Is There Any Plan To Have Commercial Games On Pandora Like Gp32 And Zo

[renejr902]

Is there any plan to have commercial games on pandora like gp32 and zodiac

the spec are so strong, the games can be great.

i know that getting EA to do games seem unrealistic,

but how much pandora must be sold to have support for some commercial game

i hope my question is clear

( my english is not always great)

 

[plopperz]

I would expect that some homebrewer would make a large game and sell it. Unless the makers of Payback decide to port it to the Pandora, I wouldn't expect any major commerial games.

 

[sindbad]

If you (or someone else) can convince the big players that it's easy to port games, they might actually do it. But that's quite unlikely.

 

[renejr902]

i have the feeling this handheld will become very popular. im rarely interested at a handheld like this one at the first months. its seem to have a lot of potential. i think in a few years they can have sold more than 500 000 units if all developer give themselves in homebrew. and if they can sold that in standard market. so maybe in a few years we will have a few port from different big players ( like EA, capcom or sega...)

all i said is best future possible, but i know it cant be completely wrong.

i bought a gp32 blu because it was great at the time
i bought a zodiac for it gaming and pda ability.
But i didnt bought a gp2x because i didnt find it much faster than the original gp32. and no pda ability
But this one the PANDORA will kick ass for sure. i read the psx thread and im very impressed. i read most thread on the forum.
so nothing cant be impossible with this handheld. ( except gc, xbox, ps2, ps3 emu with good speed LOL)

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

too much hype, too little anti-piracy strategy. this thing is certainly not prepared for real commercial games, I don't believe this is even a focus of the project (unlike the Zodiac, which you could experience).
Too bad, because this has what it takes to appeal for the masses, so commercial games (when ea, capcom or sega... get interested) would be a great addition.

 

[Miliardo]

It's an attractive idea.

There should be an "offical standard" OS or firmware/environment in order to solve the compatibility problems because the commercial developers will not open source to make it possible for user to port it. It's important a mature gaming platform.

And developers should provide the possiblity for publishers to protect their software from being illegal copied, and provide a dedicated media in a reasonable price for distribution.(Something like a kind of SD Card with physical encrypt?)

First of all, I think the drivers and SDKs should be completed ASAP.

 

[Gilrad]

I imagine if a company wanted to go out of their way to release games for the Pandora, they could implement some sort of remote-checked serial key function. It's a lot of work, but with how small the Pandora's audience is, I doubt somebody would bother to crack it.

 

[Vorporeal]

Chances are that there will be homebrewers who write programs for Windows/Linux using OpenGL and would be willing to transfer their code over to OpenGL ES 2.0, or have some well-known community dev do it for them.

 

[Miliardo]

In fact, I'm attracted by the Pandora. But I'm not a real commercial developer though we're planning to sell our product legally.

I'd like to try to develop and release games on it, if it becomes popular in East Asia.

Typical free software could have income by recieving donation and selling services, while the development of a game needs many investment on creating media contents - which is impossible to even recover the cost by these way.

It's very hard for a commercial group to live if they only made fully free games, even community-friendly companys like ID Software can only open their source code without any media contents after the technology lost their commercial value. Free games by hackers may have a good gameplay or technology. But most of them are lack of media contents and expressive power. I'm a supporter of free software, but I think commercial games may show the value of the platform easier and popularize it further.

PS, I think it had better to have a try on reducing the cost and price of the device, so more people can own it, if possible. The base numbers of users affects the income of the developers, and the income determined their investment on the platform.

Well, it may be hard to complete the copy protection system while keeping the system open.
And openness is more important then protection system for Pandora.

 

[Karel Jansens]

And developers should provide the possiblity for publishers to protect their software from being illegal copied, and provide a dedicated media in a reasonable price for distribution.(Something like a kind of SD Card with physical encrypt?)

Isn't there some kind of DRM already built into the firmware of SD cards (which, in fact, is why they're called "Secure Digital" cards)? With prices of <4GB cards falling to almost ridiculous levels, it's not unimagineable for a commercial developer to use "locked up" SD cards as the physical medium.

Of course, a lot depends on how quickly the first 3,000 units will be sold out. If it's in less than two weeks, count on some serious attention from developer houses.

 

[Vorporeal]

The two major commercial games for the GP2X - Vektar and Payback - were released on SD cards.

 

[Miliardo]

Isn't there some kind of DRM already built into the firmware of SD cards (which, in fact, is why they're called "Secure Digital" cards)? With prices of <4GB cards falling to almost ridiculous levels, it's not unimagineable for a commercial developer to use "locked up" SD cards as the physical medium.

Of course, a lot depends on how quickly the first 3,000 units will be sold out. If it's in less than two weeks, count on some serious attention from developer houses.

DRM Technologies used in SD is patent-protected so it's hard to support for open source systems and small developers.

Well, I think it's possible to signature the contents with SD Card's ID, or the ID of the Pandora Console itself (e.g.the serial of console or the MAC address) for downloadable contents. But these measures could be easily to crack, especially if it comes without a unanalysable hardware support.

 

[Vorporeal]

One of the ways I could see commercial games like that be possible is if, when ordering the game, you provided the developer with the serial number of your console, and they included code in the game that would check to see if the serial number of the console you were running the game on matched the serial number compiled into the software. It wouldn't be too difficult, I don't think - just change a #define at the top of the source. Re-compiling the source every time someone bought the game wouldn't be too fun though.

 

[Tinnus]

It wouldn't be too difficult, I don't think - just change a #define at the top of the source.

And easily crackable too. Anyone could then hex-edit the executable to check for another key although something along these lines could be developed with a little more thought. But the biggest problem is that, the system being open, one could patch the OS/firmware/hardware to return different "unit serial" numbers. It's very easy to change the MAC address reported by the OS for example, so you just run the game inside a script that pathes the network stuff to return the right MAC.

 

[renejr902]

lol i will play with the psx emu instead. its seem really not possible from your thoughts, anyway only a little hope.

anyway psx emu ROCKS !!! cant wait to try it

 

[christo930]

It's an attractive idea.

There should be an "offical standard" OS or firmware/environment in order to solve the compatibility problems because the commercial developers will not open source to make it possible for user to port it. It's important a mature gaming platform.

And developers should provide the possiblity for publishers to protect their software from being illegal copied, and provide a dedicated media in a reasonable price for distribution.(Something like a kind of SD Card with physical encrypt?)

First of all, I think the drivers and SDKs should be completed ASAP.

Isn't "secure digital" secure? I'm not well versed in SD security, but I thought that was the purpose of SD in the first place, to have security built into the card for security. Presumably, the Pandora would have to support the secure part and probably have to license the security. This is just a guess though.

Chris

One of the ways I could see commercial games like that be possible is if, when ordering the game, you provided the developer with the serial number of your console, and they included code in the game that would check to see if the serial number of the console you were running the game on matched the serial number compiled into the software. It wouldn't be too difficult, I don't think - just change a #define at the top of the source. Re-compiling the source every time someone bought the game wouldn't be too fun though.

What would happen if the users machine failed and had to be replaced?

Chris

 

[Tinnus]

What would happen if the users machine failed and had to be replaced?

The user would contact the developer explaining the situation and giving the original order details and his new serial number. Of course good sense would limit the times someone could do that.

 

[ashadocat]

or he could flash his new pandora with the old ones serial.

 

[PSyMastR]

I think that encrypted SD cards would be a better option instead of linking the game to the console's serial number. Plus, with 2 SD card slots, you could have a commercial game in S2 and your homebrew/other stuff SD in S1

 

[Chip]

DRM is ta best a hassle and at worst a complete failure on all other platforms. Why are we trying to figure out a way to create unnecessary restrictions on an open system? Do you really think that saying "Look! We have DRM!" is enough to convince a major software house to port their product to the Pandora platform?

Any DRM scheme will be broken eventually. Several years and millions of dollars were spent creating the "unbreakable" AACS and BD+ copy protection systems. They were both cracked within months of release. Those who are predisposed to pirating software will find a way to do it no matter what.

If you want to commercially distribute games on the Pandora (or any system), you will have to accept the fact that some people are going to use your product without paying for it. The best way to minimize this is not to treat all your customers like potential thieves. Instead, give people a reason to support you and your software. Accept that users have the option of paying or not paying and give them a reason to want to pay.