How Many People Here Would Donate To Support A New Nintendo/Sega Emulator?

[the2ndflood]

How many people here would be willing to donate money to a developer that were to build a Super Nintendo And/Or Sega Gen emulator for the WebOS? Emulators are tough apps to build and maybe if there were enough people on board to help support the development; then we might be able to find a developer that would create this emulator for us.

[rstripes72071]

I'm in!!!

[shanerooni]

i'd be willing to support a developer to build FREEWARE emulators. i'm not a fan of charging $10 for an emulator, but i'd donate $10 to a developer for a freeware emulator in a heartbeat. i'm sure there will be someone who will release a good nes emulator for free. that's all i really care about - old, old school.

[Garrett92C]

I know that there is something you can use that will let you play NES games on VBA. I think it's called Pocket NES or something like that. You load that into VBA and then it loads up whatever NES games you already have in the folder. I don't know the specifics of how it works, but it's free.

[copasetic]

I see so many that are either unfinished, or just plain don't work out in the real world. I realize that's the nature of things, you get what you pay for, you pay nothing, you likely get nothing, if not close to it. Then you have people like me who want something for nothing, lol. But if I see something that works, and works well, I will gladly pay for it. But it has to make sense and be usable, not some thrown together (Copy this, and patch that, and update the other for this to work). This usually means decent documentation, which lots of freeware stuff can sometimes avoid.

It's also going to have to have some efficient way to get the modules/games INTO the thing. I have seen so many where "you are on your own" and then don't say anything about where to go or what to do after that. I realize there are a few games out there that don't have licensing/copyright issues, so that would be a good start at least

So whatever happened to MAME and other similar programs? Could not an existing app like that be ported over or recompiled?

Short answer: Yes.

[macd2002]

I would definately donate for a ds emulator

[the2ndflood]

Originally Posted by shanerooni

i'd be willing to support a developer to build FREEWARE emulators. i'm not a fan of charging $10 for an emulator, but i'd donate $10 to a developer for a freeware emulator in a heartbeat. i'm sure there will be someone who will release a good nes emulator for free. that's all i really care about - old, old school.

The developer that made the NesEM charged money because they made it from scratch. So it took them a long time to build it. When I asked them about the Super NES or Sega Gen emulators; I was told they don't have any (Current) plans on making a more advanced emulator. They might try and take an Open-Source emulator to modify and post that, but there is no plans.

So the developer that were to make this type of emulator would most likely want money for their time; seeing as the emulator would be even more complex to build then the NES one. If I were rich, I would pay someone any amount of money they wanted to make it. If I could develop it myself; then I would make it and post it for free online. But since I can't do either, then I would like to find some way of making this work. Because playing those old NES games that I grew up with on my Pre; has really made me happy. So I would love to play the SNES and Sega Gen ROM's as well.

So maybe we could setup some kind of pooling fund or something. I don't know. There has to be a way to get these emulators on the WebOS.

[zonyl]

Originally Posted by the2ndflood

The developer that made the NesEM charged money because they made it from scratch. So it took them a long time to build it. When I asked them about the Super NES or Sega Gen emulators; I was told they don't have any (Current) plans on making a more advanced emulator. They might try and take an Open-Source emulator to modify and post that, but there is no plans.

So the developer that were to make this type of emulator would most likely want money for their time; seeing as the emulator would be even more complex to build then the NES one. If I were rich, I would pay someone any amount of money they wanted to make it. If I could develop it myself; then I would make it and post it for free online. But since I can't do either, then I would like to find some way of making this work. Because playing those old NES games that I grew up with on my Pre; has really made me happy. So I would love to play the SNES and Sega Gen ROM's as well.

So maybe we could setup some kind of pooling fund or something. I don't know. There has to be a way to get these emulators on the WebOS.

Being once a developer myself, I even have a hard time remembering this general concept:

Developers that are capable of porting low-level C/C++ code are making far more money in their day job than any pool of money that anyone could come up with in this forum. You need to motivate on a different level or just wait until someone is personally fascinated with the idea of doing it. That being said there is a price, for instance I would do it for $20,000

I just dont know how big the market size is (# of WebOS devices) and longevity of the platform to even rationalize things as a commercial venture. My only consolation is that by using the PDK I could potentially resell the same app for Netbooks / Windows / etc, but Palm is not handing out information on that technology yet either.

[the2ndflood]

Originally Posted by zonyl

Being once a developer myself, I even have a hard time remembering this general concept:

Developers that are capable of porting low-level C/C++ code are making far more money in their day job than any pool of money that anyone could come up with in this forum. You need to motivate on a different level or just wait until someone is personally fascinated with the idea of doing it. That being said there is a price, for instance I would do it for $20,000

I just dont know how big the market size is (# of WebOS devices) and longevity of the platform to even rationalize things as a commercial venture. My only consolation is that by using the PDK I could potentially resell the same app for Netbooks / Windows / etc, but Palm is not handing out information on that technology yet either.

$20,000 would be insane! No developer I have spoken with talked anywhere near that amount. What about porting an already active emulator to the WebOS; would that cost a lot as well? There is good money in apps. The NesEM has over 10,000 downloads. And even if only 100 people paid the $10 activation fee; that's still $1,000. And the app hasn't been out all that long. I just wish I could create the app myself, but I wouldn't even know where to start.

I will still look into ways of getting this emulator made. But I would hope someone does view the app as a good investment.

[shanerooni]

again, with enough time there will be free emulators for all platforms. webOS just isn't on the radar quite yet.

i've seen some folks using the <canvas> html tag to create ports of some nes games. pretty cool stuff. you can check out mario bros, or some others.

The latter uses javascript and html's <canvas> tag. Sound familiar? That would be a VERY EASY port to webOS since that's what we're writing in anyway. Not sure how well it would run on the pre's processor, but it's worth a shot.

[lodown3]

I'd donate for one...all i want is BOMBERMAN!
The simplest most fun game on the planet and its never been duplicated (or so it seems). I really loved playing it and think itd make a great port to mobile.
But I'd pay $10 alone for an emulator with just Bomberman ROMS haha.

Anyone even know any fake bombermans?

[the2ndflood]

Originally Posted by shanerooni

again, with enough time there will be free emulators for all platforms. webOS just isn't on the radar quite yet.

i've seen some folks using the <canvas> html tag to create ports of some nes games. pretty cool stuff. you can check out mario bros, or some others.

The latter uses javascript and html's <canvas> tag. Sound familiar? That would be a VERY EASY port to webOS since that's what we're writing in anyway. Not sure how well it would run on the pre's processor, but it's worth a shot.

I hope your right. You are right about different apps coming in time. Who knows what is being worked on now. And the Pre's processor should be able to handle it. Palm has said the processor is basically a Laptop processor; in it's abilites.

So I really hope developers are working on this! Apps like this need skills that are way beyond what I can do right now.

[neo999]

I want too. must have mario...

[the2ndflood]

Originally Posted by neo999

I want too. must have mario...

Yeah, I want to play the SNES Mario games as well. And I also agree with lodown3, because I love Bomber Man!

For me the best SNES games That I miss.

Super Mario 4
The Legand Of Zelda
Super Metroid
Mario Kart
Castlevania Dracula
Clay Fighters
Donkey Kong Country
F-Zero
Final Fight
Double Dragon

Those are the ones I can think of off hand. There were so many games that I couldn't afford to play, but now with emulators; have a chance at finally playing. And a SNES And/Or Sega Gen emulator that works as well as VisualBoyAdvanced or the NesEM; would make gaming life so much better! Because the Touch-Screen controls are better then buying some game-pad that "Might" work with some ROMs files. I have wasted a lot of money on controlers, because every emulator and ROM is different. At one point in time I had 5 different controlers; just to be able to play the different games I wanted to.

[fortes89]

Ohhh Mario, how nice...i would spend a lot of my free time playing it. duru du du duru, du du du, du du durudu, dururu durudu..... ahhh confusing lol

[the2ndflood]

Originally Posted by fortes89

Ohhh Mario, how nice...i would spend a lot of my free time playing it. duru du du duru, du du du, du du durudu, dururu durudu..... ahhh confusing lol

Are you in favor of playing Super Mario; or are you being sarcastic?

[fortes89]

Originally Posted by the2ndflood

Are you in favor of playing Super Mario; or are you being sarcastic?

in favor! c'mon who doesn't enjoy Mario?

[the2ndflood]

Originally Posted by fortes89

in favor! c'mon who doesn't enjoy Mario?

That's what I thought. It's just tough knowing how someone is reacting to something over the web.

[the2ndflood]

I was trying to find a post where another user they had gotten VisuaBoyAdance to play a SNES game, but I couldn't find it again. Hopefully someone will post a How-To, if it is actually possible.

[Klownicle]

When the PDK comes out just petition the iPhone Developers to port there emulator apps to the pre. Easier said then done.