The Adafruit PyGamer, a New Maker-Friendly Handheld Console(learn.adafruit.com)
learn.adafruit.com
The Adafruit PyGamer, a New Maker-Friendly Handheld Console
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pygamer
6 comments
Interesting. I was about to back this when I realized it doesn't appear to have an SD card slot to store multiple games and/or save game state... Feels like an odd choice to me, given the capabilities of the hardware.
That and the onboard flash is only 32MB. No networking support (WiFi or BT). Mono audio, no headphone jack. Some interesting limitations for a 32 bit portable console.
That and the comments on their previous projects are pretty poor. Reading those, I got the impression they tend not to support products after launch, which ultimately led me not to back it.
official website & specs: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pygamer
Another similar project in this space:
https://www.clockworkpi.com/
Some specs:
* ATSAMD51 (Cortex-M4 with 512KB of flash and 192KB of RAM)
* 8 MB of QSPI flash
* Micro SD Card Slot
* 1.8" 160x128 Color TFT Display
* 1 thumbstick
* 4 buttons
* 5 NeoPixels
* triple-axis accelerometer
* light sensor
* stereo headphone jack
* mono speaker driver
* ATSAMD51 (Cortex-M4 with 512KB of flash and 192KB of RAM)
* 8 MB of QSPI flash
* Micro SD Card Slot
* 1.8" 160x128 Color TFT Display
* 1 thumbstick
* 4 buttons
* 5 NeoPixels
* triple-axis accelerometer
* light sensor
* stereo headphone jack
* mono speaker driver
Only two primary buttons feels pretty limiting
Nintendo had only two buttons until the Gameboy Advance. Even the NES just had two.
Only their portables, though. The SNES had 4 plus two shoulder buttons in 1990, 10 years before the GBA. Honestly, I always felt like that was a missed opportunity for Nintendo, since the GBA was basically powerful enough to run SNES games, but lacked the buttons (and the screen was smaller). Made it impossible for it to be a port machine for all those great SNES games...
iirc in a recent episode [0] of The Talkshow, John Gruber and the people from Panic are discussing the button layout on the Nintendo Switch. They were wondering why the Switch has so many buttons and whether it was a pragmatic choice by Nintendo to make porting games from other platforms easier.
Made me wonder whether we're observing some variation of Hotelling's Law [1] in controller design.
PS: the episode mostly is about Panic's upcoming handheld game console Play Date [2] which also has two primary buttons (and a crank!).
[0] https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2019/05/30/ep-252
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law
[3] https://play.date/
Made me wonder whether we're observing some variation of Hotelling's Law [1] in controller design.
PS: the episode mostly is about Panic's upcoming handheld game console Play Date [2] which also has two primary buttons (and a crank!).
[0] https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2019/05/30/ep-252
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law
[3] https://play.date/
The Switch has the standard number of buttons for a home console: four face, a D-Pad, two clickable sticks, Select and Start or their equivalents, and two shoulder triggers per side. Much of the escalation in number of buttons was done by Nintendo itself: the SNES was the first to have four face buttons and two shoulder buttons (Sony would follow up by adding two more shoulder buttons), and the N64 was the first console to feature both an analog stick and a d-pad (Sony would follow up by adding another stick). The current standard is right in the happy medium: enough buttons to enable a variety of actions beyond, say, "attack" and "jump", but not enough to overwhelm and confuse the player in the heat of play. Plus, the Switch controller can be broken into two, each allowing SNES levels of control for impromptu multiplayer play. So if it seems like there are too many buttons at times, it's because of games that deliberately use fewer buttons to take advantage of different play modes with the Joy-Con.
I’m not sure what you mean by “even”. Your implied list contains what, just the NES and the gameboy?
I know plenty of games can exist with only two buttons, but it’s still limiting and likely to be off putting to many devs.
I know plenty of games can exist with only two buttons, but it’s still limiting and likely to be off putting to many devs.
Why is this a Medium post?
Here's the actual product page, with more details:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pygamer
Here's the actual product page, with more details:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pygamer
Why is anything a Medium post? Seriously, I’ve never understood the point.
I found this after the submission, maybe the mods can update the URL when they see this
Sure. Changed to that from https://blog.hackster.io/the-adafruit-pygamer-is-a-brand-new....
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pimoroni/32blit-retro-i...