FPGA Based Videogame System

[SegaSnatcher]

I know they mentioned the TurboGrafx and Genesis as likely next projects but because Kevtris said the Ps1 is doable and that would probably generate a lot more money for them I think that is the most likely. I just know if I was Analogue I would do the ps1 ASAP so I could buy that private island I've always dreamed of.

Kevtris just said PS1 is possible with current technology, no hint that is what is up next. Genesis is the next logical step. Might as well crank out the remaining 16 bit consoles that are left since the time it would take to implement a PS1 via FPGA would be a magnitude higher than any previous console Kevtris has worked on. This way when the time comes to pursue a PS1 clone console, they will have a good range of products available.

 

I still question if they will even do a PS1 console since they would have to add a CD Rom drive and I don't know if that is a route they want to go down.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by SegaSnatcher

[Jakir]

PS1 would be a logical choice in terms of potential sales, but I see a few problems:

 

1) Are the components for CD drives still available today? I would guess so, but it may not be as trivial as many people think. But then again, if you just integrate an off-the-shelf CD drive made for PCs into the casing of your FPGA console, then you're good to go.

 

2) Don't CDs decay over time? Even ignoring the issue of scratches on the discs, don't CDs become unreadable eventually? I guess people could burn ISOs onto CDs and play PS1 games that way...

 

3) Will Sony unleash their lawyers on Analogue like they did with Bleem? Today is a different era, so they may not, but it's still something to consider.

 

A PS1 FPGA clone would certainly stand on its own (even without a jailbreak core to play ISOs from an SD card) but people will be begging for Sega CD support and perhaps even PC Engine support. But that only works if the CD drives operate at the same speed on all three systems, and I'm not sure that's the case...

1) I don't know if the ps1 uses proprietary cd reading hardware or if there is a publicly available cd reader they could pop in there. I haven't looked into it at all but my guess would be the latter.

 

2) Yes cds decay, but as long as you don't live in an extremely humid/damp environment that shouldn't be an issue any time soon. I wouldn't complain even if it didn't have an optical drive at all and only read content off the sd card.

 

3) Well the legality regarding emulators has long since been established and also Sony is no longer selling ps1 consoles or ps1 discs so I don't think they have a strong incentive to make themselves look like the bad guys. You have to remember that after the psn hacks and having to publicly apologize to the world Sony has been a lot more fearful of attacking fan passion projects. Idk how they would deal with the bios issue though. That is probably something we would have to provide for ourselves.

 

Kevtris just said PS1 is possible with current technology, but the quote from Analogue strongly hints Genesis is next. Might as well crank out the easier consoles since the time it would take to implement a PS1 via FPGA would be a magnitude higher than any previous console Kevtris has worked on.

That isn't what I would do. According to Wikipedia's best selling consoles of all time page the Genesis sold 30m units and the PS1 sold over 100m. If it is possible to make the ps1 with today's technology I would knock out consoles in the order of what will make me the most money, and I'm pretty sure basically every business on earth would do the same.

[SegaSnatcher]

1) I don't know if the ps1 uses proprietary cd reading hardware or if there is a publicly available cd reader they could pop in there. I haven't looked into it at all but my guess would be the latter.

 

2) Yes cds decay, but as long as you don't live in an extremely humid/damp environment that shouldn't be an issue any time soon. I wouldn't complain even if it didn't have an optical drive at all and only read content off the sd card.

 

3) Well the legality regarding emulators has long since been established and also Sony is no longer selling ps1 consoles or ps1 discs so I don't think they have a strong incentive to make themselves look like the bad guys. You have to remember that after the psn hacks and having to publicly apologize to the world Sony has been a lot more fearful of attacking fan passion projects. Idk how they would deal with the bios issue though. That is probably something we would have to provide for ourselves.

 

That isn't what I would do. According to Wikipedia's best selling consoles of all time page the Genesis sold 30m units and the PS1 sold over 100m. If it is possible to make the ps1 with today's technology I would knock out consoles in the order of what will make me the most money, and I'm pretty sure basically every business on earth would do the same.

If thats your logic then they should have done the PS1 before the Super NT, but they didn't. PS1 might happen sometime down the road, but I can tell you with 99.9% certainty its not the next thing they will be working on.

 

Genesis and Neo-Geo will happen before a PS1.

[Jakir]

If thats your logic then they should have done the PS1 before the Super NT, but they didn't. PS1 might happen sometime down the road, but I can tell you with 99.9% certainty its not the next thing they will be working on.

 

Genesis and Neo-Geo will happen before a PS1.

We don't know at what point Kevtris estimated the difficulty of the PS1, I'm betting his evaluation of it as being possible is a result of what he learned working on the Super Nt's fpga. You can't make absolute claims about what will or will not be the next console covered with 0 proof to back it up.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Jakir

[Mattelot]

Yes, CDs do decay over time but it's a very long time. Analogue could choose NOT to implement the CD copy protection checks in their consoles so that people could make backups and play. Those protections are only necessary when the consoles are new to prevent a crash in the software market.

 

As far as Sony suing... Bleem! won the lawsuits. Sony lost on all counts. The company consisted of a few people who had no capital foundations and went bankrupt. Analogue has already made a foundation for themselves and having already lost, I'm sure that set the precedent to Sony that they would be wasting their time and money pursuing Analogue.

 

I'm all cool about CD-based FPGA clones. As much as I did love PS1, I would much prefer Sega CD.

[SegaSnatcher]

We don't know at what point Kevtris estimated the difficulty of the PS1, I'm betting his evaluation of it as being possible is a result of what he learned working on the Super Nt's fpga. You can't make absolute claims about what will or will not be the next console covered with 0 proof to back it up.

"0 Proof" you say?

 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/02/analogues_christopher_taber_opens_up_on_the_super_nt_and_future_projects

[Jakir]

"0 Proof" you say?

 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/02/analogues_christopher_taber_opens_up_on_the_super_nt_and_future_projects

Yes, 0 proof. We know they are consoles Analogue is looking at but you have absolutely 0 proof those are the ones that WILL be next like you claimed. By that logic Kevtris saying he is excited to do the ps1 would be "proof" the ps1 is next.

[Atariboy]

"0 Proof" you say?

 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/02/analogues_christopher_taber_opens_up_on_the_super_nt_and_future_projects

 

Why don't we just wait until they announce something?

[SegaSnatcher]

Yes, 0 proof. We know they are consoles Analogue is looking at but you have absolutely 0 proof those are the ones that WILL be next like you claimed. By that logic Kevtris saying he is excited to do the ps1 would be "proof" the ps1 is next.

No offense, but can you not put two and two together? Why would the head of Analogue specifically bring up Sega when asked the question about Analogue's next project? Come on now, stop ignoring the obvious just because you really want a PS1 console.

 

Kevtris seems excited to do lots of different consoles regardless of how successful they were, case in point Game King.

[SegaSnatcher]

 

Why don't we just wait until they announce something?

Why? I mean half the fun is predicting what might come out next and with that little hint from Analogue I don't think its unreasonable to assume what is Analogue's next FPGA console.

 

Not to mention if anyone's been paying attention to people's comments across Twitter and forums like Atari Age, I'm pretty sure the majority of people are hoping the Genesis is next.

Edited March 7, 2018 by SegaSnatcher

[kwnage]

The PS1 uses a BIOS. That stuff's copyrighted. Didn't we have this discussion before?

Edited March 7, 2018 by kwnage

[SegaSnatcher]

The PS1 uses a BIOS. That stuff's copyrighted. Didn't we have this discussion before?

You are crushing Jakir's hopes and dreams lol.

[Atariboy]

The PS1 uses a BIOS. That stuff's copyrighted. Didn't we have this discussion already?

 

Yeah, it's an obvious hurdle since it remains under copyright.

 

They'd either have to ship a product that's not actually complete until the user loads this file via SD card that they've tracked down online, work around it in some manner with alternate non-infringing software that handles the functions of the PS1 bios without affecting compatibility (Which may or may not be possible, since I simply don't know one way or another), or somehow get Sony themselves on board.

 

The first seems quite possible. But when we have folks in this thread that think aesthetics are so important to Analogue that it quite possibly would derail any potential console that supports multiple cartridge formats (Despite the NT Mini already doing so) because they don't think Analogue could make it look aesthetically attractive enough to meet their own standards, how can we believe that Analogue would release a console that's technically not operative out of the box?

 

Either way, we'll find out what's next when Analogue tells us. They've said nothing concrete on the matter one way or another, and this thread has had enough speculation already for a lifetime.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Atariboy

[Jakir]

No offense, but can you not put two and two together? Why would the head of Analogue specifically bring up Sega when asked the question about Analogue's next project? Come on now, stop ignoring the obvious just because you really want a PS1 console.

 

Kevtris seems excited to do lots of different consoles regardless of how successful they were, case in point Game King.

My guess would be that they probably weren't aware that Kevtris was eyeing the ps1 at that time because their interview pre-dates his. I'm not ignoring obvious "facts". The only facts are that Analogue said what consoles they were looking at and Kevtris said he was eyeing the ps1 later and if they do the ps1 they would sell to 4 times the audience of the Genesis and considerably more than the Turbografx/Neo Geo.

 

Based on those facts I would bet on the ps1 and the other consoles are not confirmed as being officially next in line. That is all I've said. Realistically they probably are putting 110% in the Super Nt right now and haven't even looked at a next project yet.

[SegaSnatcher]

 

Yeah, it's an obvious hurdle since it remains under copyright.

 

They'll either have to ship a product that's not actually complete until the user loads this file via SD card, work around it in some manner with alternate non-infringing software that handles the functions of the PS1 bios without affecting compatibility (Which may or may not be possible, since I don't know one way or another), or somehow get Sony on board.

Ain't no way Analogue will release a console without functionality straight out of the box. Come on now.

[Jakir]

You are crushing Jakir's hopes and dreams lol.

I actually already commented about that if you read the posts you quoted...

[SegaSnatcher]

My guess would be that they probably weren't aware that Kevtris was eyeing the ps1 at that time because their interview pre-dates his. I'm not ignoring obvious "facts". The only facts are that Analogue said what consoles they were looking at and Kevtris said he was eyeing the ps1 later and if they do the ps1 they would sell to 4 times the audience of the Genesis and considerably more than the Turbografx/Neo Geo.

 

Based on those facts I would bet on the ps1 and the other consoles are not confirmed as being officially next in line. That is all I've said. Realistically they probably are putting 110% in the Super Nt right now and haven't even looked at a next project yet.

Who said Kevtris was eyeing the PS1 specifically? He was asked a question about the current limitations of FPGA tech and he said PS1 would be possible, but not much else.

 

Of course they already know what project they have lined up next. Look at the time frame between when the Analogue NT Mini was released (Jan 2017) and when Kevtris started work on the Super NT (March 2017).

 

 

[kwnage]

Apart from my doubts that they'll do the PS1 anytime in the near future, I think the PS1 is an absolutely boring system... wouldn't buy 10/10.

[Jakir]

Who said Kevtris was eyeing the PS1 specifically? He was asked a question about the current limitations of FPGA tech and he said PS1 would be possible, but not much else.

 

Of course they already know what project they have lined up next. Look at the time frame between when the Analogue NT Mini was released (Jan 2017) and when Kevtris started work on the Super NT (March 2017).

It was his q&a with MLiG. He said he was very excited to work on it.

 

And if they already have their next project decided on they sure as hell didn't say so when they were asked about it in the interview you cited as proof and that was just a few weeks ago.

[Atariboy]

We'll find out what Analogue's next project is in due time. Seems like several good candidates such as a cost reduced NT Mini successor built along the lines of the Super NT.

 

Apart from my doubts that they'll do the PS1 anytime in the near future, I think the PS1 is an absolutely boring system... wouldn't buy 10/10.

 

How come?

 

So many great games. Just the 2D library alone is amazing. A PS1 fpga solution with support for playing PS1 iso's off SD card, HD rendering of 3D assets (A prerequisite in my opinion for a high-definition PS1), no region locking, and the ability to save games on a SD card would be great I think.

 

I don't see how a classic gaming fan couldn't find this an interesting console. I can see disinterest in the library's AAA catalog of 3D games for some, especially with the march of technological progress. But just the arcade ports of 2D games alone make for a console with a strong library.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Atariboy

[SegaSnatcher]

It was his q&a with MLiG. He said he was very excited to work on it.

 

And if they already have their next project decided on they sure as hell didn't say so when they were asked about it in the interview you cited as proof and that was just a few weeks ago.

I don't remember him specifically saying that, just that it didn't look to bad, but would still be a lot of work.

 

So the head of Analogue specifically bringing up Sega and saying "Perhaps we are already working on it" is not enough of a hint for you? No, you are right, he just said all that as a joke to get a bunch of people hyped just to let them down when they announce their FPGA CDI system.

Edited March 7, 2018 by SegaSnatcher

[Mattelot]

Why? I mean half the fun is predicting what might come out next and with that little hint from Analogue I don't think its unreasonable to assume what is Analogue's next FPGA console.

 

Not to mention if anyone's been paying attention to people's comments across Twitter and forums like Atari Age, I'm pretty sure the majority of people are hoping the Genesis is next.

 

There is nothing wrong with predicting and being hopeful. People who do this come up with good ideas for wishlist features. I assumed he was referring to those who make it sound like it's 100% confirmed that "so-so" IS happening.

 

 

The PS1 uses a BIOS. That stuff's copyrighted. Didn't we have this discussion before?

 

Bleem! still won the lawsuits. So there are ways around that stuff.

[Atariboy]

I don't remember him specifically saying that, just that it didn't look to bad, but would still be a lot of work.

 

So the head of Analogue specifically bringing up Sega and saying "Perhaps we are already working on it" is not enough of a hint for you? No, you are right, he just said all that as a joke to get a bunch of people hyped just to let them down when they announce their FPGA CDI system.

 

Except it may or may not be a hint. We simply don't know.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Atariboy

[Jakir]

I don't remember him specifically saying that, just that it didn't look to bad, but would still be a lot of work.

 

So the head of Analogue specifically bringing up Sega and saying "Perhaps we are already working on it" is not enough of a hint for you? No, you are right, he just said all that as a joke to get a bunch of people hyped just to let them down when they announce their FPGA CDI system.

Hints are not proof. If I was them and heard the potential to sell to 4x the market was possible I would jump on that and ride it all the way to the bank and I can't think of a single company that wouldn't do the same. But this is getting repetitive so I'm done commenting on it now. We'll see who is right in the next 18 months or so.

[SegaSnatcher]

We'll find out what Analogue's next project is in due time. Seems like several good candidates such as a cost reduced NT Mini successor, built along the lines of the Super NT.

 

 

How come?

 

So many great games. Just the 2D library alone is amazing. A PS1 fpga solution with support for playing PS1 iso's off SD card, HD rendering of 3D assets (A prerequisite in my opinion for a high-definition PS1), no region locking, and the ability to save games on a SD card would be great I think.

Analogue is looking forward. I'm not saying a cost reduced Analogue NT Mini won't happen, but it won't be their big announcement for 2018, or at least it won't be their only announcement in 2018.