Gph: The Wiz - Official Announcement


All power to homebrew....Emulators can be tolerated also but I play homebrew more on my gp2x. I think it has the best collection of homebrew on any device around :) Wiz should be even better ;)
 
KungPhoo said:
Got some time to do further testings. By overclocking to 240MHz my game "Wumbo's Adventure", limited to 30FPS ran quite OK on the GP2X.
On the WIZ, I get 60 FPS, with the stock clock rate easily. Yes, it is fast.
I have no idea how to port an emulator, though. And if I had, I were totally non interested in it's performance. I really wish this thing could be a gaming handheld with new software instead of all the emulated stuff we have played for years now.
The only reason for the use of emulators is to remake a game ;)
The good news is that it will be both like the Gp2X.

They both have their place. Emus are nice because it is a way to play the games that you liked in the past. Plus there are many games playable through emus that would probably not be attempted by a single HB programmer due to the massive amount of work involved (imagine a HB guy tryng to do something like DoDonpachi or FinalFantasy VII, probably won't happen, too much work). 1 emu = thousands of games.

Homebrew is great however because there are titles that are new and never have been done before. The possibilities are endless which is not true for emulated games. Plus then the full power of the hardware can be used with HB because you don't have to eat up so much power mimicking old hardware.
 
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Peter R said:
All power to homebrew....Emulators can be tolerated also but I play homebrew more on my gp2x. I think it has the best collection of homebrew on any device around :) Wiz should be even better ;)

Yes, because SO many people buy open-source handhelds to play homebrew. :lol:

Look, it's not like it isn't a great bonus and all, but emulators and ports are the kind of things most people will use on an everyday basis with a device like this.

That being said, I'm really looking forward to seeing how this thing performs in action. My friend's preordered his and he's totally psyched, so it really does show that stuff like this can appeal to people over Pandora, it all just depends on your likes/circumstances.
 
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CronoTriggerfan said:
Peter R said:
All power to homebrew....Emulators can be tolerated also but I play homebrew more on my gp2x. I think it has the best collection of homebrew on any device around :) Wiz should be even better ;)

Yes, because SO many people buy open-source handhelds to play homebrew. :lol:

Look, it's not like it isn't a great bonus and all, but emulators and ports are the kind of things most people will use on an everyday basis with a device like this.

That being said, I'm really looking forward to seeing how this thing performs in action. My friend's preordered his and he's totally psyched, so it really does show that stuff like this can appeal to people over Pandora, it all just depends on your likes/circumstances.

There is no correlation between devices being open-source and the frequency of people buying them for emulation. They buy them for whatever use the person has as they can generally do whatever they want. The Wiz is heavily marketed as being a homebrew device where as the Pandora is being mainly marketed as an emulation beast. Therefore, I expect more original homebrew to be released for the Wiz than the Pandora.
 
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I agree with the first point you made, but the latter, I dunno. I think it's all more of a test of time and user base volume thing. Regardless, I think we'll see good homebrew on both systems, and probably a lot of cross-platform homebrew as well. I can see the Wiz perhaps having more commercially-produced games based on what they're coming out of the gate with, but I'm not sure if there will be more homebrew on Wiz, namely because I think Pandora is toted as a beast, not just an emulation beast.
 
CronoTriggerfan said:
I agree with the first point you made, but the latter, I dunno. I think it's all more of a test of time and user base volume thing. Regardless, I think we'll see good homebrew on both systems, and probably a lot of cross-platform homebrew as well. I can see the Wiz perhaps having more commercially-produced games based on what they're coming out of the gate with, but I'm not sure if there will be more homebrew on Wiz, namely because I think Pandora is toted as a beast, not just an emulation beast.
Homebrew games rarely seem to require a beast. I think that the Wiz will be capable of plenty homebrew wise and it can be harder to get nice looking homebrew games going at a higher resolution such as the Pandoras.
 
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Is a A/C adaptor going to be included to charge the battery or just a USB cable to charge the Wiz via a PC?
 
Peter R said:
CronoTriggerfan said:
I agree with the first point you made, but the latter, I dunno. I think it's all more of a test of time and user base volume thing. Regardless, I think we'll see good homebrew on both systems, and probably a lot of cross-platform homebrew as well. I can see the Wiz perhaps having more commercially-produced games based on what they're coming out of the gate with, but I'm not sure if there will be more homebrew on Wiz, namely because I think Pandora is toted as a beast, not just an emulation beast.
Homebrew games rarely seem to require a beast. I think that the Wiz will be capable of plenty homebrew wise and it can be harder to get nice looking homebrew games going at a higher resolution such as the Pandoras.



Just... no.

The Pandora LCD supports 480*272 in hardware, as well as hardware scaling with 800*480 (320*240 fits very nice in to that doubled up), so those Wiz games would look just fine on the Pandora screen whichever way you want to run them, they would also look bigger too.

Your dream of selling the Wiz as a homebrew console is misguided at best - the truth is only a tiny number of people would buy it, it may as well be another Gizmondo, Zodiac, Ngage - it just won't work in a commercial way. And I know from bitter experience that wishful thinking won't make it work either - the press won't care, the customers will just buy a PSP or DS and the rest of the internet will post 'fail' on forums about it. It's just a sad reality of the market.

90% of the GP32 and GP2X consoles were sold on emulation of older systems, I'm sure that a fair amount of that 90% also wanted to try out the homebrew too but the emulation was the swing factor which brought them to the GP2X and made them buy it, the homebrew just being a nice bonus, not the other way around.

I think that if GPH really are going to follow this homebrew route I can see trouble up ahead, the saving grace is that the distributors will probably stick to selling its emulation abilities to customers thus keeping the sales moving.

There is a potential that if GPH could get enough quality homebrew made they might get the Wiz in to some of those pile it high sell it cheap stores where you sometimes see JXD style devices - but there in lies the next problem - it's way too expensive for those places.

So, reduce the cost and try that route - the only problem being those JXD devices tend to be there for 1 or 2 months then vanish - they would be getting themselves in to a market which dies very fast indeed and they are back to square one - only with a machine which is now tarred with the JXD style device brush.

GPH should stick to their tried and tested market - Emulation first, ports second and homebrew third. This works very well for them (and us distributors) and I don't understand why all this emulator hate is being thrown about - it is what got them where they are.

Actually Sam, didn't ports and emulators bring you to the GP32/2X in the first place?
 
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craigix said:
I don't understand why all this emulator hate is being thrown about - it is what got them where they are.
Because it has been building amongst the developer community for a while now, and this is a convenient place for people to start venting it :p.

Personally, I don't think that homebrew sells lots of machines. Equally, I don't think that emulators do. They are both incredibly small markets and the only way an open source game machine can really do well is if all the Linux fans latch onto it and start playing. It is these people who also have lots of money.
 
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I do hope GPH do well with this, but they aren't going to. The price is way too high for something that's little more than a JXD with a Pollux in it, and even if someone who wrote a game one time doesn't like Emulators, it doesn't mean consumers don't. Lets face it, most homebrew games aren't worth buying a console for, and certainly not for a homebrew game they've never played.
 
People keep forgetting the MASSIVE difference between the JXD and GP2X/Wiz etc is the openness/SDK and the large community.

If the GP2X was released without any facility for people to create their own programs/games/emulators and they could only use the builtin movie/picture/ebook player and maybe had a few basic homebrew games it would had died shortly after its release.

I am also sure if the JXD was released (and naturally still produced) with a good SDK, there would be a good community for that and it would be selling well. I know quite a few devs from here were very interested in the JXD but it died to death because they stopped producing it and that sanded chip etc.

I am probably one of those people devs hate, I am very keen on emulators and not so keen on homebrew. I see the Wiz as an ideal device for emulation. I am sorry :p
 
Okay, firstly I don't believe GPH have ever stated that they're are aiming for a solely homebrew console, what they have done is involve homebrew devs so that they can ship the console with a nice bunch of pre-installed games. They even mention emulation at least twice in the flyer featured in the first post of this topic so they aren't anti emulation, nor for that matter am I (it was one of the reasons I bought a GP2X afterall), I love emulators and am looking forward to when we have some to play on the Wiz which I'm sure won't take too long. The only really different thing GPH is trying to do this time is actively encourage development of new indie commercial games for the system which I think should be applauded.
 
Orkie said:
craigix said:
I don't understand why all this emulator hate is being thrown about - it is what got them where they are.
Because it has been building amongst the developer community for a while now, and this is a convenient place for people to start venting it :p.

Personally, I don't think that homebrew sells lots of machines. Equally, I don't think that emulators do. They are both incredibly small markets and the only way an open source game machine can really do well is if all the Linux fans latch onto it and start playing. It is these people who also have lots of money.Linux fans / lots of money? Curious why you think that. One group of people that become Linux fans are those that don't like to keep paying for OSes and software for every little thing. Surely GP2X didn't sell mostly because of Linux?
 
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craigix said:
Actually Sam, didn't ports and emulators bring you to the GP32/2X in the first place?
I bought the GP32 as I was 13 or 14 and saw it on Gamezville and I bought it for the premise of playing free games, homebrew or emulated. I also bought it as they said anyone could develop for it :).
 
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Peter R said:
craigix said:
Actually Sam, didn't ports and emulators bring you to the GP32/2X in the first place?
I bought the GP32 as I was 13 or 14 and saw it on Gamezville and I bought it for the premise of playing free games, homebrew or emulated. I also bought it as they said anyone could develop for it :).


You should sue.
 
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I bought GP2X instead of canceled XGP mini I wanted. Hopefully I never had a game console before gp2x so "emulation" word doesn't ring any bells to me.

Now with Wiz all my fetish homepornbrew dreams may come true.
 
TaG said:
Linux fans / lots of money? Curious why you think that.
Because they do for the most part have better paid jobs than the average person, and they keep buying stuff like the Nokia Internet tablets and that open source phone - both of which cost a fortune.
 
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How about the GP32? Are you going to blame its success of some vague link to Linux too? I'd imagine that it'd be slightly more difficult...
 
What success? It sold 30k units... I am not saying these things have been successful, quite the opposite in fact. Though the GP2X is doing reasonably well thanks to Voca Master. All I am saying is, the only way I can see for any of these machines to *gain* success is for the Linux fanatics to all jump on it.
 
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