Comments on: SEGA Releases 5 Classic Games for OS 5

I should hope that's a temporary problem, rather than a long-term limitation. I wouldn't want to see the apps only work on one device. I don't think that would do anything good for sales.

By the way, does anyone know whether they will be porting any Genesis titles?
Scott

HandEra Moderator
Off-Topic Moderator
I'm trying to be PC, I really am, but I'm just too into handhelds.

For once, I'd like to see something *delayed* even longer for further testing. Why? Well, if the MMC comes out for retail sale next month, then that means that these are pretty much the "final" versions of these games as will appear on the card itself. From very preliminary testing this morning, they appear be quit a bit below the standards of Rayman, performance-wise. Sonic is not nearly as smooth as I remember him being on my old Genesis or Game Gear--certainly the GBA version of Sonic would blow away the Palm version! Shinobi was pretty choppy and the controls seemed very sluggish as well. Otherwise, Columns seemed to be the best of the bunch and ideally suited to the T|T's d-pad (unlike Handmark's Tetris). Does anyone know if this is the same version of Columns that ships with the Sony game controller?

Additionally, the sound is a very nice (& unexpected) touch. I'll say the same things about these Sega games that I said about Rayman a year or so ago when it was originally release--give it some more time to be tested and tweaked and let's reevaluate it in 6 months or so. Otherwise, these sorts of "recognized" titles are precisely what Palm (and Sega) need right now. Sega's got a massive library of Master System and Game Gear games that would be perfect for Palm conversion. They really need to get them to work on at least Sony devices, though.

I can't imagine playing arcade games on Sony buttons.

Sure hope they work on the Zire 71.

Jon Acheson

"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

>>As you have suspected, these games are basically GG ROMs running on a Z80 emulator (or whatever cpu the GG ran on).
i wondered if this was the case - it makes a lot of sense because once the investment is made in developing the emulator, there is a whole catalog to easily exploit. it also helps explain why things aren't %100 optimised for OS 5 - they require it for speed/performance, but don't take advantage of things like OS 5 hi-res (but you see hi-res in the bottom 'emulator bar').

>>Perhaps the games won't work on Clie's because Palm has made an exclusive deal with Sega?

perhaps - just like the deal Sony seems to have made with Macromedia - any sign of flash for anything other then Sony Clie devices yet?

I think it probably also is related to the fact that they would also have to do seperate code for the Sony sound API - see my rant below.

"any sign of flash for anything other then Sony Clie devices yet?
"

Theres a flash player for os4

I have a copy of it..works pretty well on my m505.. The site talking about it is down tho :

Of course Sony's non-adherence to the sound API is the only "real" reason these games won't work on a Clie. I mean, Columns was released as part of the bundle 6 (or more) months ago for the Clie game pad....so there's certainly no reason that these titles couldn't run on a Clie aside from the fact that Sega's trying to spend as little $ as possible right now, and it was probably easier to stick the 8-bit Game Gear emulator in there without having to redo it for Sony's sound support. Also, notice that "Palm Software" connection is hosting these titles, so presumably Palm might have even had a hand in the funding of these titles, so it would have a new and improved MMM Games Card to replace the old buggy one--that won't even work on OS5 devices, I might add. They've got Rayman already, which is a good start, and the Bejeweled/PopCap games card is on its way soon (it's already at Palm.com) so the Sony collection would make a nice compliment to that lineup of OS5 games. Now what we really need is SimCity...

just save the garbled text and change the extension to .prc ...

Let me in on getting it via email. I tried to save it as text and change the extenstion to PRC. HotSync Manager then promptly told me that it was an invalid file and it wouldn't install it.

>> Could it be because of the different sound API?

Sony has got to fall in line and support the OS sound API - this is frickin' stupid. OS 5 software should run on OS 5 devices. Developers who wish to go beyond simple pre-OS 5 'beeps' and do real sound must write code TWICE - once for every device that uses the OS 5 API (Palm SG and - presumably - every other sane device manufacturer who will be releasing OS 5 devices) AND then a seperate re-write of the sound code for Sony. As a developer i have this message to Sony - F%#* off! We are sick of writting code that makes special exceptions for every moron OEM designer's API fantasies. OS 5 potentially brings an end in sight to all of this - it supports every device capability you can think of (varying resolutions / perfectly great sound API for devices with advanced sound capabilties). But Sony felt that it would instead hamper multi-media application development for all its customers in favor of trying to control / proprietize everything. The SEGA games don't work for your Sony device? Blame Sony.

I'm sorry. I've own Master System, Game Gear Megadrive (Genesis), Saturn and Dreamcast (and other brands)... so I've played hundreds of SONICs and clones.... The T\T versions are CHOPPY, VERY CHOPPY, JUST A FEW FRAMES OF ANIMATION.
If you consider playable the T|T versions of SONIC and SHINOBI, I recommend you the original GENESIS games... You'll be amazed.

MEDUSA

Can you imagine what it would be like trying to play these with the normal sony buttons?

Bundle this with the Clie controller and you have a winner.

I must say SEGA did a nice job in emulating their Game Gear unit on the T|T, although it needs some optimizing/tweaking to give it the feel of a real unit.
The emulator's core is one big multisegmented ARMlet.
And after some further research and "experimenting" (just for fun/educational purposes - NO we're not gonna share/tell you how we did it - and YES we own the titles we tried) we found the embedded emulator was pretty sturdy and able to run other GG titles besides these 5. OutRun anyone ? *g*

Ivo Jager
D3D/MT3D lead developer
www.mobilewizardry.com

EVERYONE keep emailing sega! and if someone could make a tool that lets you import any GG rom it would be awesome (ones that you own, of course)!

>> Please post demo versions without the sound!

we will not do this. while we have played with the binaries for our own internal use (to see what it is doing), we will never make such things available for the general public. please dont even ask - what we did ourselves we have already deleted from our harddrives. getting these games running on sony devices requires modification to the binary distributed by sega - and that is illegal and unethical to do. so, dont ask - we will never release such instructions/modifications. nag sega.

overall, its a pretty decent/generic GG emulator - and, we have experimented with a few GG roms with success - however, they will probably never leave our own palms or desktop machines :) sorry.

if you want other games, and support for your clie - email sega and ask them. there is no reason why the applications wont run on sony devices (we know, we have run them on sony devices). but, that is a decision to be made by sega.

// az
aaron@ardiri.com
http://www.ardiri.com/
http://www.mobilewizardry.com/

Heh, they're not in the list anymore... but they are still in the HTML source...

Tungsten T Handheld

Wassup? http://www.pocketscience.com.au/

montana is tungsten C
panther is zire 71

amen.

IIRC, the game gear had its 8-way D-pad and then two "action" buttons and a pause button.

The older Sega Master system had the exact same number of buttons available, but the pause button was rarely used in games to bring up a menu screen due to its location on the console itself, next to the power button (IMHO one of the many reasons Nintendo trounced Sega in the 8-bit wars)

So it really depends on which title is being ported to the Palm OS more so than anything else. Sonic, for example, only uses the d-pad and a button for jumping, so it would work perfectly on a Clie button-wise. It would be no harder to play Sonic on a Clie than it would be to play Rayman on a non-Tungsten Palm, aside from the poor quality of Sony's buttons (an entirely separate topic).

Additionally, Sega could boost sales for Sony tremendously by just requiring every Clie to have the game pad accessory installed. That would probably prompt Sony to integrate a d-pad into the Clies. Anyone remember the Playstation's little "Pocketstation" card? It had a tiny little directional pad that would fit very nicely on a Clie...I honestly thought that when I heard the rumors of Sony's very first Clie several years ago that such a pad would be incorporated...