Live data from Hacker News

Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

openpandora.org

11–20 of 45 posts

Re: Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

#11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It came out of the retro emulation community, so it has a couple of magnitudes more games available than that. Whether those old games appeal to you is a very good indicator for whether or not the Pandora is for you.

I spent about twenty minutes googling around trying to find a central repository/library/listing of games available/ported to it... with no luck. That would probably be important for gaining traction.

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi

Re: Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

#12
post #9

Surprised it's not android based given that it has an app store and some reasonably popular games already. Anything that would stop them moving in that direction?

It was around before Android so that's one reason why it's not Android based. I think that becoming just another Android device wouldn't be a good business move either, but I don't have any data to back that up.

Re: Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

#13
post #12
post #9

Surprised it's not android based given that it has an app store and some reasonably popular games already. Anything that would stop them moving in that direction?

It was around before Android so that's one reason why it's not Android based. I think that becoming just another Android device wouldn't be a good business move either, but I don't have any data to back that up.

Is trying to attract developers to a niche micro-platform a better business move? Android market might be crowded but it is for good reason. Getting developer mindshare is very very hard.

Re: Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

#16
post #9

Surprised it's not android based given that it has an app store and some reasonably popular games already. Anything that would stop them moving in that direction?

My understanding is that not every Android device can participate in the app store anyway. Am I misinformed?

Re: Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It came out of the retro emulation community, so it has a couple of magnitudes more games available than that. Whether those old games appeal to you is a very good indicator for whether or not the Pandora is for you.

I spent about twenty minutes googling around trying to find a central repository/library/listing of games available/ported to it... with no luck. That would probably be important for gaining traction.

A community around these small handhelds such as the GP2X Wiz and the Dingoo A320 [0] has sprung up over the past couple of years. These small devices are cheap (about $100) and typically made in China somewhere. They are almost exclusively used to run emulators for classic games.

The OpenPandora is basically a response that the existing solutions (such as the GP2X Wiz) just aren't that great (which is true, I have a Wiz and I really don't like it). The OpenPandora will almost exclusively be used to run emulators, a smidge of web browsing, and that's about it.

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-33IdcH3Wb8&t=6m36s

Re: Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

#18
I just don't see how they are going to attract developers to make games for this. The GP2X suffered similar problems.

Sure, this will attract emulator crowd but why do I need a separate device for that when my smartphone will do it (there are even emulators running in javascript/html5 which circumvent any Apple iPhone store issues).

Re: Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

#19
post #13
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was around before Android so that's one reason why it's not Android based. I think that becoming just another Android device wouldn't be a good business move either, but I don't have any data to back that up.

Is trying to attract developers to a niche micro-platform a better business move? Android market might be crowded but it is for good reason. Getting developer mindshare is very very hard.

Sums up my thinking on it exactly. I can't see this being more than a curious news item if it stays in this format.
Post reply on HN