What Kind Of Niche Will This Fill?

[AireTamStorm]

I'm sure alot of you have given it some thought, I'd just like a good centralized area where people can provide their opinions on what kind of niche the XGP will fill.

I have a PSP, a GP2X, and a Pocket PC, and their own little section of my day when it comes to portable entertainment. However all three lack in certain areas, which the XGP may be able to come into.

Lets admit it, the GP2X doesn't seem to be pumping out and real killer commercial games. Some of them I like, don't get me wrong, but the GP2X seems to have filled a General Portable Entertainment area, with music, video, and emulation as its main focus.

The PSP, so far I'm very impressed with what a corporate backing like Sony can do behind a handheld. Killer interface, music, and video, although sadly enough, it almost always requires conversion on my end (no ogg/vorbis, and very few non-mp3 based file support). As expected, commercial games by the truckload, and the wireless with Internet is greatly appreciated on its big screen.

The Pocket PC OS keeps changing and screwing everything up in its path. WM2k5 killed all forms of emulation. Thank you Microsoft. Movies and media plays, with external codecs and players. Good as a word processor, to jot down data, and view web pages.

Where I think the XGP /may/ go, is that it may provide companies making new games an opportunity to remarket their desktop classics in a portable gaming environment. Like suggested, the OpenGL support will allow almost all of iD's and other companies' open sourced titles to run with little change in source code. If Gamepark offers such companies a way to repackage game data, easily, and without major modification, I think this can earn them a good spot in the portable gaming scene.

If Gamepark wants commercial games, they need to grab some companies' attention BEFORE release, with specs, devkits, and as many resources required to make it easy for the game developers to make sellable content on the device.

And DRM is usually our enemy, but...
Gamepark will also need some type of DRMed digital distribution, probably taking advantage of the XGP's WiFi connection to deliver content directly to the device. It would be nice to implement not a web browser, but an interface designed to download previews and demos of a game, for a "try before you buy" model. Scroll over Quake 2, and the XGP downloads a small video, a background image, and text description of the game, as well as the price, and way to make the transaction without ever connecting to a computer. This solid model will attract a company faster than simply saying "put it on a read-only SD card and you're all set".


Of course a connect-to-PC option is also necessary, as some people don't have WiFi, etc...

All thoughts appreciated.

 

[OMars]

I'm sure alot of you have given it some thought, I'd just like a good centralized area where people can provide their opinions on what kind of niche the XGP will fill.

I have a PSP, a GP2X, and a Pocket PC, and their own little section of my day when it comes to portable entertainment. However all three lack in certain areas, which the XGP may be able to come into.

Lets admit it, the GP2X doesn't seem to be pumping out and real killer commercial games. Some of them I like, don't get me wrong, but the GP2X seems to have filled a General Portable Entertainment area, with music, video, and emulation as its main focus.

The PSP, so far I'm very impressed with what a corporate backing like Sony can do behind a handheld. Killer interface, music, and video, although sadly enough, it almost always requires conversion on my end (no ogg/vorbis, and very few non-mp3 based file support). As expected, commercial games by the truckload, and the wireless with Internet is greatly appreciated on its big screen.

The Pocket PC OS keeps changing and screwing everything up in its path. WM2k5 killed all forms of emulation. Thank you Microsoft. Movies and media plays, with external codecs and players. Good as a word processor, to jot down data, and view web pages.

Where I think the XGP /may/ go, is that it may provide companies making new games an opportunity to remarket their desktop classics in a portable gaming environment. Like suggested, the OpenGL support will allow almost all of iD's and other companies' open sourced titles to run with little change in source code. If Gamepark offers such companies a way to repackage game data, easily, and without major modification, I think this can earn them a good spot in the portable gaming scene.

If Gamepark wants commercial games, they need to grab some companies' attention BEFORE release, with specs, devkits, and as many resources required to make it easy for the game developers to make sellable content on the device.

And DRM is usually our enemy, but...
Gamepark will also need some type of DRMed digital distribution, probably taking advantage of the XGP's WiFi connection to deliver content directly to the device. It would be nice to implement not a web browser, but an interface designed to download previews and demos of a game, for a "try before you buy" model. Scroll over Quake 2, and the XGP downloads a small video, a background image, and text description of the game, as well as the price, and way to make the transaction without ever connecting to a computer. This solid model will attract a company faster than simply saying "put it on a read-only SD card and you're all set".


Of course a connect-to-PC option is also necessary, as some people don't have WiFi, etc...

All thoughts appreciated.

They should remove the silver paint strip off the top and they'd be a great multimedia/emulation/homebrew device suited for all peoples' needs. But just remember *a jack of all trades is a master of none*. :rolleyes:

 

[JaqMs]

Yeah, Gamepark is actually planning (unlike another, similar company). They went to GC 2006 not just to show off their units again but to find business and interested publishers/developers.

 

[OMars]

Yeah, Gamepark is actually planning (unlike another, similar company). They went to GC 2006 not just to show off their units again but to find business and interested publishers/developers.

Sooo...just because of that the xgp is going to be a success? I hope it does, but I understand when to just sit back and wait & see what happens.

 

[AireTamStorm]

Gamepark is in a difficult position right now, most game developers are (semi)exclusively dedicated to one platform once they choose what system to write code for.

They've gotta figure out a way to convince developers that they aren't just another piece of vaporware that will be shelved in a year or two, and that even if they are, they (the developers) wont lose out. On top of that, they have to come out with a product that is is up to par (if not at least slightly superior) to/with the competition. To pull that off, they need to make some agressive, yet risky moves.

 

[Epicenter]

Well, they have the opportunity, if they have a better launch than the GP2X and test their units properly to find issues before they are made famous (the GP2X's stick, screen issues, headphone jacks falling off, etc.) they are poised to sell a machine that is the ultimate emulation platform, more powerful than GP2X (more CPU horsepower, 2D/3D acceleration for snappier SNES and PS1 emulation, etc.) and much more stable and reliable.

I doubt the machine gets much in the way of commercial titles, the GP32 really didn't. But I do intend to port Stargazer to the machine, as it's an SDL application and will run readily on many platforms. This is to the benefit of a lot of developers really-- if it's able to run a Linux SDL binary, an enormous quantity of programs will port with barely any effort at all. Especially if the pad is digital and the screen is 4:3...