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@Kushan This is true. No corporation, especially Nintendo is a sugar sweet angel from Heaven. They are greedy. How many times have they sold NES games over and over in one form or another. Now they charge full price for a game cart or however it works wih Switch 2, but you get a code or key to download it to play it. In other words, lease it. Nintendo can still wipe it from your device or brick it if they so deseire.

I had the Mario Game & Watch. I thought the screen would be too tiny, but surprisingly it was ok and it was a cool device. The only weird thing about it, was despite the clock function it had no built in alarm. That was one of the reasons I wanted it for. I started to look into modding and saw that modders were able to add a few more roms to the tiny flash chip. So I started looking into putting a handful of roms on and an alarm clock app if it existed. This was when these devices first came out, so modders were still learning the hardware and firmware. I never got around to it. Adding a micro SD slot and being able to load custom firmware from it is really awesome.

Boy howdy. This is wicked news! If only I had the time to work on an N64 title. Still, very exciting. We might see some team efforts and interesting titles come out.

@Razieluigi Me too. This is cool tech, but I too would not want to modify original carts either. If it was an adapter that plugged into the cartridge slot and game piggybacked onto it, that would be more appealing. I have a feeling they already thought of something like that, but it wasn't possible.

@sbeng135 Thank you so much. I will look into that.

Hehehe. Wood. Hehehe.

Man. Too bad that the writing staff at MTV weren't more enthusiastic with the game and that it ended up not getting finished. It had the potential to be a major hit. Hopefully some fans who have the time and skills will pick it up and finish it.

@ckoerner Same if he was on Bluesky. Could even guess his hair colour. 🤣

I can see where he's coming from, but he's missing the point entirely. When it comes to music, I too have never composed a track. However there are tools out there now that let you synthesize a melody or bunch of melodies and beats quite easily. I've had fun with these tools just messing around and making little bits of music for fun. While they make it easier, you still have to put in the effort. If I wanted to make something that sounded more professsional, I would then study music composition and theory. I would spend time making and refining tracks. I would eventually develop my own style and preferences. My soul would be in my music. If I typed a prompt and whatever AI I was using vomitted out some track.. where is the enjoyment in that? What did I learn? Where's the soul? Who'd want to listen to it?

That looks really cool. Love the story concept. Looks like a 'must play' for sure.

I wish I had gotten one. I remember once seeing a pallet of them on sale at an extreme discount. $40 Cad a pop. I had enough money to buy the whole pallet full. I thought, perhaps unbox one and leave the rest sealed. I was late for something that day. I didn't get back to the store until days later. All gone. Dumb.

Anyway, on topic. This is cool. Thank you for the article and video.

@DestructoDisk You're not wrong. It seems to be human nature to immediately misuse a new technology, or use it for entertainment purposes. It is easy to jump on the hate train, and you're absolutely correct that all ads are slop and have been that way for a long time, save a few gems like the Pringles duck king commercial. I think part of the hate comes from clueless tech companies pushing AI on us and the fear of seeing it start to seep into products, entertainment, games, etc.

As for human generated internet slop rage, I agree and wish there was a way to fix it. However people seem to be drawn to drama, even if it ridiculous or pointless.

@axelhander I actually tried to watch your video in which some pseudo-intellectual narcissist (who's farts smell like roses) prattles on about Marx. The guy even calls himself an intellectual. 🙄 I got about 7 minutes in and even managed to stomach the Marxist tripe, but had to turn it off.

Marxism was responsible for the abject misery of tens of millions of people, and we have people who live in the democratic, capitalist West, who own property, use technology created by capitalism, and enjoy freedom, that fantasize about some surreal Marxist utopia. Some bizarro world where ownerhip is abolished, thus destroying the class system, rendering the once rich, powerless and without influence. Everyone is equal comrades. Seize the means of production and share the fruits of your labors.

If this guy's Youtube channel got demonitized. Then you went to his house, walked in without invitation, slept on his couch, ate whatever was in his fridge, and went ahead and started using his computer, because you know - no ownership, he would be singing a very different tune.

@axelhander Wrong. It is harmful. It harms artists. Steals from them. Promotes laziness. It's called slop because it is content generated for the purpose of mass consumption by mere prompts and lacks any quality whatsoever. To watch and consume AI slop is equally disrespectful to oneself as it is to the creative industry. You're also supporting companies who see their game merely as a product and you as a walking wallet. Companies who use slop do not care about quality. They do not care about gamers. They just want to make a quick buck. They're also a lot less likely to maintain their game (bug fixes, keeping servers online, listening to feedback from the community, etc).

If you start becoming compliant to this crap, you're giving the wrong prople the messsge that you're just a fat glutton coming to the trough to consume more slop and hand money over to them for it. Even if it's just used in a trailer, it will creep into the game if we let it.

There are applications for this technology that would make good use of it - like mundane sorting or cancer research for instance. Using it for generative art is a gross misuse of the technology.

Wow. What a flashy trailer hyping up the game. I can't wait to... NOT play it.

Keep going tech bros. The more and more you use this garbage, the more and more everyone hates it, and hopefully the message will become crystal clear in the industry: If you want to fail and waste your time, use AI slop.

Clever use of the crank. I like it.

I can sort of understand if a factory sealed version of a classic Atari 2600 game was sealed in a protective plastic case. Over time, these artifacts get more and more rare. I'd still want to take it out and hold it once in a while. This Wata grading and permanently sealing thing is ridiculous, especially sealing away a boxed console, aside from the stated battery danger. It's like crating up an original Pac Man arcade machine and keeping it sealed away. Not even the owner themselves can enjoy it. It's not about collecting anymore, so much as it's a money brick. I'd rather own the machine that has a long used screen with bad burn in, scratched, scuffed, and worn all to hell, as it would not just be the machine itself that's valuable, but the priceless history that comes with it. What arcades was it in? Who all played on it? What was the highest score achieved on the machine? How many hours had the machine been plugged in? Did Ralph ever visit Pac Man and the ghosts sometime in the past?

He's dead on that game developers should play old games and focus on the fun first. I remember when I could finally play HL2 on a beefy PC with a GeForce graphics card and then was let down by the fact that all that graphics processing was chugging away to make things like worn rubber tires shiny with a strange texture. I knew that was the point in video games where attention was starting to be focused on the wrong aspects.

I have played thousands upon thousands of games over my life and most of my top 10 games are very old, such as Adventure for Atari 2600. I still prefer it over many other games from time to time.

I learned about GameTank on HackaDay I believe in 2023. It's an intetesting project. It's pretty cool that it has a better graphical processing method than past 8-bit consoles.

Time will tell if this console gains a cult following. There is a strong homebrew community cranking out games for the Atari 2600. Even a very decent port of Lode Runner was made. The 2600 wasn't just made with limited graphics capability, it was also bottlenecked (to save in production costs). The GameTank won't require weird sprite trickery to make a game. With its superior graphics capabilities, it's possible some talented devs out there could really push the unit to its limit and make some incredible games.

Also, this is one more console that nicely packaged games can be made for. I'll never miss opening a boxed game that comes with a cool manual or maps or posters.

@Jellyscare Thank you for the response. I really hope you do. I'm in Canada. 😋 Feel free to do the talk here any time. Do let us know if a recording happens. I certainly understand if camera shy. I certainly am.

Have a great day. 😀

Will this be livestreamed? I'm sure it will be recorded.

@metaphysician Thank you for sharing this. It is very ambitious and interesting. I will keep an eye on this.

If its possible to install another OS on it like Linux, I'll be all over this thing. ***** Google and Android.

@Damo 1'000'000% agree!

1. I wish generative AI would be called GAC instead. It stands for Generative Artificial Creation. It also sounds like you're gagging.

2. Bring lazy or cheap and using GAC generated content in a game is no different than using clipart to make a game. No one is going to pay for that. No effort. No profit. What GAC could be used for in a game is perhaps smarter NPCs. Imagine a 16-bit rpg where you might have a farmer who is actually growing in game crops come to a village to buy seeds. You run into him. He's very grumpy. Road bandits stole his money. You decide to hunt bandits, because they have tons of gold. The village is all npcs milling about adding to eachother's story. Dwarf Fortress is kind of like this.

I'm keeping an eye on this one as well. I loved Driver. The screenshots look amazing in this game. So far it rocks tits! I hope the progress stays steady.

It's things like this that make me support book burning. In this case, these books should be remarketed as firewood alternatives for camp fires and fire places.

We're starting to see this here as well. I don't know how many times I've seen a young person write "it's ok, they're on the way out" referring to someone in their 40's or older. In other words those that don't share their new world view will either retire or die out soon, and the new generation is poised to take the reins. Those with this attitude don't value the hard work by the pioneers and previous generations that paved the road for them. It's basically, "get the hell out of our way, this space is ours now to alter, and do with as we please".

Does the console also measure your weight if you stand on it?

@Damo They're all top notch devices. I've got the flashcarts for SNES, MD, GBA and GB/GBC (X7). Absolutely love them all. I use the X7 with my old Gameboy and GBA SP. It doesn't bother me at all to play my SP with it sticking out, but makes the device less pocketable. Sometimes I wish I had a version that was stuffed into a GBA cart, but then it could only be used with a GBA, so that's just silly. 😋

I'd recommend this cart to everyone playing GB/GBC games. Won't be disappointed.

One of my concerns with AI has been it's potential use to alter history. As historical documents and data get replaced with newer versions over time, slimy AI could be used to alter facts and photos/videos. Imagine having to seach for a rare old document, just to prove to the people that the new historical document has been altered and incorrect.

It's a good thing there's data hoarders out there. They are now going to be valuable resources. Might becoma a data hoarder myself. Still have a copy of Star Wars where Han shot first. (I know the newer footage was edited by hand, but give it time and AI will be used to make Greedo shooting first look like the actual footage.)

I like the fact that there is an overclock feature. Good for games like Soldiers of Fortune.

This is epic. He's doing an excellent job with this port.

Man. Palmer Luckey rocks for bringing us Modretro. Looking forward to learning more about this awesome system.

OPEN UP!!! POUND POUND POUND

Who is it? The police?

IT'S NINTENDO! OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW!

I do like the control options on this thing, but as stated before, every emulation handheld out there can play Atari 2600 games. I'm not even sure how these things make a profit for any company. There must be over a thousand different devices out there now with 10 new ones coming out daily it seems like.

As for the idea of a separate paddle game pad with the roller ball as well, I'd buy that.

I wish the survey was tailored to this site as well and no personal questions. No questions about sex, age, income or if children in household and their ages.

I have an FXPak Pro with SGB on it. I remember I had to update it to SGB 2 to fix a flaw the first one had. I don't remember how I updated it. If you have a flashcart, you'll have to look it up.

It's a shame Nintendo locked this feature away as some interesting stuff could have been done back in the day.

I had started playing Final Fantasy Adventure aka Seiken Densetsu a few months ago and was wishing it was in colour. This is a dream come true.

Looking forward to both Genesis and NES ports.

The Activision collection is missing Pressure Cooker. Probably will be in a second collection. It's a simple 2600 game, but difficult and very fun.

@Firmatt There is always a way to fight back without firing a single bullet. (Even if there wasn't a way, hopefully you never have to fire a bullet.) When it comes to software, choose open source and support open source. Hardware? Hack it. Hardware can be much more difficult, and hacking certainly never seems to be user friendly, but it's still resistance.

@TheFlyingKick It would be nice if phone manufactureres also made it easier to ditch Android and install an alternate OS. I don't like Google and I wouldn't miss them if they suddenly disappeared.

I too am excited for this. It looks excellent.

@Ristar24 Permadeath (ie. no savestate) is one of the attractions to roguelikes, but also a great frustration. Games like Nethack make you want to destroy your computer at times. There is a phrase in the Nethack community: "yet another stupid death". You're low on health. A baby dragon is chasing you. You were wearing cursed armor which had exploded. You drank a mystery potion which caused you to drop your weapon in confusion. You run down a flight of stairs, stealthfully evading the dragon, and are immediately surrounded by a group of goblins who despise your very existence...... yea.

Hold on a second you guys. @Mariteaux was not wrong in his response to me, concerning my comment. The retro homebrew and indie scene also has its fair share of "cookie cutter" games. In my own opinion, not as much as the AAA arena, but enough. I remember when NES Maker came out. All of a sudden, a whole bunch of games were coming out on carts for NES. Many Kickstarters popped up. Some titles were head-scratchers to me as to why they were being put on a cart and why would anyone play them. But that's my opinion, and certainly there are some games I too would consider a waste of time if an article was written for them. I give projects and creators the benefit of the doubt until it's clear that the project is just a money grab trying to fleece nostalgic gamers.

Anyway, back to the point.. I can see the point @Mariteaux was making. Everyone has their own opinion and experience behind how they feel. That's fine. I very much appreciate @Mariteaux's response to me.

This is a good site and I feel a good community. Let's be kind to one another.

This is an excellent port. I played the original arcade and this has the same feeling. Excellent job.