Indeterminate new Dreamcast releases

[Ted]

It's vague as all get out, but some (company?) is planning on more DC games:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/22/redspotgames-has-plans-for-further-dreamcast-development/

[Kendrick Kerwin Chua]

Post by Ted
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/22/redspotgames-has-plans-for-further-dreamcast-development/

Kotaku had the same info from the show. It's another one of those homebrew
studios that privately negotiated discounted license rates from Sega.
There are a handful of Japanese developers doing the same. It's not news
to me, but it's always cool to hear about.

Red Spot isn't the same crew that did Maquipai and the sheep game, are
they? I can't remember.

-KKC, looking forward to LA Machineguns and NY Gunblade on the Wii.

[BelPowerslave]

Post by Ted
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/22/redspotgames-has-plans-for-further-dreamcast-development/

I would be happy to just hear about further Naomi titles finally getting
ported(like Neo Geo Fighting Coliseum and whatnot).

Bel

[Scott H]

Post by Ted
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/22/redspotgames-has-plans-for-further-dreamcast-development/

I would welcome some PC ports to Dreamcast provided they don't use WinCE.

[Kendrick Kerwin Chua]

Post by Scott H
I would welcome some PC ports to Dreamcast provided they don't use WinCE.

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with Windows CE? Not trying to be an
advocate or anything, but my experience with 3.0 was that it was the
cleanest Win32 environment. Being able to leave out unused components gave
you a really streamlined OS to embed, and being able to run on a dozen
processor types was a nice thing too. Of course, once the Windows Mobile
branding happened a lot of that flexibility went out the door, but during
the Dreamcast's lifetime I had nothing but love for CE.

WinCE had good and bad results on the Dreamcast. Armada was excellent.
Tomb Raider, maybe not so much.

-KKC, being a human documentation index at work.

[Scott H]

Post by Kendrick Kerwin Chua

Post by Scott H
I would welcome some PC ports to Dreamcast provided they don't use WinCE.

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with Windows CE? Not trying to be an
advocate or anything, but my experience with 3.0 was that it was the
cleanest Win32 environment. Being able to leave out unused components gave
you a really streamlined OS to embed, and being able to run on a dozen
processor types was a nice thing too. Of course, once the Windows Mobile
branding happened a lot of that flexibility went out the door, but during
the Dreamcast's lifetime I had nothing but love for CE.
WinCE had good and bad results on the Dreamcast. Armada was excellent.
Tomb Raider, maybe not so much.
-KKC, being a human documentation index at work.

Wow a response on RGVS in the same day, I'm sorry I took so long! My
problem is that all of the PC ports that use WinCE have terrible
framerates, texture mapping and polygon counts compared to games
actually ported to the DC.

Some of them, Sega Rally 2 and Hidden and Dangerous in particular, are
my favorite Dreamcast games. Just imagine if Sega Rally 2 ran as well
as Daytona Online or Hidden and Dangerous ran like Quake 3. I can't
think of a well optimized WinCE game on Dreamcast actually.

[Kendrick Kerwin Chua]

Post by Scott H

Post by Kendrick Kerwin Chua

Post by Scott H
I would welcome some PC ports to Dreamcast provided they don't use WinCE.

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with Windows CE? Not trying to be an
advocate or anything, but my experience with 3.0 was that it was the
cleanest Win32 environment.

<snip>>

Post by Scott H

Post by Kendrick Kerwin Chua
WinCE had good and bad results on the Dreamcast. Armada was excellent.
Tomb Raider, maybe not so much.

Wow a response on RGVS in the same day, I'm sorry I took so long! My
problem is that all of the PC ports that use WinCE have terrible
framerates, texture mapping and polygon counts compared to games
actually ported to the DC.

I can't excuse that, but I think I know the explanation. The Dreamcast was
on the market at the same time as the first iteration of the Pocket PC,
which was the beginning of Intel's monopoly. By adding instructions to the
ARM chipset and making it incompatible with chips from other companies,
Intel was able to bully Microsoft into optimizing Windows CE for Compaq's
iPaq device. Casio put up a good fight for their favored MIPS chip, but
eventually they gave in and withdrew from the market. And once HP was
bought out, the SH series processors had no advocate.

What's this have to do with the Dreamcast? The support for the Dreamcast's
SH-3 processor suffered as a result of all this inside baseball. On paper
Windows CE was supposed to let you write once and then compile equally for
any compatible processor, but in practice you ended up with a performance
hit for anything that wasn't x86 or ARM. Sega's own API shouldn't have run
circles around Windows CE from a strictly mathematical perspective.

Anyway. All water under the bridge at this point.

-KKC, who woners if he should shill for the $5 Dreamcast hardware being
sold out of New York. :)

[Scott H]

Post by Kendrick Kerwin Chua

Post by Kendrick Kerwin Chua
I can't excuse that, but I think I know the explanation. The Dreamcast was

on the market at the same time as the first iteration of the Pocket PC,
which was the beginning of Intel's monopoly. By adding instructions to the
ARM chipset and making it incompatible with chips from other companies,
Intel was able to bully Microsoft into optimizing Windows CE for Compaq's
iPaq device. Casio put up a good fight for their favored MIPS chip, but
eventually they gave in and withdrew from the market. And once HP was
bought out, the SH series processors had no advocate.
What's this have to do with the Dreamcast? The support for the Dreamcast's
SH-3 processor suffered as a result of all this inside baseball. On paper
Windows CE was supposed to let you write once and then compile equally for
any compatible processor, but in practice you ended up with a performance
hit for anything that wasn't x86 or ARM. Sega's own API shouldn't have run
circles around Windows CE from a strictly mathematical perspective.
Anyway. All water under the bridge at this point.

It actually sounds about par for the course for what Intel just got
busted for. I wasn't into watching industry news at the time because I
didn't care for paying subscriptions. I was just sitting on the other
end wondering why companies were ruining their own IP on their own
Dreamcast ports. Most of which happened to use WinCE at the same time.

[benstylus]

Post by Scott H
I was just sitting on the other
end wondering why companies were ruining their own IP on their own
Dreamcast ports. Most of which happened to use WinCE at the same time.

I had the same sort of thoughts... why most of the WinCE games made me
"wince" with how poor the performance was compared to the DC-native games.

Good to know there was a secondary reason besides just developer
laziness (though I still believe that was a big chunk of it).