Sega Releases Palm Game Demos

Posted By: Ed Friday, April 5, 2002 9:16:52 AM

Sega has been talking for a while about developing games for the Palm platform. As early as January of last year, the company said it was planning to create some wireless Palm games. At PalmSource Forum Japan 2002 last weekend, Sega showed they were serious about it. In a keynote address, a company representative demonstrated a 3D simulation running on a Motorola DragonBall MX1 processor. The company also released two Palm games to demonstrate the possibilities of its game API.

The games are free but are limited in various ways. Full versions will not be commercially released. They are available from Sega Japan's PDA site. They were developed in conjunction with Smilebit.

These games were released primarily to demonstrate what can be developed using Sega's Palm game API. In February, the company announced it was developing a portable game API for next-generation and current Palm Powered devices. This will be integrated into future versions of Metrowerks' CodeWarrior development tools. In addition, Sega will license the game API to developers.

The DragonBall MX1, which Sega ran its demo on, is an ARM core-based microprocessor which offers speeds up to 200 MHz. It is part of the Palm OS Ready program and so could be found in a next-generation Palm OS handheld.

Update: Both games require a color screen and neither will run on a Visor Prism.

Thanks to Eugene for the tip. -Ed

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Looks nice...

Kaitou @ 4/5/2002 9:37:42 AM #
will they be supporting 320x320 resolutions and higher?

RE: Looks nice...
Ed @ 4/5/2002 9:49:03 AM #
I wasn't at Sega's presentation (and I don't speak Japanese anyway) so I don't know for sure but I can say the API was written to support Palm OS 5, which has support for up to 320 by 320 screens, so it seems very likely.

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News Editor
RE: Looks nice...
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 11:01:18 AM #
I would imagine it is certain... in fact I highly doubt ARM units will come out with less than 320x320 screens although Palm has left the possibility open for 160x160 screens in OS 5. I just don't think it is very likely.

RE: Looks nice...
bcombee @ 4/5/2002 4:32:17 PM #
I think low-end 160x160 devices are possible... a 66Mhz ARM7-based 8MB device replacing the m125 for $150, for example. This is just speculation -- I don't know of any device plans, but its entirely possible given the nicely scalable OS 5.

CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
RE: Looks nice...
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 9:54:57 PM #
i believe all OS 5 devices will be high end...to start...automatically bumping everything below OS 5 to the low end market...eventually, when OS 5 becomes the dominant Palm OS, then we will start to see low-end OS 5 devises

Disturbing Comment

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 9:56:21 AM #
I was particularly disturbed by the following statement on the Sega PDA site linked in the article:

"2: In Sega and Smilebit, including the software and the installation method which are opened to this HP, I do not support at all and it does not become precocious. Please understand that it cannot answer even if you ask a service center."

Precocious?

RE: Disturbing Comment
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 11:06:36 AM #
You were disturbed by this? Or are you saying you don't understand it? Looks to me like babelfish jabber so I wouldn't sweat it. They are just saying that they are not responsible for anything going wrong on your handheld if you install the software. It's a very common thing.

RE: Disturbing Comment
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 11:20:34 AM #
There are two possibilities:
a) The person was making a weak attempt to be funny.
b) The person doesn't realize that Babblefish doesn't do very good translations from Japanese, though it is much better than it was last year, when nothing it translated made the slightest sense.

For European languages, I'd also suggest Voila:
http://tr.voila.fr/

Hardreset

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 10:54:40 AM #
I just tried installing one of the demo's from the site on my VisorPrism. When I clicked it (the Triangle Demo) all I saw was a white display that never did anything. I hit the reset and then the Palm Computing Logo repeatedly flashed. I had to do a hard reset and reload everything to get back.

Just thought I'd mention this, don't know if it was something I didn't do correctly or what (I did install the .pdb and the .prc)...

RE: Hardreset
Ed @ 4/5/2002 11:03:01 AM #
Sega doesn't give any system requirements. I can say both apps ran fine on an m505 and an m130.

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News Editor
A new kind of game
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 11:13:29 AM #
Are you sure you weren't running a game called Palm - the Ultimate Paperweight?

RE: Hardreset
popko @ 4/5/2002 12:33:57 PM #
"Are you sure you weren't running a game called Palm - the Ultimate Paperweight?"

What is your problme? In evey topic PIC ever posts, someone has to come in here and start a flame war. Can't we just be on topic?

Anyway, I just downloaded and installed the "triangle demo." It seems work OK on my Clie N760C.

---------------------------------
I am lost. But I am going to find myself. So if I return before I get back, please ask me to wait.

RE: Hardreset
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 3:08:00 PM #
Using my m515, I successfully launched the Triangle demo once. There was no sound so I exited and went to preferences to turn game sounds on. While trying to launch the game again I was given a Fatal Exception error message and did a soft reset. The soft reset followed through (seemed kind of long but it worked) and the both games have worked fine ever since (although there is no sound, must be the way they were made?).

RE: Hardreset
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 3:17:35 PM #
I just had the same experience of a Prism, except it hard reset by itself when I did a regular pin reset.

RE: Hardreset
visorprismman @ 4/5/2002 6:36:26 PM #
Come on people...when you download something...try it out on an emulator running all the programs that you have on your physical palm...if there are problems on the emulator it is safe to say that there will be problems on your physical palm pilots...:-P

RE: Hardreset
dmunz @ 4/5/2002 11:45:44 PM #
Worked fine on my T615C. No sound, but I think that's the way it is.

FWIW

DLM

Both games freeze Prism
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/6/2002 11:02:26 AM #
All I can say is, "Nice job, Sega!"
Each of the Palm Games Demos froze my Prism (running Palm OS 3.5) in a blank grey screen requiring a soft reset.

Please remind me to steer clear of such nonsense in the future.

Shows some pretty illegal stuff in POSE too....
Ivo @ 4/6/2002 12:47:16 PM #
I expected more from SEGA ?
But then again these are just demo's.

Possible cause of Prism incompatibility
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/7/2002 7:47:11 PM #
My guess would be that Sega are using the Palm OS page flipping routines in these games. This allows faster framerates on devices that support it, however the Prism does not. I have recently released a Beta test of a game I wrote (Shameless plug: check out "Four mm"), which I have found does not work on a Prism (the device locks up and requires a reset) for this reason.

I'm working on getting around this problem and I can tell you there is no official or documented way of getting the Prism to cooperate. I'm sure Sega will look into a fix later on, this is just an unsupported tech demo right now - not a commercially released product.

RE: Hardreset
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/8/2002 8:25:05 AM #
I have a Clie 760. I downloaded the software, TriangleMagic, and had similar problems. Knowing that it is trial software, I expected limitations. I really liked the format of the game, and would certainly look forward to a full presentation. I, too, had problems. The problem came when I tried to finish playing. After choosing "Quit the Game", my screen would become white, and would not return until I used the cap pin on the reset hole in the rear. It returned properly, but every time I played, this happened. Sounds like an event not isolated to me.

is it true?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 12:50:52 PM #
Is it true ARM generation processors are going to be supporting 200 mhz? If so, screw the NR-70V and the T615C, I'm waitin' till the summer. I thought the ARM devices will be around 100mhz or 133mhz. crazy

400 MHz
Ed @ 4/5/2002 1:10:51 PM #
It doesn't stop at 200 MHz. In February, Intel introduced the PXA250, which runs at up to 400 MHz. It is fully ARM architecture compliant and is part of the Palm OS Ready Program, meaning that it could be included in a Palm OS 5 device before this fall, though no company has announced that they will be using Intel's chips.

Read more about it:
www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2984

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News Editor

RE: is it true?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 1:22:32 PM #
Palm does not use PXA250 but TI's OMAP.

Intel
Ed @ 4/5/2002 2:29:37 PM #
So what? Palm isn't the whole Palm OS platform. Sony, Handspring, HandEra, Samsung, etc. still have yet to announce who will make the processors in their Palm OS 5 handhelds. As I saw at the PalmSource conference a couple months ago, Intel is certainly lobbying these companies hard.

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News Editor
RE: is it true?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 9:03:43 PM #
Having Motorola ARM processor running at 200Mhz?
I doubt most application will run at that speed for the sake of battery life. And when they do... how long will the battery last.

I haven't seen any power comsumption figures for Motorola's new ARM processor yet. Will be be comparable (power wise) with Intels X-Scale ...

This may be the deciding factor when you choose your next PDA, it is for me. So StrongARM is out of the question right now.

I dont think Palm will/should limit licensees on with ARM platform to use, so power users can select more powerful ARM design, with say, bluetooth built-in. Whereas typical PDA users can use a more economical and smaller design. Better to given choices that be stuck with PocketPCs all StrongARM or XScale designs.

RE: is it true?
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/6/2002 12:56:31 PM #
There is no indication that Palm is going full forward supporting MX1, Xscale and OMAP. Currently it seems only OMAP's multimedia extension is supported.

I doubt it Palm Inc has the man power to write OS 5.0 so that it will perform uniformly on all three CPUs.

Xscale for eg has 9 multimedia related codes, while OMAP has more than a dozen with programable DSP. I don't think you can just plop OMAP codes into Xscale and expect they are going to run just the same for multimedia.

Plus TI is supplying Palm with money and engineer, while motorola for eg. dropped the Palm phone development. So that makes one wonder a little if there is politics involved.

Only works with color

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2002 4:31:44 PM #
I tried loading this on my Palm Vx and it said that it only works on 8bit color machines.

I know this is still just beta, and color really does show off the capabilities, but I HOPE that there is a greyscale version released!

RE: Only works with color
visorprismman @ 4/5/2002 6:38:44 PM #
You are not missing anything...don't worry about it...

RE: Only works with color
I.M. Anonymous @ 4/6/2002 11:03:58 AM #
They do make a java greyscale version of Borkov for Nextel. It comes pre-installed on the i85s & i90c. Not sure of other models.

RE: Only works with color
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/20/2002 11:23:47 PM #
the sony pda game, borkov, rules!!! it is better than most palm games out there -- too bad it wasn't made an official game!
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