GameGadget- New F/OSS Console

[Jourdy288]

Well, it looks like there's a mysterious new contender on the field of handheld gaming: the GameGadget. Set to launch January 2012, there's really not much information about it aside from a single press release- one that I managed to get my hands on!





So, what do we know? Well, the GameGadget is going to be running Linux, and aims to be not only a strong hardware platform, but feature powerful software- software with online integration that could rival the XBLA and PSN, thus making a potential competitor to the upcoming Playstation Vita.In the press release, Jason Cooper, the creator of the GameGadget, had this to say:


“GameGadget has been designed with the ultimate goal of playing every game on a single device, just as the “iPod” was for music. Hundreds of thousands of games are currently “archived” and no longer being enjoyed by Gamers, with no value being generated for the Developers and Publishers. The launch of GameGadget creates a market for gamers to play the games they want to play. The GameGadgetGames service, just like “Apple’s App Store”, allows the owners of these games, to re-market their back catalogue, in their original format, set the appropriate pricing and gain incremental revenue, BUT with no additional investment”.


I rather like the sound of that- an iPod for games? But what'll prevent from winding up like the PSP Go? In case you don't know about the PSP Go, here's a quick synopsis: Sony tried launching a PSP with no UMD drive, so it would only run games you purchased via downloads- needless to say, the device failed. People weren't going to buy a crippled device.


So how are these two different? Well for starters, the device doesn't seem to have any disk drives (although it might have an SD card slot), so from the photos and info in the press release, it seems that it's already geared towards totally digital distribution, rather like an iOS device. I'm fine with this, and it doesn't seem to be a crippled machine, so I've got no complaints, really. In fact, I like the idea of using it to sell older games that could use some attention, perhaps it could integrate with the likes of Good Old Games and Steam? I think gamers would certainly appreciate linking their own massive catalogues of games with their devices. I know that I certainly would!


There was part of the press release I'm still curious about however:


"All games played on any GameGadget that are delivered via “GameGadgetGames” are encoded using a unique DRM (Digitial Rights Management) system.


Publishers can establish a brand new and unique digital revenue stream without any further investment by simply uploading games in their original format to GamesGadgetGames."


So let's say I already own, oh, an original copy of Starcraft (I really do!) and want to play it on my GameGadget (not sure quite how that'd work, anyway- through the magic of emulation perhaps?), will I be able to just plug in the files from my original copy into my little device and just play? Will I have to re-buy the game from the publisher? I don't know, it hasn't yet been revealed how this is quite to work, though I trust more information will come soon.


"GameGadget 1.0 uses a Linux based Operating System which has been highly optimized for handheld consoles. This allows programmers to develop content just like they would do for any other Linux based system.


Popular game development libraries such as SDL and DirectFB are fully compatible, creating a cross compiling environment. GameGadget provides all documentation, start-up guides for developers, lists of available libraries and specific platform notes. "


Well, that certainly looks promising! While I'm not quite sure how they plan to make games from other platforms run on the GG, at least I know that it'll be able to run some of the awesome open source games I already know and love. Developers are already being reached out to, and I thus have hope for this little device, and look forward to seeing how far it goes. Stick with us for updates!


Official Website: GameGadget.net


Source- http://blackmannrobi...the-gamegadget/


So... Where do you guys think this is heading? It's certainly got a retro slant, that's for sure, and it's going to have some sort of DRM... I wonder what'll happen next.

 

[EvilDragon]

It sounds... weird.


The company behind the GameGadget is this one:


http://www.blazeeurope.com/


They are resellers for classic gaming consoles.


It sounds pretty weird what they're trying to do.


"Hundreds of thousands of games are currently “archived” and no longer being enjoyed by Gamers, with no value being generated for the Developers and Publishers."


Are they talking about emulators? Or trying to license all games? Nintendo wouldn't do that... and I'm pretty sure Sony as well, as they both sell their own games themselves.


If it takes off, it might be interesting. Another standard Linux with SDL and framebuffer means that these games can all be ported on the Pandora as well... or even run directly from the binary.


But an F/OSS system with DRM is a bit weird as well

 

[mindlord]

Those controls look bad. I hope the give it a proper D-Pad or it wont catch on.

 

[Mr Rob]

Sounds similar to the nD, just more expensive? Also sounds interesting, I'm all for more devices.

 

[fusion_power]

yes I also had this in my mind, the nD -Bobs game thingy, what actualy happend to this project?

 

[Exophase]

Don't mean to bust your chops but you'd be better off linking than copying + pasting this, especially since it's just some blog's editorial and not an official press release. At the very least, put it in quotes.


I might be missing the finer details here but to me this highly resembles the Dingoo and the horde of Chinese handhelds that followed it. I mean, the physical design does, only this seems to make that all too unfortunately common error of having a button separated d-pad. Quite clear that it's yet another attempt at an emulator machine where the ROMs are legally licensed.. chances are the unit will be more expensive than its Chinese counterparts so anyone in the know is going to continue buying those and pirating the ROMs as usual.


At the very least it needs to offer either more power (and that now means vs 800MHz amlogic Cortex-A9 SoCs now apparently, or those 1GHz Ingenic chips), better controls, or something unique about the hardware interface to be interesting. Pandora at least manages the latter two. I know they say it'll be powerful but I'm quite skeptical.

 

[Jourdy288]

^I wrote it, LOL.


But yeah, I think you got it down! I wonder what the specs will be...

 

[Exophase]

I stand by what I said ;p But since you wrote it you may want to fix that January 2011 typo.

 

[Jourdy288]

^Nice find, thanks!

 

[PokeParadox]

I heard that blaze have been doing emulation and officially licensed games(mainly for megadrive)... so this might be an extended idea of that...

 

[Jourdy288]

Precisely that!

 

[EvilDragon]

Precisely that!

Well, as mentioned, the only issue I see is the licensing:


Neither Nintendo nor Sony will license their games for that, so except for more Sega Games and maybe some Arcade titles, I can't see how they will get thousands of titles of legal emulation here.


It's unlikely it can emulate the Dreamcast as well...

 

[craigix]

Blaze is Success-hk (aka Lik-sangs old supplier).


They are based in HK and used to supply the Dingoo consoles, my radar is suggesting this is a rebranded China console.


I know the owner of the company and if I see him on MSN I'll quiz him about all this.

 

[fusion_power]

Ah, Lik Sang - I remember. And I also remember the bad end. ^^


Well, for another China Handheld, it looks pretty nice. Clean and solid Case at least.

 

[Jourdy288]

Precisely that!

Well, as mentioned, the only issue I see is the licensing:


Neither Nintendo nor Sony will license their games for that, so except for more Sega Games and maybe some Arcade titles, I can't see how they will get thousands of titles of legal emulation here.


It's unlikely it can emulate the Dreamcast as well...

Well there's always... Atari? Hmm, this will be interesting... I just wanna see the specs on this thing.


And you know, it does look an awful lot like a Dingoo!


But yeah, back to licensing, there's still a ton of companies that might be willing to do it, and I'm pretty sure indie devs will be willing to give it a shot if they can see some sense in it.

 

[Prometheus]

Ok, this is a bit spooky. I was about to make a thread about something I saw whilst on vacation in France over the last week, and here I see this thread...


This thing looks almost exactly like VideoJet's PDC Touch Lithium.

 

[Jourdy288]

Whoa. That's kinda strange....


Also, does that thing do emulation?

 

[Prometheus]

^ Not as far as I know. It has pre-loaded games, though I don't know who they're from. Commonly in these sorts of devices, they're retro-styled games licensed from a company called Jungletac, who made the OneStation a few years back, along with countless "generic" multi-game-with-TV-out handhelds that get picked up and rebadged by various companies (and sometimes have even featured officially-licensed versions of games like Frogger).


EDIT: Scratch that, I do know who the games on the PDC Touch Lithium are from - I checked out the screenshots on the page I linked, and they're from Conny (look at the first game screenshot, there - big clue :lol: ). That's a company who made one of those Wii-alikes, specifically the one called "Q3".

 

[milkshake]

according to their website this will become available worldwide on the 30th March 2012.


home I wonder if they managed to get the appropriate licenses for the games/roms they will sell?

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, they're not showing any games there, so this will be interesting.


Interesting press release they got there:


"March 30th 2012 sees the release of GameGadget the first game console to be developed in the UK for almost 20 years "


So... is the Pandora older than 20 years (has it been that long already? ) or isn't it from UK?