Dont Fear Tapwave

[Loridan]

Did you not read the thread? I said that zodiac was a GOOD THING. Just as gp32 is a good thing. And together they will lead to better systems. At the end of my original argument I concluded that neither was perfect. This is not about putting down the zodiac, this is about building up the gp32 and getting people to see that gp32 still has its appeal.

 

[Daz_Genetic]

Maybe I picked up a different vibe from your thread. There is plenty of Zodiac bashing going on from insecure GP32 owners, so I may have just assumed the tone of your post. I apologise if this is the case.

To be honest, people wouldn't be at this site if they didn't realise the benefits of the GP32 already .

 

[Loridan]

Actually I geared the thread with the intentions of lowering animosity. I know that there have been several bashing threads and I gave my opinion to try to end the bashing. And Im sorry for the personal attack, that was out of character for me. I work in a call center and get attacked all day, and no Im not a telemarketer, I provide technical assistance for major corporations. You should see me do a remote takeover, the customers think im Yoda.

 

[Alpha2]

Loridan's topic is "dont fear tapwave".Basically saying there's no reason to have animosity towards it and it's users. Unfortunaly the extra tag of "where tapwave failes" sounds like you were looking to expose short comings rather than to say "it has some things over the GP32 but also someshort comings that put it on equal ground."

In a climate where people have grown angry with all the discussion over it when they just want to sit down an enjoy their chosen system the post was bound to get a few people agitated before they even started reading it.

 

[DaveC]

Did you not read the thread? I said that zodiac was a GOOD THING. Just as gp32 is a good thing. And together they will lead to better systems. At the end of my original argument I concluded that neither was perfect. This is not about putting down the zodiac, this is about building up the gp32 and getting people to see that gp32 still has its appeal.

I know what you mean by saying that the GP32 still has its appeal. I own both and bought the Zodiac BEFORE I bought the GP32. I see many emu developers abandoning the GP32 in favor of the Zodiac, and that is a shame. I think *that* is the source of much of the animosity towards the Zodiac. Less coders means more un-worked on emus etc, which means dead scene. It really shouldn't be that way as the GP32 is still a really cool little machine. I am hoping that once the devs play with the Zodiac and "get it out of their system" they will come back to the GP32 and do stuff for it as well. Hopefully the BLU will make it out and spark some interest again in the GP32. I think the flashy backlit Zodiac screen is the main draw, so a GP32 BLU would be a needed shot in the arm.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

and the non user replaceable battery has me concerned.

That is the very thing that troubles me.

 

[gp32animefreak]

Tapwave really truely wont fail becuase its already sold more than n-gage and its only avaliable onlkine!!!!!, it wont be big but it wont fail either

 

[Memnoch]

and the non user replaceable battery has me concerned.

That is the very thing that troubles me.

I was interested in one till I found out about this.

 

[watzza_uppa]

Tapwave really truely wont fail becuase its already sold more than n-gage and its only avaliable onlkine!!!!!, it wont be big but it wont fail either

yeah but the n-gage iz crap,thats a bad example, n-yway why should we listen 2 u?u were tempted ova 2 the darkside :angry:

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Selling more than n-gage isnt a big feat, I think I sold more things in my last garage sale then total sold n-gage units!

Tapwave WILL fail unless they start getting the big name backers to make commercial software. The homebrewn scene will only get you so far. I have read _many_ professionally written articles by people in the industry that know what they are talking about, that talk about how Tapwave needs to seriously get some big names if they want to live out the year. Thats the general consensus among Tapwave articles. Great system, wont live out the year without some big names behind it. Especially with PSP on the horizon.

I think I am holding off buying a zodiac to see if they address the battery issue ever. I doubt I will buy one if its not...thats a major consern of mine.

 

[Meonlyeviler]

Well for me, I see Gametrac the next big thing. I mean come on 400 mghz, bluetooth, gprs, gps, camera, 64bit graphics gpu, and best of all 4 face buttons . The only thing that I'm scared about with it though is that it will try to compete with Nintendo DS and PSP. I wanna see it compete with Zodiac and GP32, cause that's actually what it can win in. This thing will use SD or MMC cards(probably SD cards) so maybe we'll see some Homebrew on it, in fact thats what I'm hoping for. If we don't see homebrew I'll probably stick to Gp32, but if we do I can see this thing have a future. The one thing I can't believe is that the Gametrac is coming out in the summer and theres no real community, I tried starting a website(see sig) because I couldn't find any Gametrac websites, but its pretty empty. IMO if Gametrac releases some sort of sdk, then this thing will do great and become like gp64 for me, if not then Gp32 is still gonna be the best homebrew handheld.

Hehe, I don't actually know what I said and I don't feel like looking over it, so I'm scared at what the quotes are gonna bring

 

[Alpha2]

The bigger you get the more support you have to get in order to keep your largeness. If Gtrac goes international it'd NEED Big name software to make a name for itself otherwise the amount of money being spent on dealiving the product to more than one region will smother the company.

The zodiac is in a better position than the Gtrac because it has a predefined function beyond gamming (PDA) and if I remember corectly an official sega emmulation.

 

[Deep Thought]

I was interested in the gametrac until I found out that it screen's smaller than the gp32, and any thing smaller than that is just too small for me.

 

[DaveC]

I was interested in the gametrac until I found out that it screen's smaller than the gp32, and any thing smaller than that is just too small for me.

Yeah the GT screen is REAL small, it is the size of the GBA. It would be real hard to go back to something that small again.

 

[DaveC]

and the non user replaceable battery has me concerned.

That is the very thing that troubles me.

I was interested in one till I found out about this.

When Tapwave goes out of business how would I get a battery for it? It is REAL proprietary because it is very thin and long. It also has built in charging circuitry that is in the unit AND the wall pack. At least we can always get AA batteries for the GP32 no matter what happens with it.

 

[Alpha2]

Yeah, even the GBA SP you can get extra batteries for.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Well for me, I see Gametrac the next big thing. I mean come on 400 mghz, bluetooth, gprs, gps, camera

Yeah I know I mean, all the times I play my GP32 and say "Damn, ya know, I wish this had a GPS and a Camera."

Can you really be serious? Who needs a GPS and Camera on a game system? Thats going to increase the cost of the unit considerably!

I think those very things (besides the small screen) are going to be its downfall...

 

[Efompor]

I think I'll register for tracgamer just because I want to be member 2 If it's the first site ever on gametrac it could get pretty big, just look at sites like ZodiacGamer, or even Don Miguel's old GP32 forum was pretty active for a time

 

[Daz_Genetic]

The Gametrac is going to be cheaper than the GP32, and I wouldn't mind owning a GPS system, so I don't mind if it comes built into my game system. Thats one less thing to carry around.

A camera is also fun. Phone picture messenging is extremely popular, so this is not a redundant feature.

Though, it always comes down to one thing for me. If the Gametrac requires a constant network connection in order to be reasonably functional, then I will be extremely pissed. There are so many areas of life these days where people are not happy just taking your money and giving you a product in return. Instead, we have to sign up for yearly, monthly, weekly payments. The TiVo being a prime example of this. If you buy the device, you get a bog standard PVR, but if you pay monthly fees (and huge ones at that), you get a PVR with some extra features. Some of those are already built into the system. For example, if you want to stream your TiVo broadcasts into multiple rooms in your house, you have to pay monthly charges for them to enable this option in the devices you already own. What the hell is that?

Basically, if the Gametrac is reasonably functional without network connection, then I will get it and be very happy with it. But if it needs a connection, then I will get it, but I won't open it and it will go into my collection of failed handhelds .

 

[Meonlyeviler]

Hehe, my site is so lame right now, I'm not even using my own board. If the site actually gets big enough I might add in php and stuff. Even if it doesn't get big though, I might eventually add that kinda stuff cause nothing's better then coding in VIM