Xgp Alternatives

[tritt_conner]

Why would you say that? It's the same size as the XGP and has lots of buttons that match existing game systems that it will emulate. It runs on AA batteries and doesn't draw 5W of energy requiring a giant Lithium Ion battery. A PDA at 624MHz could play lots of games on it's big screen, but would you really want to? It's just not set up for that sort of thing. This is a GAME machine. Don't those things cost about $800 also? I think $300 makes much more sense.

You're forgetting one thing. This device you've been discussing isn't real. You have no funding. You have no actual blueprints. And you've somehow managed to slap a mystical price tag of 300 dollars onto something you haven't even figured out how much it'd cost to produce, let alone sell.

:rolleyes: And you want to use AA batteries for it. Jeez. This thing makes as much sense as the XGP itself.

 

[OMars]

Why would you say that? It's the same size as the XGP and has lots of buttons that match existing game systems that it will emulate. It runs on AA batteries and doesn't draw 5W of energy requiring a giant Lithium Ion battery. A PDA at 624MHz could play lots of games on it's big screen, but would you really want to? It's just not set up for that sort of thing. This is a GAME machine. Don't those things cost about $800 also? I think $300 makes much more sense.

You're forgetting one thing. This device you've been discussing isn't real. You have no funding. You have no actual blueprints. And you've somehow managed to slap a mystical price tag of 300 dollars onto something you haven't even figured out how much it'd cost to produce, let alone sell.

:rolleyes: And you want to use AA batteries for it. Jeez. This thing makes as much sense as the XGP itself.

He works for an electronics company where he has access to these things, and he got some designs from me, read the whole thread.

 

[MWeston]

Why would you say that? It's the same size as the XGP and has lots of buttons that match existing game systems that it will emulate. It runs on AA batteries and doesn't draw 5W of energy requiring a giant Lithium Ion battery. A PDA at 624MHz could play lots of games on it's big screen, but would you really want to? It's just not set up for that sort of thing. This is a GAME machine. Don't those things cost about $800 also? I think $300 makes much more sense.

You're forgetting one thing. This device you've been discussing isn't real. You have no funding. You have no actual blueprints. And you've somehow managed to slap a mystical price tag of 300 dollars onto something you haven't even figured out how much it'd cost to produce, let alone sell.

:rolleyes: And you want to use AA batteries for it. Jeez. This thing makes as much sense as the XGP itself.

I can understand why you would think this, but you don't know much about my situation, only what I have written here and I hope you understand why I am not describing my work in great detail. I have almost complete schematics based on Freescale reference designs. I have just about every major part for the design here in a box. I have a complete list which breaks down the cost of all the parts in moderate volume levels.

Why does using AA's not make sense to you? This device is the summation of what I want and what I have read users of this forum wanting in the "perfect" gaming device. I welcome your opinions, just keep an open mind

 

[rei_yano]

hey when do you think we might see a picture of a finished prototype? or is it gonna be super secret till it is completely finished?

 

[MWeston]

hey when do you think we might see a picture of a finished prototype? or is it gonna be super secret till it is completely finished?

I'm hoping to have a couple prototypes assembled just after the new year. The design isn't super secret, as I have many features in this design that I have learned from other electronic devices. None of the features are real surprises to the end user, but internally the technology is right up there with the best of the best. Think PSP with the proper resolution, batteries and open source development and you pretty much have the idea. Or you can think NDS if you prefer Actually, that might be more fitting since the display is touch sensitive.

 

[jislizard]

Sounds like fun, I always have money to spend on new gadgets around christmas time so you had better get on with it.

I don't know much about N64 emulation, the only one I have is on my Xbox and there is pretty low compatability and you have to switch between 3 different emulators to get one which works best, I only wanted to play the star wars games and the texture mapping is just wrong on some of them. ( this was about a year ago when I chipped the box so it might have improved a bit)

I think if you keep listening to people on the forum you will come up with something to please most people, just be aware that unless you build individual custom units not everyone is going to be happy.

Good luck

 

[Yono]

hey when do you think we might see a picture of a finished prototype? or is it gonna be super secret till it is completely finished?

I'm hoping to have a couple prototypes assembled just after the new year. The design isn't super secret, as I have many features in this design that I have learned from other electronic devices. None of the features are real surprises to the end user, but internally the technology is right up there with the best of the best. Think PSP with the proper resolution, batteries and open source development and you pretty much have the idea. Or you can think NDS if you prefer Actually, that might be more fitting since the display is touch sensitive.

A touch sensitive 640x480 3.5" screen on an ~$300 device? I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[rei_yano]

:blink: touch sensitive??????? yeah man I hope it wont go above 300.... I wont be dishing out anything above 300 for a portable game system... but if you can pull that off holy crap that would be really awesome. as stated above Ill wait till you got something to show us cuase that is one hell of a claim!

 

[MWeston]

Yeah, $300 is the goal. It is doable I think. The internal WiFi has been eliminated for that reason and others (including more difficult FCC testing). I have overestimated my costs and it is still under $300. Not much under that at moderate quantities, but the one thing I have going for me is low overhead costs. I have no staff to pay, no office building to keep the lights on, etc.... Of course, that is also the bad thing. I have no huge company and no giant bank account to back me up. The odds are against me for sure.

In the end a functional prototype means more than 50,000 pages of comments and promises in this forum and so I will give it a try. As I mentioned before, this is a personal goal for me and I am excited to make it happen, even if two devices are all I ever get to make. Who knows, maybe when it is done someone will want to invest in the idea.

We here at gp32x.de are the primary customers for this type of system. There have been many great ideas posted in various topics (such as "what should be in the gp3x?") and I have tried to pay attention to them all....of course putting an x86 processor in a NiMH powered system just isn't feasable. It would be great, but 6000mAh batteries aren't available yet!

I try to achieve something better with each project I do. My last pet project was a custom 66MHz ARM7 design with a Sega Gamegear emulator on it that loaded games from a compact flash card. It was my attempt at playing with the ECOS operating system. I think I will stick with Linux. It is soooooooooooooooooo much better! I enjoy the fact that with Linux, so many games can be ported over very quickly. The past 10 months that people have spent getting software working on the GP2X can be used to move software over to this system in days!


EDIT: You know, if I called this a PDA instead of a gaming machine, I could set the price at $399....isn't that terrible

 

[OMars]

Yeah, $300 is the goal. It is doable I think. The internal WiFi has been eliminated for that reason and others (including more difficult FCC testing). I have overestimated my costs and it is still under $300. Not much under that at moderate quantities, but the one thing I have going for me is low overhead costs. I have no staff to pay, no office building to keep the lights on, etc.... Of course, that is also the bad thing. I have no huge company and no giant bank account to back me up. The odds are against me for sure.

In the end a functional prototype means more than 50,000 pages of comments and promises in this forum and so I will give it a try. As I mentioned before, this is a personal goal for me and I am excited to make it happen, even if two devices are all I ever get to make. Who knows, maybe when it is done someone will want to invest in the idea.

We here at gp32x.de are the primary customers for this type of system. There have been many great ideas posted in various topics (such as "what should be in the gp3x?") and I have tried to pay attention to them all....of course putting an x86 processor in a NiMH powered system just isn't feasable. It would be great, but 6000mAh batteries aren't available yet!

I try to achieve something better with each project I do. My last pet project was a custom 66MHz ARM7 design with a Sega Gamegear emulator on it that loaded games from a compact flash card. It was my attempt at playing with the ECOS operating system. I think I will stick with Linux. It is soooooooooooooooooo much better! I enjoy the fact that with Linux, so many games can be ported over very quickly. The past 10 months that people have spent getting software working on the GP2X can be used to move software over to this system in days!


EDIT: You know, if I called this a PDA instead of a gaming machine, I could set the price at $399....isn't that terrible

Wow, I wish I had a degree in hardware engineering, I would be able to lend some ideas, but for now I will just keep designing. :rolleyes: Good luck!

P.S. Have you ever created a device for someone for a fee? h34r:

 

[tritt_conner]

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[JyCet]

Very interesting !
For 300$ I'll buy one

But it remind me Ninja project ....

 

[MWeston]

Wow, I wish I had a degree in hardware engineering, I would be able to lend some ideas, but for now I will just keep designing. :rolleyes: Good luck!

P.S. Have you ever created a device for someone for a fee? h34r:

Yes, I have done some consulting work in the past. In fact, one of my mp3 player designs was bought by a company in another country because they didn't want to design it in house. I can't say who it was but, no it wasn't Apple or Creative!

I'll believe it when I see it.

That's all I ask. If I post a picture, don't say it is fake!

Very interesting !
For 300$ I'll buy one

But it remind me Ninja project ....

Yes it does. But I have all the parts and the software to design multilayer PCBs. I think the Ninja project ended because Samsung wouldn't sample the processor or maybe it was because the GP2X was released?

My biggest challenge will be with the operating system itself and writing new device drivers to work with my hardware.

 

[OMars]

Wow, I wish I had a degree in hardware engineering, I would be able to lend some ideas, but for now I will just keep designing. :rolleyes: Good luck!

P.S. Have you ever created a device for someone for a fee? h34r:

Yes, I have done some consulting work in the past. In fact, one of my mp3 player designs was bought by a company in another country because they didn't want to design it in house. I can't say who it was but, no it wasn't Apple or Creative!

I actually meant individual people. :unsure:

 

[MWeston]

No, never for an individual. I can't imagine a person paying someone else thousands of dollars to do their design for them but I guess there are firms out there that will do that sort of thing.

 

[Shikaku]

If you really have the power, I'd say do it. You can start it up GP2X style by taking preorders

Of course, we'd have to see it for ourselves first.

 

[dasGrunge]

MWeston, I think this is a fantastic idea. I had just started thinking about the ideal handheld game system myself. You have pretty much already come up with the idea I was starting to get and have gone way beyond. Mind you I'm a software guy but you have the skills to actually make it happen.

I currently work on the Eclipse open source project and am a huge fan of open source development. I think sticking to Linux is the right choice and one could build up a great open source community to maintain it and to support the sdk's necessary to build great games and multi-media applications. It could turn into it's own Linux distrubution. I think the possibilities would be endless.

The gp2x community shows what can be done with something like this, but I don't think they've met their potential. Open sourcing the entire firmware and software stack is essential to its success, something that GPH is missing out on. I also think that you need to have accellerated 3D hardware to get more serious game developers on board, including commercial game vendors.

Anyway, I'm just wanted to say I'm dreaming with you. I think this has a bigger potential than many believe and hopefully you can find that investment to make it happen. Build the hardware, build the open source community for the software and you've could have one hell of an exciting platform.

 

[MWeston]

Thanks for the support and I agree with you completely!

 

[OMars]

MWeston, I think this is a fantastic idea. I had just started thinking about the ideal handheld game system myself. You have pretty much already come up with the idea I was starting to get and have gone way beyond. Mind you I'm a software guy but you have the skills to actually make it happen.

I currently work on the Eclipse open source project and am a huge fan of open source development. I think sticking to Linux is the right choice and one could build up a great open source community to maintain it and to support the sdk's necessary to build great games and multi-media applications. It could turn into it's own Linux distrubution. I think the possibilities would be endless.

The gp2x community shows what can be done with something like this, but I don't think they've met their potential. Open sourcing the entire firmware and software stack is essential to its success, something that GPH is missing out on. I also think that you need to have accellerated 3D hardware to get more serious game developers on board, including commercial game vendors.

Anyway, I'm just wanted to say I'm dreaming with you. I think this has a bigger potential than many believe and hopefully you can find that investment to make it happen. Build the hardware, build the open source community for the software and you've could have one hell of an exciting platform.

Eclipse? :huh:

 

[Yono]

MWeston, I think this is a fantastic idea. I had just started thinking about the ideal handheld game system myself. You have pretty much already come up with the idea I was starting to get and have gone way beyond. Mind you I'm a software guy but you have the skills to actually make it happen.

I currently work on the Eclipse open source project and am a huge fan of open source development. I think sticking to Linux is the right choice and one could build up a great open source community to maintain it and to support the sdk's necessary to build great games and multi-media applications. It could turn into it's own Linux distrubution. I think the possibilities would be endless.

The gp2x community shows what can be done with something like this, but I don't think they've met their potential. Open sourcing the entire firmware and software stack is essential to its success, something that GPH is missing out on. I also think that you need to have accellerated 3D hardware to get more serious game developers on board, including commercial game vendors.

Anyway, I'm just wanted to say I'm dreaming with you. I think this has a bigger potential than many believe and hopefully you can find that investment to make it happen. Build the hardware, build the open source community for the software and you've could have one hell of an exciting platform.

Eclipse? :huh:

GIYF. http://www.eclipse.org/