Pandora Console Ready For Pre-Orders 309
Croakyvoice writes "Finally, months after the official announcement, 3,000 lucky people can now pre-order Pandora, possibly the world's fastest handheld console. It boasts a processor capable of up to 900 MHZ, PowerVR 3D graphics, a large 800x480 LCD touchscreen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, dual SD card slots, TV out, dual analogue and digital controls, a clamshell DS Lite-style shape, and a 43-button mini keyboard. The console already boasts an amazing amount of ready-for-release software such as Ubuntu and many full-speed emulators for systems such as Snes, Amiga, Megadrive, and many more that are not publicly announced yet. The console is as powerful as the original Xbox and on a par with the Nintendo Wii. Those interested should visit OpenPandora.Org. For the full history of Pandora from inception until the present, check out the Pandora Homebrew Site."
Re:What part of this advertisement is news??? (Score:2, Interesting)
It sounds like an advertizement, but it really is news. This handheld console has been developed in an insane short amount of time.
It totally blows away the alternative open source handheld, the GP2x. The people that made this looked at all the problems people had with the GP2x and improved on that, all this for a very reasonable price.
I always thought slashdotted was a myth (Score:5, Interesting)
I always thought that a modern slashdot'ting was a myth due to a poor, database-heavy configuration with insufficient oomph behind the servers. Then some git links to gp32x.com which had one of my GP2X ports as the second item on the front page (outside of the top visible screen). So my two-links-deep, petty news item on something vaguely related to the story (a quick recompile for GP2X) makes my traffic for the month of October (i.e. one day) pass my total traffic for the month of September (30 days) within a matter of hours.
God knows what temperature gp32x.com is hitting right now. Strangely, though, my adsense hits/clicks read normal. I *knew* I should have released my other port so that I was in the No.1 spot on that site when Slashdot hit...
Re:Limited audience (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.gamerevolution.com/images/feature/gizmondo/flow_chart.gif [gamerevolution.com]
The biggest difference between the Gizmondo and the Pandora is that the latter is intended for home-brew only, and is certainly not aimed as a PSP killer. With that in mind, it's hard to see how the Pandora can fail, bring down a large electronics company, destroy a Ferrari Enzo, and lose millions of investors cash in quite the same way as the Gizmondo managed......
Why would you buy this? (Score:5, Interesting)
With the netbook you're getting something that will run most older emulators well, and a machine which is more usable for casual net use. I run a big stack of emulators for older consoles on an ancient Toshiba laptop (with a mere Celeron 500) with no problems. With a 1.6GHz Atom, I'd guess Project64 (N64) and ePSXe (Playstation) work well... Anyone out there tried yet?
Andy
Re:Atlantis Game Boy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What part of this advertisement is news??? (Score:5, Interesting)
A "console" is something you put under or next-to your TV, along with your VCR, DVR, and Stereo.
A handheld device is more properly termed a "portable", not a console.
Also this news story reads like an advertisement. Remember the Atari Lynx? It was the most-powerful portable of its time (late 80s), and was supposed to kill-off the boring black-and-white Gameboy, because the Lynx had full-color with stereo sound and an ultra-fast processor. Doesn't that just want to make you go "oooo"?
The Lynx flopped.
Don't be surprised if Pandora does too. It takes more than being "the most powerful" to succeed in gaming. In fact, the #1 consoles of the past were actually NOT the most powerful. Atari 2600 was woefully slow; NES was inferior to Sega Master System. PS1 was only 32-bit but still trumped the faster N64. PS2 was weaker than Xbox or Cube, but still came out #1.
I'm sure the Nintendo DS portable will still be #1 for several more years.
GamePark... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Lynx flopped.
The power was that killed it. All super-powerful colour handhelds back then ate batteries like candy.
The GameBoy didn't survive *despite* being balck'n'white, it survived *because* it was black'n'white and could actually be carried everywhere (and not kept tied to a power cord).
Currently with the advance in power consumption and battery technology, this point isn't relevant any more.
The second main point is game library. That's something that several concurrent of the Lynx did understand : Nintendo quickly released lots of games for GameBoy (and each successive machine inherited with all the past library through retro-compatibility), Sega and NEC built handhelds compatible with the then huge library of home console games (sadly their machine where colour and power hungry).
Last but not least : ease of development and attraction of 3rd party developers.
the original GamePark had a huge success to the point that anything developed with source available systematically had a GP32 port.
It didn't have a huge success in big commercial developers, but it was incredibly successful in the indie and homebrew community with tons of developed softs.
Don't be surprised if Pandora does too.
The Pandora open-console is a successor of this kind of platform :
- Maybe you won't see latest success from some company like Squaresoft or Bungie targeting it.
- But you just *know* that it will see tons of emulators and ports (which will be functionnal, thanks to decent input - something not possible on iPhone).
It takes more than being "the most powerful" to succeed in gaming.
It takes having a library of software, something that the Pandora will have through indie and homebrew channel.
It takes actually being usable (and not taking too much power like old colour handheld or lacking decent inputs like an iPhone).
I'm sure the Nintendo DS portable will still be #1 for several more years.
And this will probably stay that way, Nintendo DS will probably stay the #1 mainstream handheld. ...but...
There's a n interesting example that you missed in your list :
the Wii.
Which is currently an incredibly huge success even if it is one generation behind all concurents.
Because it targets a completely different market.
Pandora can have a decent success just like the GP32 and GP2x had before it, if it target the homebrew/indie communities.
It has also enough horsepower to run Linux (I mean: more than a simple embed firmware, but actually run Apps too). Thus it could run basic PIM applications. (Calendar, phonebook, editor, etc.) It could also be a good entry in the PDA/Console hybrid market (something that hasn't seen anything new since Tapwave bankrupted).
I currently have a Zodiac 2 that I carry around everywhere and have always had other PalmOS PDAs (together with a foldable keyboard and an antique GPRS/Bluetooth/IrDA enabled phone its a perfect solution to browser / mail / chat / ssh). I could pretty much see myself replacing this with a Pandora.
Re:What part of this advertisement is news??? (Score:3, Interesting)
(Also I disagree that "bitness" is completely meaningless.)
I disagree with your disagreement.
Depending on what point the Marketing department wants to make, "bitness" could refer to any of the following:
- word size in CPU instruction decoder
- word size in CPU registers
- word size in co-processors, such as graphics chips
- address bus width
- data bus width
- color depth of graphics hardware
- DAC resolution of audio hardware
- sum of "bitness" of multiple processors
- other meanings as convenient
None of these values need to be identical, and in game consoles often have not been. With no baseline for meaning, comparisons of any two hardware designs on the basis of "bitness" are entirely meaningless.
Re:Why would you buy this? (Score:4, Interesting)