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TuxBox: Rising from Indrema's ashes
NoSony writes: "Kind of funny that LinuxToday gets a lot of the best NewsForge stories before Slashdot, considering I thought you guys had the same owners, but you ought to check out this one about TuxBox, which is a new project trying to do what Indrema failed to do - make a true open source console gaming system. I sure hope they succeed." Well, good luck.
The funny part is - that if MS was choosing AMD as it's processor for the XBox - then Intel would have been developed a game console with Linux! Ask Intel employees who where envolved with this and they'll tell you about it.
Now, regarding this console thing - it might be succseed - if they can find a partner who will create the motherboard, chipsets, and all the stuff that it's needed. Of course - any manufacturer will tell you that they will manufacture it for you - by the thousands - only if you put some cold hard cash money up-front.
And I'm not mentioning stuff like DVD playing which will need special license to fully playback DVD's with all the navigational stuff (IFO parsing etc..), writing special drivers for the various joysticks which aren't supported yet (force feedback stuff, etc), and convincing some commercial companies to write games for it...
But if they'll pull this off - I'll be another person to buy it.
Hetz (Heunique)
Yeah, whenever someone fails at something, we should just give up on that thing forever. People don't seem to understand this.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Because there are plenty of cool games for it.
Of course, for there to be plenty of cool games for it, you'll need lots of mainstream developers excited about the system and wanting to develop for it.
What would excite a developer? How about little to no licensing fees? Right now, developing a console title means you give big bucks to console manufacter for the initial development kit and licensing rights for every copy you produce. You're kissing a healthy chunk of potential profit goodbye. In fact, if your game only does modestly well, the console manufacterer can get rich off of your licensing fees while you make nothing.
How about never waiting for the console manufacturer to help you. Development teams often beat their heads against bugs black box libraries from the console manufacturer. Open source means you have freedom to solve your own problems.
Will this work? I have no idea. But I think it's possible.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Consoles are always loss leaders, and this can't be an exception if they still plan on using an Nvidia chip. That alone will cost $300 and up for a GeForce 2 class video card.
If they're going to open it up, they might as well go for completely off the shelf parts, and tell gamers to build it for themselves.
How? Pick a motherboard, a specific network card, hard disk, video card, sound card, etc. What you end up with is a PC, yes, but it's a PC with very specific expected design considerations.
What they also get from this is a new standard for PC games to develop for. Since each game would have to have its own boot code, you suddenly get a game that will play on most PCs out there as well, depending on the specs you pick. Most sound cards are the same. Pick the right network card (or don't, and just rely on module loading for that), and only target Nvidia cards, are how much are you really losing in terms of a market?
I wouldn't expect it to be immensely profitable, but you'd gain *some* users from this without having to sell a console at all.
Raptor
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
They claim that they can put together a console for $350.
They'd better not be planning to do it with PC parts. Heck, even console makers that can use custom chips and boards to minimize parts count end up selling the hardware below cost.
How do the TuxBox people intend to build their console for the price they claim?
(I can think of a couple of approaches, but they involve using sub-optimal hardware or else having a large amount of development and fab funding.)
Linux games pretty well lack the development effort thrown into Windows games, and my (lame) business sense tells me that it's because there just aren't enough Linux boxes out there.
Now, bear with me here, but wouldn't the same logic hold through if a Linux console ever made it to the shelves? The game support would be close to nonexistent, compared with even the few games available for PS2 at its release. Nobody would buy it, and nobody would develop for it because of the missing audience.
Sega, a company with a lot more than a foothold in the console business, is smart enough to get out before Microsoft and Nintendo both jump back in with full force. Sega had huge resources (well, not compared to Microsoft, but certainly compared to any open source console project) and couldn't make it work. Any new open source console could only dream (no pun intended) of the market penetration that Dreamcast got, but it still wasn't enough to ensure success. Why would it work for someone else without funding?
What am I missing here? Why would anyone think yet another console would succeed? Even worse, why do we get excited at the thought of it?
Pretend for just a minute that Sega was going to open-source the Dreamcast platform tomorrow. Would you start working on developing games for it? Are you more qualified than the leading developers? Do you think you could save it? Do you think anyone could? Then why start a whole new project from scratch without funding?
What's your damage, Heather?
Both the Indrema and the X-Box are nothing but PCs stuck in funky boxes. Therefore you aren't going to get any extra performance or added features that aren't already available in a standard PC. Whoever makes them is also going to be forced to sell them below cost just to get people to buy them. There are some people who will spend four or five hundred dollars on a gaming console, but they are not the average gamer. The average gamer might spend a couple hundred dollars on a common console and as much as three hundred for a hot off the press, state of the art, kick ass, newfangled console. Of course a PC in a pretty box with a TV hookup is none of these things. Selling the console below cost means that you'll be forced to make up your profits by charging more for the games themselves. This works for Sony and Nintendo, where the company directly or indirectly controls what titles are available and gets a cut of the profits from any title sold. It won't work for a company that is encouraging others to create the games independently.
A Linux platform for gaming already exists, its called a standard PC with a supported 3d accelerator. I'm using one right now as I write this.
The best thing these guys could do is work to make better tools for creating games under Linux. If they're hot-shot game programmers maybe they should be contributing to a game engine like CrystalSpace. Maybe they should be working to expand the range of 3d accelerators that Linux supports. There are all sorts of effective and useful things they could be doing. Trying to create a Linux based X-Box isn't one of them. Don't be fooled into thinking that the X-Box is a great idea just because Microsoft is the one doing it. Remember Microsoft Bob? I think that the X-Box is going to be a flop in the short run. Whether it is a success in the long run I can't say, but I doubt it.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
All the GPL'd game code in the world isn't going to mean squat if you can't get artists and musicians. If AAA-game quality people can be convinced that working without payment is a Good Thing, then right on. Personally, I don't see it happening. I can imagine the conversation now.
Wannabe Game Developer: So you see, you should spend months creating content for my l33t game. It'll have lens flares and stuff.
Artist: Okay, lets talk rates.
Wannabe Game Developer: Oh, it's open source. You don't get paid, but people can take your art and use it in their games. Cool, eh?
Artist: Riiight...
...learn from others mistakes?
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
"This computer is TUXBOX Level 1 compatible" If you see a sticker like that, you know that any TUXBOX Level 1 game will just run on that computer.
Here is a possible spec for TUXBOX:
128 MB of RAM or more
CPU chip of 600 MHz or over
Sound Blaster Live (any version: Value, Platinum, whatever)
any video card from a (very short) TUXBOX-compatible list
CD-ROM drive or DVD drive
Then a TUXBOX CD will load a Linux kernel, X, and anything else needed for the game. Then it will run the game. So, you can boot from the game, or boot from a generic TUXBOX boot floppy, and just play.
They should then make a TUXBOX CD disk that has about 30 games. This disk would boot to a loader that lets you choose which game. You should be able to play multiple games without rebooting. Any save game info can be saved on a floppy disk.
And, if you are already running Linux, you know you can just pop in any TUXBOX CD and play, without having to reboot.
If this were to happen, lots of small computer shops would burn TUXBOX CDs and give them away with the computers they sell. The computers would not even need to have Linux installed.
If the TUXBOX spec got some momentum going, they would have a small but nice revenue stream certifying computers as TUXBOX compatible. At that point, maybe someone would actually fund a company to make consoles.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Sure, Free linux games are fairly primitive right now, but the advantage of the GPL is that we never have to reinvent the wheel. Now that we have TuxRacer, anybody can go ahead and use the engine for a new racing game. If B&W gets open sourced, we'll have another great engine.
Okay, this is a long shot, but just because Free games haven't worked so far doesn't mean there couldn't be some potential advantages.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Probably not - the whole set of things needed to make this system run, and run by Fall (!) is probably an impossible task.
But... they have the potential to truly create something new and interesting - I thought the part about "He sees developing a freeware game for TuxBox as good resume fodder for those who want to work in the industry; developers will pay just a small certification fee as insurance that the games work properly with TuxBox." an interesting idea. I mean, how many wanna-be developers can get their hands on development kits for a Playstation 2, just to kick it around and see if they can get it to work? But if this Tux Box is truly open, anyone can tinker around and figure it out. It might - just might - lead to an interesting wave of independant console developers. Imagine having your cheap-ass game out for the Tux Box (you meaning your garage game making friends) that sells for around $10 - the "fame factor" alone might make it workwhile. And you wouldn't have the whole DirectX/weird graphic card drivers crap to worry about.
If nothing else, it could be an exercise in how Open Source development can actually make a better product, and I wish them the best. Heck, if it does everything they hope it will (without the MPAA and RIAA breathing down their necks...) I might even buy one.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
All right, in an attempt to not say what everyone else has been saying, here are my thoughts.
According to this page this box will have a 750 Mhz duron processor with 64 MB of RAM. I run a 700 Mhz duron with 196 MB of RAM, and they aren't very expensive. My motherboard (an Abit designed for overclocking, if I feel like it) was by far the most expensive component, but my processor was only $55. 64 MB of RAM is only $30. These are consumer prices, not mass wholesale prices. I'd imagine they could probably get a motherboard custom made for about $50-75 without any expansion slots in mass. Then of course they need their custom cases, which I have no idea how much they cost. Last but not least are the hard drive and video card, and dvd drive (I'm assuming networking and USB is built onto motherboard).
With that said, I think they could manage to mass produce these for the $350 sale price selling them at cost. However, there is no way they'll be done by fall. Pessimistic, yes, but it's already mid-April and they don't even have a prototype unit built, so the stages of development and testing cannot possibly be started.
Moving along, I think it's a wonderful project, and it could very likely be my first console I will buy since the original NES (yes, it was computer games after that for me). On the other hand, I wouldn't mind a sort of emulator that would be able to read TuxBox games and play them on my (almost exact TuxBox equivalent) PC. The only sticky point here is how dependent they get on a particular graphics chip, but if they're smart they'll go through the OS to access the video card and not put too many vendor-specific calls to it (so I can have an NVidia instead of an ATI chip, for instance).
Last, about making money, everyone has been saying how they can't make money with those prices and that target date. Here's the thing - it's a volunteer effort, with no apparent desire to make loads of money off of it (though it isn't exactly nonprofit). That means the only real overhead is the hardware and marketing, which apparently are being supported by the members of the TuxBox community, which is growing. This is the point where I see the TuxBox project failing, due to lack of funding, but we'll see.
If you like the concepts behind this project, I think we could all find a way to support it. Perhaps they should turn the project officially non-profit and set up a page for donations to buy prototype hardware and support marketing expense. Think, the first open-source and non-profit console ever created.
Oh, one more thing. I doubt a first-generation open-source device will reasonably compete with the major consoles. Microsoft has the XBox in development for a few years now, and they're having a hard time coming up with the release by fall, so you know it's a complicated and difficult project. PS 2 has the market with the PS 1, being solid fun platforms well supported by developers. Nintendo will probably release its GameCube early next year. I think it will take a second-generation device to truly have the polish that consoles need - stability, playability, and developer support.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
What they should do is approach some of the gaming companies for assistance on the project. One of the failures I saw on Indrema (why it lost funding or hopes of funding) fell into expecting some VC to back them, which we know from stats, won't happen for some time.
The company's founders should have approached a game developer with their idea along with the statistics (or expected analysis) of what they forsaw in terms of users. (which in turn create revenue)
Even a game company no matter which platform they created for would have had to take a look at the marketability for the product, unless MS bullied them
Thats a lousy way for the developers to put it "better gaming console", since their underlying job is to bring out a gaming console, and when you have little by way of revenue, going up against heavy hitting marketing teams like that of MS' xbox is a killer in itself.Instead of being arrogant about it, the company should just do whatever it takes, then brag later.
Again, I hope these guys get it right this time around, and pull together from managing the entire project, from the upper level teamwork to actually getting the code right. (not that it was wrong the first time) Slightly bad move, what they should do is make cheap games say uner $10.00 US. Lets face it the thought of free my sound inspiring, but it won't you you far, however it will make you broke really fast. Create a pay pal account and have users of their games give what they can under $10.00 (US) this way they have some form of revenue to keep their business afloat, and away from dying as fast as Indrema did. Sigh... Going up against a heavy hitter such as Playstation is way far fetched. Even mentioning them when your first project wen to shit makes the whole project laughable. They need to focus on their own product, get it up and running. Talk is cheap. This does little for this who are keen to playing games they're familiar with. Again why not approach some of the game developers with an idea of porting all games to their box, and a small price. Everyone makes money, and everyone can look forward to playing games with familiarity as well as propietary games.Think about it Zelda X on this machine would rock, and everyone would enjoy it, money would be made, the company wouldn't end up on fuckedcompany.com before it even launched.
who is deran9ed?
360 degrees of Karma
The problem with these consoles is that they never really think much past making it open source.
Sure, it's great and all that it's running on linux, but why ELSE would I wanna buy your machine over someone else's?