The 7800GD (New 7800 Flash Cartridge?)

[78001987]

It's never stopped you before. Who exactly are you arguing with?

 

 

In all seriousness, I'm having trouble finding where this was said. A quote would help.

Started here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/165892-h2/?p=3589021

[CPUWIZ]

Started here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/165892-h2/?p=3589021

 

Yes, and it has to do with people not buying homebrews, because they don't have to. Fuck Jinks and Ninja Golf etc.!

[78001987]

 

Yes, and it has to do with people not buying homebrews, because they don't have to. Fuck Jinks and Ninja Golf etc.!

is that really happening, though?

 

Did the ready availability of the CC2 negatively affect the sales of Pac Man Collection, Bon-Q, Beef drop?

 

Seems the CC2 did more to help speed along the development of these games than it did to kill their sales.

 

But more directly to my point - has any 2600 or 7800 homebrew game that the dev never shared the rom publicly had its rom actually pirated and released beyond the dev's wishes and kill its sales?

Edited September 16, 2016 by 78001987

[CPUWIZ]

is that really happening, though?

 

Did the ready availability of the CC2 negatively affect the sales of Pac Man Collection, Bon-Q, Beef drop?

 

Seems the CC2 did more to help speed along the development of these games than it did to kill their sales.

 

But more directly to my point - has any 2600 or 7800 homebrew game that the dev never shared the rom publicly had its rom actually pirated and released beyond the dev's wishes and kill its sales?

 

Yes and yes. I do not like the Harmony cart either, for the same reason. Some people spend years on homebrews and then sell 35 copies.

 

There are a handful of pricks on ebay, who dump homebrews and make repros of them. You can ask Albert about that.

 

It goes further than that, which has nothing to do with ROM's, stealing hardware designs is in fashion as well.

[Trebor]

It goes further than that, which has nothing to do with ROM's, stealing hardware designs is in fashion as well.

 

Get out of here. The market is 'too small and niche', right?

 

As if someone would make a cheap bootleg off someone else's hardwork and genorsity in sharing information, compared to a genuine quality hardware product; I don't buy it.

 

Crazy talk, CPUWIZ!

[gorfcadet]

I appreciate what everyone here does. I love having the homebrews and various other projects in my collection. The label art on some of these carts just blow me away.

 

Saying that, I do like the idea of an SD cart so I take my system to school to show my students or a friend's house without dragging half my collection with me. Of course, I am very fond of my Anniversary multicart as well and the PMP collection. I have one of the moody 7800s that don't play everything properly, (Berzerk VE doesn't work at all and the PMP collection goes straight to Scramble) but that is why I have two 7800s.

 

I absolutley see devs' frustrations. Working so hard to see only a few copies move. It is probably felt more here on the 7800 since the fanbase is smaller than the NES or even the VCS.

 

Hmm... not sure if I had a point.

 

<Goes back to lurking>

[Jinks]

Yeah I remember those days...If the dollar was stronger here and I had more spare money laying around I would buy everything homebrew software and hardware if I needed it or not just to contribute to keeping the dream alive for Atari stuff.

I do not have any other way to help. It sucks being 20% geek. I would have to get a perm and a lab coat and talk about flux capacitors for a start.

[Schizophretard]

I personally find it a bit offensive, Fred has been working on this for a long time and has a bunch of money in it too. Just my opinion.

Yes and yes. I do not like the Harmony cart either, for the same reason. Some people spend years on homebrews and then sell 35 copies.

You don't like the Harmony Cart but also find it offensive that someone would create a 7800 SD Cartridge because it may discourage Fred from making a Harmony Cart 2? I mean, if I don't like something then I hope they get discouraged from making a sequel.

 

Anyway, I didn't buy any homebrews before the Harmony Cart. But after I bought Power Lords, Boulder Dash, Extra Terrestrials, Seaweed Assault and I may be forgetting one. I intend on buying more once I'm out of this Hell hole and have a decent game room again. With Seaweed Assault I play tested and gave game play suggestions obsessively with the Harmony Cart to such an extent that my wife almost divorced me over it because I thought nothing but Seaweed Assault for months. I could tell that Random Terrain was onto something cool so I helped and motivated him(bugged the Hell out of him) to get it finished. I have multiple VCS's and 7800's and he wanted me to test it on all of them to check for compatibility because all he had to work with was Stella at the time. So, now I have a Harmony Cart full of Seaweed Assault prototypes(He would send me a new one practically every day to see if a bug was gone, to test out new features, and/or to fine tune old features), I have the final version on it, and also I still bought the cart for it. But most importantly his game wouldn't have even existed in its present state if it wasn't for the Harmony Cart. It isn't just a "piracy" tool but is also a development tool(for the devs and beta testers) and a try before you buy tool. Besides, as long as emulators exist "piracy" will exist regardless of flash carts and as long as collectors exist homebrews will sell regardless of "piracy". Also, things like the Harmony Cart are homebrew hardware so their sales count as homebrew sales.

[accousticguitar]

I really like the Harmony cart because it saves so much space. I got rid of my 200+ cartridge collection and replaced it with 1 cartridge. That is wonderful! plus I can actually play games that I will never be able to afford (like Air Raid and a host of others). It's not such a big issue with the much smaller 7800 game library but there are still games I will never be able to own (like Tank Command, for example). So, flash carts are great imo.

[DBloke]

Poking my head in and added my 2p to it

 

I own a fair few games, I also own flash/SD carts
Am I put off buying more games? Yes and no

I do games nights and multi carts are a massive help, saves me having to carry bags full of games, it saves me having to pay Ebay prices on games I dont want to own

Yes I do run homebrew on them, but for the most part its homebrew I cant buy anymore
I am yet to get a Harmony cart, I do have a rather large collection for my 2600, I am looking into getting some homebrew, but I will still buy the proper carts for my own use

 

The 7800 library is small, I have a lot of games for it, but some go outside my price safe range (£20), for them I might as well nab a flash cart

Plus with my gaming events I have had games nicked in the past, having it all on one cart means I can keep tabs on things better

[RevEng]

Also, things like the Harmony Cart are homebrew hardware so their sales count as homebrew sales.

Sure, but at a reduced ratio - one Harmony cart can replace a practical infinity of homebrew carts.

 

I know some members use Harmony and buy homebrew too, but it's already been said by people in the know (Al, batari, etc) that homebrew cart sales declined significantly when the 2600 Harmony was released. I don't expect a different result here. I'm not against it, but we shouldn't dispute that it's likely to happen.

[78001987]

Sure, but at a reduced ratio - one Harmony cart can replace a practical infinity of homebrew carts.

 

I know some members use Harmony and buy homebrew too, but it's already been said by people in the know (Al, batari, etc) that homebrew cart sales declined significantly when the 2600 Harmony was released. I don't expect a different result here. I'm not against it, but we shouldn't dispute that it's likely to happen.

well, it really only has the potential for that if the ROM is released publicly during development or after it's completed. From what I've seen (and this is just my understanding of what goes on publicly) the homebrew game devs who share their work during development through WIP roms tend to sell WAY more carts when a game is released, than those who don't and expect users to buy a homebrew game without ever having the chance to see it in action.

 

I base this simply on the fact that all the 7800 games I've seen Bob and Kenfused and Perry create and release here, while sharing WIP roms sold through multiple runs of carts, and sold well into the hundreds as far as I understand. I'm sure there were a small handful of people who never bought them, but play them on emulators or through a CC2 or Test versions of the H2, but I don't know that those people would have bought the games either way.

[RevEng]

Yes, those that release some forms of ROM may get a larger share of sales than those who don't... of a significantly reduced audience.

 

Or is the 7800 audience so much different in character than the 2600 audience? We're all philanthropists maybe?

 

CC2 and the harmony 7800 proto surely have an effect too, but probably not as large as the Harmony 7800 will based on all of the complaints about its delay.

[phoenixdownita]

It's gonna happen either way, I'm sure there's more people looking to build an SD based (or other form) of multicart and sooner or later it will come out.

 

Yes flashcarts do impact sales of homebrew and even have a limited impact on value of originals (there's just less demand [at least temporarily] at that point so the value would be more in line with collectors-only kind of a deal), the impact on originals tend to be time bound as collectors wants the originals anyway and for some consoles there's just limited supply.

 

<wall_of_text>

I have not bought a single game for any system I had a flashcart for since after receiving it, aside from the occasional game that does not work correctly with the flashcart and I get bugged enough to buy them (less than a handful).

I expect many others to be in my same boat, wrt homebrew I personally hardly ever spent more than 10 minutes with any (I just have interest on the originals more than anything) but I do not know if this is representative .... if there was a flashcart for 7800 I am sure I would have tried PMP games on it and likely spent a lot of time with a few and probably never bought the actual item (if there was a "cheap" way to just pay for the digital version I would have likely contributed, if should be possible to have it stay in the range of a couple of beers).

 

I believe the only homebrew I bought is Orion Alice Mom rescue for Jag CD and it had a lot to do with the fact that it ended up being under 20US$ shipped (if memory serves) ..... that gets close to the price point I am more akin to.

Oh, I forgot I donated a little to fjc for his work on uflash and PBI support for U1MB (haven't had the chance to even install the new FW).

 

BTW once the Jag flashcart comes out it would have the same effects there too, at a certain point realizing that relying only on philanthropy for getting paid is not gonna make sense is inevitable, if the homebrewer (or cart maker as it may be) forecasts big upfront expenses it means we need a better way to share in the pain (and see many releases not getting anywhere/stay_niche as there may not be enough upfront interest).

 

I can state that without "backups" then and flashcart now I would not have played even 1/50th of the games I got to play. Here I said it. I am not apologetic for it as I simply would not have had the money to do it bitd. Now I just don't care to pay for old games at current prices (the only "like new" thing I see is the price) when the money goes to speculators mostly and as I said I really am not that much into homebrews.

</wall_of_text>

 

Right or wrong the modern era of iOS/Android games/app makes everything being very cheap and it impacts my perceived value of a 30/50/80 US$ homebrew release given I have no intention to speculate on it. I am not questioning the cost for the homebrewers just that it gets very hard to justify the expenditure in the face of contemporary professional productions (which I don't enjoy either).

[78001987]

Yes, those that release some forms of ROM may get a larger share of sales than those who don't... of a significantly reduced audience.

 

Or is the 7800 audience so much different in character than the 2600 audience? We're all philanthropists maybe?

 

CC2 and the harmony 7800 proto surely have an effect too, but probably not as large as the Harmony 7800 will based on all of the complaints about its delay.

Well - but I think (and this is just my opinion) that most of the anticipation for the Concerto is due to wanting to play games like Ninja Golf, Mean 18, etc. and the other very rare 7800 commercial games on real hardware without having to pay huge amounts of money for them. The Homebrew games we all love here are readily available in the AA.com store. but I don't think they're selling repros of rare commercial games.

 

Anyone who has actually played Tank Command or Water Ski on an emulator knows that they aren't really worth the exorbitant prices they fetch on eBay, except to collectors - at least not from a "good gameplay" perspective.

[accousticguitar]

Well - but I think (and this is just my opinion) that most of the anticipation for the Concerto is due to wanting to play games like Ninja Golf, Mean 18, etc. and the other very rare 7800 commercial games on real hardware without having to pay huge amounts of money for them. The Homebrew games we all love here are readily available in the AA.com store. but I don't think they're selling repros of rare commercial games.

 

Anyone who has actually played Tank Command or Water Ski on an emulator knows that they aren't really worth the exorbitant prices they fetch on eBay, except to collectors - at least not from a "good gameplay" perspective.

That's what I want it for. I'm tempted to buy that European multicart even though it only holds 16 games. It would still hold enough of the rare games that I don't have though. There aren't that many on the 7800.

[78001987]

That's what I want it for. I'm tempted to buy that European multicart even though it only holds 16 games. It would still hold enough of the rare games that I don't have though. There aren't that many on the 7800.

Same here.

[VectorGamer]

That's what I want it for. I'm tempted to buy that European multicart even though it only holds 16 games. It would still hold enough of the rare games that I don't have though. There aren't that many on the 7800.

 

I'm going to pass on that. The whole reason for me to buy a multicart is so I can have the entire library on an SD card and sell the carts I have in my collection. I'm not going to be loading/reloading a cart that can only hold 16 games.

 

I'll buy the first 7800 SD multicart that gets produced and be done with it.

[accousticguitar]

 

I'm going to pass on that. The whole reason for me to buy a multicart is so I can have the entire library on an SD card and sell the carts I have in my collection. I'm not going to be loading/reloading a cart that can only hold 16 games.

 

I'll buy the first 7800 SD multicart that gets produced and be done with it.

That's why I have not purchased it yet. It is tempting though since the 7800 library is so small. It doesn't take up much space even when you have most of the loose cartridges.

[phoenixdownita]

 

I'm going to pass on that. The whole reason for me to buy a multicart is so I can have the entire library on an SD card and sell the carts I have in my collection. I'm not going to be loading/reloading a cart that can only hold 16 games.

 

I'll buy the first 7800 SD multicart that gets produced and be done with it.

 

 

That's why I have not purchased it yet. It is tempting though since the 7800 library is so small. It doesn't take up much space even when you have most of the loose cartridges.

 

You could buy 3 or 4 and still come out on top.

 

I can tell you that since I made my own multis I kind of lost interest in the 7800, those rare games are all-right but they didn't make me drool over the 7800.

Alien Brigade is the one I enjoyed the most, Ninja Gold is quirky and has nice graphics but I didn't play it all that much, I loved Plutos though (Sirius instead is too tough).

I don't think I even remember the rest of "rare" as I didn't really either play or enjoy them all that much.

I did play many common 7800 games (DK, Mario Bros, Food Fight, Robotron, Joust) but those are still dirt cheap aren't they?

[this bunch I had them all in original carts just so I make it clear]

 

I understand that your mileage may vary, I am not judging you in any way, shape or form.

I got my fix circa 2Y ago and I learnt a little in the process .... win win if you ask me.

[+sramirez2008]

I don't know...I purchased a Harmony and still have a combination of 68 Homebrews, Hacks and Protos. I didn't purchase my Harmony with the intent of not purchasing future Homebrews. If i like a game, I will support the developer and buy it. Besides, I still like to swap out individual games, but that's my preference.

[Jinks]

I will never sell any of my games homebrew or original. Even with sd carts I will still buy homebrew games.

[Schizophretard]

Sure, but at a reduced ratio - one Harmony cart can replace a practical infinity of homebrew carts.

So can Stella. Anyway, that sounds like an environmentally friendly and efficient way to get as many 2600 games(homebrew or otherwise) onto 2600's and therefore into more gamers' hands to play. I don't see how that is a bad thing. If a homebrew dev getting less money because gamers have more than just buying the cart as options to play the games makes them less motivated to create homebrews because the money trumps it being otherwise by more gamers playing the games through Stella and/or the Harmony Cart while collectors who will appreciate the complete package of a cart, manual, and box being those more likely to buy the games in that form then, in my opinion, their passion for this hobby is misplaced. Sure devs should feel appreciated by making some money off of them but they should also feel appreciated by more gamers playing and being fans of their games.

 

I know some members use Harmony and buy homebrew too, but it's already been said by people in the know (Al, batari, etc) that homebrew cart sales declined significantly when the 2600 Harmony was released. I don't expect a different result here. I'm not against it, but we shouldn't dispute that it's likely to happen.

I thought the homebrew crash wasn't being caused by less cart sales but because too many subpar games are flooding the market by being easily produced with Batari Basic and collectors buying them left and right without any discernment about the quality of the games. It seems kind of strange to me that simultaneously it is being caused by not enough sales and too many sales by collectors buying anything put in a cart because there is no discernment about the quality of the games. I mean, how could it be that collectors are helping lazy devs put anything on a cart by willing to buy anything on a cart while cart sales are down which should have the opposite effect of discouraging anyone from putting anything on a cart? It seems contradictory to me. Anyway, if there was no try before you buy type discernment like what toiletunes described in that thread as an example:

 

I play most homebrews on Harmony. If the game is great, I'll buy it. If the game is good, I'll keep it on Harmony. If it's crap, I delete it. This system works pretty well for me.

Then wouldn't that make the situation much worse and like the original video game crash because you would have to buy a game to know if it sucks while feeling the burn in your wallet?

[Andromeda Stardust]

It's gonna happen either way, I'm sure there's more people looking to build an SD based (or other form) of multicart and sooner or later it will come out.

 

Yes flashcarts do impact sales of homebrew and even have a limited impact on value of originals (there's just less demand [at least temporarily] at that point so the value would be more in line with collectors-only kind of a deal), the impact on originals tend to be time bound as collectors wants the originals anyway and for some consoles there's just limited supply.

 

<wall_of_text>

I have not bought a single game for any system I had a flashcart for since after receiving it, aside from the occasional game that does not work correctly with the flashcart and I get bugged enough to buy them (less than a handful).

I expect many others to be in my same boat, wrt homebrew I personally hardly ever spent more than 10 minutes with any (I just have interest on the originals more than anything) but I do not know if this is representative .... if there was a flashcart for 7800 I am sure I would have tried PMP games on it and likely spent a lot of time with a few and probably never bought the actual item (if there was a "cheap" way to just pay for the digital version I would have likely contributed, if should be possible to have it stay in the range of a couple of beers).

 

I believe the only homebrew I bought is Orion Alice Mom rescue for Jag CD and it had a lot to do with the fact that it ended up being under 20US$ shipped (if memory serves) ..... that gets close to the price point I am more akin to.

Oh, I forgot I donated a little to fjc for his work on uflash and PBI support for U1MB (haven't had the chance to even install the new FW).

 

BTW once the Jag flashcart comes out it would have the same effects there too, at a certain point realizing that relying only on philanthropy for getting paid is not gonna make sense is inevitable, if the homebrewer (or cart maker as it may be) forecasts big upfront expenses it means we need a better way to share in the pain (and see many releases not getting anywhere/stay_niche as there may not be enough upfront interest).

 

I can state that without "backups" then and flashcart now I would not have played even 1/50th of the games I got to play. Here I said it. I am not apologetic for it as I simply would not have had the money to do it bitd. Now I just don't care to pay for old games at current prices (the only "like new" thing I see is the price) when the money goes to speculators mostly and as I said I really am not that much into homebrews.

</wall_of_text>

 

Right or wrong the modern era of iOS/Android games/app makes everything being very cheap and it impacts my perceived value of a 30/50/80 US$ homebrew release given I have no intention to speculate on it. I am not questioning the cost for the homebrewers just that it gets very hard to justify the expenditure in the face of contemporary professional productions (which I don't enjoy either).

I get where you are coming from and when I first purchased my Atari 2600 in 2012, two of the first homebrew carts I bought were Harmony and Stella's Stocking. And I bought Stella's Stocking knowing full well it could not run on the Harmony because it was too big. Well I went crazy with the seeming smorgasbord of Atari games available cheaply at GameXChange (for a good while, all generic "Atari" games (which included 7800 and all other precrash consoles) were sold for a flat rate of $2 each before they got smart and realised they could make more $$$ off the uncommons. That was before I began to realise that many bitd Atari games, especially most anything 3rd party besides Activision (and a number of 1st party titles as well) were junk. So I went back to exploring games on my Harmony, but there was this thing about owning the original cart and cramming it in, even if the label was beat to hell.

 

I also began to see gameplay value in Homebrews was higher than that of retail releases, and after downloading whatever ROMs I could get my hands on for free, started buying the original carts of any game that tickled my fancy that I would find or stumble across in the AtariAge store. I participated in the beta testing of Princess Rescue and a couple of my suggestions (ie using TIA sprite duplication for twin Goombas) ultimately got included in the game. My old username Stardust4ever is even listed in the credits as a betatester.

 

None of this would have been possible without Harmony. Can I honestly say that I would have racked up over 60+ homebrews and counting? I cannot say. I know I've avoided wasting money on a number of turds, but also purchased a few hidden gems thanks to this multicart. I would sometimes find a unique game at a store, then run home to look up a review online or play it on the Harmony, before deciding to purchase.

 

So while my usage of flashcarts is somewhat different than yours, I must say that owning flashcarts for nearly every system I own has likely grown my collection moreso than shrunken it. Yet if at some point in the future I want or need to downsize my collection, whether for space or monetary gain, flashcarts will afford me the option without losing access to the games. But generally, if I fall in love with a game because I first played it on a flashcart, it causes me to seek ownership where otherwise I would have passed it by.

 

Something to think about...

[DBloke]

When you see someone remove a cart from the system while the powers on or someone try to force a cart in the wrong way you to will pine for a method of loading games thats idiot proof