Orkie
Super Duper Mega GP Mania
Any clone will share the same communityCongoZombie said:
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Open? Questions
- Thread starter jlebrech
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randomhack
Guest
Right. Pandora will hopefully have a good community and one that will be focused mostly on gaming. And thats a good thing. My intention was only to point out that the community for tablets is well and developing too and it does include a lot of devs but it isnt the same crowd as GP2x or Pandora and gaming is usually not very high on the list of the tablet ppl.CongoZombie said:
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goobers
Member
Yeah, I agree. The best part of the community here is that development will be done for one specific device, so all software will work on all Pandoras out of the box. I just hope that the community won't just be focussed on emulators (I fear that this will be the only reason that a lot of people will get the Pandora) and we'll see a lot of good homebrew stuff
_VWV_
Member
... or offer the same functionality for about the same sum of money + a well recognizable logo like Nokia or Sony. The majority will be ready to pay even a bit more for the same features offered buy a big fish like Nokia. Brand is also a feature from the marketing point of view.Chip said:
First, Pandora is not out yet, that is why we can't compare it with existing devices. We haven't seen a real prototype of the Pandora yet.Chip said:
My example with the n800/n810 was actually about the fact that Moore’s law doesn't work here its marketing policy which estimates the price. Remember that the n800 and n810 are essentially identical from the hardware point of view. They share the same soc. So why does the n810 cost more? I think it's because the n810 is in premium segment and the n800 is in mainstream segment. I doubt there manufacturing costs differ significantly. I think that Nokia sets the price for the premium segment and it doesn’t matter what model is sold as a premium model, the price will be the same. The n800 used to cost the about the same as the n810 costs now.
Secondly, I think it would be fare to pay extra 75$ for Bluetooth and GPS in the n900 (which we can expect to be present, according to the n810 specs).
The Pandora is a UMPC for me. A desktop replacement available on the go. If another device like the n900 or a moderately priced MID has the same features (like movies, office, browsing..) then it's a competitor for the Pandora. Price matters a lot for me and I will buy the Pandora because: 1. it is going to be a bit cheaper than its competitors and 2. I like the community here and would like to support it. And as Craig said the best way to do it is to buy a device
. But on the other hand I do realize that open source means nothing for the majority and most people will prefer a competitor though it will be a bit higher priced. My idea is that Nokia could have made a clone of the Pandora for about the same price (higher margin would have been compensated by mass-production bonus) but it won’t because people will buy the n900 any way .
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Svartalf
Active Member
The biggest problem with that would be that the Blackfin wouldn't HAVE the GPU. Those of us that're planning game ports are aiming high, based off of what the machine'll be capable of. Without a GPU, it's not a Pandora.icurafu said:
That's more because the gaming controls are nil on an N800. What there is in functionality dictates what you can/can't practically do. Majesty would be doable. Creatures3 for Linux might be doable if it'll fit in the mem profile. If it had workable 3D, something like Mindrover would also be doable. There's no good, practical way for something like Soul Ride, Ballistics, or Bandits to be done for the N800/N810, even if they had the 3D in a usable state from out of the OMAP2 parts they're using.randomhack said:
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Svartalf
Active Member
Heh... The reality is: the N800/N810 are really close to what I'd envisioned for a Pandora type device back when the N800 came out. Because of design decisions, the N8x0 series devices do not have ES 1.x capability because turning it on would be a 3D decellerator- so no fixed functionality path OpenGL apps._VWV_ said:My idea is that Nokia could have made a clone of the Pandora for about the same price (higher margin would have been compensated by mass-production bonus) but it won’t because people will buy the n900 any way
And, while people are saying the devices (N800 vs. N810) are intrinsically similar, they're not quite. GPS and the integrated keyboard raise the price a bit (though not as much as the price delta between the models...)- and the realization that an N900 just as easily as not could be a Pandora with GPS, WiFi/WiMax, and Bluetooth comes immediately to mind. For that $400 pricepoint. This is because at the volume pricing, doing all of that would be what they're looking for- but it'd be with a more "slick and sophisticated" slide down keyboard instead of a clamshell.
Not that they will probably see it that way, though. It'll depend more on what we do here on the Pandora- NGage may end up being stillborn as it's been all along. They're gunning for the wrong design idea with that one. Maemo and N8xx/N9xx is more what they need to think of. Think mobile computing device THEN add phone functionality that's directly usable from it- not the other way around. As for licensing it... Heh... All that the Pandora has over anything else is that it's the first UMPC designed with gaming in mind- and it's with all off the shelf parts and software that's largely open sourced. What is there to license?
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Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
Pandora has WiFi. It also has gaming controls. I'd be shocked if any Nokia tablet adds real gaming controls anytime soon. In fact, no UMPCs or internet tablets seem to be getting gaming controls.Svartalf said:
I'm getting the feeling that a lot of people posting about it lately don't care about the gaming aspect at all, but it still sets it apart significantly from pretty much any other device like this.
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Svartalf
Active Member
Believe me. I DO care.Exophase said:
It's the best of BOTH worlds, really, in a single package. I WANT- seriously want it.And I wasn't intimating that it wasn't going to have WiFi- but WiMax is one of the directions I believe they're taking the N8x0 series devices, in addition to WiFi. Turn it into a Sprint 4G smartphone, type thing. It wouldn't take much on their part to make it that way.
The reason why Nokia probably won't be doing it will have less to do with what people think- I suspect Nokia got burned pretty badly on the NGage because it bridged two worlds POORLY. Not because it can't be or that a Pandora-like machine isn't in their business plan- it's because the NGage did so poorly.
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Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
Svartalf said:Believe me. I DO care.Exophase said:
And I wasn't intimating that it wasn't going to have WiFi- but WiMax is one of the directions I believe they're taking the N8x0 series devices, in addition to WiFi. Turn it into a Sprint 4G smartphone, type thing. It wouldn't take much on their part to make it that way.
The reason why Nokia probably won't be doing it will have less to do with what people think- I suspect Nokia got burned pretty badly on the NGage because it bridged two worlds POORLY. Not because it can't be or that a Pandora-like machine isn't in their business plan- it's because the NGage did so poorly.
That makes sense.
I'm actually wondering why no one at all is really doing it. I guess for most to be viable as a gaming platform you need a lot of commercial support, and companies won't outright rely on emulators from the start (unless they're Chinese PMP makers).
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Svartalf
Active Member
Well... If I hadn't have had a drag on my finances like I've had over 11 years prior to this time last year, I'd have probably done something like it. I know the idea, including what they're doing, has been percolating in my head ever since I found out that TI had licensed tech for ES 1.x rendering in the OMAP2 when I was working as a contractor for them doing the diagnostic and calibration software for their MIPS based SOC for DSL routers and bridges.Exophase said:
The biggest problem lies in what Alex St. John intimated- consoles, whether they are hand-held or home unit, are intrinsically DRM for game titles. You've already twigged onto it for the most part. Now... If, say, a UMPC (for which that is it's primary purpose and either included something like gaming controls or a snap-on that wouldn't break, etc. that provided the same- you might have a winner and have some commercial interests interested. But, again, they're not thinking in those terms, or they're thinking they'll get too closely compared with the hand-held consoles of that era and not get any serious hand-held sales in the main market... So you won't get just anyone doing it either. We're just a bunch of nutballs, really, that are trying to forge a community around common hardware and lever up an ecosystem much like the OS we're using on it did with itself.
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