Plans For Commercial Games?

[AnonymousTipster]

The potential of Pandora makes me think that if we were to truly tap the potential out of the system, we could see high-end games that look better than current PSP games.
It is, however, unlikely that a homebrew team can reach these limits (I've certainly not seen any homebrew on the PSP that gets close to real games), but a commercial team would be able to.
It'd be a dream to hope for developers such as EA/Ubisoft (or their subsidiary teams, to be pedantic) to work on games for the system, but potentially smaller developers could see a niche market in the Pandora.
I know that with the GP2X, there were a few commercial titles (such as WWPuzzleBattles), but I'm not sure that the avenue of developing for the console commercially was promoted much.
Potentially, if the Pandora could be made to look like a good commercial investment, teams of developers could bring high end games to the platform, showing the true potential of the device, and hence increasing the saleability of the console itself.

Developers would require documentation of the system and it's APIs, but seeing as it's an open platform, as soon as the community starts making progress, the documentation will already be there, in wikis and whatnot (not to mention a standard OpenGL API).
The only thing that remains is promotion of the system as a commercial opportunity. Possibly, if there was a unified online store for commercial games, then it would show developers the potential, and also offer an opportunity for the best of the homebrewers to make a profit on their projects.

Pros:
Shows strengths of the system
Income for the Pandora team from the online store revenue
Increases saleability of Pandora many times

Cons:
More work
Potential piracy problems


Just a thought.

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi,

I disagree with you on some points:
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It is, however, unlikely that a homebrew team can reach these limits (I've certainly not seen any homebrew on the PSP that gets close to real games), but a commercial team would be able to.


To me, homebrew games are real
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It'd be a dream to hope for developers such as EA/Ubisoft (or their subsidiary teams, to be pedantic) to work on games for the system, but potentially smaller developers could see a niche market in the Pandora.


EA and Ubisoft do crap, period. I rather would like to see people like INTROVERSION developing for the Pandora
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The only thing that remains is promotion of the system as a commercial opportunity. Possibly, if there was a unified online store for commercial games, then it would show developers the potential, and also offer an opportunity for the best of the homebrewers to make a profit on their projects.


I agree with you on this point. Some homebrew games definitely deserve money in return

Bye, Magic Sam

 

[yaustar]

Unless there is a potential large profit margin for a platform, larger companies won't go for it. But as Magic Sam said, I would like to more indie developers like Introversion produce games for this device.

 

[Frogboy]

Now all we need to do is get Square Enix to make a Final Fantasy for Pandora.

 

[Alex.]

I want to see more games from Apex Designs, including a Pandora version of Payback

 

[AnonymousTipster]

QUOTE

To me, homebrew games are real


Yes, I know what you mean, but the quality of a game made by a team working closely together on a commercial product will be higher than the quality of a homebrew title made by just one person, or even a small team working across the internet.

All I mean is that I'd love to see some games that look like this:

Rather than this:

And if we can get the quality of the former in homebrew form, for free, then all the better!
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EA and Ubisoft do crap, period. I rather would like to see people like INTROVERSION developing for the Pandora


True, a lot of the Monolithic Publisher's games are poor and repetitive. As was mentioned, no large publishers will see the benefit of developing for a 'niche' platform. Unfortunately this is a Catch-22 situation, as if a large publisher showed support for the system, it would massively increase media exposure of the system and sales, making it a viable platform. This, alas, is wishful thinking.

It might be possible to get some developers like Introversion onboard, and small time developers are more likely to take on a project like this (as there's no dev kit cost), and are more likely to respond to emails suggesting that they do so.
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I agree with you on this point. Some homebrew games definitely deserve money in return


Yes, it'd be great to provide a download service for good-quality homebrew games to be sold on, and would probably attract more 'novice' programmers to the scene.

QUOTE

I want to see more games from Apex Designs, including a Pandora version of Payback smile.gif


That's the sort of developer that might work for the Pandora.
If the gp2x version of payback was at all profitable for Apex Designs, I expect they'd probably do a Pandora version too.

EDIT:
I was actually just looking at some sales figures.
The GP2X was expected to reach 50000 units sold by Christmas 2006, without any commercial software.
The Gizmondo released with support from EA and Fathammer, launching with 14 commercial titles, but only sold 25,000 units.
If the Pandora is going to sell as well as the GP2X, then there is a chance that it could get the attention of larger publishers to make a few titles for it.

 

[craigix]

You will sort of see commercial games due to the fact there are now a lot of open source engines which can play commecial games.

 

[AnonymousTipster]

You will sort of see commercial games due to the fact there are now a lot of open source engines which can play commecial games.

You mean such as Quake and Doom, or do you mean engines like irrlicht?

 

[Sphinxter]

There is an old graphic arts expression, "The only way to make it look like you spent all day on it is to spend all day on it". The amount of production value expressed in hours available to one spare time hacker vs. a dedicated team effort is well, an uphill battle at best. This does not mean anything at all to the playability of the underlying game itself as not all commercial efforts are worth buying. At best the privateer can hope to close the gap with humor, style, a bit of polish and by focusing on the core play and design that separate the timeless hits from instant shelfware. Loathed almost every pc game I ever bought based on a film I liked.

 

[Magic Sam]

Yes, I know what you mean, but the quality of a game made by a team working closely together on a commercial product will be higher than the quality of a homebrew title made by just one person, or even a small team working across the internet.

Sometimes the contrary is also possible: some days ago I bought EA games' Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 for the Wii, I paid it full price, 50€, and brought it back to the shop 2 days after This was one of the worst game I have ever played ! Silly AI, ugly game, stupid missions, forgettable online mode, etc. At the same time, I was playing True Combat: Elite, a free tactical shooter based upon the Enemy Territory engine, developed by a very small team across the Internet, and the free game is far better than the commercial one The good thing with homebrew games is that you don't expect much from them, so it's always a good surprise and a lot of fun
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All I mean is that I'd love to see some games that look like this:

Rather than this:

Good graphics don't always mean good games...look at all this crap on PS3 and 360
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I want to see more games from Apex Designs, including a Pandora version of Payback smile.gif


Seconded At the moment I'm trying to make their PD Amiga games work under AROS, any idea ?

Bye, Magic Sam

 

[jaycee900]

You will sort of see commercial games due to the fact there are now a lot of open source engines which can play commecial games.

At least you aren't lying this time like you did about the 'commerical' games you had lined up for the GP2X!

hmm loads = 2!

 

[craigix]

I was not lying last time, GPH just abandoned various deals which were set up for commercial games or showed no interest. Developers don't flock to that kind of attitude, the games I was directly involved in, IE Payback and Vektar were both released. We would have had Pinball Dreams/Fantasies/Illusions too if GP/H had just paid what they owed to the author.

I'm feeling pretty good that those days are coming to an end now.

 

[Prophet]

No offense to the topic starter, but Pandora is not the sort of device you buy if commercial games are your main interest.

I'm all for seeing a few commercial titles that might show off the hardware a bit, but Pandora will ultimately always be a homebrew hobbyist device. It will never be a DS or PSP. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a few commercial titles along the way - mostly because of developer enthusiasm (even the pro devs will surely see the Pandora as interesting and cool behind the scenes) but the bean counter boys in suits and ties will NEVER take the Pandora seriously, and in all honestly, rightly so.

So that's why I'll be keeping my DS and my PSP. The Pandora will occupy its own special niche, as a super homebrew/emulation device, and possibly even as a limited yet functional UMPC to some degree.

 

[Lineus]

I want to see more games from Apex Designs, including a Pandora version of Payback


Thirded!

 

[cappuchok]

We would have had Pinball Dreams/Fantasies/Illusions too if GP/H had just paid what they owed to the author.

Ooh, so at some point Digital Illusions were interested in the GP2X? That's interesting (but hardly surprising considering their roots in the homebrew and demo scene). Perhaps they could be brought on board for the Pandora? Of course, if Amiga emulation is perfected on the Pandora, those who already own the Amiga version can just use that. But a commercial port of the 256-color versions (NOT the Spidersoft ones, please!) would be nice, no doubt.

 

[AnonymousTipster]

No offense to the topic starter, but Pandora is not the sort of device you buy if commercial games are your main interest.

I'm all for seeing a few commercial titles that might show off the hardware a bit, but Pandora will ultimately always be a homebrew hobbyist device.

Of course, it's designed to be a homebrew platform, and it always will be. I'm interested in working on the Pandora because it's powerful processor should mean it's able to do complex real time physics calculations, which immediately makes me excited for what I can do for it. Even if there were never going to be any commercial titles, or even any decent homebrew titles, I'd still buy Pandora simply for development.
That said, I'd still like to see some high-end stuff, not because I think it's what the Pandora should do, but it's because of what the Pandora could do.

As someone said earlier, many homebrew games deserve to be paid for, and I'd love to see the potential of a unified online store for this purpose. Whether or not it attracts larger commercial projects, it could still spur initially free projects to become greater than previously imagined (look at Garry's Mod for Steam). There would have to be some sort of 'pass-grade' though, otherwise, we'd end up with a store full of cheap tetris clones.

 

[Magic Sam]

@ craigix:

Do you plan to contact one of these indie game developers ?

I know this list is not complete, but it's a good start.

I also found a forum where an announcement about he Pandora could be made.

I think these guys would be happy to develop games for the Pandora, as it could be a great machine to unify the indie games market around a new platform. If you provide a kind of online strore where one could buy the games from, that would make it. This way we could have commercial quality games, but without the EA/Ubisoft crap

Bye, Magic Sam

 

[realyst]

These are from the homebrew projects of PSP homebrew developers realtech-vr:

To me, those look more like 'real' games then some of the 'real' ones.

Give talented people the tech to play around with and amazing things happen.

That and we can't really ignore the technical sophistication of many of the current GP2X titles either(making half of the stuff now emulated run on such a trudging system is very effing impressive)

 

[AnonymousTipster]

Yes, NoGravity was one of the best PSP homebrewed games.
There aren't enough developers like realtech-vr around though...

 

[Orkie]

There aren't enough developers like realtech-vr around though...

This stuff isn't exactly easy, you know. I find writing games extremely difficult because there is just so much going on at once, even in the simplest of games.