Do You Think There Will Be Quality Titles For This?

[cinicraft]

anyone think some big name games will be ported over this console or brand new games built from the ground up? maby even EA? or will they all avoid the pandora because of piracy issues.

 

[Jourdy288]

The title of your thread and the contents of your post don't match.
There will, of course be brilliant titles for this console. It is unlikely, however, that we'll have massive software houses like EA behind us. It's possible, but until (and that's a big if) the Pandora goes mainstream, we probably won't see it happen.

However, if you think quality titles come only from big companies, you're wrong. The Pandora is the most powerful handheld console as of January 19, 2010. We've barely scratched the surface of what we can do with it!
I'm looking forward to a game similar to the Forza series in graphics, for example. That kind of thing is quite possible considering we have more (excuse the pun) under the hood than a PSP.
And keep in mind it hasn't been released yet!

Oh, and big companies will likely avoid us primarily because they wouldn't expect massive sales, considering how many people will own a Pandora. Remember what went wrong with the Tapwave Zodiac? It'll probably be awhile until they're brave enough to throw some titles our way. Possible? Yeah. Happening? Unlikely.

EDIT: I needed to do this:

Flame On! Sorry, couldn't resist.
@Cinicraft: Careful about threads like this, you'll get flamed hard (we have troll problems..)

 

[WizardStan]

EA and other big companies will avoid the Pandora because it's too small, not because of piracy.
That doesn't mean we won't see some high quality games, however. We've already got Quake 3. Doom 3 is theoretically possible, once we get the source code. There are a lot of great and fun open source games that are waiting to be ported (many already have been), not to mention a lot of indie developers will have their hands on it soon. ZEQ2lite is looking very snazzy.
So to answer the title, yes, I think there will be a lot of high quality games. To answer the post, no, I don't think we'll get anything from EA or other major companies.

 

[renwils]

Any studio that's under the thumb of a big publisher isn't likely to make anything for the Pandora.

It is very easy to develop for and it doesn't cost anything to license, so it may be attractive to indie developers. For them, it will be free money basically. I expect any quality commercial game to get quite a lot of penetration on the pandora just because this is an enthusiast device and most of us want it to succeed.

I would love to see something on the scale of God of War: Chains of Olympus for the psp, pushing the boundaries of the pandora's superior hardware, but indie studios just don't have the resources to make assets specifically for the game.

 

[cinicraft]

hopefully if I get into more hardcore programming I can make some Blizzard entertainment remakes (as long as I dont get into legal cease and disist issues from Blizzard).

 

[Rockthesmurf]

anyone think some big name games will be ported over this console....

Yes, Quake 3 already has been.

... or brand new games built from the ground up?

Yes, a lot of games will be written from the ground up, some of them specifically for Pandora.

maby even EA? or will they all avoid the pandora because of piracy issues.

I do not think EA will bring anything out for the Pandora as EA's primary goal is to make as much money as possible (very good thing for a business to do), and the Pandora is not likely to ever make more money for developers than the big players.

In regards to the question if there will be 'quality' titles, then yes, there will be loads of quality titles, from applications, to emulators, to ported games, to new games developer cross platform, to new games written specifically for the Pandora.

But really, I can't think of many EA developers games I am that fussed about!

Steve

 

[skeezix]

hopefully if I get into more hardcore programming I can make some Blizzard entertainment remakes (as long as I dont get into legal cease and disist issues from Blizzard).

Ahh, to be young again

To the topic at hand..

Shooting out my ass as I've been working all night on something, but heres a quickie.. No big studio will go to Panda right away, until the unit shipped count is very large; development costs money (employment wages, healthcare, insurance, for multiple devs, artists and so on), marketing and so on. Indies work on many things at once and are used to thin budgets and turnovers, but your EAs need to make a few bucks (not because thye're evil, they have to pay the bills). Your Mass Effect and GTA don't come cheap 30,000 Pandora units sold, with say 30% of those buying the game (unlikely!) is what at best .. 10,000 units of a game to ship. In this market where iphone has taught the community to pay $5 for a game (that platform has millions of devices, but people don't consider that, they just remember what they paid) .. so sell the game for $20 instead and get flamed but maybe make $5-$10 profit after cost-to-sell is taken out. So 10,000 sales at $5 profit is $50k USD. Thats the advertising budget for an indie game Not even the cost to build anything, and you know, you need a couple people to make a quality title .. $50k is a couple months work for a team. On the other hand, a lean indie can do a port of something pretty quick to try the market, and if they can turn a game over in a couple months and sell it on threadbare costs.. 5000 Pandoras shipped, 3000 of them buying a game for $10, with 8 of that being post-sale profit.. now we're talking $25k for a cople of guys hacking for a couple of months .. you cna get some great stuff.

So yep, you're taling indie studious, which is not a bad thing. Just don't be thinking you're likely to see EA on here right away.

jeff

 

[renegadechic]

what i would like to see is other commertial PC and PSP (probably not DS so much due to the dual screens) see the value in porting their commertial games to run on the pandora and then sell them. they have the development costs they would spend on the games anyway with some additional porting effort. how much that would cost i dont know, but the easier OP make it for ports to be done cheaply, it is simply extending the market for any games company.

 

[Awakening]

I wouldn't be surprised if we see some iPhone/Android games ported over. There's also a lot of high quality indie games on PC and some of those devs will probably be interested in porting their games. There are also some open source Linux games out there that are really high quality, like Battle for Wesnoth which already runs on Pandora.

 

[mindlord]

what i would like to see is other commertial PC and PSP (probably not DS so much due to the dual screens) see the value in porting their commertial games to run on the pandora and then sell them. they have the development costs they would spend on the games anyway with some additional porting effort. how much that would cost i dont know, but the easier OP make it for ports to be done cheaply, it is simply extending the market for any games company.

This argument has been voiced in the Windows vs. Linux games arena for years. Still don't see many big budget games with ports to Linux either. I attribute it to support. If they officially port to a platform they also have to train someone to support it for the life of the product. As simple as it sounds, it's never quite just about throwing a few thousand dollars at a game to port it to a new platform and reaping the benefits. Although it's certainly more profitable than coding from scratch.

Loki took the burden off the original publisher by accepting responsibility for the support as well.

 

[skeezix]

Pandora is pretty darned powerful; wave it around and write to those who might be interestable Coding for Pandora is not particularly difficult, but its getting the guys interested that is hard. I know when I'm meeting a few friends in the industry for lunch, sure as hell I'll be carrying my Panda around to show them But as I say, to the big guys its a tough sell. Its the little guys that are a bigger target.. and you know what? The little guys are where the innovation comes from. The big guys can do pollish, but its the little guys who move first.

(Witness Pandora .. the big guys aren't going to risk or innovate and slap nubs and d-pads on a tiny umpc, but the little guy takes the risk and goes for it. It takes guts to be in craig, mike and EDs shoes .. software is one thing, but hardware is a whole fresh layer of pain. The rest of us talk about it over coffee, but they're going for it. Thats the same sort of little guy you want making titles for you!)

jeff

 

[renwils]

what i would like to see is other commertial PC and PSP (probably not DS so much due to the dual screens) see the value in porting their commertial games to run on the pandora and then sell them. they have the development costs they would spend on the games anyway with some additional porting effort. how much that would cost i dont know, but the easier OP make it for ports to be done cheaply, it is simply extending the market for any games company.

This argument has been voiced in the Windows vs. Linux games arena for years. Still don't see many big budget games with ports to Linux either. I attribute it to support. If they officially port to a platform they also have to train someone to support it for the life of the product. As simple as it sounds, it's never quite just about throwing a few thousand dollars at a game to port it to a new platform and reaping the benefits. Although it's certainly more profitable than coding from scratch.

Loki took the burden off the original publisher by accepting responsibility for the support as well.

One thing about Linux, is that it's a bit of a moving target. For the pandora, having a standard OS image should help in that regard.

 

[mindlord]

The Mac wasn't very much of a moving target but it got no love either.

 

[atomicthumbs]

EA won't avoid the Pandora because of piracy issues. They'll avoid it because there's almost no money to be made.

 

[hch]

just read an article about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

production cost: $50M
advertising budget: $200M
gross: $1.000M

that's the kind of numbers EA and similar companies are interested in.

 

[marshal]

The advertising budget budget being 4x the production cost is pretty insane.
Well maybe insane is not the word but impressive at least. They definitely manage to sell enough of those to make a good profit.

I think that pretty much show why big development company will not be interested in the Pandora. Seriously they would rather target the Iphone.

I even can't imagine many Indies developers bringing exclusive game on the Pandora. Maybe once there will be a lot more Pandora out there.... for now it will probably be only some port.

Still between open source game and engine, emulation and some home-brew there should be enough to keep you occupied.

 

[fusion_power]

Who needs money?
In the past, a handfull of people created some of the best games ever and I bet they hadn't much money. How expencive was it to make "Turrican" or "Gianas Sisters"? Did the guy who made "Cave Story" spent Millions into his game?
You don't need money, you only need a great idea and talent. I say, homebrew can be as good as commercial Games.

And I'm sure there are enough people out there with enough free time and good coding skills, they only waiting for having a gadget like the Pandora. And even professional Coders with a job often have spare time in which they like to code. Just give them a Pandora and see what happens.
Give John Carmack a Pandora and see waht happens B)

 

[WizardStan]

Well maybe insane is not the word but impressive at least. They definitely manage to sell enough of those to make a good profit.

I think "sick" is the word you're looking for. And not the good kind of sick that the kids use now, the bad kind that makes you want to shout in rage.
If they've got that kind of money to spend on ads, you'd think they could throw a couple extra dollars at the developers.

 

[mindlord]

Well maybe insane is not the word but impressive at least. They definitely manage to sell enough of those to make a good profit.

I think "sick" is the word you're looking for. And not the good kind of sick that the kids use now, the bad kind that makes you want to shout in rage.
If they've got that kind of money to spend on ads, you'd think they could throw a couple extra dollars at the developers.

Amen!

We should find the names of the programmers and send them each 10$...

 

[rohezal]

S2 Games (Savage XR, Savage 2 and Heroes of Newert) could possibly port a few games to the pandora. Savage XR is allready open source for the Savage community. Savage 2 + Heroes of Newert runs on Linux / Mac and Windows and the K2 Engine is a successor of Silverback(Savage XR). Savage XR will probably ported if we do it ourself. Savage 2 and HoN will be ported if we write many annoying emails to Maliken .