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Handhelds Portables (Games) Games Linux

Linux-Based Gaming Handheld To Rely On Low Material Cost, Indie Apps 137

Posted by Soulskill from the race-to-zero dept.
dartttt writes "Robert Pelloni and his team are working to develop an indie handheld gaming console, the 'nD,' which will run a number of indie games. The device will support 2D games only, and will run a custom-developed, embedded Linux firmware. It will have its own Game Store, which will allow users to download games. The SDK will be released soon, and is based on open source gaming standard SDL. Developers are being told that they can actually start making and compiling games on Windows, Mac and Linux using a 320x240 resolution."
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Linux-Based Gaming Handheld To Rely On Low Material Cost, Indie Apps More

Linux-Based Gaming Handheld To Rely On Low Material Cost, Indie Apps

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  • It's the GP2X all over again. (Score:3)

    by Gordonjcp ( 186804 ) on Monday June 27, 2011 @06:40PM (#36590430) Homepage

    Maybe this one won't eat batteries...

  • I've developed something even better... (Score:4, Funny)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Monday June 27, 2011 @06:41PM (#36590442)
    It consists of a 4 x 13 orthogonal matrix of 2d symbolic tokens. With these, one can play an almost limitless variety of games - even 3D ones! People are free to develop their own games. No batteries or source of electricity needed, it runs off of mechanical energy provided by the player(s). It can be produced for less than $1, with very low tech (no chip fab needed).

    I call it "cards."
    • Does it run Linux?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by blair1q ( 305137 )

      Does Nike make shoes for it?

    • I don't like the 3D games on that platform. They always crash in the middle of playing.

      Anyways it's all about the premium games for that platform and those cost too much money. Also, there's not enough single player content!

      • Anyways it's all about the premium games for that platform and those cost too much money.

        No they don't! If you haven't got any money, the game also accepts the clothes off your back. In fact, there's quite a variety of payment processing options, really...

  • SDL... :( (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Prune ( 557140 ) on Monday June 27, 2011 @06:47PM (#36590520)
    It's unfortunate that a library as bloated and weakly optimized as SDL is becoming a "standard". I started using it a few years back and then, after I was not happy with the performance, I looked at the source and noticed gems such as, under Windows the fact that SDL_SemWait() was always calling WaitForSingleObject() (which is every time a kernel call with huge switching overhead) and had no atomic read-write-modify fast-path. I'm reminded of a comment on gamedev.net by someone that "SDL killed my parents" and it struck a note of harmony with me despite the overdramatization. Look, if one is writing for games, one should be striving for efficiency. SDL is too big and tries to do everything; jack of all trades and master of none. For example, instead of using an SDL event queue, you should be using a lock-free, cache-optimized queue such as https://sourceforge.net/projects/mc-fastflow/ [sourceforge.net] Similar points go for other areas of the framework. The best policy is to find the best libraries to use for each domain within your project. Here's a fantastic highly optimized math library for games, for example: http://www.cmldev.net/ [cmldev.net] For some areas, it may even make sense to roll your own, such as writing custom synchronization primitives which can beat what's provided by the OS/threading libraries: see http://locklessinc.com/articles/ [locklessinc.com]

    • Re:SDL... :( (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Monday June 27, 2011 @06:59PM (#36590630)

      Here's the thing - SDL is easy. It's easy to pick up, easy to use, and easy to debug. And, surprisingly, most indie games don't stress the hardware to anything resembling a limit. Even the 3D ones - my two-year old laptop can max out Magicka. So optimization isn't usually a problem.

      Sure, if you find that it is too slow, using something more optimal, or even rolling your own, might make sense. But what was it someone once said? Is not premature optimization the root of all evil?

      • Re:SDL... :( (Score:5, Insightful)

        by elucido ( 870205 ) * on Monday June 27, 2011 @07:54PM (#36591204)

        Here's the thing - SDL is easy. It's easy to pick up, easy to use, and easy to debug. And, surprisingly, most indie games don't stress the hardware to anything resembling a limit. Even the 3D ones - my two-year old laptop can max out Magicka. So optimization isn't usually a problem.

        Sure, if you find that it is too slow, using something more optimal, or even rolling your own, might make sense. But what was it someone once said? Is not premature optimization the root of all evil?

        Ease of use is more important than optimization for indie games. If a programmer has years of experience making games why wouldn't they just make games for the PC or for something else? But when a programmer is just starting out the last thing they will want is to have to deal with assembly and all the hardcore shit. What is more important is that the indie games are fun, the frame rates can be optimized in the sequel.

        The kit should make developing games as easy as possible because if one thing has changed since the 1980s golden era of game development its that the process has become so goddamn complicated that you need 20 or 30 experienced programmers to write a decent game while in the 1980s you only needed one programmer. We need to go back to only needing one programmer to write the entire game, and we need to make the graphics engines as templates which can be reused by many different linux developers which means BSD license.

        • Actually, the coding hasn't gotten too much more complicated. You can pull off a decent-looking game with 3 programmers (and a licensed engine) - 1 for "real" programming, 1 for shaders and other visual stuff, and 1 more for AI and gameplay stuff. Even the big-shot engines support Linux - Unreal Engine does, as does Unity. Source (the engine) is partway there - it has OS X support, which means an OpenGL renderer, but no Linux. Idtech is "ported but not supported" - it compiles, and it sometimes even works,

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by elucido ( 870205 ) *

            Actually, the coding hasn't gotten too much more complicated. You can pull off a decent-looking game with 3 programmers (and a licensed engine) - 1 for "real" programming, 1 for shaders and other visual stuff, and 1 more for AI and gameplay stuff. Even the big-shot engines support Linux - Unreal Engine does, as does Unity. Source (the engine) is partway there - it has OS X support, which means an OpenGL renderer, but no Linux. Idtech is "ported but not supported" - it compiles, and it sometimes even works, but there's no guarantees. And there's plenty of free ones - the previous idtech engines (Quake III engine) are GPL, there's Sauerbraten, and many more.

            The problem with modern games is the art. Doom, for instance, had one programmer, one artist and two level designers. Nowadays, you need dozens of artists, because instead of a handful of sprites or a solid-color mesh of 100 polygons, you're dealing with a 100k-poly model with about a dozen different 1024x1024 textures layered on it.

            I did a brief, unscientific glance at things (because I'm too lazy to do a full count). Looked at the last 10 developers on Valve's staff roster. Two programmers, a writer, a translator, a game designer, and five artists (2 3d artists, an interface designer, an animator and a mixed level designer/3d artist/animator). That seems about in line with what I've seen of things - over twice as many artists as programmers.

            I am not 3 people. The point I made is you still need 3-4 programmers when you used to only need one. Mario was written by one programmer, as was Tetris.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by smash ( 1351 )

        Its also fairly cross platform, and actually available and reasonably well tested on said platforms.

        As the above poster implied: Unless you are running into performance problems, use the most de-bugged, easy to use code you can. Maybe even prototype with SDL, then optimize the hot-spots that you find with your profiler?

        There's no point optimizing the crap out of some function to save 15% of the cycles on it when it counts for 3% of your execution time, for example - saving 15% of 3% isn't worth your t

      • Yeah but you could use better libraries that are just as easy, like SFML: http://www.sfml-dev.org/ [sfml-dev.org]

    • This sort of indie system will be made or broken by the ease of development and by the power of the development kit.

      If SDL is hard to program for, then I might think twice. If they are going to go with SDL then they need to make it work with as many programming languages as possible. If I can program for this thing in Python, Perl, Ruby, Basic, C, C++, or whatever works for me, and it can connect to the development kit or SDL, then there will be plenty of games to choose from and it will be much easier for

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Frozen Bubble is written in Perl and uses SDL. PyGame (sic?) uses SDL. You're probably good.

    • The failure is that it's a "framework". (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Frameworks are a software design anti-pattern well-known at thedailywtf.com.

      The problem with them is, that they are anti-modular. You have to use the whole framework, as using just a part drags in the rest anyway, and in the end, you end up using it as a platform.
      At which point it becomes the inner platform anti-pattern, even better known at thedailywtf.com.
      That is, when the abstraction is all but a limited shoddy copy of the platform below, offering no advantages. The best example of this ever, is Typo3 an

      • SDL is actually pretty modular. You can tell SDL_Init() which subsystems you want to use. For example, you could use SDL for video and input, use libao for audio and use pthreads for threading.

      • "From my experience, I noticed, that nearly 100% of those things called "framework", are things that should be avoided. Works for me."

        Works for you how, exactly? Not for writing games without any "framework", I'd wager.

        You don't know what you're talking about. SDL provides only pretty low-level stuff - blitting, an event queue, joystick support etc. And you only init the things you use. If you want drawing primitives or text, you need separate libraries. Contrary to what the prune says, SDL is very well sui

    • For most games, SDL is good enough. If you're going to be pushing thousands of custom events per seconds through the queue, it should be optimized. If you're just going to process button presses, SDL's event queue implementation is not going to be the bottleneck. And if you're targeting a device with only 1 CPU core, you're probably better off running the entire game on the main thread rather than doing lots of fancy multi-threading.

    • Can someone who has worked with both comment on how SDL compares to Allegro [sourceforge.net]? I used Allegro a lot back in the day to develop games that would run on DOS and Linux, and I've always been happy with it. SDL, I only have cursory experience with, and I've always found it harder to get up to speed. However, this is a long time ago, and seeing all the attention SDL has been getting, I imagine it would have improved a lot. How do they compare nowadays, in terms of developer effort, run-time efficiency, amount of co

    • Could you file some bug reports, or send some patches? It seems to be open source, so changing the implementation without altering the interface should benefit everyone. I think we'd all be thankful for your efforts.

      http://bugzilla.libsdl.org/ [libsdl.org]

      It's possible that the Windows implementation people are not experts at optimization, and might appreciate your tips.

  • I've been working on a game for a while. It's had a Linux port since version 0.0.4. Sure, right now it's all command-line (not even ncurses), but I'm planning to add graphics in the release after the next one. It shouldn't be too hard to design the UI to work at 320x240, although I'll probably have to make it a different design than the PC one - 320x240 is a far cry from the 960x540 I'm currently designing for (960x540 will pixel-double to 1080p, the most common PC resolution, and will generally scale well

    • Are we talking about streaming games? cartridges? cds? downloads?

      I'll make a game or two if I can make a dollar or two.

      • Not a concern for my project - it's free, open-source. I'm not even asking for donations. Mainly because I'm worried that if I start profiting from it, I'll get sued into oblivion - the list of copyrights being fairly used at the end of the readme is longer than some of the code files, and some of those have a history of not giving two craps about fair use. As far as I'm concerned, the game is just my resume - when a game dev I'm trying to get hired by says "so what can you do?", I can point to it and say "

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by elucido ( 870205 ) *

          Not a concern for my project - it's free, open-source. I'm not even asking for donations. Mainly because I'm worried that if I start profiting from it, I'll get sued into oblivion - the list of copyrights being fairly used at the end of the readme is longer than some of the code files, and some of those have a history of not giving two craps about fair use. As far as I'm concerned, the game is just my resume - when a game dev I'm trying to get hired by says "so what can you do?", I can point to it and say "This."

          But, from what I read, the console will be app-store only - no SD card slot, no streaming. Just copy the data into the 2GB (base model - there'll probably be more expensive options with more space) internal flash. The terms of the app store are already set - 90% of the gross goes to the developer. Which seems rather reasonable. No word on what apps will be approved, or if approval will even be needed, but it's open-source, so I think the restrictions will be "no blatant warez, no illegal games, and no malware".

          That could end up the position for some of my games as well, but alternatively if you can make a profit and you don't need to breach copyright assuming there aren't software patents all over the place, why not? It could even be open source and you could still make a profit if they come up with the right scheme.

          • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

            by gman003 ( 1693318 )

            Here's the thing - pure open-source games will never work. Not just "will never" - can never.

            The bazaar works well for programming. It works well for logical, scientific stuff - you can have an open-source telescope design, or an open-source car, or an open-source operating system. But it works less well for art stuff - I have yet to see an open-source novel, or open-source sculpture, or open-source opera. I've sort-of seen an open-source character, but that's about it.

            Games are a weird thing. They're art -

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by smash ( 1351 )

              The bazaar works well for programming. It works well for logical, scientific stuff - you can have an open-source telescope design, or an open-source car, or an open-source operating system. But it works less well for art stuff - I have yet to see an open-source novel, or open-source sculpture, or open-source opera. I've sort-of seen an open-source character, but that's about it.

              It is even flawed for some programming tasks. I agree for some programming it is ideal, but in other areas (eg, UI design) where

              • As opposed to?

                When you compare GTK (Or QT) based applications to most Windows applications you will find that *Nix apps are pretty consistent.

                The biggest barrier to UI design isn't intuitiveness or consistency, it is the fact that most people don't like to change, so anything that is different is naturally going to be "harder" to use, even when coming from a broken UI.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by smash ( 1351 )

                  The QT example merely proves my point. The toolkit was originally made by a small, paid team with a coherent vision of what they wanted to achieve. GTK is an exception, but even that has had large amounts of resources and paid full-time developers thrown at it in recent years by redhat and others.

                  Before QT and GTK, the unix desktop was a collossal cluster-fuck of things as basic as OK/cancel buttons being on different sides of the dialog box. Don't get me wrong, there is and was some very powerful and

        • so I think the restrictions will be "no blatant warez, no illegal games, and no malware"

          But what are "illegal games"? Would StepMania be an illegal game? (See Konami v. Roxor.) Would Quadrapassel be an illegal game? (See Tetris v. Biosocia.)

          • I'd say no child porn (those exist), nothing that's blatant and inexcusable copyright infringement (an obviously-cracked version of someone else's game), and nothing that would be "hate speech" - so no "KKK presents: N****r Killing: The Game". The games that would be illegal not because of some game-specific law, but because of something that applies to everything. The kind of law where possession itself is deemed criminal.

    • 960x540 QHD, eh? A lot of recently, and up-and-coming Android devices have that resolution, porting to them would require zero scaling, and porting to my current phone (HTC Desire HD), at 800x480, would only require minor downscaling.

  • Bob's Game (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This will probably turn out as well as Bob's Game.

    • Exactly. People need to consider the source before getting too excited.

      It could be great. It could be lolzitrollu.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by zhazam ( 2315520 )
        More likely, faced by the amount of work you actually have to do to create a decent, competitive video game platform, he'll claim it was a joke all along.
  • Still, its good that it is here at last.

  • This could be so nice for tinkering (Score:3)

    by Vario ( 120611 ) on Monday June 27, 2011 @06:56PM (#36590606)

    We can only hope that this device or a different version of it gets a small GPIO connector for the connection of external sensors, devices, etc. With a $10 device with display and a 400 MHz cpu is really incredible in my opinion. After looking into Arduino, Beagleboard and similar inexpensive and relatively easy to program and use boards I am still looking for something that already comes in a case, is more powerful than an AVR and has a builtin display.

    Almost all test and measurement devices that I currently use in our research laboratory have much less computing power which limits their capabilities and increase their price quite a bit. A couple of years ago developing embedded applications looked like black magic to me, fiddling around to save a few bytes, using a lot of tricks to get it done somehow but today you can easily throw a much more powerful processor at the problem and instead of tuning you can just program in whatever language you like and it will probably be fast enough.

    If they can keep up to their announced sales price I will order a couple as nice presents another couple to take apart.

    • Have you looked at the Nokia n810? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N810 [wikipedia.org]

      It's a 400MHz arm, touchscreen lcd, backlit keyboard etc... It also supports wifi, bluetooth, usb host mode and has an rs232 port at the back. Battery lasts for days when idling and comes with debian based distro (maemo) but you can roll and flash your own (some people put Gentoo on it, of all things).

      Best thing is, as it's considered quite out of date in the era of smart phones, they are going real cheap. Bought a few of them (ex di

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Vario ( 120611 )

        The specs of the N810 look really nice. I could not find any of them used but I will look further. How can you control your camera and motors with this? I guess the USB port does not work as a host. Can you access any GPIO pins or something similar to connect any hardware to it?

        • The USB port does work as a host, that is why I like it so much. In fact I'm typing this on my n810 now, with a usb hub, usb keyboard, DVD Drive and 120GB disk connected to it (and a 16gb uSD card in the slot). It's really a portable computer you can fit in your pocket.

          I was intending on using the rs232 port to connect to a PIC microcontroller, from where I can do what I want. Otherwise a USB hub, and a couple of USB->rs232 converters. If I feel like learning something new, I can try connecting via US

  • I think that the official "fixed that for you" for this one should read:

    Linux-Based Gaming Handheld doomed to the dust bin, swap meets

    sorry.

  • ...anything Robert Pelloni says.... :)

  • Even 2d acceleration of some sort? They harp on having a faster CPU than a DS, but that doesn't really matter that much for fast fun 2d gaming; pushing pixels is what matters.

    The Pandora might be a few hundred bucks, but I think I'd rather have an open handheld computer than an open handheld gaming system.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      Even 2d acceleration of some sort? They harp on having a faster CPU than a DS, but that doesn't really matter that much for fast fun 2d gaming; pushing pixels is what matters.

      At 400 MHz you could emulate all the 2D acceleration of a Super NES. Consider that Doom and Doom II ran on one-tenth of that.

      • RIght, it's in a class to emulate some of that stuff. But if this is going to take the 16-bit style of gameplay "to the next level", even 400MHz will start to be pretty weak once you're pushing giant layers of transparency around with the CPU. And at low resolution, alpha and antialiasing are very important.

        • vector graphics or SVG can't work?

          • Um, adding in vector graphics & SVG would make things even more resource-intensive, but there's no reason they wouldn't technically _work_. Plus, those bring in even greater need to deal with antialiased graphics at those resolutions, with the additional issue of doing the antialiasing in realtime instead of prebaked in your bitmap graphics.

            Without a modern GPU in it, I seriously doubt the SoC they use will have hardware OpenVG-ish vector support. That tends to be more related to 3d hardware than 2d,

      • At 400 MHz you could emulate all the 2D acceleration of a Super NES.

        Not very well. The GP2X had 2x200 MHz chips and the SNES emu on that was a disaster. I abandoned dicking with it once I got a CFW for my original-model PSP that let me run emulators on it.

        • If the device costs $50 because it has a strong graphics chip so be it.

        • The GP2X had 2x200 MHz chips and the SNES emu on that was a disaster.

          The Super NES has two CPUs that need to be kept in cycle-for-cycle sync all the time, or some games will fail. (Back then, synchronization was more primitive than modern mutexes.) Some games even used a third CPU on the cartridge. But in a native game, all the game logic can be compiled to native code or at least to JITable bytecode. Nor do native SDL games need to emulate the weird bit-planar tile format that Super NES games use. Answer me this: How many MHz did the original StarCraft need?

          • 100 MHz on PC, but I doubt that's relevant since we're talking about the SNES, which never had Starcraft, so I don't follow your point. If you were just talking about the number of cycles for the graphics output itself, then okay, since I don't know how squidgeSNES used them, and read it as you discussing emulation, I can't say.

    • The Pandora is about fifty times more expensive than this imaginary ten dollar device and is only SLIGHTLY less imaginary having taken it's first pre-orders almost three years ago and STILL having un-filled orders. The official forum has become a hive of unhappiness, accusations and angry (hardware) developers, well developer. But if you want drama it's probably on a par with Pelloni.

  • I guess when they say 16bit they mean the video color depth or something. Last I checked Linux won't run on a platform that is not at least 31-bit (yes I do mean 31)

    • I think they're referring to the 16-bit era of gaming, SNES, Sega Genesis, Turbo Grafx (sp?), etc. As in expect that level of gameplay & graphics.

      • If that's what they're aiming at, isn't a 400mhz 32 bit ARM CPU overpowered?

        • Those systems all had very particular video chips tailored to hardware acceleration of sprites, scaling, playfield layering, tiled & paletted graphics, etc, so the CPU didn't have to do that much heavy lifting. If all this thing has is a hi|true-color framebuffer, then no it's not overpowered. Plus, it's supposed to be better than those existing systems anyway, but in the same vein of resolution & 2d-ness.

          But having read a bit more about the guy behind this, it's just the vapor ramblings of a dram

  • to tell if it will actually be made. It looks like a concept at the moment. I'd want more detailed information about it's components before getting my hopes up.
  • Will it be possible to buy one of these without having to go online? A lot of kids' parents won't let the kids spend their allowance online; they have to spend it in a local brick-and-mortar store because only a local brick-and-mortar store takes cash.

    • And will the specs be anything less than pathetic by the time it hits market? The Pandora looked totally cool until it was actually produced, by which time its specs were pure shit. You can buy something with twice as much screen and twice as much CPU for the same amount, maybe less.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        You can buy something with twice as much screen

        Which is why I ended up buying an ASUS netbook with my Pandora money. But sometimes you need something to slip in your pocket as opposed to a handbag.

        • Which is why I ended up buying an ASUS netbook with my Pandora money. But sometimes you need something to slip in your pocket as opposed to a handbag.

          Maybe I dress like M.C. Hammer and I can fit a desktop replacement laptop in there. I actually have owned cargo pants with a pocket big enough for an EEE701...

          I really would like a small OSS handheld suitable for playing games... If someone could either make a good one or a really cheap one then I'd love to have one. Unfortunately, if it doesn't do anything real, I can't possibly spend more than about forty bucks on one.

  • ... to take roms on the go
    • But a PSP can do that ... and play PSP games, too. And I doubt that thing will play PSX games - Where the PSP can.
  • Evolution doesn't necessary move forward!. In a time where 3D Dominates and Immersive virtual Worlds manifest ; we still see 16-bit 2D "SDL" LowRes Game Consoles Emerges! Or it's just the proof that Evolution is a continuum, and wherever there is a potential or Innovation isn't Fully Exploited, There would still be Evolution to happen. Or this maybe a message: "Don't mess with us Businessmen, Escaping Forward, will soon drag you backward" Or I'm just taking things too seriously!

    • Evolution is about survival of the fittest. It is not necessarily survival of the most complex or the most "advanced". Sometimes the fittest in a niche isn't the most complex item in that niche. Sometimes simple, robust, and quick to reproduce accurately makes a more competitive offering. If they can actually get a reliable $20 device out that plays decent games, it should reproduce pretty quickly.

  • There is already a market for just as expensive and less powerful systems. Go into any WalMart, Target, or Toys R Us. You will find a dozen or so video game systems that cost between $15-$25. They will have one game hard coded in them, and people keep buying them. Why? Because they are disposable toys, and I doesn't take a huge amount of play for it to have been worth the price. The companies website is right. You CAN lose it and it would be OK. It is only a $10 toy after all.

    Hopefully, they won'

    • Have you ever plugged a 320x200|240 noninterlaced 4:3 signal into a modern HD television? I'd rather look at the little native-resolution, native-aspect builtin screen. :-P

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Belial6 ( 794905 )
        Yes I have. No it doesn't look like Blu-ray, but with the proper filter, it can be fine. Especially for $20.

      • NES and SNES, yes, via composite and S-Video respectively. How it looks depends on the TV's scaler. Personally I think they benefit from the better color modern LCD's put out.

  • tell me why... (Score:3)

    by smash ( 1351 ) on Monday June 27, 2011 @09:17PM (#36591846) Homepage Journal

    ... as an end user, i should care about a device that can only play 2d games, when i already have a smartphone capable of openGL, that I carry with me everywhere already?

    Unless this offers something my smartphone doesn't (incredible battery life, better games, etc) there's no way it is going to end up being carried around with me. Which means its not going to work as a mobile gaming platform.

    I like the prospect of an open gaming platform as much as the next guy, but unless you get a decent market onboard it is going nowhere.

    • > i already have a smartphone So do I, and the battery life already sucks so much ass that people across the room butt-pucker when I walk in. That and I've got a nine year old boy and no way in HELL do I want him to start looking at my x-hunnert dollar Android like it's a gameboy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Fritzed ( 634646 )
      >Unless this offers something my smartphone doesn't (incredible battery life, better games, etc) there's no way it is going
      > to end up being carried around with me. Which means its not going to work as a mobile gaming platform.

      Buttons.

  • Seems like "bulk discount" is being thrown around to mask the fact that it actually does cost more than $20 to make a console like that.

    The costs mentioned in the "commercial" are most likely bulk deals, i.e. for companies that can afford to order these parts in very large quantities. Even if Robert could order a large enough quantity to reach this cost, he'd need to find someone willing to assemble the consoles for cheap enough.

    If it, in some freak occurrence, actually got released, it would most likely ha

  • Before you get excited... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Soluzar ( 1957050 ) on Monday June 27, 2011 @10:01PM (#36592148) Homepage
    Please note that this gentleman is probably not entirely sincere. He's been running a hoax about "Bob's Game" for years now. It's pretty entertaining stuff, intended as entertainment rather than deception, but it would be foolish to assume that he's got any plans to actually follow through on creating this handheld.
  • $10 for 400 mhz CPU and a 320 x 240 screen seems a little too cheap, but if so I want one. At $10 I could sell my game and the console at a profit.

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