Nexiuz on Codename: Crystal Tiger

[suicidalgamer]

I hope you guys can include Nexuiz on your platform, and if you have any
problems running it be sure to talk to me.

Quote Above From Vermeulen

Nexiuz, the highly acclaimed online deathmatch FPS, will be availiable on the Codename: Crystal Tiger game console (name subject to change) at the scheduled release of the console, 2007-2008. Visit http://freewebs.com/suicidalgamer for information on Nexiuz, Codename: Crystal Tiger, and much more from Suicidal Interactive Entertainment

[Vermeulen]

To be perfectly honest your project sounds unplanned, with an unreal view of the market, and impossible ambitions.
If you actually do succed in developing a cheap low end computer prebuilt and sold with your version of unix, I don't see a reason why you couldn't put Nexuiz on it. You would have to lower the defaults quite a lot, but it might work. Nexuiz is GPL afterall, so even if I wanted to stop you I couldn't.

The basic idea of your platform isn't a bad idea, but your current plan for it just won't work IMO. I am guessing you've heard a lot of critiscism before, all I am saying is I think you need to get a lot more realistic. I am not going to criticize you for your age, or inexperience, but I think taking some of the advice on the gamedev forum would be a good idea.

I do like how you called Nexuiz 'highly acclaimed' though

[tChr]

'm just a bit to wasted to try and understand what you are walking about, but ahtever vermemulene said is good witrh me.

[SavageX]

It's always good to have Nexuiz (not "Nexiuz", like on your site) on as many platforms as possible - so go ahead

I assume such a homemade console could work and sell a few units (if you're homebrew friendly -I guess you are - and doing good PR). After all there are units like the GP2X with a similiar "hacker friendly" approach. Just make sure you can survive a possible commercial failiure. And if you sell a few units keep in mind you have to give support, too (if a console fails you'll have to replace it - this may cost many bucks, depending on how reliable your hardware is).

However, everything has to work "out of the box" to give a true "console" experience. Plus having a real web site would help (using freewebs doesn't transport the message that people should give you their money very well; having a "cool" stylish design would help, too). Make sure you don't ask questions like "How do you like my site" if you want to establish a business connection with your clients. Make clear what they are registering for (Usually *I* don't register if I get nothing in return). Talk less about what parts you use - talk about what games will run atop of it and how it'll look fantastic and how it'll improve our livestyle.

If you're serious with this make sure to assemble a team: Someone for a really cool webpage, someone who has an idea how business works, someone with the technical background etc. etc.

Oh, and make sure you keep patents etc. in mind. Your hardware would allow you to play DVDs - but the MPEG codecs are patented and you'll be in really serious trouble (with lawsuit and all) if you'd sell your consoles with MPEG codecs installed without paying for them (That's why there are really free codecs like Ogg Vorbis (Nexuiz uses it) for audio and Ogg Theora for video). Using open source MPEG codecs e.g. won't protect you from patent infringement (copyright - that's what Open Source licenses usually handle - has nothing to do with patents).

To put it into a nutshell: I wish you the best of luck. Make sure you don't end up in serious trouble and plan your business well.

[Ed]

I really can not recommend your choice of video card, the 6200TC, for a game console. It's intended for people who don't play games. There is nothing 'Turbo' about Turbo cache and it has been seen to give some people trouble with some drivers.

More importantly, there is a problem with your strategy. You have already announced hardware specifications but can you really say that those components will remain available? The 6200TC will be killed off pretty soon in which case you would be forced to upgrade to the 7300 which is a lot better. Within the next 2 years much of the other hardware will end production too in which case you will not have a single platform. This is where the computer market and the console market are different and I think those differences will give you trouble. If you really want to make a console you've got to have long term contracts for component supply which means that pupose built components would be best. For instance getting a motherboard maker to make you a motherboard with the garphics card hardwired to it and having a purpose built case to put it in.

Where you have an advantage over commercial consoles is that the tools to develop games for a console are stupidly expensive. The consoles are sold at a loss, the games are sold at a huge profit, so are the developer kits. I think you would be better off not doing the hardware side and instead providing a Linux platform for easy game development and playing. Give a list of recommended hardware for people to run it on (nVIDIA graphics card would be a sensible requirement) and people could stick together their own systems from locally bought components at current prices rather than what you may have paid for a job lot 3 months earlier.

Look at the Torque game engien from garage games. It runs on Linux.

[suicidalgamer]

We have not updated those specs yet, but we plan to have the following as a STANDARD for the devkit, which the system will meet or exceed in power.

ATi Radeon X800GTO 256MB or better
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
512MB-1GB of DDR2 SDRAM

I am very sure that our system will be capable of running Nexiuz at the highest settings.

[SavageX]

We have not updated those specs yet, but we plan to have the following as a STANDARD for the devkit, which the system will meet or exceed in power.

ATi Radeon X800GTO 256MB or better
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
512MB-1GB of DDR2 SDRAM

I am very sure that our system will be capable of running Nexiuz at the highest settings.

Those hardware specs look much more powerful, but be aware that the ATI Linux drivers are plain horrible. They're really bad. They're a complete disaster. They tend to crash. They are slow - you're lucky if you can get ATI cards running at half of the speed they usually give in Windows.

There are open source drivers for the X800 (see http://dri.freedesktop.org) but I wouldn't
expect them to be 100% perfect either (they have to do reverse engineering to get the hardware spec).

I doubt you can get Nexuiz running on an ATI card under Linux with all effects enabled.

edit: Given that information I'd say a even a GeForce 7300GT or 7600GS may be faster - and cheaper (those have full-speed Linux drivers).


edit2: How are you still going to archieve the $300 goal?

[suicidalgamer]

We will try to stay around $300. However, we (my business partner and I) are currently deciding on wether to have 2 configs ($300 and $400) or 1 config (3-4 hundred dollars). I will also discuss with him wether or not to upgrade to a nVidia 7300 or 7600.

[k0jak]

'm just a bit to wasted to try and understand what you are walking about, but ahtever vermemulene said is good witrh me.

rofl...classic tchr....classic.

[SavageX]

We will try to stay around $300. However, we (my business partner and I) are currently deciding on wether to have 2 configs ($300 and $400) or 1 config (3-4 hundred dollars). I will also discuss with him wether or not to upgrade to a nVidia 7300 or 7600.

Personally I'd opt for one config (without the flash stuff but with a small harddrive you can install games onto - playing Nexuiz from an optical drive could increase loading times into unpleasant regions). Keep in mind that your system is open enough for people to extend their hardware themselves - and I'd guess most people will put in a harddrive anyway. So it can't be wrong to do this from the start at a fair price.

What ouput devices are you going to use, btw? TV sets? (That'd be fairly low resolution, thus allowing you to use lower midrange gfx cards)