GameTank modern 8-bit Console

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

I've been seeing a lot of coverage of this thing in various places so I thought I'd check it out.

GameTank

Personally I'm interested to see where it goes, but I have some major misgivings.

Firstly, the lack of support for HDMI is baffling. Including RCA jacks is a cute touch, but not supporting the most prevalent video-connector type strikes me as idiotic. A bunch of modern TVs and monitors don't even support SD RCA anymore, so it feels like that's cutting off a chunk of the audience.

To make matters worse, I can't imagine many people investing in one at the current price and with the current look of the system. It's like $250 for a system that doesn't look all that great and that has almost 0 games on it.

The creator has said that they're pretty much targeting the "will program for fun" crowd, but they're also on about this being available to a wider audience at some stage, and has started advertising across Reddit and with these articles in various retro gaming sites. Seems like someone's passion project that they're hoping to spin into a new platform without anywhere near the right amount of forethought.

I will be super happy if this does well, proves me wrong, and features a healthy software library, but in the words of a random redditor: "why would anyone develop for this thing when they can make a game for an established platform like Pico-8 or just make a NES ROM?"

What do you guys think? Does thing have any hope in hell of surviving?

 

[Sorion]

well, at least the console it's open source, which means, a random guy can make their own version with HDMI support, but yeah, it's a bummer it doesn't support hdmi out of the box

 

[diet_orange]

Here's a thought: Why not include RCA and HDMI to cater to both? Also it looks interesting but I get the feeling it might go the way of the OUYA tbh

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

Here's a thought: Why not include RCA and HDMI to cater to both? Also it looks interesting but I get the feeling it might go the way of the OUYA tbh

Yeah this is exactly my point lmao why not have both of them? If it's already gonna be this expensive, at least try and capture more of an audience.

It seems nice and all, but I feel it's going the way of the dodo pretty quickly.

 

[PhaseJump]

I've been seeing a lot of coverage of this thing in various places so I thought I'd check it out.

View attachment 126396

GameTank

Personally I'm interested to see where it goes, but I have some major misgivings.

Firstly, the lack of support for HDMI is baffling. Including RCA jacks is a cute touch, but not supporting the most prevalent video-connector type strikes me as idiotic. A bunch of modern TVs and monitors don't even support SD RCA anymore, so it feels like that's cutting off a chunk of the audience.

HDMI is more than a video connector, licensed or not. You're talking about including a DAC or more complex hardware in an old machine using 6502 chips. It's not idiotic at all. It's outside the scope of what the machine even is. It is something you can build and 3D print yourself.

To make matters worse, I can't imagine many people investing in one at the current price and with the current look of the system. It's like $250 for a system that doesn't look all that great and that has almost 0 games on it.

It's 3D printed. Retro computers as brand new platforms are a thing. People develop software for them. Many of them are north of $250.

Look at the Commander X16, Foenix Retro Systems, even the Mega65, ZX Spectrum Next or the new Commodore 64.

They range from being original chipsets with dependency on FPGA for glue logic, all the way up to total FPGA hardware reliance.

The creator has said that they're pretty much targeting the "will program for fun" crowd, but they're also on about this being available to a wider audience at some stage, and has started advertising across Reddit and with these articles in various retro gaming sites. Seems like someone's passion project that they're hoping to spin into a new platform without anywhere near the right amount of forethought.

The CX16 has a future second-generation redesign in the works that will turn it into a game console with 1 slot and the 2 controller ports up front. It's not going to happen any time soon, and there is lots of development around it.

I will be super happy if this does well, proves me wrong, and features a healthy software library, but in the words of a random redditor: "why would anyone develop for this thing when they can make a game for an established platform like Pico-8 or just make a NES ROM?"

What do you guys think? Does thing have any hope in hell of surviving?

Surviving what? It's an open source, 3D printed, hobby platform you can build yourself.
It's homebrew jank from top to bottom, and it's been talked about for years already.