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FPGA Based Videogame System


kevtris

Interest in an FPGA Videogame System  

682 members have voted

  1. 1. I would pay....

  2. 2. I Would Like Support for...

  3. 3. Games Should Run From...

    • SD Card / USB Memory Sticks
    • Original Cartridges
    • Hopes and Dreams
  4. 4. The Video Inteface Should be...


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Yeah, just to make it clear I am super excited about a Kevtris machine. Especially within the $250 range cited in the original post. I hope that is still a thing.

 

I can't imagine a $250 machine coming out and being as versatile as everyone expects. Not unless there's a drop in FPGA prices or increase in density at current prices. A $500 price-point would enable so many more capabilities and allow the system to be rounded out nicely. But let The Man clarify that.

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It's always a trade-off. Remove the aluminum case from the NT Mini and exclude the controller pack-in and you might chop the price some, but the other premium quality aspects of circuit design, good-quality DACS, etc, as used in it, do add up and aren't quite as easily tangible, versus its more raw, perceived function. It's always a harder sell for most consumers and may not incentivize the product enough to appeal to most , where function vs. price is more of a determining factor.

 

This is especially true if it's a product designed with planned obsolescence and a short life-span in mind, where change is considered inevitable and the "Next Big Thing" is always just a year away, So, in an effort to appeal to the greatest common base, capitalize on investment quickly, it's often a race to the bottom, with short-cuts being taken, opting for for parts with "passable" ratings, creating a market of disposable goods. In most cases that works out reasonably well, mean failure varying, even as it's a terrible waste in resources, but what if it is an item you don't plan on switching out every year or so? Something you want to last awhile? Then build-quality, the care and underlying philosophy and , yes, the added frills and aesthetics start to play a bit more with perceived value. For me, the NT mini, as it was, was still a hard sell, but it was Kevin being involved and his Jail-break, that sent me over-the-edge. ;)

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Well the bar has been set with the NT mini. People are going to expect the same level of future-proofing in z3k. And more. That means having enough capability "hidden" inside to be revealed later.

 

And regarding jail-break.. It's not really a jail-break at all. A real JB circumvents intentional DRM and other protections. This was a straightforward upgrade. Semantics? Maybe. But it is what it is.

Edited by Keatah
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Has anyone who ordered the NT Mini on Friday *not* received a shipment notification yet? I'm still waiting on mine...

I received notification and tracking number but its not yet been collected (or so the tracking info shows), I wonder if they are just working through the orders (in order), emails being sent one by one, and getting them all collected at once? Site says they will be posted 3-5 days after the order.

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Core Store got its name from a joke, I believe, about someone saying, "You just can't walk down to the corner store and buy FPGA cores." ..I think the moniker was coined in the RetroVGS days and was in reference to the time it takes to make them.

Easy to take for granted when so many high quality cores are getting released every week here :)

 

Though kevtris has mentioned on irc that much of this core work has been done over time in the last 12 years! It's amazing to see them in action now

 

Re: Zimba 3k's price point, I'd be willing to spend up to about 500$ for it

Edited by rezb1t
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ooohhh, sorry for voicing my opinion. Nobody said they should ship "crap" I just stated not aluminum but apparently they should only have shipped the gold plated one for you.

There's not just cheap chinese plastic you know.

Also a version (like envision for the Z3K) in which the analog out are optional (I care about HDMI) would also cut on costs ... but then again "you have the dough and I don't understand marketing".

 

Everyone and his sister these days goes for "premium" via glossy paper, complex packaging, attaboy accessories ... nothing really necessary and only there to justify an inflated price and allowing for higher margins over what could be done much cheaper (not crap still).

 

And keep in your master mind that until kevtris "released the kraken" aka CoreStore they were not selling all that well (not bad but also not that well), so take your premium nonsense and look at reality, it's the free goodies (that is kevtris jailbroken fw with cores and what it entails) that is making the difference not any of the rest, the firmware does not need aluminum milled cases or glossy paper etc...etc.... should there be an option for that? sure.

The thing is, that the NT isn't really all that expensive when you consider a pre-modded HDMI NES will cost you $425-$500. Sure, the AVS is a steal at $180, but it doesn't have the same amount of features in terms of compatibility with accessories and video options.

 

While it can be argued all the "best features" are as a result of a free jailbreak, that doesn't change the fact that Analogue was the company that chose to hire the developer who programmed the FPGA and gave away the jailbreak software, and that should be considered in the value comparison.

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Core Store got its name from a joke, I believe, about someone saying, "You just can't walk down to the corner store and buy FPGA cores." ..I think the moniker was coined in the RetroVGS days and was in reference to the time it takes to make them.

Kevtris responding to Mike Kennedy thinking that getting cores for the Retro VGS "is as simple as that":

 

If I'm going to work on something of this magnitude, it's going to be on my own terms, my way. I will still license my cores to them, but I doubt they will want to pay my fees for them. After all, they can just go to the Core Store and pick up a few. I'm not the only game in town.

Source.

 

Me thinking it would be funny to rub it in Mike Kennedy's face by naming the firmware after that for a much more well thought out console:

 

I think it would be kind of cool and funny if he named the firmware for the SD card the Core Store,"Just copy the Core Store to your SD card, add you ROMs, insert it into your Zimba 3000, and then everything just works." icon_mrgreen.gif

Kevtris sharing the same sense of humor:

 

Hahah, I just might do that. damn you for giving me that idea :-) /system/ is boring, but /corestore/ is better. If nothing else, the cores ARE stored there...

That is how it happened. For the record.

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Kevtris responding to Mike Kennedy thinking that getting cores for the Retro VGS "is as simple as that":

 

 

Source.

 

Me thinking it would be funny to rub it in Mike Kennedy's face by naming the firmware after that for a much more well thought out console:

 

 

Kevtris sharing the same sense of humor:

 

 

That is how it happened. For the record.

haha I forgot about that. I missed the boat on naming /system/ /corestore/. I'd change it but don't want to screw up people doing firmware upgrades now. darn.

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The thing is, that the NT isn't really all that expensive when you consider a pre-modded HDMI NES will cost you $425-$500. Sure, the AVS is a steal at $180, but it doesn't have the same amount of features in terms of compatibility with accessories and video options.

 

While it can be argued all the "best features" are as a result of a free jailbreak, that doesn't change the fact that Analogue was the company that chose to hire the developer who programmed the FPGA and gave away the jailbreak software, and that should be considered in the value comparison.

Why people keep on arguing that the 500 price tag is correct just because it happened to be the price tag that they come up with?

 

It could have been 1000 and we would have been having the same discussion if I only dared to say 500 would be more like it. If there was no JB FW it will be simply very expensive and it still is for the things that are not cores.

The fact that kevtris decided to make us an enormous gift giving away his cores for free is completely tangential.

 

Let's repeat "KEVTRIS IS GIVING AWAY HIS CORES FOR FREE" and that's an "AWESOME GIFT" period. I believe he has (or should have) an agreement for a percentage on every console sold as it should be, if not I don't know what happened.

 

Whatever sits around HIS HARDWARE DESIGN is not strictly necessary (heck the RPi comes with no case/power at all to keep costs low on purpose and it sold 12M units) and as it stands now that part of the hardware is definitely overpriced and I bet they got caught quite off-guard with the price of the AVS [not the feature set], I am not digging all this "premium this, premium that" you guys seems so fond of, I am not pissing anyone off here, kevtris won't stop giving away his cores just because I HAVE AN OPINION, Analogue will continue selling and rightly so as there's no alternative, the AVS has too small of an FPGA for attempting the higher cores (but the lesser may appear eventually just so the sales can continue).

Also if the cores would NOT have included SD load (aka embedded flashcart support) we would be having a third kind of discussion but I digress.

 

So once again "KEVTRIS CORES ARE PURE AWESOMESAUCE, RETROGAMER BLISS" but the hardware necessary to play them can be built cheaper, light as a feather (so it won't cost 40US$+ to ship) etc...etc...

 

So told please keep plunging 500US$ a pop to support the developer, he deserves it and then same, it's awesome business for Analogue and when they reach 2000 units in sales they would have generated 1M$ in business right there .... 5000 and we [well they really] are at the 2.5M$ mark and that's Coleco Chameleon kickstart territory :D

"eat your socks" MK.

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The thing is, that the NT isn't really all that expensive when you consider a pre-modded HDMI NES will cost you $425-$500. Sure, the AVS is a steal at $180, but it doesn't have the same amount of features in terms of compatibility with accessories and video options.

 

While it can be argued all the "best features" are as a result of a free jailbreak, that doesn't change the fact that Analogue was the company that chose to hire the developer who programmed the FPGA and gave away the jailbreak software, and that should be considered in the value comparison.

 

At worse, the Aluminium just makes it slightly more expensive. If they were to sell the exact same thing but with just a polycarbonate shell, it would not dramatically reduce the cost. Compare the MacBook and iMac versions, and even various Dell systems.

 

The NT Mini is a "complete, finished" product. The RetroUSB AVS is a "Complete, Finished" product for $170, with a much cheaper FPGA. The NT Mini and the AVS both have some issues with Japanese accessories (the FDS doesn't actually fit on the AVS, and the 3D glasses doesn't fit on the NT Mini) Given the rarity of these items, and the US-centric market for the console, it probably wasn't considered, but both products can work-around those problems with cartridge/port extensions.

 

But for the Z3K, I think we need to consider that unless Analogue wants to pay him to make essentially a "Super Analogue NT Mini" with a SFC/SNES ports, it may be up to kevtris to sell/license the PCB plans and do something like the SD2SNES where other people can build it.

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haha I forgot about that. I missed the boat on naming /system/ /corestore/. I'd change it but don't want to screw up people doing firmware upgrades now. darn.

 

You call it the Core Store with a trademark symbol which makes it even more funny and actually have working prototypes before a shell. That is all that matters. :) Don't you also use a trademark for "It just works" too? Anyway, you could still have the first firmware for the Zimba 3000 with that name for system without messing up updates for that.

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....

But for the Z3K, I think we need to consider that unless Analogue wants to pay him to make essentially a "Super Analogue NT Mini" with a SFC/SNES ports, it may be up to kevtris to sell/license the PCB plans and do something like the SD2SNES where other people can build it.

Something tells me that there should be a line (well at least 3 or 4 interested parties) at kevtris door to build the Z3K, the market is there (or so it seems).

What would be even better is if kevtris could make a living out of it .... build a company and a sustainable model to work and having fun doing it at the same time.

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