godslabrat Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 Even early on, Playdojo balked at the idea of doing runs of 25k units or more. Now they might need to seriously ask if they can commit to 10k, which is probably the minimum for any product of this type. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacophony Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 (edited) Crowdfunding campaigns like this typically get the biggest chunk of the funding at the beginning, and then it slows down quite considerably. You can see this on sites like Kicktraq: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console/ Based on this I'd be surprised if the Polymega got more than about $750k, which assuming $325 per order would be ~2300 units Edited September 9, 2018 by cacophony 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 (edited) So I started reaching out to Polymega, and I got about what I expected. However, here's the biggest thing I got out of this conversation: I was suspecting as such, but yep: in order to play CD games on the Polymega, its biggest selling point outside of its modulated design, you still need to provide the BIOS if you hope to have decent compatibility with CD-based systems. Sure, they provide (or at least claim to provide) HLE BIOS, but like with any other part of console emulation using high level emulation of the console's BIOS will cause issues since it is not the actual BIOS the game is trying to launch off of. While many, if not most, games will launch with HLE BIOS, it's not as ensured as just using the BIOS made for the original console. Of course, Polymega assumed I was born yesterday and decided to patronize me: Which of course, I responded like above: So these people want you to pay at least $250 for a console that won't even be able to play the vast majority of games from the consoles they're compatible with out of the box unless you have the original consoles to dump the BIOS from yourself or try to illegally get them from the internet. Real nice business strategy, Playmaji, if the Seedi Team can ever get their console off of the ground with their original planned MSRP of $99 you guys are in deep s###. Like they aren't about to be already, but whatever. Edited September 10, 2018 by DurradonXylles 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derFunkenstein Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 They're passing emulator features off as their own in public tweets? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 They're passing emulator features off as their own in public tweets? Yep, and rather shamelessly too. They also talk as if the Polymega is out on the market yet, and not only had one public appearance out of the dozen or so planned over the past year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 Their default marketing material is so ... interesting ... they claim out of the box compat with 30 systems (and they count each variant in it 1 for US, 1 for EU and 1 for JP, obviously for the 32X is also x3 and the same for SegaCD x3, then they count x2 the Sega CD-32x .... sure that's 5 or 6 games, in that list they completely missed the actual Famicom so the NES family is US and EU only, but hey in order to say they support Genesis+CD+32X region free they actually count 11 systems, way to go) Even better they claim lag-free ctrl for the wired ones that come with the extra module .... so the CD games are NOT lag free even for the consoles in the Polymega base unit that have the CD as an add on like PCE/Genesis ... seriously!?!?! ... Only interesting part is faster NGCD load time ... anyone knows which emu has that feat? (too lazy to google it). Anyhow without extra modules this thing out of the box should emulate: SegaCD (& 32x+CD), PS1, Sat, PCE-CD (and variants SuperCD, ArcadeCD), and NGCD ..... that's realistically 6 systems (region free), none of which is gonna be lag-free by their own admission as the lag-free wired controllers come with the modules Genny/PCE only though (Sat/PS1/NGCD lost in translations). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 (edited) So here's a bombshell: someone by the name of "ChoiAniki_" shared a piece of information that might make a lot of the recent developments of the Polymega make a lot more sense. Eric Christensen, co-founder and CTO of Playmaji, Inc., left the company this past July. A screencap from another conversation of this system Choi shared with me on twitter: I can confirm that he not only doesn't have Playmaji listed on his professional timeline, but in August joined another company in Chicago, and he's not even listed as one of the two employees on the LinkedIn page for Playmaji, Inc. From Eric Christensen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/developingisfun/ From the employees page accessible from https://www.linkedin.com/company/playmaji/ I cannot guarantee that this answers everything, or really anything, but a lot of the pieces start to fit when you realize that the console's name changing, the complete change up to the console's purported hardware architecture from "hybrid FPGA" to a pure x86-based hardware architecture, the complete lack of public appearances after E3, and the potential of angel investor money drying up or being revoked (thus the sudden, ill-planned pre order campaign) all came around the time or after Eric C. left the company. This makes more sense when you look at what he was responsible for, which was deeply rooted in the Linux OS, core software and FPGA cores development. It looks like whoever Bryan Bernal roped in was another professional contact who worked closely with himself and Eric, as they all worked at Bluepoint Games at one point or another. I cannot assume the reason for the former CTO's departure, nor can I assume if it was done on good terms or not, but I can make a guess. If Bryan's previous conversations with those like godslabrat and others show us any signs of intention or general attitude toward this project, Eric likely left due to getting increasingly frustrated and disgusted at his friend's actions and words and decided to drop everything and leave. Eric wanted to make something he could be proud of after working in the industry as long as he has, Bryan might've started that way but soon started seeing only green from exploiting a market that would pay steep prices for a device like the Retroblox/Polymega. But again, all of this is pure hyperbole based off of a couple of LinkedIn pages. EDIT: In my tired haze, I had forgotten that this was already talked about a little bit earlier. Edited September 10, 2018 by DurradonXylles 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacophony Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 (edited) Well this is certainly unfolding... Edited September 10, 2018 by cacophony 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 (edited) You're right, and I completely blanked out on that. That's what I get for waiting forum posts at half-past 2 in the morning. Well this is certainly unfolding... I guess so. Edited September 10, 2018 by DurradonXylles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derFunkenstein Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 Even better they claim lag-free ctrl for the wired ones that come with the extra module .... so the CD games are NOT lag free even for the consoles in the Polymega base unit that have the CD as an add on like PCE/Genesis ... seriously!?!?! ... I think that's true, though. Wireless Bluetooth controllers inherently have a LITTLE bit of lag. No wireless setup is totally lag free compared to its wireless brethren. I can't be bothered to care because it's a pretty miniscule amount, but this is why pro gamers play with wired controls at all times. Even Xbox 360-based tournaments like Halo 3 used wired controllers, not the stock wireless ones. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluxgra Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 Well, now they are at $339,678. Things are slowing down but it sure is depressing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 Well, now they are at $339,678. Things are slowing down but it sure is depressing. From what I've seen, it's stuck at $339,678 for the last twelve or so hours. The amount doesn't even change if I put a base unit into my cart. I wonder if pre orders have truly stalled out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 Everybody is rushing to ataribox. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacophony Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 The amount raised is manually updated ~once per day, but it has definitely slowed down a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 What would block them to claim they reached their goal no matter what? It's their site and there's not even the supervision of KS or IGG this time. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacophony Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 What would block them to claim they reached their goal no matter what? It's their site and there's not even the supervision of KS or IGG this time. Well nothing technically. But if they don't get enough to justify/allow a production run then hopefully they're honest and return the money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenegg Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 Well nothing technically. But if they don't get enough to justify/allow a production run then hopefully they're honest and return the money. They're not returning anyone's money. There's a reason Kickstarter doesn't charge anyone until the end of the campaign. Credit card processors don't take lightly to canceling hundreds or thousands of transactions. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted September 11, 2018 Share Posted September 11, 2018 It's been about 36 hours, and it looks like preorders have actually stalled out at $360,698. Not even putting an item into the site's cart coaxes it to go up. A lot more people are now acting more wary of Polymega on twitter, some people even requesting for refunds, with people even saying that they would like to see live footage of one or two people just playing one of the prototype or demo units Playmaji purports to have. The Polymega twitter's response is that they've been far too busy DM'ing people and ensuring billing info is correct. Playmaji says they don't have twenty minutes for one of them to set up the E3 demo unit, or one of their purported prototype units, a camcorder, and just record some gameplay; I'd be more understanding if they actually already showed something off and was more transparent, but this excuse smacks of bulls### to me. They don't have a small amount of time in their day to show off a live video of them playing their system to ease concerns and criticisms, but have all of the time in the world to argue with some twitter rando like myself over the course of the day? Yeah... I ain't buying it if they can answer tweets criticizing them. Probably the funniest thing to me is that someone asked them about retro game achievements, and they said that their still unseen on the rewards page stretch goal was to add said achievements because it's hard and would take some doing... Except it's not. Thanks to https://retroachievements.org/anyone wanting to add achievements to their emulator can do so, and it's free, open source, and is covered by the GPL v3 and MIT licenses meaning that they don't have to worry about legality as long as they don't claim that they came up with the code and share their modified code with the public that was GPL based. While I don't see the appeal, I know others like something like this so it does already exist. So yeah, only $4.25 million to use a pre-made system that only requires crediting the people who made it and share the code somewhere online! Chutzpah! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derFunkenstein Posted September 11, 2018 Share Posted September 11, 2018 You're asking some awfully pointed and difficult questions. I consider it a minor miracle that they haven't blocked you yet. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godslabrat Posted September 11, 2018 Share Posted September 11, 2018 (edited) I'll harp this again and again, same point you made... they had all the time in the world show what they had. If waiting until go-live day blows up in their faces and makes them look like scammers, so be it. They made their bed, they can lie in it. Edited September 11, 2018 by godslabrat 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted September 11, 2018 Share Posted September 11, 2018 Why in the name of Yars' Revenge are they making excuses for not showing the product they intend to make and sell? "It would be a pretty big lift?" I've literally never seen a bigger F-U to potential customers. Amazing. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_convoy Posted September 11, 2018 Share Posted September 11, 2018 It's incredible how inconsiderate they are of their potential clientele. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted September 11, 2018 Share Posted September 11, 2018 (edited) When I'm senile and fretting over which nurse is going to transfer me into the shower - I'm sure I'll be rambling how I played ataribox, coleco chameleon, retroblox, and seedee. At some future date these fake consoles will seem real. Memory is a funny thing and often fills in the gaps when pressed for information. And they're bound to drive unborn archaeologists crazy. Edited September 11, 2018 by Keatah 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted September 11, 2018 Share Posted September 11, 2018 Heh heh "when," as if you're not already like that. Tfpbbtbtbtbt! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurradonXylles Posted September 12, 2018 Share Posted September 12, 2018 You're asking some awfully pointed and difficult questions. I consider it a minor miracle that they haven't blocked you yet. Part of me has to agree. On the other hand, considering a couple of industry vets started Playmaji and the Retroblox project, and they likely have some wisdom revolving around PR and having their backs against a wall, I think they are afraid of starting a social media dumpster fire by blocking anyone who isn't an obvious and clear cut troll. Not to say they may change their minds on that later on if tweets like mine prove popular and controversial enough to actively turn people off of the device, but I will credit Bryan (or whomever is actually running the Polymega twitter) in having enough patience to respond to half of my publicly displayed criticisms and attempting to ignore the other half. Speaking of: not a lot happened today on Polymega's twitter as of note, aside from more people responding to them more critically. I had one guy respond to my RetroAchievements mention, basically having the same schoolyard rules understanding of open source copyright law as most other people seem to have, as well as mentioning Hyperkin and Cyberfreak's f### ups using such OSS in their products. I explained GPL v2 and above's licenses allowing for commercial use so long as you adhere to the terms, and told them that Hyperkin and Cyberfreak got into trouble because they ignored those and other OSS licenses. Since that person hasn't tried correcting anything I've said, I think my replies satisfied them. Polymega's preorder amount has gone up to $385,578 as of 11 PM EST tonight, keep it up and they may see $400k by Friday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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