Dying female indie game developer needs your help [Video]

(Source: Destructoid.com. Cross posted from Acrylic Style)

R.I.P. GamePark Holdings

I don't know if I ever posted about the GP32, GP2X or subsequent handheld devices from the Korean game companies GamePark and GamePark Holdings on here (haven't blogged much in a while).

But anyways if you don't know, these guys were the coolest video game hardware manufacturers of their time.

The GP32 their first handheld came out around the time the GameBoy Advance did (2001) and was literally an open source handheld game console. It was more powerful than the GBA, had a memory card slot (SmartMedia card) a USB port and pretty much was a hackers dream.

I remember people online showing off that they could perfectly emulate GBA, SNES, NES, Genesis, etc games on it, play movies and MP3s and such and I wanted to get one so badly.

And proprietary games had to either be bought online and stored on an SmartMedia Card or bought in retail (on a read only SMC).

After that GamePark started talking about making their next handheld and it began to sound very much like they wanted to compete with the PSP, they even planned to abandon the open source community behind the GP32 and go proprietary all the way.

Then many of their employees left (I remember people stating that only two guys were left in the company after that), and they started GamePark Holdings (apparently Korean copyright isn't as strong as it should be) and they came out with the GP2X.

Now the GP2X was cool, it was more powerful than the DS and slightly more powerful than the PSP, ran Linux as it's firmware, had an SD Card slot, TV output, but the standout feature it was missing for me was Wi-Fi.

And many potential buyers pointed that issue out too, only to hear from GamePark that an adapter will come out to enable Wi-Fi on the device.

Then we got many slight iterations of the GP2X, "Normal Edition", "MK2" and "F200" which brought SDHC support, removed the joystick and added a touch screen. Still no Wi-Fi.

Then we got the GP2X Wiz which brought on more power, a smaller form factor, a lefty friendly design, OpenGL support a built in mic and an OLED screen. Still no Wi-Fi.

Then last year August they released the GP2X Caanoo which aside from a bad name and an ugly design came with an accelerometer, vibration motor, a USB host port, and still no built in Wi-Fi.

Now the thing they did differently was the Linux Kernel they had as the firmware in this one supported USB Wi-Fi adapters with the USB host port they [unnecessarily] put on the thing and they even sold their own Wi-Fi adapter to guarantee compatibility.

But seriously, WTF?! 6 Years after the DS comes out, you finally put Wi-Fi on your flagship handheld game console and it's only via adapter?
(Congrats you've just caught up to the GameBoy Advance)

Well, long story short. GamePark Holdings has shut down operations citing that the Caanoo is too expensive and Apple/Android smartphones took over the market.

Sad part here is they failed to cite the huge hacker community behind the popular game consoles (DS, PSP) that took all of their potential developers away. I mean c'mon, I considered buying their product and instead went for a PSP just because people hacked the crap out of it to the point where it's a better choice for homebrew than a handheld game console running Linux out of the box.

Especially because it has Wi-Fi which allowed for things like multiplayer games and internet connectivity.
A lot of what made PSP hacking great wasn't even games, it was things like online chat clients, internet radio access and web browsers.

The GP2X failed to offer any of that. It could've stood great as a handheld game console/PDA (especially being that it came out before the smartphone craze).

And the Caanoo release was definitely a failed opportunity entirely.

[a] They could've just used the design from the first GP2X.

[b] Instead of working hard on making their own Linux distro for the device, they could've just tossed Android on it.

I mean the Caanoo was incapable of running apps and games from the older GP2X devices so it required an emulator anyways, and Android would've attracted a larger developer community plus Android 2.3 supports game controls so the Caanoo would've been right at home.

[c] Wi-Fi alone would've opened the doors to a great development community, another Linux powered handheld game console, the Pandora got ports of Firefox, Chrome, Spotify, XBMC, and more just because of that alone (not to mention it just has a thriving development community in general, people have ported Gimp to it and even made a GP2X emulator for the thing). 

[d] With the fact that they aimed to run an online store to purchase games, you'd think they'd be smart enough to release an emulator for their own console to buy and run these games on PC to increase their overall reach.

They had the potential to be a great outlet for indie developers early on. Now indie gaming has taken to Steam, the Android Market, the iOS and Mac App Store, Windows Phone 7, and so on (the Xperia Play fuels the fire even further).

I don't know, let me stop ranting.

Goldeneye 007 Wii

Activision is bringing back the N64 classic, except with Daniel Craig instead of Pierce Brosnan (and I'm guessing more changes like that).

(Source: Tiny Cartridge)

(Cross posted from Acrylic Style)

Metal Gear Solid: Rising

(Source: Destructoid)

(Cross posted from Acrylic Style)

Chrome Web Store

Well this just fixed a lot of problems with Chrome OS, I wonder if there'll be an in-app payment platform as well, and how this will handle stuff like piracy and support for other browsers.

Call of Duty: Black Ops [Trailer]

I'm not much of a Call of Duty fan, but this looks cool I must say.

(Source: Destructoid)
(Cross posted from Acrylic Style)

Steam for Mac on video

(Source: Joystiq)

Quake 2 in Javascript

(Source: Ajaxian)

8 Bit attack on New York

(Source: Gizmodo | Cross posted from Acrylic Style)

Game Maker on PSP

Wow, I remember when I used to toy around with this back in middle school. Mark Overmars certainly has gotten far with the project (I've heard that there is a Mac version on the horizon too).

(Source: YoYo Games Glog)

Open Pandora booting Android

Honestly I think this thing should've run Android from the start, maybe dual booting the Pandora OS along side it and customizing the Android OS to look like the Pandora OS so that most people can't tell the difference.

(Source: Engadget)

Xenoblade

Well now we know what Monolith Soft has been doing under Nintendo after that Disaster game (don't mind the name on the video, the title was recently changed).

(Source: QJ.net)

Facebook coming to PS3

I'm a little disappointed here, not really in Sony but more in the fact that Facebook is now on consoles of the big three hardware gaming giants (DSi, 360, PS3) it makes the social networking competitors look sad.

Maybe one day Sony will push their deal with Google to including Google account linking to the PS3 for several apps (they already have YouTube, but it'd be interesting to see Google Talk, Calendar and Picasa for communication, events and photos respectively).

(Source: Engadget)

Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus

Yea, I don't get the title either (I still want this game though).

(Source: QJ.net)

PSP GO hacked

After having hacked my Wii and looking at the PSP homebrew scene before custom firmware, I honestly feel that we need something like the Homebrew Channel for the PSP.

An exploit that'll allow unsigned code to run on the PSP without modifying the firmware.

Custom firmware is great and all but this would be very useful as a backup option, especially for people who don't want to risk too much with their PSP.

(Source: Kotaku and QJ.Net)

XBox 360 Ads

I find this to be pretty cool, I know most gamers will find some sort of problem with it but I honestly feel that it makes the 360 feel a bit more lively. I feel that sometimes we need ads, a nice short break to take your attention off of your repetitive gaming habits every once in a while couldn't hurt.

I'm wondering what happens when you click on the ads though.

(Source: Kotaku)

Wow!

(In this case, treat the title as an acronym)

I'm not sure what category this goes in, whether it be a documentary or a comedy but I'll leave that decision up to you.

Xbox 360 And Facebook Games Can Interact With Each Other

Anyone as excited for this as I am?

Sent via Google Reader:

Xbox 360 And Facebook Games Can Interact With Each Other

via G4 TV - TheFeed on 6/19/09

One of my favorite features on the iPhone version of Scrabble is the ability to play against other people through Facebook. They're the exact same game and through Facebook Connect, people can word battle one another, despite being on completely different platforms. With Facebook Connect coming to Xbox 360 later this year, could we see similar connectivity between Xbox 360 and Facebook games?

"Absolutely," Facebook's head of platform Ethan Beard told me back at E3. "Yeah, totally. That's a simple one -- that's an easy one. There's probably things that we haven't even thought of [coming later]."

Running with the Scrabble example -- Scrabble already exists on Microsoft's platform through Xbox Live Arcade. Electronic Arts has produced the Facebook, iPhone and Xbox 360 versions of Scrabble and was the first company to announce support for Facebook Connect on Xbox 360 with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. There's nothing stopping them from introducing this platform-to-platform connectivity.

"You literally can make a move on Scrabble on your iPhone [and] your girlfriend can make the countermove on the PC," said Beard, "and logically, you could make it on the TV now with our Xbox announcement."

The ball is in EA's court. If they introduced this feature, would you use it?

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Metroid: Other M

Ok, so I was going to post about the Zune next but I just decided it wasn't worth this slot, so here's Metroid.

This just looks spectacularly kick ass and I'm not really into Team Ninjas games except for Dead or Alive 2 for Dreamcast.

Megaman 2.5D - Multiplayer Video

I've posted this before, but the last vid wasn't close to as good as this one, now I wish this were official, and 4 players would be awesome (I think I should tell the creator).



(Source)