Ways To Make The Gp2x Better


Ferentix posted on Dec 8 2005 at 07:54 PM said:
As it so happens, Quake WAS ported extremely quicly by Woogal, and Quake II followed, but GPH didn't know this when they made those banners. It's not right.
Did GPH ever say that Quake was being released? I thought it was just Craig who said that. Anyway, if GPH did talk about Quake then it was only because I agreed with Craig back in July that I would work on a gp2x port in time for release, so anyone using Quake to promote the gp2x was fully justified in doing so.
 
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The only thing I agree with there is that they should have stabilised the unit before shipping it, but I believe Craig adds the firmware fixes before sending units out anyway.

As for all the rest, it's nothing a little pre-purchase research wouldn't reveal - and I'd rather pay a smaller price and have the choice of what batteries, SD card etc. to buy. Plus, commercial development? The reason most people buy a Gamepark console is for.... quite the opposite reason.
 
Ferentix said:
As it so happens, Quake WAS ported extremely quicly by Woogal, and Quake II followed, but GPH didn't know this when they made those banners. It's not right.

Did GPH ever say that Quake was being released? I thought it was just Craig who said that. Anyway, if GPH did talk about Quake then it was only because I agreed with Craig back in July that I would work on a gp2x port in time for release, so anyone using Quake to promote the gp2x was fully justified in doing so.

Really? I could have sworn that there was some banner listing the stuff, and amongst the stuff about dual CPUs and media playing, it says "Quake, MAME, emulators etc"? Or maybe I'm getting mixed up with gp2x.co.uk, in which case, sorry :( but I believe that it's still including MAME in that banner. Is a MAME version being worked on? Not sure about that, but most seem to think the answer is no...
 
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I found a Site that tells you how to compile mame for the gp2x its not very impressive sounding right now but it "does" exists
 
Ferentix posted on Dec 8 2005 at 10:32 PM said:
Is a MAME version being worked on? Not sure about that, but most seem to think the answer is no...

Yes it is, if your read around a little more carefully, you would find a quote that Franxis got his gp2x and is already working on it.
There was also this teaser from Evil Dragon in the news, playing Black Tiger on the gp2x, which needs MAME to be played ;) <_<
 
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OP said:
1. First and foremost, stabilize the unit (hardware and software) so that it works as expected, doesn't crash, and can be easily updated. The fact that most of us are terrified to do anything to our unit for fear it will be "bricked" is not a good way to sell units. Fix the hardware issues and the firmware issues and ensure that the product which ships is rock solid. The last thing a user wants is a fragile toy.

I agree with some of that. The BIG mistake was not getting waiting till they had good SD card compatibility for the process of updating the firmware. We all understood we would need to update the firmware to get certain things fixed. However we didn’t think we’d have to try ever SD card we can get your hands on to find one that worked.

OP said:
2. Only apply adhesive to the four corners of the plastic screen protector. If you're going to ship the thing without the screen protector pre-applied, then only apply adhesive to the four corners, making it easier to pry off if needed. There's nothing like a large hair permanently stuck under your screen protector to drive you nuts.

Mega-Agree. In fact I’ll go a step further. They might want to consider a slight redesign so that the screen protector isn’t attached with adhesive but rather somehow latched on. The current solution is not workable over the long term. Dust *WILL* get behind the screen and then what are you going to do about if your screen protector is so well attached?

OP said:
3. Don't advertise features for the unit which aren't available, even if you think they'll be available sometime in the future, and especially if you're not developing those features yourself. I purchased my GP2X to watch movies and play games. Specifically WMV and Xvid movies and MAME games. Come to find out, however, WMV files don't play, Xvid has problems, and MAME is nonexistent. Telling me that MAME *might* be developed by a 3rd party doesn't make me feel better. So please, only advertise CURRENT features/games/applications.

Yep. Over-promising and under delivering is a sure fired way to piss people off.

OP said:
4. Ship the unit with a working 64-MB SD card, a power adapter, and a set of 2500mAh rechargable batteries. You should ship the unit so that it's ready to be used right out of the box. Don't make your customers purchase an SD card. Ship the unit with one. 64-MB cards aren't expensive. Throw one into the package so that the user can start having fun right away. Don't include batteries that will die in 30 minutes. That's just asking for unhappy customers. Ship the unit with 2 high-quality rechargables. And for goodness sake, include the power supply. When you told us we'd get 10-hours of video playback, running off batteries didn't seem like an issue. But when your batteries only last about 2-4 hours, it's an entirely different story. Make the customer's experience a good one and they'll reward you for it.

No, No and No. All this will do is increase the price and fairly needlessly. If you include the 25000mAh batteries why not include a charger battery charger? A 64-MB SD card isn’t really big enough so why not a 1-GB? Maybe it should come with a pair of high quality headphones too? Maybe the case should be Italian leather? The one thing you are right about is not including the two worthless batteries. The unit should come “bare-bones” And people should buy whatever they want for it. Making people pay extra for stuff they don’t need is far more likely to piss them off.

OP said:
5. Include high-quality sample games/pictures/music with the unit to show off its features. My GP2X came with an unmarked CD. When I finally got an SD card (which required the purchase of an external card reader to work) and dumped the contents of that mystery CD onto it, everything but the Text Viewer failed to work. The included Xvid video failed to play on the GP2X and the games wouldn't run. If you include a cheap 64-MB SD card (as described in #4 above), you can pre-load it with movies, music and games that people can use as soon as they turn the power on. The people at my work weren't the slightest bit impressed with my GP2X. That's because it failed to do everything it said it would. But if you include a few killer video clips, some great sample MP3s, and good working games, it will really shine.

I expect that once development really picks up, things will be happening so fast that buy the time you burn a CD with the latest round of emulators on it, the disc will be obsolete before it ever gets in the hands of a customer. A bit like driver disc with computer hardware these days, I don’t know the last time I installed the drivers that came with a graphics card instead of immediately going out on the web and getting the latest version.

OP said:
6. Don't expect the user community to do the work for you. User communities are great. That's what made the Amiga such a wonderful computer to own. But don't expect the user community to do everything for you. I shouldn't have to go online and ask a dozen questions to figure out how to get a single game to run. It should just run. I shouldn't have to read through a user-built PDF Guide to teach me how to run the various components. That type of thing should be well laid out in a "Quick Start Guide" sheet that comes with the unit. If it needs to be done a certain way to get it to work, then make that well known. Let the user community focus on expanding the scope of the product. But don't make them act as the tech support and beta testing team for your machine.

They just need to better support the user community. Releasing a complete kernel that will actually compile would have been nice.


Overall, I think a lot of your concerns would be better addressed by the re-sellers and not GPH. For people who want the complete experience guys like Craig could just sell you a bundle pack with everything in it - complete with a relatively recent download of the popular programs burned to CDR and stomped a label.
 
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Who buys something without finding out the specifics anyway?? I am a little p*ssed that it doesnt play mpeg files myself but all the rest is pretty clear just by looking around here... I'm suprised someone bought it without reading the forums first to be honest.
 
I don't really agree with most of these points, GPH isn't a multinational giant, It's a small enough company.

The object was to keep costs down to a minimum, and they do listen (ram).

TBH it's just like every single other console launch, Dreamcasts first boot deaths, PS2s DRE deaths, Xboxes exploding power supplies, (except nintendo hardware, you need to take a bat to that stuff to destroy it) It has it's teething problems.

And theres no real point in whining about now, so Just enjoy the damn thing!
 
Ninjia^ posted on Dec 8 2005 at 10:14 PM said:
Who buys something without finding out the specifics anyway?? I am a little p*ssed that it doesnt play mpeg files

me too but i know that in some months it will read every possible codec except *maybe* heavy ones like H.264 etc ;)
B)
 
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Ninjia^ posted on Dec 8 2005 at 03:14 PM said:
Who buys something without finding out the specifics anyway?? I am a little p*ssed that it doesnt play mpeg files myself but all the rest is pretty clear just by looking around here... I'm suprised someone bought it without reading the forums first to be honest.
There seems to be this general attitude that people who bought the GP2X must have inherintly heard of the GP32 and be intimately aware of its history, its manufacturer and its support community. But that's just narrow thinking.

I had never heard of the GP32 nor its community or its forums before purchasing the GP2X. But that doesn't mean I didn't look into it first. I found out about the GP2X from www.engadget.com. I checked the specs. I looked at the product info on the GBAX site. It all looked great. So I ordered.

It's important to remember that some people will be coming to this product with no prior knowledge of its history. Please be patient with us as we come up to speed.
 
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Steve Warner posted on Dec 8 2005 at 12:21 PM said:
I know people's exepriences with the GP2X have been all over the map since it got released. There are plenty of "what do you like" and "what doe you hate" threads. But in the spirit of constructive criticism, I thought it might be good to start a thread that Game Park Holdings could reference for the "official" release of the GP2X (or the Second Edition if there's not enough time), to make the unit really shine. I'll start it off with these suggestions. Feel free to add your ideas as well.

1. First and foremost, stabilize the unit (hardware and software) so that it works as expected, doesn't crash, and can be easily updated. The fact that most of us are terrified to do anything to our unit for fear it will be "bricked" is not a good way to sell units. Fix the hardware issues and the firmware issues and ensure that the product which ships is rock solid. The last thing a user wants is a fragile toy.

2. Only apply adhesive to the four corners of the plastic screen protector. If you're going to ship the thing without the screen protector pre-applied, then only apply adhesive to the four corners, making it easier to pry off if needed. There's nothing like a large hair permanently stuck under your screen protector to drive you nuts.

3. Don't advertise features for the unit which aren't available, even if you think they'll be available sometime in the future, and especially if you're not developing those features yourself. I purchased my GP2X to watch movies and play games. Specifically WMV and Xvid movies and MAME games. Come to find out, however, WMV files don't play, Xvid has problems, and MAME is nonexistent. Telling me that MAME *might* be developed by a 3rd party doesn't make me feel better. So please, only advertise CURRENT features/games/applications.

4. Ship the unit with a working 64-MB SD card, a power adapter, and a set of 2500mAh rechargable batteries. You should ship the unit so that it's ready to be used right out of the box. Don't make your customers purchase an SD card. Ship the unit with one. 64-MB cards aren't expensive. Throw one into the package so that the user can start having fun right away. Don't include batteries that will die in 30 minutes. That's just asking for unhappy customers. Ship the unit with 2 high-quality rechargables. And for goodness sake, include the power supply. When you told us we'd get 10-hours of video playback, running off batteries didn't seem like an issue. But when your batteries only last about 2-4 hours, it's an entirely different story. Make the customer's experience a good one and they'll reward you for it.

5. Include high-quality sample games/pictures/music with the unit to show off its features. My GP2X came with an unmarked CD. When I finally got an SD card (which required the purchase of an external card reader to work) and dumped the contents of that mystery CD onto it, everything but the Text Viewer failed to work. The included Xvid video failed to play on the GP2X and the games wouldn't run. If you include a cheap 64-MB SD card (as described in #4 above), you can pre-load it with movies, music and games that people can use as soon as they turn the power on. The people at my work weren't the slightest bit impressed with my GP2X. That's because it failed to do everything it said it would. But if you include a few killer video clips, some great sample MP3s, and good working games, it will really shine.

6. Don't expect the user community to do the work for you. User communities are great. That's what made the Amiga such a wonderful computer to own. But don't expect the user community to do everything for you. I shouldn't have to go online and ask a dozen questions to figure out how to get a single game to run. It should just run. I shouldn't have to read through a user-built PDF Guide to teach me how to run the various components. That type of thing should be well laid out in a "Quick Start Guide" sheet that comes with the unit. If it needs to be done a certain way to get it to work, then make that well known. Let the user community focus on expanding the scope of the product. But don't make them act as the tech support and beta testing team for your machine.

When I think of classy products, I think of my Kanguru MP3 player. I got it for my birthday a few months back. It came in a colorful, sturdy, resealable box (with a magnetic lid). It came with a leather carying case and a pair of fancy headphones. It came with a USB cable and a detailed, printed manual. And it came with a working battery. When I turned it on, it was pre-loaded with sample MP3 files so I could hear how amazing the thing was. And everything worked right out of the box. It has featuers that I never expected and that weren't even advertised with the unit, making it seem even more impressive. And I've never been afraid that I'd damage the unit by plugging headphones into it. It's a solid workhorse that goes everywhere with me.




I have 1 2 add Make A DAM UNIT THAT DOESNT SUCK UP BAATTERIES N A HALF HOUR! :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

That's how the GP2X should be.
 
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junker posted on Dec 8 2005 at 07:53 PM said:
DUMP THE JOYSTICK
that is all
Agreed. The joystick's ok, but considering how good everything else on the handheld is, it looks really bad by comparison. Considering the experiences of people here who've modded it, it really doesn't sound like it should be that hard to fix.
 
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