zxdplay

4 hours ago, Link said:

There are multiple people right here on this forum who can help you with music for a 60 pin cartridge that's compatible with a console that already exists. 

You're trying to do a lot of unnecessary engineering work and effort to solve one aspect with known solutions. 4 pages on I doubt you are going to reach your goal of 170 buyers, here or anywhere. Even then, it severely limits your audience.

Thank you, now I don't need a wish list with 170 people. I'm going to give it a try, maybe I can really make it. If it fails because it's too difficult, it's okay.

7 hours ago, Sumez said:

The fact that the thread title is worded like a dodgy business opportunity rather than a hobbyist passion project should be pretty telling 

When this thread first started, I did want to get a wish list, but a lot of people were opposed to that, so I dropped it.

But I do have a lot of motivation to build this machine, I just want to get more people's support.

On 1/6/2024 at 2:37 PM, zxdplay said:

I will officially launch this project.

And as I said, the project is just beginning

You don't have to argue anymore. The photo is not a real machine, but the real machine looks like this, exactly the same. I don't think there is any misleading.

17 minutes ago, OptOut said:

That's a generic famiclone. The cost of components for a device like that is about 2 bucks, and each of those components is already mass-produced in the millions around the world.

 

I have already said that the shell and handle of the initial model of HS are just like this, and the appearance looks exactly the same. The cartridge adapter is the same as that of FC, which is 60pin. As for the game screen you want to see, I will show it to you, but it takes time

1 hour ago, erac said:

You just described a PC. Target Steam.

Do you think it looks like a PC?

10 hours ago, Khromak said:

If your goal is to have fun making a hardware project, I think that's amazing and fully support you.

 

Compared to hardware development, I prefer to enjoy the joy brought by game development. I want to have a more relaxed development environment, where music can at least play midi (I like midi effects very much), mp3, wav. This requires large-capacity cartridges and audio decoding chips. It can be developed in C language, with a higher CPU clock speed, so that I can freely express my imagination when creating.
So I have always had this idea, to make the game platform I yearn for, and then develop games on it. I will feel very happy. As for making money, it's secondary.
I think at least a few game developers on the VGS forum share my thoughts. I would love to share the joy of making games at HS.

5 hours ago, Tulpa said:

If you want to do it as a hobby, that's cool. Lots of people do things that start as hobbies.

But most of what you're pitching relies on other people also taking it up. You can't rely on that. People are too fickle and unpredictable. You need to do a project that you can see from start to finish, and then see if people get excited over that. That's what made your original Star Keeper a success. It was a complete game and people just had to buy the cartridge.

A project that you can't finish yourself is a recipe for disaster, unless you already have partners lined up and committed.

Ok, I understand

3 hours ago, OptOut said:

Right now you're basically blowing smoke.

Since some people doubt the authenticity of the project, then, ok, I will announce the latest progress of HS on the VGS forum at the first time

5 hours ago, Scrobins said:

For what it’s worth, I think you have really out of the box ideas. I don’t agree with them, but you having interesting thoughts.

That said, I think it really matters what your motivation is. If you’re just trying to play with a new challenge, then do what you want. But if you are looking to make money to fund future projects, what’s been said above is solid advice, and my offer to help you publish another run of Star Keeper on the NES with VGS and Mega Cat still stands. If you’re just looking to make money period, homebrew development is definitely the wrong corner for you, because the margins are not great.

I am doing it purely for my hobby. I am just asking people if they would like to add HS to their wish list, that's all. But some people like to lead the topic to other things.
The more people support me, the more confident I am to complete the project.

21 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

To be honest, I'm only interested in cartridge games for older consoles. If you were programming new games for NES/Famicom, I'd be interested, but not a whole new system on its own.

Ok, I just came to consult your opinions

17 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Can you post some screenshots of some of the games you are working on, so I can get an idea of the style of game you're talking about?

I really want to see what you have in mind here.

Now the system has not been set up yet, so we can't see the screen.

57 minutes ago, Gloves said:

If I want to bake a cake I don't start by raising hens, I go to the grocery store and buy some eggs. Is there a reason you can't just hire a musician like @zi? He does excellent work and I'm confident would be happy to help with any musical needs you might have. And in terms of making games for a console which uses cartridges - you could make games for the Evercade if cartridges on consoles was your goal, and if making them on actual retro consoles is too hard for you. Or hey - the Switch uses cartridges. I don't get how you logically jump straight to "I must make my own console" here.

 

During the development of Beeling, I found that it was difficult to get music for MD. All I got were music in mp3 and midi formats. When I converted the midi to vgm format, the effect was very poor. The only way was to find a musician who could write DefleMask music, but I couldn't find one. In addition, I bought a fake MD console online, which made me very angry. In a fit of pique, I decided to turn to developing a brand new cartridge game console. In fact, I had wanted to do this for a long time. The above reasons only accelerated my decision.

18 minutes ago, JamesRobot said:

As a player, I'd have to see at least a couple killer apps that bring this beyond the Nintendo/FC homebrew scene.  If it had Sivak's Battle Kid 3 or KHan's Larry 2 exclusives I'd be in.  I imagine you'd have to pay out guaranteed funds starting at $10k (a liberally low number) to get exclusives not including production costs of the software.  

And any existing known devs would still have to be willing to jump ship from the established NES/FC platform which wouldn't really make sense since the current scene is really about the passion for the system we all grew up with and have played for the past thee decades.  You would have to have produce something seriously special to make even the smallest impact on the scene as entrenched as it already is.

 

TLDR: Battle Kid 3 or Larry 2 exclusives and I'm in.

You are right. I can understand the feelings of many people towards the NES, including myself, who love NES games.
 

2 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Are we talking the kind of 8 bit style graphics, or something more advanced like we'd see from SNES, MD or even higher?

The graphic effect can at least reach the HD version of SNES

6 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

Not to mention they’d also have to learn C now to develop for said console

Most programmers can use C language

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

Do you have a fully working prototype of the system, or is it entirely theoretical at this point?

There seems to be many aspects of this system that are still undecided.

How long do you think it would take to produce a full working prototype of this system?

The project has been initiated for a long time, not only in theory, but also in practice. It is hard to say how long it will take to complete it, which depends on how long it will take to break through the next technical difficulty.

15 minutes ago, Gloves said:

you didn't even add controller support. How am I supposed to enjoy the game "like it's the 80's" when I'm limited to WASD controls?

With the support of controllers, I specifically purchased several controllers for testing, including Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, and PS3 controllers.
Just need to set the handle on the title screen. If you update to the new version, it also has the function of automatically detecting the controller.

18 minutes ago, Gloves said:

The NFT thing still puts a sour taste in my mouth

This thread has nothing to do with NFT. I admit that I am mainly responsible for the NFT incident, but please don't involve NFT. This is what I am most worried about happening. HS has nothing to do with NFT. I just want to do a market survey here to see how many people like HS.

21 minutes ago, Gloves said:

you seem to be treating VGS as a test market

VGS is not a testing market. On the contrary, the VGS Homebrew forum will become the birthplace of HS.

41 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I need 170 people who will buy this console to make it happen

I just counted a number, I didn't make them pay any actual expenses

43 minutes ago, Gloves said:

"I want to make a lot of money without having to put in effort personally"

I need to develop a whole set of systems now, including building an operating system, designing PCB, configuring development environments, making games, and a lot of other work. Am I not trying hard enough?
 

55 minutes ago, Gloves said:

You've come here now multiple times exclusively to hock your wares

I think you misunderstood my kindness. I want to get everyone's support. I need to count the number of requirements so that I have confidence in completing the remaining work.

27 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I'm more curious about what happened to Star Keeper.

The Star Keeper PC version has failed, and its sales are far less than expected

35 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Do you still plan to do a Star Keeper 2

Star Keeper2 may be launched on the new platform I mentioned today

1 hour ago, Gloves said:

Are there other places you're advertising this? I ask because we don't have 170 active members so you'll certainly need to do so to hit that number.

11 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I feel like you are doing that thing again where you believe that VGS is much bigger than it really is. We aren’t a step and people being interested here are not representative of really anything besides people who collect old crap and bitch about modern technology. I would heed what Gloves said about having other avenues to advertise on!

I didn't say VGS is a ladder. I just want to find people with the same needs in VGS to work together to make this project come true. 
I think many game makers and players in VGS will be interested in HS if they want to have a better performance and easier development cartridge platform.
If I can't find 170 people, I will consider other places to try my luck.

2 minutes ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

That's good to hear, big fan of test points. I was more speaking of software debugging though. Will this be able to debug via serial or USB?

I'm not sure how the Java debugging environment is set up. The client's virtual machine should have a debugging server that can communicate with the host via Ethernet. You can use Eclipse or Netbeans to set breakpoints on the debugging server for tracing and debugging.

1 hour ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

What kind of hardware are you targeting? Some ARM-Based machine using off the shelf parts or are you doing your own architecture from scratch? Developers care a lot of specs because they need to know what they are working with.

The hardware model has been selected, which is actually a chip with Allwinner ARM SOC H616 1.5G frequency and 4 cores.

Because it is a homebrew product, it can only be produced in small batches, and it is impossible to purchase raw materials in bulk. Considering that the chip will be discontinued one day in the future, I decided to use cross-platform development frameworks and tools as much as possible, such as using a Java virtual machine to run on Linux systems, or running on some other real-time embedded system. Then, IDEs will consider using Eclipse or Netbeans, and there will be debugging pins on the motherboard, which can be used to determine the status of the current update frame using a logic analyzer.

1 hour ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

What is the lifecycle of this project expected to be like? What is support for this new hardware going to be like? I know it's a hard question to answer, but how long do you plan on supporting the product?

If this project can survive, I will support it to the end.

1 hour ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

Let me be honest. As much as I'd like to see it. I think that for small time development, the ship has sailed for new hardware. You are going to struggle to get developers to come to your platform. From a programmer's financial perspective, it's hard to justify development of a game that has a userbase of 170 that MIGHT buy it. People looking to develop for new hardware are going to target PC as it has a much bigger target audiences and more ways to get it to them. A lot of NES homebrewers enjoy the strict limitations and idea of programming for such old hardware. I'm just not sure newer hardware will catch on with that community.

You are right in saying that the market is indeed small, but I think it is better to be cautious and start with VGS step by step. Now it is still a concept and the test models have not yet come out. I don't want to ask others for money without any certainty. This is irrational. Wait until the testing period is over and the product is ready before making plans.

19 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I’ve spent $80 on worse so sure why not, what do expect to sell games for? What is the planned launch date? I definitely wouldn’t give you money upfront with no product however. 

A couple things - good god the name is terrible, land on something more marketable. If this thing has any chance of taking off the first couple games you create should be something to behold since you are going up against something like NES Maker which has a great library. I don’t think you’d have any less buyers if you made great games and just sold digital only copies on steam or something, why even bother creating hardware? You aren’t even just creating your own hardware you have to create how the hardware interacts and interprets the game as well no?

You don't need to pay a cent to reserve, because there is no reservation at all. You only need to indicate whether you are willing to purchase it. When the product is officially launched, it's up to you to decide whether to buy it. So there is no risk of crowdfunding for players.
 I just want to investigate how many people are interested in this machine.

The price of the game depends on the cost of game development and the cost of the cartridge PCB. The cost of game development is difficult to say, as it depends on the scale of the game production. The cost of the cartridge PCB can be divided into several types, with the lowest being around $10.

Because I love cartridges very much, I just want to make a high-performance cartridge game console that can develop games using advanced languages such as C language. In this way, I will feel very happy during the game production process, and my design ideas will not be affected by technical obstacles.
As for the name of the game console, HS is only a tentative name and is still under consideration

17 minutes ago, OptOut said:

Creating your own hardware is going to be a big challenge, I'd reckon. Is this going to be like a Raspberry Pi or Android box sort of thing?

Getting everything you need together, from the motherboard and outercase, to the pin connector and controllers, as well as designing and manufacturing bespoke cartridges?

No way on Earth a system like that comes in between 50 and 80 bucks, that's a pipe dream.

Thank you for your feedback. I understand your doubts about HS and your concerns about the challenges of hardware development. 
Indeed,  HS is not a Raspberry Pi or an Android box,  creating your own hardware is a difficult task that requires consideration of many factors, such as motherboards, enclosures, pin connectors, controllers, and the development and manufacturing of custom cartridges.

However, my goal is to minimize costs through optimized design and supply chain management, so that the price of HS can be kept within a reasonable range.

46 minutes ago, Link said:

What will HS offer that Ouya didn't?

Compared with OUYA, there is a big difference. The appearance of HS looks more like a classic game console because it uses cartridges as the medium. The only difference is that the HD output has stronger 2D performance.