On Jul 5, 2005, at 12:10 PM, Glenn Saunders wrote:
> --- Adam Thornton <adam@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Seriously, who the hell expects to make real money
>> from 2600
>> programming?
>>
>
> Infogrames. Embedding the new games directly into the
> 2600 hardware itself (and no, not just as an
> easy-to-identify surface-mount EPROM) may be the only
> way to prevent piracy.
Well, OK, but if we're talking about mass-produced ASIC things, like
I think you're talking about--then bets are off anyway, since you
can't plug them into the real hardware, and the reference hardware
isn't *really* a 2600.
In fact, why would Infogrames do it this way, rather than (as with
the existing 2600-on-a-chip systems) a crappy NES-on-a-chip and a not-
really-perfect-but-good-enough-for-the-unwashed-masses port of the
game they cared about?
I mean, let's face it: anyone not ALREADY into the retrocomputing
scene is not going to be interested in modern 2600 games, no matter
how spectacular-for-the-system they might be. If you're Some Dude At
Best Buy looking at a 2600 standalone system, you probably want to
relive your childhood with Space Invaders or Pitfall! or Breakout,
but if faced with the choice between the (admittedly terrific)
Skeleton+, or something shiny for your GBA, you're going to buy the
game that has two decades more of hardware platform development under
it.
It's only in really extraordinary cases that the makers of the ASIC
are going to care enough to do it right. I don't know if you've seen
interviews with Jeri Ellsworth on the C-64 joystick--which is
actually eminently hackable and which can be opened up and turned
into a full-on C-64--but she had to fight the manufacturers (and
often lie to them) to get the hackability included in the final product.
Adam
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