The nD: A new indie game console in development

[Triple_sSs]

Remember that Robert Pelloni guy who was making that "Bob's Game" with the weird viral marketing scheme a couple years ago?
Well now he's back with this new portable gaming system he's making called the nD. It's supposed to be 16-bit, an open platform, and more powerful than a DS. It's also supposed to be incredibly cheap with a price sold around 10-20 dollars at cost.

http://the-nd.com/

I'm not really sure what to think of it right now, it's either some big joke that's too good to be true, or something that could be very impressive. I'll wait till there's more info on it to make up my mind for sure.
And surprise surprise, there's already someone working on a Doom source port for this thing.

Anyways, discuss.

[DuckReconMajor]

Why would I want that? I can play indie games on my computer and I'm already carrying a phone. It's not even a smart phone, I just don't want to be hauling around more crap.

[Spleen]

DuckReconMajor said:

Why would I want that? I can play indie games on my computer and I'm already carrying a phone. It's not even a smart phone, I just don't want to be hauling around more crap.

Can you put arbitrary indie games on your phone?

[DuckReconMajor]

1. I have no need to play games on my phone, I haven't gotten up from this chair in months
2. I thought the indie game markets for smartphones were flooded
3. what do you mean by 'arbitrary'?

[Bank]

Yeah with the rapid convergence of handheld devices I can hardly see how this is either a practical or attractive alternative.

[deathbringer]

Is this going to be Gizmondo again?

*Wikis to make sure he has the name right*
Oh, LOL I knew Gizmondo had been a screwup but I didn't know it had been a "the best selling game for it was called "sticky balls" and the boss has been imprisoned for fraud" level screwup. It's the Delorean of consoles!

[Clonehunter]

I don't know... If it's real, well, it could be nice. I wouldn't mind Doom on the go. Sure there's those PSP and DS ports, but you need custom hardware and shit. I only know of ONE Mobile Indie game for something like a PSP that doesn't need custom software... Nazi Zombies Portable. I don't know how they did it, but they did.

ANyways, the price tage for this would be something to comemorate (??) as well. However, that is just a god awful color scheme they got there.

[Technician]

Oh boy, a new N-Gage.

[40oz]

It's funny that every single game they have listed looks completely worthless except for Doom.

[Average]

My money's on this being a crank marketing scheme. If you want an indie handheld there's plenty to choose from from the Dingoo to the Pandora (wallet and time permitting). Personally, I've gone with the Caanoo. It's got PrBoom and Quake as well as some pretty good emus...

[Philnemba]

If its that cheap(that is if it isn't some scheme) then I might get it just to play Doom anywhere I want to since sadly I no longer have my Doom/Doom2 games for the GBA.

[fraggle]

So is this real or just a concept? There are no real details of the hardware on the site; the screenshots of the Doom port just look like generic Doom screenshots.

[Technician]

The site, the games, the graphics don't look convincing at all.

[Alfonzo]

Toward the end of this promotional video, I was beginning to think the folks at nD might have pulled this fellow out of some sort of relaxation podcast or something, though perhaps not of the same calibur as the gentleman linked.

EDIT: And to make this post relevant...
Would I be right in saying that handheld consoles today are used mostly between times when you are able to access your main console? If that's the case, surely being able to download any variety of games, indie or otherwise, is trivial, because whatever game it is you're playing it's not your primary focus; it's a time waster not deserving of further investment, and especially to those who might consider purchasing it on the grounds of its cheap retail price.

Then again, I've just been playing snake on my Nokia for the last 8 years. Perhaps I simply don't understand the market.

[Chopkinsca]

I'm getting this so I can play great hit games such as "bob's game".

[Sharessa]

This is going to be the best console since the Phantom, guys.

[Clonehunter]

I guess I just want this for Doom then... Heh...

[Stroggos]

Overall if this thing can run Doom fast with no problems I think the potential is quite good. However there are no real pictures just 3D renderings of a handheld console so there is no guarantee that this thing is even real. in any case IF this thing does get a release and it's capable of running Doom and Duke at a decent speed and it isn't that hard to program I can see myself grabbing one and testing out a few things. It'd be cool to carry around demos of my own game ideas.

[TheDarkArchon]

It's not being sold for profit and the store is taking a small cut of sales. Either something is going to have to change or they're not going to have a sustainable business model.

[Aliotroph?]

Spleen said:

Can you put arbitrary indie games on your phone?

Yes. Never mind that handhelds are always so small there might be two games I can see.

[Liam]

Triple_sSs said:

Remember that Robert Pelloni guy

[hex11]

Average said:

My money's on this being a crank marketing scheme. If you want an indie handheld there's plenty to choose from from the Dingoo to the Pandora (wallet and time permitting). Personally, I've gone with the Caanoo. It's got PrBoom and Quake as well as some pretty good emus...

Hehe the Pandora is for rich kids only. It's a great idea though.

The Dingoo is a lot more affordable/practical "right now" for those who don't have a big budget. It was designed from the beginning to support emulators and indie games, and that has worked very well apparently. The major downside is the relatively small screen. It's a tad bit smaller than my DS Lite's screen, which is really about as tiny as I'd want my portable game console to be. But the Dingoo actually has a larger resolution (more pixels), so you don't get the reduced performance when scaling down an image, or even worse just displaying an image in a virtual screen like the NDS Sega Genesis emulator does (which cuts off large portions of it).

Anyway, if he can actually manufacture and sell at $20, I'm all for it. So long as the battery life is decent anyway, and I didn't understand what he meant about recharging through the "Game Store"? If the SDK is also open and portable (can develop on any OS) I'd even try my hand at writing some platform and puzzle type games for it.

[GreyGhost]

40oz said:

It's funny that every single game they have listed looks completely worthless except for Doom.

That's hardly surprising, since according to their FAQ "The nD's target demographic will be children ages 6-12, although it will appeal to a wide range of ages besides those.".

[Maes]

For that price range, I've seen "NES-on-a-cip"based portable consoles with a 2.5" TFT monitor selling for less than $20 ( I own two of them).

THere are also some slightly better ARM-based chinese knockoff consoles with an "original" lineup of games (some even play stand-alone versions of Java ME games!). Then there are all those "vii" clones...

In any case, there's no reason why the hardware cannot be legitimately made and sold at that price: we're talking about 100% stock components (it's indeed ARM based @ 400 MHz, so it's wrong to call it a "16 bit" console, it's just as powerful as the GP2X, more powerful than the GP32, almost as powerful as the Pandora etc.

If they DO sell it at that price, it will be much more attractive than Chinese NoAC clones, too, and infinitely more affordable than stuff like the GP2x or the Dingoo. From what I understand, the price difference comes from the fact that they chose to make a "pure" OS-less console, unlike the ones that I mentioned. In that sense, it's closer to the DS than to e.g. the Dingoo, and all the CPU power can go into the game.

Triple_sSs said:

And surprise surprise, [url=http://the-nd.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=59]there's already someone working on a Doom source port for this thing.[/url

No surprise, it's just plain old ARM ;-) Slap it on a C compiler for said platform, and you're good to go (for the most part).
What saddens me is that most of those Doom port developers for exotic platforms seem to have no connection whatsoever with Doomworld, ZDoom forums, etc., and many seem to be oblivious to the existence of source ports, Boom etc. so in the end they end up just making yet another totally stock linuxdoom derivative, just because it can be done and "Doom can be ported to everything", not because they actually love the game.

[Average]

^
As to your point about the arbitrary ports of Doom not being related to the Doom community, I couldn't agree more. The problem is, to my mind, that every time someone asks about a port of Doom to a console on either this forum or Zdoom most people just scoff at the idea and the conversation just dies... :( I would dearly love to see someone with good Doom knowledge make a decent port but I fear it'll never happen. Like I said before, I have a Caanoo and it's a pretty powerful (and fairly affordable) piece of tech with a lot of potential but the port of Doom is severely lacking in optimisation and functionality - a damn shame. Can you imagine Doom64 EX on this great wee system? Or maybe somebody could build a Java version of doom and stick that on there? :P

As for the nD; I reckon it's either a prank (as befits the authors rep) or it's some kind of 'virtual' console... Either way I think I'll stick with my DS and Caanoo!

[hex11]

Maes said:

No surprise, it's just plain old ARM ;-) Slap it on a C compiler for said platform, and you're good to go (for the most part).

Looks like the nD SDK is just plain old SDL, so that would make it really easy to port stuff like Chocolate Doom/Raven/Strife, PrBoom, and various other SDL games and emulators.

[Gez]

Average said:

The problem is, to my mind, that every time someone asks about a port of Doom to a console on either this forum or Zdoom most people just scoff at the idea and the conversation just dies... :(

Who scoffed?

[hervoheebo]

GreyGhost said:

That's hardly surprising, since according to their FAQ "The nD's target demographic will be children ages 6-12, although it will appeal to a wide range of ages besides those.".

So, its library will consist of shovelware and underground indie games for the discerning hipster. $20 seems cheap for a handheld that claims to play Doom but I won't give a single cent to the dumbass that is Bob.

[Kaiser]

This whole nD system sounds like a complete rip off.

[Maes]

Kaiser said:

This whole nD system sounds like a complete rip off.

Why, exactly? Technically, it's quite unexceptional. If you consider it impossible to have those components at those prices...think again (and look at a catalogue for generic embedded system parts). If even $10 NES portable clones can have a superb TFT screen by now, then that surely can, too. ARM board? Shit-inexpensive. If anything, it won't have much onboard RAM but will rely on cartridge/SD card ROM storage instead (RAM is the only thing that would drive up the cost).

hervoheebo said:

$20 seems cheap for a handheld that claims to play Doom but I won't give a single cent to the dumbass that is Bob.

As long as it can output about 160 Mega Computrons, it can play Doom. With a 400 MHz ARM CPU and at least 4 MB of working RAM, that should surely cut it.

Definition of Computron: [Cptr]
1 computron: a lame unit for measuring a computer's "power": 1 CPU instruction/second x 1 byte of memory. A 486 DX/40 with 4 MB gives out about 160 MCptr. An unupgraded Amiga 1200 with 4 MB, which would be just about the minimal platform that can play a proper source port of Doom, would give out 16 MCptr, which is really a slideshow. It would merely "execute" Doom. With less RAM, you need to cut on resources, like console ports do, and then maybe you can lower the ante.