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Retro Gaming Gains A Savior?
1up.com has a look at a new slimline NES console made by a company named Messiah. They hope the console, named Generation NEX, will be able to reach consumers in retail stores. From the article: "We think our products can be mainstream, it's just a matter of finding and reaching those people. Everyone loves the NES, and grew up playing it...We're hoping to get Generation NEX into mainstream retailers. We think that'll help out a lot. It's kind of like one of those impulse buys, people aren't searching for it but when they come across it they'll be like 'whoa, I want that!'...The greatest challenge was incorporating all of the extra features into the hardware...It's quite easy just to make a clone that works with the existing stuff, but then when you incorporate the built-in wireless and all the other stuff that went into this hardware ... That was the biggest challenge, getting everything to work together."
Wireless NES controllers, rumble protocol, 16 colours!!!! Heracy!
The whole point of the NES controller was that it was built to last. POed with a game, throw the controller out of a window. New games for the NES. WTF? Unless they actively pay me to take this console off their hands I see no reason why I should buy this instead of a current gen system, or an original 'cool' NES. And lets face it, modern emulators do a better job as they play current games as well.
If they're building this because they can... all power to them. If they're building this to market, I have two words: Market Research.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Wouldn't this necessitate that they duplicate the system-side functionality of the 10NES chip in such a way as to violate Nintendo's patent? Seeing as precedent stands in Nintendo's favour regarding the replication of cart-side 10NES functionality, with Tengen having lost its case, if the patent is still valid, one would think that this hardware would not be legal in the United States. But has the 10NES patent expired? Or do carts function without 10NES hardware on the system side, though the reverse is not the case?
"Wireless NES controllers, rumble protocol, 16 colours!!!! Heracy!"
Generation Nex will have controller ports that will support your good old rectangular controllers, dogbones, Maxes, and Advantages. Since none of those were wireless or offered rumble, there's no need to suck your panties into your rectum.
"The whole point of the NES controller was that it was built to last. POed with a game, throw the controller out of a window."
Yeah, smart console makers tend to make their hardware durable enough to withstand the immature tendencies of children and other creatures of lesser intelligence. But are you really proud of the fact that you hold these people to the task of enforcing these tolerances, because you are still hampered by such a mindset after all these years? In other words, have not grown out of the stupid habit of throwing your controllers out the window?
"New games for the NES. WTF?"
Think homebrew. For pretty much every old system you can think of, there's an active development scene that still exists to this day. I personally don't care about new NES games, but if some guy wants to make NES games that are designed with pseudo-stereo and rumble in mind, I'm not going to stop him. If he wants to sell that game, hey, good luck to him.
"Unless they actively pay me to take this console off their hands I see no reason why I should buy this instead of a current gen system, or an original 'cool' NES."
I doubt Messiah will care that you don't. There are enough people out there, myself included, who are anxious to see how accurate it is as a famiclone - most existing famiclones out there that have been released recently use the the same NES-on-a-chip that Atari used in their Flashback standalone. These chips are okay but not perfect, especially regarding sound. In fact the only reason I haven't bought a Yobo (American version of the Gametech) famiclone is because they use a NOAC. Otherwise they're pretty neat.
As for a "cool" old NES, there just is no perfect out-of-the-box NES out there if you're a North American gamer. A refurbed original NES offers high-quality composite video and mono RCA out, but will exhibit the same loose pin problem after time, requiring yet another adjustment or replacement. A top-loader NES is very reliable, but only does RF out unless you hack composite/mono RCA out into it, and even then they don't look as good as the original NES. An original Famicom is RF-only and only plays Japanese games without a pin converter. An AV Famicom offers both top-loading and composite out but still needs that pin converter for American games. The licensed S-video-equipped alternatives are just too expensive, rare, and Japan-only. That leaves us searching for the perfect NES in third-party land - next stop, Generation Nex. (As a bonus, I won't have to swap my pin converter in and out if I buy a Nex, as the Nex will support both American and Japanese carts via the dual cartridge ports.)
"And lets face it, modern emulators do a better job as they play current games as well."
Better if you don't care that you're not playing your real NES carts on your TV with your real NES controllers. (Yes, expensive alternatives and loopholes exist that counter this statement, but I'm not concerned with them.)
"If they're building this because they can... all power to them. If they're building this to market, I have two words: Market Research."
I'm assuming that their research of the market, no matter how trivial, has at least slightly incorporated the success of famiclones around the world, the fact that patents on the NES hardware have lapsed, and the fact that retro gaming nostalgia is currently at a peak in both East Asian and North American countries. (Just look at the styling of the thing to see how they're capitalizing on this.) In other words, I'm planning on buying one if the compatibility is just right, and so are many other people in the NES enthusiast scene.
Even the backwards compatibility features of the
With the Revolution, PS3, and Xbox 360 coming out soon, won't this disappear without a trace?
I am SO buying this. I think there's enough people who are too poor for the new generation or are pissed off at modern games/game companies in general that this thing will make some money.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
I could see this succeeding or failing.
One thing I didn't see in the article is if they had Nintendo's blessing in all of this. If not, Nintendo could potentially swoop in and take them out, or just take over the company on threat or stopping the product altogether. I assume they haven't gotten this far without some legal talking, but I can't be sure to the extent of that.
The system must debut at an equal price or lower price to the GBA SP at the time. Even in the updated form, the console can't match the graphics of the GBA (can it even match the GBC?), and don't even try to compare it to the current generation of consoles.
Having some form of a developer kit would really boost it. Those toying with the gaming industry would get some first hand experience at 'easier' coding. A fairly inexpensive dev kit, including a cartridge that either hooks up to the computer while in the NEX or can download from the computer and then be put into NEX, software for writing games (and perhaps something like RPG Maker,) and a 'getting started' book would be awesome.
Allow the software to be downloaded for free, but unless they have some other input device (which I also didn't see in the article,) you'll only be able to use a cartridge for that.
Re-release the classics. Chances are that not many people have NES games, so they'll have to release something, or many people will have nothing to play on it. Since the capacity of memory per area has greatly increased since the days of the original NES, take advantage of that: offer extras, if possible.
Alternatively, the article mentioned that, with the expand graphics and rumble support, they could update many games. That would be awesome (Four Swords in the original Hyrule?), but if you have the memory storage to allow it, include the original version of the game for those feeling nostalgic.
I see this console being bought mainly by the older generation. Many of the NES games were quick pick-up-and-play games. Most working adults who loved games as a kid don't have the 80 hours to put into massive games, and this would give them a great alternative. These adults will then share the console with their kids, who will gain an appreciation for gameplay over graphics, perhaps spearheading an improvement in games for the current consoles.
Or not. In any case, I hope that this system comes to frutility (from the looks of it, we're much more likely to get the NEX than the Phantom.) If the price is right, I can see myself easily picking this up.
I'd be willing to bet given the massive success Nintendo has had with their re-release of old NES games for the GBA and the NES-coloured GBAs, Nintendo will be watching this very closely to see if they can stop it.
With one of Revolution's biggest known features being backwards compatibility right back to the NES I'm sure Nintendo won't want a competing product out there that might cost them a Revolution sale.
the Intellivision was a base 10 system
No, it wasn't. The Intellivision's CPU was actually a 16-bit processor. The common misconception of the Intellivision as a 10-bit system comes from the fact that since the majority of it's commands were 10 bits long, the game cartridges used 10-bit ROMs. The CPU also handled 8-, 14-, and 16-bit commands and data. When the occasional 14- or 16-bit command was used, it would be stored in two 10-bit words (a bidecle) with the excess bits ignored.
I should point out also that the bit width of the famicom-on-a-chip makes no difference for the Intellivision 25-in-1 game unit, since the hardware is NOT running an emulator. Those games are all re-written (or ported) to run on the famiclone hardware.
For technical information on the Intellivision, from the same people who programmed it back in the 80's, visit the following link:
http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardwar
Must... think up... something... clever!