Playing Genesis (and possibly other systems) ONline against remote human opponents.
I was talking to Anthony Gaccione of Sega of America. A few weeks ago, I presented him an idea to turn old video games into old online video games, without reprogramming any code for said original games. I'll tell you my secret I'm selling you n in a minute. He liked the idea, but Said Sega couldn't fund it. I found a place called TryCelery.com which would let me sell preorders, contacted Anthony again, and he told me to go for it, and let him know when I raised the money and did the research.
If I sell 1000 units, I will have enough money to make 1000 and pay for the prototypes, assuming the cost of building a net Genesis is under $20 wholesale. Which it should be because AtGames offered a Genesis and 40 Genesis ROMs and 40 of their own ROMs for $40 retail. I'm not asking for their ROMs yet. They're not important intrinsically to the system.
The basic theory I have is that EVERY old game will work if you are able to beat a 16 ms ping time. Cleveland to Chicago is 600 km, or 2 light milliseconds apart (Light speed is 300,000 km/s) Yet ping times on a typical network are from 40-75 ms. The network was originally a phone network that had to be rock solid and still survive if a place got nuked. The cost of getting you there surely was about 30-100 ms.
Sega Dreamcast suggested all you need is dial up for a good gaming network. They had it half right. Xbox suggests you need broadband to make online gaming work. They have the other half right. A lot of Dreamcast online games were pingy. Xbox games had people pop out of your sights in shooters. Chu Chu Rocket theoretically need only 32 bits/cycle or 1920 bits/second assuming 60 frames/second. CURSOR N,S,E,W, ARROW N,S,E,W, X 4 PLAYERS. The one thing Sega didn't figure on was Ping Time. Japan is a way smaller nation than the US or the EU. Microsoft figured if you can't shave off ping time, take lots of data including every piece of shrapnel and have the network ref it. Microsoft had a good workaround, use high bandwidth to compensate for poor ping time, but if Ping times were better, Sega would have had the better strategy
I found a connection to get you there in 1 ms for every 200-300 km (depending on efficiency). It's Sprint Direct Connect or similar services from At&T and Verizon. I plan to take what is a talking network, convert it to analog squelches, transmit them via Push to Talk, and connect people quick enough. Analog squelches give you 33 kb/s. But if you've got low ping times, you don't need to truck data by the Meg full to have enough information. In this case, quicker is better than more.
A side effect of that, EVERY 2-player (or more) game, no matter how great or obscure will work with the network, because the machine will read in data as fast as it needs to register it. So you can play Combat for the 2600, or M.A.D. for the 2600. And if you don't know what M.A.D. is, my point exactly. It's the most obscure 2-player simultaneous game in my 2600 collection. (though probably someone who is richer than I can probably out-obscure me.)
I am in talks with SNK Playmore and WB Games for the rights to make Net Neo Geos and Net Astrocades. Coleco last time said Net Colecovision is cool, but couldn't fund it. Maybe they'll let me offer preorder Net Colcovisions and Net Geminis (basically a 2600 using off the shelf parts back in the 80s). Finally, I have to talk to Atari and Intellivision for a net 2600 and Net intelliviision respectively. Originally I asked if they can fund now. Now I just need permission to offer pre-orders for net versions of their systems.
The website is http://tryCelery.com/shop/netrogames
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Originally Posted by c0ldb33r
. It would be cool if it does work.
