khephren
Active Member
Well the recent issue of EDGE did a pretty good article on mobile gaming, if you ignore the fact the GP didn't get a mention. Considering all the other machines are still in development, and the GP is the one you can actualy buy. I found that pretty annoying.
What I did notice though, is that machines like the N-gage, b'ngo and MyOrigio don't seem as powerfull as the GP. Which shows how far ahead of it's time the GP is. Released in 2002, and machines still in development can't match it!
I hope Gamepark are considering getting some of the developers working on these machines to port some games for the official Euro launch (although they probably won't, they are a bit clueless about third party stuff). 'cos the article has screenshots of red faction, and a wipout clone running on the N-gage. And tomb raider and Tony hawks are also available. AS yet, while emulators really show off a good retro side of the GP, there is nothing that really pushes the boat out natively.Although we have some great homebrew stuff, some 'name titles' from ARM based games developers would do the job.
Converting these titles would be easy, as they all run on standard ARM chips the same as ours (but slower). And they are titles that westerners would want.
I can't see these machines being cheap either, as they all incorporate a mobile phone (other than the Helix). For example, the N-gage will be $299 ( probably near enough that in pounds in the UK).
Anyway, here are some stats to mull over:
N-gage
104mhz ARM
176x208 12bit
Tapwave Helix
200mhz ARM 920T
480x320 16bit
+2d aceleration.
TTPcom b'ngo
39 mhz ARM 7
200x176 16bit
MyOrigio
ARM based
176x320 16bit
The tapwave looke pretty impressive. Iv'e left the PSP off 'cos all the specs are up in air- but it sounds pretty intimadating
What I did notice though, is that machines like the N-gage, b'ngo and MyOrigio don't seem as powerfull as the GP. Which shows how far ahead of it's time the GP is. Released in 2002, and machines still in development can't match it!
I hope Gamepark are considering getting some of the developers working on these machines to port some games for the official Euro launch (although they probably won't, they are a bit clueless about third party stuff). 'cos the article has screenshots of red faction, and a wipout clone running on the N-gage. And tomb raider and Tony hawks are also available. AS yet, while emulators really show off a good retro side of the GP, there is nothing that really pushes the boat out natively.Although we have some great homebrew stuff, some 'name titles' from ARM based games developers would do the job.
Converting these titles would be easy, as they all run on standard ARM chips the same as ours (but slower). And they are titles that westerners would want.
I can't see these machines being cheap either, as they all incorporate a mobile phone (other than the Helix). For example, the N-gage will be $299 ( probably near enough that in pounds in the UK).
Anyway, here are some stats to mull over:
N-gage
104mhz ARM
176x208 12bit
Tapwave Helix
200mhz ARM 920T
480x320 16bit
+2d aceleration.
TTPcom b'ngo
39 mhz ARM 7
200x176 16bit
MyOrigio
ARM based
176x320 16bit
The tapwave looke pretty impressive. Iv'e left the PSP off 'cos all the specs are up in air- but it sounds pretty intimadating
