Pandora And Gph?

[Poem58]

I also find it funny that while Nintendo surpassed Atari in the idea of the video game visionaries, the they made a similar mistake years later thinking (We don't need that Sony CD Drive Add-on for the SNES) which became the PlayStation. Sometimes, even seeing others mistakes and benefiting from them cannot keep you from repeating it. That had the potential to end their gaming run just like Nintendo ultimately did to Atari (Arguably Atari destroyed Atari).

Despite this error, they have continued to think out of the box, and continued to prosper. So sometimes a mistake can be overcome anyway. Atari had it's chances to overcome the NES error. Just too many people who didn't understand the whole idea around gaming and it's potential had control. Then it was too little too late.

Nintendo kept innovating in a manner where technically superior handhelds could not dethrone the game-boy/DS lines and even the power of the PS3 couldn't smash the Wii, although around the time of Gamecube and PS2 it was looking like the tide had turned. But once again, the innovators went to work.

This is why something like the Pandora with all it's problems getting out of the gate still has far more upside. If all goes well, we'll be ordering our Pandora 2's and still watching GPH try to make yet another almost there device. I only base this on the fact that the Pandora is the most costly of the GP32-Gp2x/Wiz devices and yet it was the first one that "got it" for me to actually want to go through the effort of ordering. So much so I was willing to wait even when they had the Wiz available to get RIGHT NOW.

So it seems to me OP has done something really right cause is there anyone who would have waited 2 prepaid years for a Wiz? I'm thinking as much as we have seen complaints about waits as it is, not many would hang on that long for anything else. I know I sure wouldn't have (heck, I've stayed in longer than my absolute latest deadline by nearly 6 months now...lol) I KNOW there's nothing else aside from a Kidney or Liver I'd wait for that long!

 

[neko]

IIRC, Craigix suggested to them to use a S5PC100. Maybe that was out of their price range.

We just wanted to use the GP2X soc or the MMSP2+. We never suggested another chipset to them when we met them, but we did ask about the 266mhz version of the MMSP2 (they used the 200mhz one). The Pandora at that time would have just been a low resolution device without nubs.

Sorry, I guess I misinterpreted your prior comments, and thought you had suggested they use a CortexA8.

It would not surprise me if they did have a CortexA8 in it.

 

[Jumpman]

I also find it funny that while Nintendo surpassed Atari in the idea of the video game visionaries, the they made a similar mistake years later thinking (We don't need that Sony CD Drive Add-on for the SNES) which became the PlayStation. Sometimes, even seeing others mistakes and benefiting from them cannot keep you from repeating it. That had the potential to end their gaming run just like Nintendo ultimately did to Atari (Arguably Atari destroyed Atari).

I completely agree with this statment, and I personally refer to it as "BIG HEAD" syndrome! Atari had it, then Nintendo had it, and Sony had it with the PS3. A compaany begins to believe their own hype, and that they can do no wrong no matter what business choices they make.

Atari was bought out by coperate america, and they just saw Atari as a means to an end, and really had no clue in regards to running a creative video game company!

Nintendo's creative R&D(Miyamoto San was one of the reasons they stayed with cartridges)didn't like the idea of CD's as a viable storage medium for games, and even though 90% of their 3rd parties wanted to move in that direction, Nintendo said "Fuck You", we know best and really don't think cartridge has ran it's course. So they split with Sony, and made the N64 which was a nice console, but had almost zero support from the same industry that made the NES & SNES two of the greatest consoles of all time. Square was their biggest 3rd party support on both systems, and they said we want CD, and if you don't like it, we will go with who does. Square and Nintendo just recently baried the hatchet over that battle. Sony was like, Hell yeah, we'll do whatever you want, we just want companies to make games for our fledging console.

Lastly, Sony had 2 super successful generations at the top(PS1 and PS2), and thought their shit didn't stink. So they thought we can charge anything for the PS3, and consumers will pay. They found out the same way Atari and Nintendo did, the consumer & 3rd parties have the final say in what will be bought and supported.

Sadly I think GPH has this same "Big Head" syndrome, and I really believe they are about to get a big wake up call from the open source community, but you never know! Anything can happen in the future!

Chris

 

[rv6502]

This is why something like the Pandora with all it's problems getting out of the gate still has far more upside. If all goes well, we'll be ordering our Pandora 2's and still watching GPH try to make yet another almost there device. I only base this on the fact that the Pandora is the most costly of the GP32-Gp2x/Wiz devices and yet it was the first one that "got it" for me to actually want to go through the effort of ordering. So much so I was willing to wait even when they had the Wiz available to get RIGHT NOW.

foreword before the flaming starts: I do not think OPT is wrong, I wouldn't have ordered a Pandora if I did, what I'm saying is GPH understand their market which is different from OPT.

in this forum's niche market (ppl who want to dev games on a powerfull handheld, ppl who want a pico computer, ppl who wants a powerful emulation platform, all with kb, game ctrl, wifi, bluetooth, usb, massive storage with 2 sd cards) the Pandora is right on and GPH is off by a good amount.

but for any customers who doesn't understand this, GPH is right on with its much cheaper price.
even tho the GameGear was a much better device (the GG ate batteries, but customers (parents) didn't know that before buying it), price easily won over even with the GB's crappy ghosting green LCD (plus it had Mario)

I think GPH understand their market, its just not quite the same as the Pandora.
I wouldn't be surprised if GPH made decent sales in Asia, even excluding the geek market.

a lot of ppl wouldn't think twice choosing between a ~150$ Wiz and a ~400$ Pandora.

specially with wording like "Ram size is now 64MB and has 1GB of internal memory" ..
customer's reaction: "OMG!!1! 1GB of memory!!! and the other one only has 256MB!!"

(yes I know its internal flash, but GPH's market doesn't)

its not GPH but the Dingoo A330 at $109.99 with 4 GB flash memory (and looks so very much like a PSP its hilarious) must get excellent sales too.

EDIT: removed pandora's name from the sarcasm quote so google wouldn't display that out of context.

 

[maplesugarlover]

The pandora costs $349 not $400.

 

[DaveC]

Why do people hate on the Gizmondo so much? The community for it, while small and undernourished, is actually quite cool. A lot of Windows CE stuff got ported - hacked firmwares etc. It was/is a nice little scene.

Because the Giz is pure crap. I bought one cheap to try it out. I still have it but never use it. Some of the issues: shit D-pad, long boot, long shut-down, shit battery life, small low-contrast screen with interlace and scan-lines, lousy menu system (do you still have to exit apps to change volume?), poor performance despite high clock speed. The GPS didn't do much for me, neither did a camera.

 

[quadomatic]

Why do people hate on the Gizmondo so much? The community for it, while small and undernourished, is actually quite cool. A lot of Windows CE stuff got ported - hacked firmwares etc. It was/is a nice little scene.

Because the Giz is pure crap. I bought one cheap to try it out. I still have it but never use it. Some of the issues: shit D-pad, long boot, long shut-down, shit battery life, small low-contrast screen with interlace and scan-lines, lousy menu system (do you still have to exit apps to change volume?). The GPS didn't do much for me, neither did a camera.

I think most people probably hate on it because Tiger Telematics seemed to offer so much, when in fact the whole thing was an elaborate ruse.

 

[Nova]

specially with wording like "Ram size is now 64MB and has 1GB of internal memory" ..
customer's reaction: "OMG!!1! 1GB of memory!!! and the other one only has 256MB!!"

(yes I know its internal flash, but GPH's market doesn't)

Oh, I do love a good stereotype.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Why do people hate on the Gizmondo so much? The community for it, while small and undernourished, is actually quite cool. A lot of Windows CE stuff got ported - hacked firmwares etc. It was/is a nice little scene.

Because the Giz is pure crap. I bought one cheap to try it out. I still have it but never use it. Some of the issues: shit D-pad, long boot, long shut-down, shit battery life, small low-contrast screen with interlace and scan-lines, lousy menu system (do you still have to exit apps to change volume?), poor performance despite high clock speed. The GPS didn't do much for me, neither did a camera.

Take the following with a pinch of salt, but:

Shit Dpad - Better than the GP2X. Doesn't clack on diagonals like your uh... Pandora one.

Long Boot - Yeah, true.

Shit Battery Life - True.

Small screen - Doesn't bother me. Same size as the Wiz IIRC.

Low contrast - True, but it's more like playing a console on a different television. It's not a deal breaker for me.

Interlace and scanlines - Seems less noticable than the GP2X.

Lousy Menu - You can run a Giz version of Gmenu2X now.

Crap performance - Yeah, but it runs Picodrive as well as the GP2X. Other stuff too.

GPS - Yeah, fairly pointless.

Camera - Crappy quality camera, true.

Further plusses over the Pandora: The case is far more sturdy and doesn't creak anywhere. The shoulder buttons are better.

Let the flaming commence! At the end of the day, they are worth the £30-£40 price they are going for these days. I wouldn't pay any more than that for one though.

 

[Exophase]

I defy you to find a d-pad that is not better than the GP2X F100 stick. The only thing worse than a GP2X stick is a broken GP2X stick. (sadly right now I'm willing to say the same thing about Pandora's shoulders, I've never encountered ones this bad :/ although it probably varies a lot from unit to unit right now)

If your GP2X F100 has noticible scanlines and it's not an MK1 (I hope you didn't buy an MK1, tell me you didn't buy an MK1) then chances are that it's a configuration problem - there are some bias values you can change somewhere that are supposed to fix this. I really wish I could help you more but I only remember hearing about it at some point (iirc from Orkie) and never did anything about it. My first GP2X has noticeable interlacing and my second GP2X does not, obviously they're the same screen so you can see what I said makes sense. Hopefully someone else can provide more information on this because I certainly can't be arsed to go searching for it.

The biggest problem with Gizmondo is probably that people don't really want to use them. At least stuff released for say, Wiz, has some chance of being backported to GP2X. The odds of seeing pcsx4all on GP2X are probably higher than seeing it on Giz. What would have been nice is to see more homebrew using the Giz's 3D. Does Giz really seriously have much of a community? Last I checked out those forums they were pretty damn quiet.

 

[SomeGuy99]

If your GP2X F100 has noticible scanlines and it's not an MK1 (I hope you didn't buy an MK1, tell me you didn't buy an MK1)

It is a MK1

But it was given to me for free. The scanlines don't really bother me that much TBH. I'm more bothered by the ghosting on the Pandora for example.

The biggest problem with Gizmondo is probably that people don't really want to use them. At least stuff released for say, Wiz, has some chance of being backported to GP2X. The odds of seeing pcsx4all on GP2X are probably higher than seeing it on Giz. What would have been nice is to see more homebrew using the Giz's 3D. Does Giz really seriously have much of a community? Last I checked out those forums they were pretty damn quiet.

You could say the same thing about the Dingoo though. The forums for it on here seem pretty dead.

Yeah, the community is fairly starved and only occasionally active. But then the same can be said of other orphaned handhelds.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/justincastle/downloadgizcentral.html

^ There seems to be a fair amount of stuff collected here. Most of it is adapted Windows CE stuff, but why not?

Like I said, for half the price of a Dingoo you can have a nice machine for playing Megadrive games and videos (TCPlayer is pretty good). That's what I used mine for, mostly.

 

[slaeshjag]

I defy you to find a d-pad that is not better than the GP2X F100 stick. The only thing worse than a GP2X stick is a broken GP2X stick. (sadly right now I'm willing to say the same thing about Pandora's shoulders, I've never encountered ones this bad :/ although it probably varies a lot from unit to unit right now)

I don't have a pandora yet, but I don't have any expectations at all for the shoulder buttons (I reckon I'll use them as often as I use those on my Dingoo - never).

Whoever though it was a good idea with tactile switches as buttons on a console should spend a few weeks in a nut house.

 

[Prometheus]

Anecdotal, but the ones on my new Pandora are fine. There isn't any variation between the left and right ones, at least on this one.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Anecdotal, but the ones on my new Pandora are fine. There isn't any variation between the left and right ones, at least on this one.

I agree with Exophase. I don't think they're any good anyway. DaveC said that they used the wrong kind of switch.

But hey, I'm glad you like them. Honestly. I'm not trying to take away enjoyment from anybody

 

[Prometheus]

Oh, I know. I just thought it was worth pointing out that the previous phenomenon of the shoulders not "matching" on individual units may have been eliminated, is all.

 

[rv6502]

specially with wording like "Ram size is now 64MB and has 1GB of internal memory" ..
customer's reaction: "OMG!!1! 1GB of memory!!! and the other one only has 256MB!!"

(yes I know its internal flash, but GPH's market doesn't)

Oh, I do love a good stereotype.

if you've worked in computer retail or tech support you'll know that most people don't know the difference between HDD/SSD space and RAM.
its not a stereotype, its a fact.

and GPH is aiming for that mass market, they are not aiming the hardcore geek.

GPH are aiming for Parents who'll buy the cheap device, but wont be using it (the kids will) so the customers have no idea what they're buying, all they can compare is the price.
not only that, the amount keyboard buttons might even scare them, the might think its too complex for little jimmy.
Macs had only 1 mouse button for so long because complexity scares people.

The pandora costs $349 not $400.

with taxes and shipping it does, and even without its still more than twice as expensive.
ppl will go for the cheap stuff, especially less than half priced.

 

[Nova]

GPH are aiming for Parents who'll buy the cheap device, but wont be using it (the kids will) so the customers have no idea what they're buying, all they can compare is the price.
not only that, the amount keyboard buttons might even scare them, the might think its too complex for little jimmy.

You are generalising A LOT. Parents looking for a console for the kiddywinks will buy a DS, not a little known Korean hacker-friendly console. The people buying from GPH want a homebrew-based console which is pocketable, and which they can have right now. Don't troll.

 

[Exophase]

Anecdotal, but the ones on my new Pandora are fine. There isn't any variation between the left and right ones, at least on this one.

All things considered I ascertain that they're currently probably okay at best and pretty awful at worst, depending on luck. Qualify the statement I made with my opinion that until now I've never used what I would consider bad shoulder buttons, and have been really happy with most of them (seriously this is not something I ever really stopped and thought about). Using my imagination, and comparing the quality of my "good" shoulder with my "bad" one, I expect that even at their best they'd still be the worst shoulders I've ever used, but still beyond "good enough."

It's possible that the unpainted shoulders are universally better than the painted/redrilled ones, even in the best case scenario. Again, using my imagination, I would still expect them to not be world's best shoulders or anything but adequate. Do you know if yours are unpainted?

You could say the same thing about the Dingoo though. The forums for it on here seem pretty dead.

They have their own forums at dingoonity.org.

If you want something cheap there's always the Leapster Didj, if you can find one... not sure what's out for it right now but I know someone is in the process of porting gpSP. Has less face buttons though.

Come to think of it, the Gizmondo's shoulder buttons always looked pretty silly to me too. Are they actually any good?

 

[Prometheus]

Do you know if yours are unpainted?

I really, honestly can't tell. Sorry.

 

[dgame]

..

You could say the same thing about the Dingoo though. The forums for it on here seem pretty dead.

http://dingoo-scene.blogspot.com/