version of the same game, a special portable version, or even a completely different game -- that alone would be news (in the gaming world). It would draw in both Linux and non-Linux users (for better or worse). I think that this might be a little pie-in-the-sky though. If we knew what is going to pop in the indie game market in the next year, that would be ... awesome as well.

3) I think the Pandora could be billed as an ideal micro-environment for game developers interested in entering the portables market.

-a- Easy updating of software versions (compared to cartridges).
-b- A critical and active gaming community.
-c- Limited possibility of piracy into the mainstream portable gaming market.
-d- Any major commercial entity entering Pandora-space would get the immediate and almost full attention of the entire user community.
-e- Street cred.

4) I would love to see Worms (or its online variant that I used to play) or even Diablo. This gets into another issue, and something I have wondered about, which is network gaming, ranging from Mario Kart to TF2. Does network gaming not imply that there will be dedicated servers and increase the investment of the developer? I love online games (Pandora could do voice chat so easily). But there seems to be relatively little going on in the portable gaming market with networking outside of the Nintendo DS, and they have supported local networking since the GBA (?). Like people are saying about some of the older FPS plus online mulitplayer games -- if Pandora could pull off just one of these online multiplayer games well, that would be a handheld gaming milestone, no doubt. (I would want UT2004, in an ideal world.)

Sorry for the long post, I thought I would spit it all out at once.

 

[streak]

4) I would love to see Worms (or its online variant that I used to play) or even Diablo. T

When PSX emu will be released you'll get what you want, easily [ Diablo and Worms [best version of all] were released on Psx ]

 

[TheGoodDoktor]

Craig,

You mentioned in previous postings that you've worked on some Acclaim titles. Since they've gone bust you might be able to pick up the rights to some of their games quite cheaply.
E.g. Revolt, Forsaken, Shadow Man, etc.

If you get the rights & source to Shadow Man then I'll convert it for you for free as it's my favourite game!

Otherwise the most obvious one is Half Life, that would be a real coup.