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carmel_andrews

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Posts posted by carmel_andrews

  1. Posted

    The developer battlecry of "We need better hardware" is an old one. There's usually a bit of truth to it, but often it's just a scapegoat for when a dev team is off its A-Game and they need to justify that to the company's fans or shareholders. After all, it's easy to blame the hardware when you aren't the one making it.

     

    I don't think we'll see a mainstream customer interest in retrogaming, but I can absolutely see a mainstream audience trying to cut the B.S. out of their gaming experience. More use of tablets. A decline in multiple console ownership. Fewer non-controller accessory purchases. I even think online usage may change if it becomes too much of a money pit for the consumer.

     

     

    Not too sure about the former since 'better hardware' doesn't neccessarily equate to 'better games', the sinclair spectrum proved that principle wrong big time, after all it was the best supported system for games in the EU/UK from 1982 (it's birth) till the death of home computing in 1993/4 (when atari pulled out of hardware making and commodore went under)

  4. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    On the downside, some compatibility was lost because of the improvements to the DSP and so the following games currently do not work: Cybermorph, Doom, Flip Out!, and Wolfenstein 3D.

    Have fun!

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Do you have something against those games... ;)

  5. Posted

    Just incase i forgot, we don't need more hardware releases there's too much hardware in circulation...after all do you hear Mr or Ms's gamer (or consumer) asking for MORE HARDWARE, I haven't heard of postmen/women getting hernia's from taking sackfulls of snail mail to MS, Nint. or Sony asking for more hardware or that those companies email servers keep crashing because something approaching the worlds population (over 7 bn) keeps asking these companies for more hardware......I don't see it and i don't hear it...so why's it happening

     

    We need new (old) platforms to support, perhaps if people switched over to classic gaming and just skipped modern gaming, then the current hardware makers might just think 'why are we doing more hardware when the market isn't asking for it' and the current games producers or pubs might think 'why are we selling that at 60 pounds a throw and getting fewer and fewer units sold when x game or y game is flying of the shelves and doesn't cost nearly as much'

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    Perhaps as someone said, the future likes with independent programmers/developers and homebrewers

     

    Perhaps the gaming industry is a microcosm of the retail market (and that is suffering too), i.e. you have all these shops with all these staff yet little stock is being sold, the same thing is happening in gaming, Games devs/publishers have all these offices and staff and ongoing projects yet what they have online or in the stores and shops just isn't selling or shifting...Two bad or flawed business models that are in DIRE NEED for an upgrade (gaming industry II anyone)

  7. Posted

    Perhaps the present computer and gaming platforms need to look at the model mobile phone and tablet pc gaming has taken, i.e. lower priced games but more sold

     

    You don't need to be an alan greenspan or a ben bernanker to figure that out

     

    As for why nintendo and sony's portables failing in the market, simply because they can't compete with mobile phones and tablet pc's, not just for content but also services/features etc, the only way those companies will be able to compete with mobiles and tablet pc's, is to incorporate those like features and services into existing hardware and get app developers to start supporting nintendo or sony portables, the onlty way thats going to happen is by opening up 3rd party development to lower cost/priced content (both games and non games...if nintendo or sony want to compete with mobile phones and tablet pcs)

  8. Posted

    Linky only

     

     

     

    http://uk.games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/tumultuous-game-industry-rocked-wave-studio-closures-235700238.html

     

     

     

    ...And even the hardware companies are losing money (like NINTENDO)....interesting, perhaps thats because there's too much hardware in circulation and people are not going to or aiming to upgrade anytime soon

     

    Or is it that mobile gaming on moby's and tabs are the in thing (and costs less then a console/pc game) or that people are ditching the traditional desktops to more mobile gaming

     

    If thats the case, perhaps the likes of M$$$$ and Sony might wanna hold of realeasing their 'next gen' PS's or Xbox's till the market improves (i give it 2016 or 2018 earliest)

     

    As for more game dev's closing their doors or game pub's going under (as indicated in the linky), perhaps kickstarter or homebrewing is the new way of getting your game into the marketplace

     

    Perhaps one way of reviving the market is a combination of homebrewing and the APX concept (for those that actually remember APX: Atari Program eXchange) or perhaps a revial of the PD libraries that existed way back when might be the way to go

     

    I think the market has come to the realisation that your not going to shift x million units of x game or y game week or month in week/month out and the same goes for hardware, these companies need to be more creative and adventurous in selling their product

     

    After all, we are not in the best situation economically, so these companies need to do something to revive the market....i.e lower priced product, budget ranges (i.e like the old codemasters/mastertronic labels) of a try and buy option, i.e you pay say 2 pound to download a small section of the game, if you like it you can download a full version at a discounted price (say 25/30 pc off)

  10. Posted

    All that seems to have happened is that one majority shareholder in the holding company (the company formerly known as infowhatsitsname) has been replaced with another majority shareholder in the holding company....nothing else has changed, the big A will still be sold off to the highest bidder

     

    Perhaps if they want to fleece goodnatured atari fans, they'll flog it off on evilbay (i guess it will sell like the boxed air raid did, but this time we are talking about telephone number stylee figures, i.e. 8-9 figure values)

  11. Posted

    E.T and 2600 Pacman....2 very good reasons why management and marketing types shouldn't get involved in game or product development (unless by some stroke of luck, they actually understand or comprehend what actually goes on in either game development or product development)

     

    I am sure there are other classic examples (i won't go into the one about Atari turning down Jay's and subsequently Joe Decuirs proposal or roadmap for future development of the atari 8bit, aka the 68000 based systems)

  12. Posted

    If you use 'emulation' (which i know isn't everyones bag or cup of tea), just load up your favourite 5200 emu. and your fave 5200 game image and nab yourself 'artmoney' or 'cheat engine' if the emulation is running on a pc, armoney and cheat engine are essentially software equiivalents to PAR/GG/Xplorer/Xploder etc

  16. Posted

    Here’s an interesting point, why do companies (like Atari) fail or die like they do

     

    It is either because they failed to adapt to the constantly and ever changing environment (i.e. the marketplace)

     

    Or like I was told, once a company gets so far in the evolution, growth/expansion of that company, it starts losing touch with itself and its market/customers etc. (by that I mean it starts removing itself from those that work for the company, namely anyone that doesn’t have the word ‘president’ in their job spec/title and also it starts removing itself from the people that are its customers/market)

     

    I think in Atari’s case it was a bit of both

     

    I was told, per email by a well-known former Atari staffer (from the US) from the warner’s days, that Atari’s MANAGEMENT didn’t care or give a toss about anyone with the word engineer or developer/designer (both hardware and software) in their job spec or title, Atari MANAGEMENTS attitude was, ALL EMPLOYEES REGARDLESS OF TITLE OR STATUS/DESIGNATION ARE PAID TO DO A JOB AND THAT IS IT, furthermore the same person intimated to me that Atari’s MANAGEMENT were largely technologically ignorant (or was it technologically incompetent)…not a good thing when you are running a company pretty much involved in the tech market

     

    Is it no surprise then that if Atari’s MANAGEMENT had that attitude and approach, as to why the company largely failed like it did (or the parent company wouldn’t have felt the need to unload it onto TTL like it did?)

     

    The reason why Atari had the problems it had now is largely down to failure to adapt to the ever changing environment and constantly clinging onto ancient IP’s that had pretty much been milked dry anyway

     

    Now, if Atari had innovated its ancient IP’s (i.e. constantly developing them further and making that IP relevant to that generation’s market) Atari might have stood a small chance of doing something useful in the market, case in point being the reboot of ‘Star Raiders’, because Atari didn’t develop that game further, past the original and also the renamed/rebranded ‘last starfighter’ game, people, namely the consumer couldn’t see the link between this version of star raiders and the original as well as the subsequent title, now if Atari had been on the ball and had constantly kept developing that particular IP (and also other ancient IPs) further by every so often coming up with improvements and embellishments to the original game and packaging that into a new version of said game (or games) Atari would constantly be making all their IPs marketable and relevant to that market and generation of gamer

     

    The other issue is that Atari were making an ar$e of themselves by trying to release gaming content that people didn’t identify Atari with in order to show that Atari could play with the big boys like EA, Activision etc, if Atari had been on the ball, it would have kept the modern gaming content and the retro gaming content as separate businesses or gaming labels, it is because Atari didn’t do this is to why Atari largely failed, since very few people identified Atari with modern gaming content

  18. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    Pac-Man and Dig Dug are Namco properties.

     

    ..Al

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I seem to remember namco selling of the home gaming IP of Pacman, I used to work in the same building as the company that purchased the rights at that time, back in 2000...I think they were called insight design or sommat, dunno if they were buying the IP for themselves of for one of their various clients

  19. Posted

    I can play Commodore 64, Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, Sega Master System and old DOS games on my Amiga, as well as have thousands of Amiga games (and the emulated ones) all available from a menu which I can have come up as soon as the computer is switched on, so I think the Amiga is better for games. Of course you can do all that on a modern PC too, I guess...

     

     

     

     

    I don't see a 2600 there (or an A8)....Bad girl

  20. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    Following on from the thread about using a Commy Sid in the A8 and using non Atari hardware in an A8 (like VBXE which uses a TI gfx chip unless i am mistaken)

     

    It brings my to asking a question to those that program or create software based emulators (like atari800win, atari++, altirra, steem, saint, stella, virtual jaguar etc etc)

     

    Since all the hardware that the emulator uses is now represented as 'code' (be it assember/c/vb/java etc etc), would it be feasable or possible to using emulated hardware chip sets from a non atari platform (i.e c64, amiga, st,7800 etc) in an atari 8bit emulator, or conversely using an atari 8bit HCS's in non atari 8bit emulators

     

    OK so you'd have to reprogram the hardware registers (to reflect the hardware registers to the new hardware being emulated) and you'd also need to reprogram specific parts of the emulated machines OS to seeing/recognising the new hardware as well as modifying the relevant 'memory maps' for that emulated machine, if that could be done though I am guessing that the principle should work

     

    If this is possible/feasable i am guessing that the possibilities would be endless since this could apply to any form of HCS that is being emulated but hasn't been used in say popular computers or games systems (i.e OTS based hardware and coin op hardware)

     

    OTS=Off the shelf

  21. Posted

    I think the only way Atari will ever make money from the games market is to revert back to it's original business plan/model (i.e. the one they had prior to deciding to produce and market/distribute coin op pong itself)

     

    That is if Atari comes out the other side of administration (aka CHAPTER 11) in one piece

     

    The original atari business plan/model was (from what i recall reading) is that Atari merely designs/develops the games and then licences that content out to manufacturers/producers to market/distribute etc under their own names (with atari getting a cut of each game unit sold)

  22. Posted

    I think the only way Atari will ever make money from the games market is to revert back to it's original business plan/model (i.e. the one they had prior to deciding to produce and market/distribute coin op pong itself)

     

    That is if Atari comes out the other side of administration (aka CHAPTER 11) in one piece

     

    The original atari business plan/model was (from what i recall reading) is that Atari merely designs/develops the games and then licences that content out to manufacturers/producers to market/distribute etc under their own names (with atari getting a cut of each game unit sold)

    • Like 1

  24. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    Well, I guess Ryan is doing some maintenance on icculus.org as the main page is gone too. :P

     

    The latest development series can always be found on http://outrage.the-crow.co.uk/builds/, what's on the main site is always the latest official release. Also, support for gamepads was taken out since before the official 2.0.0 release and will finally return in the 2.1.0 release.

     

    That said, 2.1.0 is just around the corner. Just have to polish a few things and decide whether or not a few regressions are worth holding up the release anymore. I'm thinking no, since the performance of it is so much better now than it was. :)

     

     

     

     

    Do these still need the QT stuff, if not, is the Version of VJ without the QT stuff been updated along with your updates (and link please)

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