Seems Quiet Lately

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Bush
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by Bush » Mon Mar 28, 2011 6:29 am

And yes there is an android n64 emu.

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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by bentendo64 » Mon Mar 28, 2011 7:21 pm

Ohh yeah, it really seems like there's not much going on right now, but I never go on modretro, or mbb.... I have an account on modretro, but that's mainly because last school year, my school didn't block it, and they had blocked bh. But now both are blocked, and school is a boring place to be during computer class.
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by ShockSlayer » Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:44 pm

I think about this kind of stuff occasionally, I've put in quite a few years of my life into "portablizing," so i have quite a bit to say.

I like to think that there is no tension/drama/blahblah or whatever between MR and BH. Maybe I'm just not seeing it/missing it? :| I happen to see and talk with bicostp and vskid on MR almost regularly, and although I usually only come over here every once in awhile, I prefer to see the communities as joined, if only by a basically shared userbase. Plus, I know a couple people that visit all three sites regularly. :o

I wouldn't call MR or MBB a subset, though. All three sites have their own unique flairs that attract certain people, which is why each site has unique, and some proprietary members. In fact, I know that there have been several MR and MBB members that had never even heard of Benheck until they were told about it, or found it though old links or cross posted projects or whatever. Goes the same for MBB and MR too. :)

As far as thinning out the knowledge, well, kinda, or we could be making it more known. Kinda like, for example, MR takes the knowledge and goes east, BH takes it and goes west(midwest, :P), and MBB takes it and goes north, and as a result, the knowledge spans across the proverbial nation. Besides, if someone truly seeks the knowledge, they'll search for it, it's why we try to keep our stickies up to date at MR, so people can find the info they need, regardless of what site they belong to. Also, Google, anyone? :P

Portables, themselves, are/can be frikken expensive, especially when compared to the cheaper alternatives like silly clone handhelds and virtually free emulators. A lot of the real interest in reliving classic gaming is stolen by those. Cost, in my opinion, is the number one thing that limits portablizing as a hobby. Perhaps the only things I've ever learned from youtube comments, is how much average people are willing to pay for a portable. Cost has always been a limiting thing for me, too. I mean, I'd love to work and crank out portables all the time, but I have to budget my cash elsewhere now. And, there is a lot that we've conquered and done already! :mrgreen: The n64 portablizing scene(imo, basically the largest section of modern portablizing) is hanging on by a thread, we've slimmed down things immensely and pretty much figured the whole thing out. I mean, marshallh and kibble, IMO, are what's really keeping it alive, because they are doing some amazing things. But right now, there's a real lack of excitement in my opinion, and with the majority of the more current consoles being hard to power off of batteries, my hope for the future of this hobby lies within a single region.

I personally believe that soon either one of two things will happen: the portablizing scene as a whole will fall to a state to where only the very dedicated will remain, or it will be reborn into a new frontier, which, right now, I believe is the Gamecube and the Wii.

I include both consoles because they both have really high, currently untapped potential. From what I can tell, most of these clone devices can't really emulate the GC/Wii. I'm sure eventually they will, but right now? Not so much. Meaning that, if anything, the only thing I have to say is: strike while the iron's hot. Plus the fact that you can power them off of batteries means that they can both be made into handhelds. Which is what the portablizing scene is really about, it's our ground roots, right? And right now, that's what we've got to get back to, but with new twists, keeping things exciting. That, of course, is only natural, considering that consoles are made differently now and utilize different things than they did back in the days of the Atari.

Our current situation? We've got Tchay and Zenloc, two amazing portablizers slowly paving the way to the future with board trimming and profile slimming, and the rising portablizer Ashen(hailing from the GC forever forums) has appeared and made some AMAZING things happen with the GC's disk drive, with some talent from emu_kidid(I bet you've heard of him.) Not just the GC, but the Wii's sheer hackability is something that has yet to be fully taken advantage of by portablizers, I mean, I'm pretty close with my Wii laptop with the Sundriver in it, but I'm talking about more of a handheld sort of thing. The Wii's mobo can be slimmed down immensely, I'm not sure how comparable it is to how slim we can get n64s and gamecubes, but it's getting there.

The point is, no really mind-blowing portables have been released recently(Ccube is just the beginning, though), and that's why it seems kinda dead here. If there's any more excitement over at MR or MBB, it's only due to the things that make us different. To the best of my knowledge, both sites were made with the focus not entirely on portablizing, although both sites have a heavy base on that, we still tried to kinda expand our horizons. I know that some of the founding principals of MR was to try to, basically, make a "better" benheck forums. I mean, I've done quite a few mods/projects that I've only posted at MR, simply because I just don't believe they fit in anywhere here. If I'm not mistaken, the BH forums were founded on Portables of Doom, which was founded on portables alone, I think. The intention was not modding in general, just portables. I don't think Ben really knew the community was going to grow like it did. :P

tl;dr: Still, I'm just trying to show that it's only dead because we've reached a checkpoint, and it only seems more active in other places because we've got some other things going for us.

I hope I've shed some light on the everything.

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vskid
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by vskid » Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:09 pm

SS pretty much summed it up. Emulators and clones have pretty much gotten rid of the market for older portables, while power usage and size have made new consoles pretty much impossible to portablize.
If you've noticed, the activity on MR and here has been pretty similar. I post regularly on both, and it seems like every time I get online, there are about the same number of new posts on each.
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by Tchay » Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:12 am

SS and Vskid are totally right. Its a checkpoint, but a good one at that. And SS hit the nail on the head IMO. The GC and Wii scene are going to boom.

Things that are now possible:
- sifuf clone GCP
- DMG sized portable gamecube
- gamecube advance
- PSP cube (not official title, Zenlocs making it)

and my personal favorite that will certainly get me in trouble with nintendo:

- 3DS Cube - gamecube inside of a 3DS case. I measured it out tonight and it is possible. :P

So yeah, things are being built (i'll speak for myself). I am currently working on 3 different GCPs, but it takes time...and money, like SS mentioned. And being 19, money is not in abundance. I'm sure I'm not alone there. I will admit that if I ever squeeze a cube inside of a 3DS case, I'll probably retire from the portablizing scene, but thats still ways away.
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by Basement_Modder » Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:03 am

blaze3927 wrote:Highly doubt it

benheck members: 7158
modretro (lol) members: 1741
moddedbybacteria members: 647

<Random assumptions here>

most members definitely have not migrated to modretro, and i doubt one person on the subsets knows something that anyone on benheck does. just stick to benheck and contribute to ending the nonsense of three different forums
When was the last time you checked how many of those members were active? IIRC, there are THOUSANDS of BH members who have a post count of 0.

Also, BH has been around for 7 years, giving them more time to gain members. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT ALL OF THEM EVER DID ANYTHING!

Saying to pick a side to end the conflict is like building a missile to end a war.
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by humakabula1 » Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:10 am

Wow, massive postfest.
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by MrAfterFx » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:33 pm

Very impressed that the mods didn't delete this thread... Although SS did give me a good read and a lot of opinions stated makes you think deep about it. I haven't been here long but am active and try my best to help others out because I know what it's like jumping into portablization first attempt and not having many references. That is why I post in the "Ps2, Xbox, Gamcube" section!
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by vskid » Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:22 pm

MrAfterFx wrote:Very impressed that the mods didn't delete this thread...
Why? Since when have threads about the forum being slow been deleted?
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by bicostp » Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:59 pm

It's sort of halfway between a state-of-the-communities news thread and a general discussion F42 thread... :? If anything I would have moved it down there.

I think the relatively long time the current round of consoles has stuck around hasn't helped much. The Wii's lack of hardware refreshes, the 360/PS3's high power consumption and heat output, and general price stagnation probably make some people shy away from working on those. ($200 is a lot to drop on a source console when you're unemployed.) I bet if Nintendo came up with a new Wii motherboard that was cheaper to produce and used less power, we'd see a lot more modding on that platform. However that's very unlikely to happen; Nintendo hasn't done a significant home console refresh since the second-gen Super Nintendo, and why should they throw money at reinventing their money printer?

I think older consoles aren't getting the attention they did a few years ago because people would rather emulate or buy a copy off a service like the Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, or gog.com. Smartphones played a role in this as well. There are phones out there that can emulate Playstation games almost perfectly, and even my old Dell Axim PDA could emulate NES and Genesis games. Most people would rather have hundreds of games on a tiny device they bring everywhere anyway than lug around a separate, much larger device and a few select cartridges or CDs to go with it. Smartphones are so powerful and ubiquitous, and their SDKs are so accessible to amateur programmers, that emulators for iDroidMobileBerry are the new portables.

Like others said, old consoles are too outdated for most peoples' interests, and current consoles are too new to be made into practical handhelds. Retrogaming certainly isn't dead, but it has experienced a shift away from its native hardware.

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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by ShockSlayer » Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:01 pm

Bic is totally right.
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by blaze3927 » Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:45 pm

Basement_Modder wrote:
Also, BH has been around for 7 years, giving them more time to gain members. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT ALL OF THEM EVER DID ANYTHING!

Saying to pick a side to end the conflict is like building a missile to end a war.
lrn to read:
(obv doesnt represent active members but you ge the point, just checking now at 9:45pm gmt +10. 26 users active on benheck, 6 on modretro, 5 on mbb)
:sigh: who ever incited this was a war/sides?
immaturity: 1

just checked again benheck:
21 users online

modretro:
12 users online

also fyi, check most members ever online.

still more people use/visit benheck than modretro and mbb.

and did you ever hear of wwII? not thats its relevant, it would only be made relevant if your comment regarding war/missiles was given any interest at all.

theres three sites for the same thing, one of these sites is significantly larger than the rest, the general interest of portablising is declining ATM,

benheck: been in magazines, most featured on engadget hackaday etc. the forums have his name, significantly more members to finish/do amazing projects. sifuf, lob, marshallh, kibble, original SS worklogs, etc.
modretro: ......ummm maybe been in a few engadget articles that probably link back to a benheck thread?
mbb: probably solely built on bacteria for his into stuff, featured ion Engadget a few times

out of the three which seems most likely to succeed overall and is best heard of in the wider community.
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by bassmasta » Fri Apr 01, 2011 7:10 pm

blaze3927 wrote: :sigh: who ever incited this was a war/sides?
immaturity: 1
blaze3927 wrote:modretro (lol)
Your hatred for modretro is apparent, and not helping.
blaze3927 wrote:theres three sites for the same thing, one of these sites is significantly larger than the rest, the general interest of portablising is declining ATM,
...
out of the three which seems most likely to succeed overall and is best heard of in the wider community.
Which has existed the longest?
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by blaze3927 » Fri Apr 01, 2011 7:22 pm

hatred for modretro?
maybe a year ago
the whole point of the lol was "the most of the users migrated statement"
i was surprised to see how low the membership was, i wasnt surprised by mbb because its even newer still.
and this is backed up by the members online and this:
mod retro registered members with 0 posts:
1076/1779
%60

benheck registered members with 0 posts:
1582/7191
%22

benheck users with <100 posts
6708/7191
%89

modretro users with <100 posts
1674/1779
%94

benheck joined since 01/01/2010
2209

modretro joined since 01/01/2010
1470
and exactly benheck has existed the longest, you just add to my point that its still the most widely heard of the three, as we've just heard from several members portablising isn't growing significantly in interest atm.

all the data is there, go check it yourself
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Re: Seems Quiet Lately

Post by Bush » Fri Apr 01, 2011 9:07 pm

modretro: ......ummm maybe been in a few engadget articles that probably link back to a benheck thread?
Does this make sense? Why would MR be featured on engadget for something on benheck? And I beg to differ; what about the trisixtyfource, 64 boy, znwii, etc? You are being very biased and super irritating.

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