Yes, but it still doesn't matter if the things they are spending their time on are genres that AR games don't fit.
true again, but you where saying that my argument "usually ar games fail to extend peoples interest beyond the initial phase of a new experience" is moot because that is something games on mobile plattform have generally in common, which I deem wrong.
Ok, I feel we need to clarify what you consider a "game". I don't honestly believe you can call a lego catalog app a game, just like I can't call the AR feature in the Yelp application (the Monocle) a game.
Thats true, we were specifically talking about games, and the Lego 3d catalogue does not fit, but "Life of George" does. And altough not originally intended by me, the questions comes up if "successfull" software besides games wouldn't propel the success of a technology in all fields.
Second, you said there are examples of AR games, but the only one you've mentioned so far was Ingress, which wasn't even the kind of AR game we were talking about. Sure, some exist, but not nearly as many as you seem to suggest. Not to mention, it can't just be an AR game, it needs to be a good AR game that is not doing well, so as to prove your point.
Coming up with games isn't a big problem:Sky Siege 3d, AR Invaders, ARSoccer, ARDefender, Toyota AR, Temple Treausre Hunt, Spectrek, Zombies Everywhere, etc... etc... etc
And I can come up with a rather large list if I invest more than two minutes , or you just use your favourite search engine.
But your second request is undoable and partially uninteresting: How to make a universally appliable definition of "good", regarding games ? Thats practically impossible as this involves too much personal assessment, look at how game reviews can differ (and if you span that cross countries, cultural differences come into play too).
And I'm not convinced that this is really a criterium to look at: If "good" games are needed, why do we have games on mobile plattforms in general ? The first games were crap (compared to the rest of the market), still the aspect of playing something on the go kept (customer) interest high enough, so the market could evolve. Or take electronic gaming in general, the first games were crap compared to what the traditional gaming market had to offer, but the technology was interesting enough to keep the overall development going.
Well, that's interesting, IMO people tends to prefer all-in-one instead of two device. Also the battery on a smartphone is a huge problem when you want to play games.
As said before that did not hinder smartphones to get market domination, so while a good battery runtime sure is a nice "feature", it is highly unlikely that it will be the tip of the scale in favour of the Pyra as for the drawbacks that come with a "Pyraphone".Even in this community, where you can only find people that are here, because they appreciate what the Pandora offers (and the Pyra will be) only a sparse amount of users has interest in the Pyra beeing used in as a phone. Try to extrapolate that on a market, where only a small percentage is even interested in what the Pyra will have to offer.
When I talk about "form" I talk about the fact smartphone is tighter and easier to use quicly.
Pyra will be able to do pretty all that a smartphone can do. The plus is that it is full open so you will be able to do more and add more, you are free, your software and hardware is your so you can do more. When I say that you can do it better is because of the form for games and typing, desactivate wifi quicly, analog sound controller, all customizable (backlight, led), and you can do all that longer.
Would you mind not repeating things you have already said, and start saying the things that support your claim ? Haven't we already talked enough about that the Pyras hardware (case, form factor, cp, gpu, screen) will be inferiour in every way (except maybe "weak" factors, like battery runtime and keyboard) ?
Beeing free to do things you want is nice, but only if you know how and are able to do it. While pretty much everything of the Pyra in terms of software is already "covered" in some way > you will get a Pyra with a OS that at least lets you do the basics: start the system, utilize keys/nubs/screen/ports, install software, etc. this is mostly because the Pyra tries to imitate / uses standard hardware so things that are already there can be reused. Like connecting to WiFi networks: we can do this (rather) conveniently because the work was already done by people outside of the project (and a long time ago, so the software already is in a mature state). Same can be expected for mobile dataconnections as it is widely used on linux desktop for years now. But for the phone part, there aren't many precursors to build upon - sure there are already open OS projects for phones, but their components are far away from beeing that modularized/standarized so that they can be as "easily" transported/integrated into the standard desktop OS the Pyra will sport.
And still someone has to do it, I doubt the Pyra team will have much resources left for that, they probably will have enough on their hands to prepare a OS release that offers a decent experience for the "traditional" features the Pandora already offers. There probably is someone who will do that, but no one can say when this will happen and how long that person is willing to spend time on it ironing out the bugs and supporting it.
Why should Ed not be willing to do that from the start you may ask? Because the resources simply aren't there, look at how long it took till the Pandora got a decent power management (which is something most people would consider essential for a mobile device) or how long it took to have something ready so that a dev could rather easily make use of the dsp.
And we are not even talking about the quality of the user eperience these open solutions might offer.
All that does not mean it won't happen, but that no one knows when it will happen.
An uncertainty that Ed surely won't be ready to raise production costs on.
