No Fungp .. No Shocker There

[klikklak]

Enough with the bashing, look at the competition. If anything's for sure, it's that china will produce handhelds like the dingoo with slightly revised hardware for the next years market. GPH does it what it does, releases hardware and hopes for the best. Not so different from anything else (and no, imaginary consoles don't count). The fact that GPH doesn't manage to do the things Streak pointed out is par for the course, when compared to dingoo and the likes.

 

[DaveC]

This is true, which I found rather odd. Doesn't the community love the OLED screen? I think its great and I've seen many other threads also praising the screen. I would find it very peculiar if they go back to LCD

CHEAP! They want to go on the cheap I would bet. LCDs are cheaper than dirt. They saw how popular the dingoo got because it was so cheap so now they want a cheap one too to compete on the low end bit-bucket handhelds market.

This may mean it will not be as nice as the Wiz with a cheap LCD and who knows what else (less RAM?) but at least it would keep people from moaning about the cost.

 

[streak]

I think its not about "cheapness". Of course it counts but for us retro-freaks CPU power counts aswell. Isnt be double fail for GPH to create console/handheld similiar to WIZ's CPU and RAM? 500Mhz isnt enough now [ for example for full speed PSX emulator ] and people know it.

They should really think about what market they're targetting! Us [retro lovers] or mass-consumers, and then prepare the handheld. Its the main f*in difference. Dingoo was created for mass consumer [ for exmple: not replecable battery tell us about it ], but has been adopted as our own toy .

 

[Dunny]

Enough with the bashing, look at the competition. If anything's for sure, it's that china will produce handhelds like the dingoo with slightly revised hardware for the next years market. GPH does it what it does, releases hardware and hopes for the best.

They release sub-par hardware and software, and hope for the best? Sounds about right.

Not so different from anything else (and no, imaginary consoles don't count).

Imaginary consoles? which ones would they be?

The fact that GPH doesn't manage to do the things Streak pointed out is par for the course, when compared to dingoo and the likes.

Except that Dingoo didn't promise a coding compo, or other prize-based incentives to buy the thing in the first place. GPH did, and failed to deliver.

D.

 

[klikklak]

The Wiz isn't subpar. It's ok, pretty good actually. Again compared to other handhelds of similar type, I think it's got good build quality and some parts that are just excellent like the screen. With imaginary consoles, I meant that you can't judge by comparing with the pandora, because that's not out yet and remains to be seen how good it actually is. So saying that "with an ideal console, this wouldn't happen", doesn't mean much because we don't have an ideal console nor has the pandora been released yet so we don't know if we ever will have an 'ideal' console.

So your argument boils down to "GPH tried, but failed". That's supposedly better than not trying or giving a damn. Yes, it might be more honest to not do anything, than do it halfarsed, but seriously that's not really enough to hate a company. They did do something, they managed more retail channels this time and they opened a services center in germany. Not very sexy, but good groundwork for a company.

 

[Dunny]

I'd say that Dingoo managed far more, having promised less - thus, they didn't fail to deliver. GPH promise much but achieve little. The relatively small uptake of the Wiz by devs pretty much proves that they've screwed up again.

I had really high hopes for the Wiz - they seemed to take onboard all the criticisms of the GP2X and seemed to be moving to fix them. You know, the USB issues, the memory contention, the rather useless second processor et al. And then they did it all over again, and actually included even more issues this time around. I bought the '2x based on the hype that people layered onto it; I'm very glad I didn't do that this time.

D.

 

[klikklak]

What exactly did dingoo manage? It's cheap and has gaming controls. What else is there? Dingux wasn't done by gemei, they didn't stop it, which is good. They managed some programmer utilities, which are essential and yes, this is a very good thing. The wiz has mostly caught up with gadget_eth as far as I know. But seriously, the differences aren't that big.

 

[bnolsen]

What exactly did dingoo manage? It's cheap and has gaming controls. What else is there? Dingux wasn't done by gemei, they didn't stop it, which is good. They managed some programmer utilities, which are essential and yes, this is a very good thing. The wiz has mostly caught up with gadget_eth as far as I know. But seriously, the differences aren't that big.

There *is* a programming contest for dingo...native firmware.

http://dingoo-digital.com/forums/developers-corner/calling-all-native-os-developers-its-contest-time

So yeah, dingoo didn't promise anything but seems to have delivered on the Wiz promises more than the Wiz itself has.

Also a comment about the OLED.
I've never had a problem with the DS or the PSP's screen, neither of which are OLED. I just don't see being able to charge a premium for it. It's not like the jump from LCD to OLED is nearly as big as the jump from non backlit to backlit (which IMHO was HUGE and worth paying a premium for).

 

[DrPreston]

Isn't the new console next year just a refresh of the wiz?
I was under the impression that it was going to be a wiz with a bigger screen, which wouldn't surprise me. All the other major handheld manufacturers refresh every year (NDS, PSP, iPhone, iPod) and nobody cares, so why get upset when GPH does the same thing?

[End Devils Advocate]

That said, I wish they put more effort into supporting the wiz like they promised.

 

[Exophase]

Isn't the new console next year just a refresh of the wiz?
I was under the impression that it was going to be a wiz with a bigger screen, which wouldn't surprise me. All the other major handheld manufacturers refresh every year (NDS, PSP, iPhone, iPod) and nobody cares, so why get upset when GPH does the same thing?

[End Devils Advocate]

That said, I wish they put more effort into supporting the wiz like they promised.

I doubt it. Abandoning the display technology at least makes it more than a refresh, IMO.

The thing you have to understand about these platforms is that their design is not controlled in the same way a handheld by Nintendo is. They can't just spin a revision of the chipset that maintains backwards compatibility, but instead are at the mercy of whoever designed the old and new SoCs being used. GPH also doesn't control and abstract software development (nor have they done a very good job in trying to do so) like a platform like iPhone does, so they can't maintain compatibility that way either. That and they're better off dropping the Magic Eyes chips, because they're just not worth the few dollars saved.

The big companies also don't instantly drop support for their previous incarnations. GPH dropped GP2X like a stone and didn't include compatibility in Wiz, so I wouldn't be hopeful about their next platform.

 

[DrPreston]

The Nintendo DS is getting a new, bigger screen next year.

The gameboy advance went through 3 major screen changes during its run

Original GBA no lighting
GBA SP front lighting
GBA SP r2 back lighting
Gameboy micro shrunk

 

[Dunny]

The Nintendo DS is getting a new, bigger screen next year.

The gameboy advance went through 3 major screen changes during its run

Original GBA no lighting
GBA SP front lighting
GBA SP r2 back lighting
Gameboy micro shrunk

And it's getting quite a bit bigger, too. Still, I suppose that means more business for the carrycase manufacturers

And those that make pockets in trousers.

D.

 

[Jan-Nik]

Isn't the new console next year just a refresh of the wiz?
I was under the impression that it was going to be a wiz with a bigger screen, which wouldn't surprise me. All the other major handheld manufacturers refresh every year (NDS, PSP, iPhone, iPod) and nobody cares, so why get upset when GPH does the same thing?

Refreshing the Wiz would be a clever thing. I don't think GPH would do that. They rather do something really stupid like announcing a complete new console which is supposed to be better then Nintendo. You know, most of the Wiz games are already better then the ones for Nintendo DS and PSP (according to GPH). There will also be a coding competition with a budget of 1 million dollar. And an Apple-like Appstore.

Have a look at this: http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/237/gphsucks.png
It's so ridiculous, I can't understand how you can actually NOT hate them.

 

[Exophase]

So long as GPH keeps making Wiz's we can all make the best of the platform and hopefully revitalize it.

Big if, I know.

 

[sam fisher]

So long as GPH keeps making Wiz's we can all make the best of the platform and hopefully revitalize it.

Big if, I know.

As far as I know GPH have not yet mentioned dropping Wiz production have they? Just that they are going to make another system aswell - which is not neccessarily a bad thing.

 

[Chip]

Just that they are going to make another system aswell

Nintendo did the same thing with the GBA models. The original and SP co-existed for at least a year or two before they discontinued the original. The SP and Micro, likewise. As long as the two Wiz models are totally compatible, it would be a smart move to keep selling both. The only thing that would trip them up is if there was some small but vital difference - like the display orientation - that meant everybody would have to compile two separate versions of every program.

 

[quartercast]

How do you know its going to be another Wiz?

 

[Ghanji]

It's so ridiculous, I can't understand how you can actually NOT hate them.

I can´t understand whats the point in ranting like u do.... Does it make you feel better?
Was it GPH that made the FX00 quite a success? No, it was the open-source community!
I didn´t expect anything from GPH, so I´m neither dissapointed nor do I have to hate them!

So long as GPH keeps making Wiz's we can all make the best of the platform and hopefully revitalize it.

Big if, I know.

QFT!

 

[Jan-Nik]

I can´t understand whats the point in ranting like u do.... Does it make you feel better?
Was it GPH that made the FX00 quite a success? No, it was the open-source community!
I didn´t expect anything from GPH, so I´m neither dissapointed nor do I have to hate them!

Well I did except those commercial games to be released. But I was disappointed. I expected that the Wiz would be released in February. But I was disappointed. I expected that there would be a SDK. But I was disappointed. I expected that the FunGP would be released this year. But I was disappointed. And most of all I didn't expect them to announce a new console when the Wiz isn't even one year old. Can you understand why I hate them?

 

[Dunny]

As long as the two Wiz models are totally compatible, it would be a smart move to keep selling both. The only thing that would trip them up is if there was some small but vital difference - like the display orientation.

This is GPH. They might actually do this.

D.