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Open Source Gaming Handheld Project Wants Your Money
YokimaSun writes to point out a Kickstarter project that may warm the cockles of your heart: "Fans of emulation and homebrew have not had much to cheer about over the years; the recent generation of consoles has pretty much killed off any hacking by constant firmware updates. The days of PSP homebrew have died a death and consoles like the Caanoo, GP2x and even the mighty Openpandora never really lived up to the massive expectation. There is a glimmer of hope from a team of homebrew developers who have developed a new console called the GCW-Zero, a new open source handheld system which uses the OpenDingux Linux OS. The specs are impressive, with a Ingenic JZ4770 1 GHz MIPS processor, Vivante GC860, capable of OpenGL ES 2.0, 3.5 inch LCD with 320x240 pixels; 4:3 aspect ratio, 512 MB DDR2 and 16GB of internal memory which can via external memory card be extended by another 32GB. N64 and PS1 emulation and everything below should be at full speed in time."
It's super-low res because it's supposed to run legacy games. Your PS1 / N64 output at 320x240 typically, with capability of 640x480 "high resolution" at a push. Furthermore, your phone does more than play games, yet plays games well; The processor isn't dedicated to gameplay on your phone, so a dedicated game console doesn't need as much horsepower. Thirdly, the games are already available; IT RUNS EMULATOR ROMS.
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Its a MIPS instead of ARM so itll emulate PSP at decent speed.
Don't forget that the PSP has two MIPS CPUs, each with its own floating point processor.
And a 480x272 resolution, which it will be kind of hard to emulate on a 320x240 display.
The list of failed handheld gaming consoles is long. The list of successful open source one is empty. There's no way you're going to build a momentum, unless you are way ahead of the market leaders. And without a momentum, it'll die before it takes off.
Donate money to this, and you'll either get nothing, or another box that goes in the closet/basement/attic. Perhaps you'll get your money back after 20 years if you keep it in mint condition.
Handheld? Ouya...? Perhaps you would be interested in something called a "smartphone", running the same OS as Ouya... Android....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'