The Next Advert

[Dzz]

Very nice work!

Intriguing shot from what I assume is the commercial Vektar... speaking of which, (insert obvious question)

 

[Magnulus]

Great stuff! I think you've got a bit of a winner on your hands here!

 

[ste_167]

That's brilliant, Crazy_Goat. Personally, I know the previous ad would appeal to me more as it's very direct about the systems, plus the techy info would pull in the right crowd I think SDL and Linux should be pushed too.

You've done an amazing job

 

[Yono]

Great advert! My only suggestion would be trailing the list of emulators across the bottom of the panel to include as many as possible, since that way many retro gamer readers can look for their favorite system and go, "Hey! I can play portable (insert system here)!" Of course, if it is too late, it still looks much better than the predecessor.

 

[Eso Rimmer]

I like this gp2x screenshot photogallery (1.2MB jpg image) http://members.iinet.net.au/~cassiebusta/images/gamez3.jpg

 

[Wite_Noiz]

Not to piss anyone off, but are you open to comments?
Firstly, I love it. Enough information to appeal to get you interested, but enough images to grab your eye.

There were only a couple of things I thought could be improved:
* The Vektar screen. I've seen far better screens than that
* The last line. "Supports up to 8GB SD cards and beyond" Call me a pedant, but that doesn't make sense.
Plus, aren't the 8GB+ cards actually SDHC? Does the 2X support SDHC?

Other than that, looks great

 

[Marco1983]

Nice ad, some things could be a little better, but it is realy good i think! Maybe mention the kind of bits the consoles use. Not all people are into the C64 thing, but are into the 8 or 16 bits home videogame consoles (NES, etc).

And by the way, where is GPenguin? I realy think that if he would be added in the ad, the cool looking character he is, it would be even better

 

[Dzz]

Nice ad, some things could be a little better, but it is realy good i think! Maybe mention the kind of bits the consoles use. Not all people are into the C64 thing, but are into the 8 or 16 bits home videogame consoles (NES, etc).

I believe from the previous conversation that the ad had to avoid suggesting people should pirate nintendo or sony products. Whether that's the magazine, GPH, or Craig's restriction... not sure.

 

[Yono]

Nice ad, some things could be a little better, but it is realy good i think! Maybe mention the kind of bits the consoles use. Not all people are into the C64 thing, but are into the 8 or 16 bits home videogame consoles (NES, etc).

I believe from the previous conversation that the ad had to avoid suggesting people should pirate nintendo or sony products. Whether that's the magazine, GPH, or Craig's restriction... not sure.

It would still be good to mention PC Engine and Genesis/SMS since those run much better than Apple II in my opinion.

 

[Marco1983]

My point realy is, not to mention the consoles by name, but mention them in another way. A way so it's not possible to have these Nintendo dudes against you in any kind of way. When the phrase would just say something like "It's possible to emulate consoles up to 32 bits", it would be lot more appealing to people. Some people just aint into characters of 5 pixels high... For some people THE days were the days of the NES, SNES, SMS, SMD, and so on.

When i see this ad, it sure is appealing to me in some kind of way. But it doesn't give me the greatest answer that i personaly am looking for... Does it support the mayor 8 and 16 bit consoles from back in the days?

Look, one way or another people at Nintendo or Sega are defenetely going to find out about this console. And they aren't going to be very happy with the fact that it exists, because they are launching the retro gaming thing in a couple of months for the Wii. Maybe because the GP2X scene is not so massive, they aint doing anything about it yet. Not that they can make a change about it either Skilled programmers that are working on emulators can't be stopped eventualy, ever!

To me emulating the C64 is the same as the NES. Both great consoles that are resurected in some kind of way by running a certain program. However people are still going to be scratching some money out of those NES games in a little while, rather than the C64 one's... So you better be careful not to spoil these people businesses.

Anyway, where are the days that people programmed for the fun of it all? These days it just looks like everyone is in it for the money!

That's one of the reasons actualy why i bought a GP2X. The scene is just more than a money thing. It sort of looks like the masterly days of the C64 and all the other consoles back then.

 

[Winterkid]

I think you mean to IMPLY that it can emulate all the old consoles, which is a fairly good idea. Except Nintendo would probably sick it's legal wolves on any ad that made it blatently obvious to the public at large. I think a slight hint at emulation without getting too specific is the best possible solution. For example, cartoon-like versions of the controllers from the big systems to imply it can play those games would be good enough. The more similar to the actual controller while being obviously exaggerated, the better.

 

[Yono]

A good page to firmiliarize yourself with is Emulation Lawsuits: Past and Present

A detailed look at Sony v. Connectix is also a good read.

 

[nem]

It's a good design, however, there are some niggles.

I think what most lets it down is the text. It's not all that good. The text should be strong enough to be there on it's own, right? Let's have a look then:

GP2X - Does It All​

The GP2X can play your classic PC games

You can even play your games for classic systems
Amiga, CPC, Apple, Atari ST, Atari800, BBC, C64, MSX, ZX Spectrum, and more

Play new games developed for the GP2X
Elsewhere Vektar Beat2X Ghost Miner Payback

Watch movies and listen to music on the go
Play any video
No need to re-encode your videos, the GP2X plays any size and any resolution without issue - straight from websites, bit torrent or your DVD collection.

Play the most popular formats
MPEG4, DIVX, and XVID movies, will play in full clarity and quality on the vibrant QVGA LCD screen - or directly on your TV.

Listen to MP3, OGG, MIDI and many more popular music formats.

Huge storage capacity for movies, games, and music.
The GP2X supports up to 8GB SD cards and beyond.

GP2X
Alternative Power
£124.99
GP2X.CO.UK​

A couple of things that should be thought over are:

1) what's bolded and what's not. Does anyone even know what the heck is a "QVGA" screen? And honestly, Atari800 over ST and Speccy?

2) the movie bit is really shaky. "Play any video" and "No need to re-encode", alright, that's great. But does it really? Later it specifies that it "Plays the most popular formats" and "MPEG4, DIVX, and XVID", but are the three formats just there as an example? Because if it plays any video, then it plays Quicktime, right?

3) the commas are all over the place. "MPEG4, DIVX, and XVID movies, will play in full clarity", eh?

 

[Paradox]

that elsewhere game and payback werent developed FOR the gp2x..theyre just ports arent they?

 

[Series-8]

Show a GP2X with a BoB; and EVERYTHING that you could POSSIBLY plug into it
(USB Joysticks, Many kinds both digital and analog
USB Mice, Keyboards
USB Wifi (Do any of them work yet?? If only the GP2X had a PCMCIA slot)
USB HD's
USB DVD drives
USB Ethernet, Modem, and Audio Headsets?
USB Serial/Parralell converters... and so on
Other USB Slave MP3 players... )

And connected to a Widescreen TV.

; Plus:

Screenshots of the X11 miniserver/Qtopia, VNC Apps, Dillo/Lynx, Textviewers whatever else will run on the GP2X on a TV screen, with more shots of Video playback/Audio formats, and not just the MP3/WMA/OGG standard stuff but all the other formats like MOD and SID, DivX/XviD/MP4 and MPEG2 Playing from a real USB-DVD drive.
(and the usualy round of emulators and homebrew games)

 

[Magnulus]

It's a good design, however, there are some niggles.

That's a really nice run-through of the ad, nem. Good on ya!

 

[Crazy Goat]

Thanks for all the commentary - but Craig and I were working on his ideal vision on the ad. This was tailored to what he wanted - and I believe it came out well.

Because of legal circumstances, one cannot just throw in screenshots and characters willy-nilly, Intellectual Property as well as copywritten is serious business.

We were going to mention the BoB - but it was lost in translation. There simply isn't enough room to encompass everything he wanted, so we may even create another version of the advert if he really likes.

The text was Craigs doing, I think it gets the point across - some people are a bit nit-picky in that regard. The bolded things are actually due to the fact that the font's number list is all "bold" and as such, the rest of the text should be bolded too - so it doesn't look aweful.


If you all would prefer, I could always change it to koreangrish.


"GP2X IS BEST PARTNER FOR LIFE!"

-Goat.

 

[Magnulus]

So what you're saying is "Thanks for your commentaries, but you're being silly"?

 

[Crazy Goat]

So what you're saying is "Thanks for your commentaries, but you're being silly"?

For the most part - this is how Craig liked it - he has schedules to meet, and we needed to submit it to RetroGamer ASAP. There are a lot of the functions of the GP2X that were not mentioned... as I wish we could mention it all, there are limitations on space, convenience, time constraints, and sheer legality.

I'm happy how it came out - it should at least interest some people to visit the site... we left a lot to the imagination because of the problems arrise when you're using someone elses product to advertise yours. It was intended to get the gist of it - and if they liked what they saw, look further into it... and I think it captures that quite well.

 

[Yono]

So what you're saying is "Thanks for your commentaries, but you're being silly"?

For the most part - this is how Craig liked it - he has schedules to meet, and we needed to submit it to RetroGamer ASAP. There are a lot of the functions of the GP2X that were not mentioned... as I wish we could mention it all, there are limitations on space, convenience, time constraints, and sheer legality.

I'm happy how it came out - it should at least interest some people to visit the site... we left a lot to the imagination because of the problems arrise when you're using someone elses product to advertise yours. It was intended to get the gist of it - and if they liked what they saw, look further into it... and I think it captures that quite well.

You are right, the ad should just be a summary of sorts. If craig wanted to go in depth he would have sent a gp2x to Retro Gamer (preferably with a SD card preloaded with the best emulators/interpreters/homebrew) and asked for a full review. Of course, this might not be a bad idea to do anyway, since I think the retro gamer readers would be very interested in the device and not spam the forums with silly xbox360 requests.