Look out, here comes a wall of text ;-)
@Cameleon:
- Unity is a development platform that can target many architectures. Even though it's closed source, it might be helpful to work together with them to create a universal module that would allow people to easily port (mostly games) to the OpenPandora.
Let's make the OpenPandora / next system a platform that can rival the Ouya when it comes to stretch goal/ starting point compatibility on KickStarter. Now if only the first Days of Dawn KS had succeded, we would have a showcase to see the real potential of the Pandora family.
Most Unity-based games I see on KickStarter target high resolutions and power graphics engines, but some of them use SNES like graphic resolutions. Those games would be perfect to port to the present generation Pandora, the new unit should imho. have higher resolution than that, but still be able to display the 640x480 resolution (Old skool DOS) and the SD PAL/ NTSC resolution beautifully.
About the name:
Drakenbox would certainly attract lots of Japanese customers, as they seem to have a thing for German names.
I also like Dragonscale and Myriad.
Dragonscale because it implies a compact unit and honours the nickname EvilDragon.
Myriad is also quite fitting and has the advantage that it is not tied to a single (if crucially important for now) team member. It also implies versatility which is always a good thing.
Some things I'd definitely want to see improved on the next device:
- Please provide a proper resistive touchscreen instead of the present scratchscreen.
The lack of reponsiveness is grating to say the least, it somehow feels really rough. Having a silicone tip on the stylus, just like with the alternative styli for the Nintendo DSi, would alleviate the scratching problem
- The present keyboard is OK for a few key presses now and then, but I find it lacking to code on the go, even a simple bash script.because of the force needed and the unidirectional quality of the button press. I hope that the new iCP keyboard will be sufficient, but it really needs more keys.
- The nubs work quite well, but they should have a state that can be toggled on and off that would turn them into a clicky, preferably 8-directional control that is suitable to emulate button presses.
- The screen brightness/ gamma could do with some improvement as well. This is especially obvious when playing old Atari 2600 games that tend to use dark purple on black... :-/
- Better Wifi, preferably a chip that can do 802.1 a, b, g, n, ac (high speed transfer speeds coupled with low power consumption). Please provide antennae that can do 2.4GHz as well as 5GHz. The 2.4GHz band is stuffed already.
Case/ Form-factor related wishes:
Ruggedness is always a good thing for a device on the go. A water-resistant/ scratch-proof design would be highly desirable.
Dual shoulder buttons would certainly be nice, but the current solution for the R2/ L2 on the PS1 emu that uses the p and q buttons for those buttons works quite well for now (maybe not with really hectic fighter-games)
I'd like to keep at least one of the SD-card full-sized, because with the the proper adapter, 3 sizes of SD-card will fit in it (Normal, Mini and Micro). Definitely make them fully compatible with SDXC and preferably intenally connected trhough USB3/ MicroSATA6G
Internal Hardware related wishes:
- I like the idea of a digital gyroscope-like thingy, because 1) It provides for even more versatility in the controls, 2) it makes for more complete Android compatibility. 3) Those things are quite cheap and small.
- I hope that by the time the new system is in active development, there will be a solution that makes the NAND obsolete, so that customers can insert their own memory medium to run the OS from that is at least as fast as the current NAND solution, but certainly bigger..
- I hope for true OpenGL 2.1 support with fallback to OpenGL/ ES
Extra Emulation:
- Nintendo DS (including those games using the NDS, not the 3DS, 3D-engine).
- Dreamcast
- Gamecube
- Pentium I-II type based X86-computer with the ability to run Win95/ Win98SE complete with games from that era using Qemu or similar solutions.
Ideally, but I can dream can't I?:
- PS2
- Sega Saturn
Both systems above have complex 3+ multi-processor structures that makes them hard to emulate. The PS2 is more likely though, because it already has a decent multi-platform emulator.
