Talk:Game Consoles

The table we used in table and frontend, can it not been used in the emulator page as well? Like this?

This page contains brief descriptions of various emulators for each console. If more information is needed for a particular emulator, an individual page will be created.

Company	Machine & Wikipedia link	Players	Control Type	Nr of Buttons	Cabfriedly Emulator(s)
3DO Company	3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer	?	?	?	?
Atari	Atari 2600	2	Digital	1	?
Atari	Atari 5200	?	Analog	?	MESS
Atari	Atari 7800	?	?	?	MESS
Atari	Atari Jaguar	?	?	?	?
Bally	Astrocade Bally Astrocade	?	?	?	MESS

We should only list machines and emulator, that can fit into a cabinet. Otherwice there are other page, that are lots better doing that (like Zophar). Spacefractal

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I like that, it give a nice overview of consoles and direct information. The emulator page should always point to a page in this wiki, in my opinion, there is most certainly cab related info for each emulator (perhaps have links to front-ends that support this emulator etc.) Another idea: have an alternating colour backdrop to keep brands (especially Atari, Nintendo and Sega) together like this:

Company	Machine & Wikipedia link	Players	Control Type	Nr of Buttons	Cabfriedly Emulator(s)
3DO Company	3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer	?	?	?	?
Atari	Atari 2600	2	Digital	1	?
Atari	Atari 5200	?	Analog	?	MESS
Atari	Atari 7800	?	?	?	MESS
Atari	Atari Jaguar	?	?	?	?
Bally	Bally Astrocade	?	?	?	MESS
Bandai	Bandai Atmark (Apple Pippin)	?	?	?	?

Felsir 07:22, 26 March 2006 (EST)

Yep, your right. We could even change the table to this one (Each company have one cell):

Company	Machine & Wikipedia link	Players	Control Type	Nr of Buttons	Cabfriedly Emulator(s)
3DO Company	3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer	?	?	?	?
Atari	Atari 2600 Atari 5200 Atari 7800 Atari Jaguar	? ? ? ?	Digital Analog ? ?	? ? ? ?	? MESS MESS ?
Bally	Bally Astrocade	?	?	?	MESS
Bandai	Bandai Atmark (Apple Pippin)	?	?	?	?

Wich table version do you like most?

You are right about the emulator page. on these page, we could link to the officiel page, wrappers, hacked versions of a emulator, so it can get this to work on a cab.

--Spacefractal 09:24, 26 March 2006 (EST)

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Hmm, not really sure, I do like the one-cell-per-brand option you suggested. I'm not sure if the table would still work if -for example- Atari 7800 has three of four emulators; would the lines still match? What about this mix?

Company	Machine & Wikipedia link	Players	Control Type	Nr of Buttons	Cabfriedly Emulator(s)
3DO Company	3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer	?	?	?	?
Atari	Atari 2600	2	Digital	1	?
	Atari 5200	?	Analog	?	MESS
	Atari 7800	?	?	?	MESS
	Atari Jaguar	?	?	?	?
Bally	Bally Astrocade	?	?	?	MESS
Bandai	Bandai Atmark (Apple Pippin)	?	?	?	?

Felsir 07:22, 26 March 2006 (EST)

It better. We should only show emulators, that CAN been run from command line, or use of a wrapper.

Some machines have a lots of emulatos, like NES (there are bunch of emulators to this machine). It may been stupid to list them there. But it could been showed in the indept page instead (like the frontend and jukebox section), and maybe some heklp how to intall and config to a arcadecab (like links to wrappes). It even better show emulators in the indepth page, so it can link emulators to linux and dos too (as long these are cabfreidly).

What do you think with this changed table (system buttons like start/select and so on should been shown here):

Company	Machine	Players	Control Type	Game Buttons	System Buttons
3DO Company	3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer (WikiPedia)	?	?	?	?
Atari	Atari 2600 (WikiPedia)	2	Digital	1	4 (2 swithes)
	Atari 5200 (WikiPedia)	?	Analog	?	?
	Atari 7800 (WikiPedia)	?	?	?	?
	Atari Jaguar (WikiPedia)	?	?	?	?
Bally	Bally Astrocade (WikiPedia)	?	?	?	?
Bandai	Bandai Atmark (Apple Pippin)	?	?	?	?

--Spacefractal 14:45, 26 March 2006 (EST)

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Hmm, as long as the machine's pages (like 3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer) don't become a wikipedia article about the console but has a strick structure on what topics are suitable and what topics are not, then I'm fine with it. Perhaps it is better to move the wikipedia link to that page so it is less tempting to put machine specs on the console's page? It still would like to include a column with cabfriendly emulators since that is what the page is about. Indeed the NES has (too) many emulators to list, but some are notable and useable for cabinets so the list can be short (say up to max 4 emulators per console).

Felsir 03:17, 27 March 2006 (EST)

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Yep, the wikipedia links could go into the machine page itself, and link to the wikipedia pages. So we drop wikipedia links on the brief.

The cabfreidly emulators was not a bad idea, so we use that instead, but it could link directly to page, because we could use the indepth page anyware to list them. No need to doing that twice. It better to doing the console based, and not emulator based (like MESS, that is multiple system emulator). It good to destript all NES emulators on the same page, so this is just a quick list to good cabfreidly emulator.

But I may not like the system buttons, because many just use shift buttons to access them anyway.

NB. Underscore is a bad to use (like that one on 3D0 Line).

Company	Machine	Players	Controls	Game Buttons	Cabfreidly Emulators
Atari	Atari 2600	2	Digital	1	stella

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I like the last version of the table. Two things:

• Each console will get a page, on this page we can list all emulators (in two secions: cab friendly and other).
• Each emulator will get a page, so MESS gets a page (also to enable us to list wrappers, ini files, things like that). So the last column will not link to an external page, but to the emulator page. On that page there is some general info including the link to the official website.

How does that sound? Felsir 07:39, 27 March 2006 (EST)

Fine with me, sound great :-).

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Im going to make the table tomorry (Im are going to bed soon). We do not need list other emuators, because there are allready most other sites, that cover that much better, like zophar, retrogames and soon. We should have cabfriedly emulators as the scope here.

But these external link could of course goes from the console/emulator page itself. The samme goes for arcade emulators, pc games and so on. Im was just taked on the console page first.

--Spacefractal 15:28, 27 March 2006 (EST)

I have now made the table, what do you think. There are of couse some spelling. THe other software page should use this list. It should not list coneols, that is allready on market (I do not known I should list Gameboy Advance, but there are allready very good emulators out there). Gamecube, PS2, Xbox is all nonemulators, but they could list on a another table, under the main one?

--Spacefractal 16:08, 28 March 2006 (EST)

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The table looks great, good work! Hmm, PS2, GBA, Cube etc. Perhaps it is a good idea to include those as well - it is a matter of time that these are getting emulated. Also some people do want to play GBA games on their cabinets. Oh, and otherwise people might look at the table and think "hey where is the PS2?". We can add a "not emulated yet" text/icon in that column. Felsir 16:41, 28 March 2006 (EST)

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Just thought of it: the "controls" column is rather redundant since the "buttons" column would also indicate wether there are analogue or digital controls present. Felsir 01:23, 30 March 2006 (EST)

Only classic consoles?

What is the definition of a "classic" console? Only list the consoles that are not currently in production? Where do we leave the consoles that are in production, as many use a XBox or PS2 as base for their cabinets. Since the page is not named "console emulation", what article should a reader look for to find information on these consoles? Felsir 02:51, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

I have thinks about all up to 64Bit consoles (including Atari Jaguar and Nintendo 64) in the classic list, so it dosen't have too many consoles in the same list). Most people use newer 128bit consoles as a base anyway (as you said), not emulation (even Sega Dreamcast have a good emulator for these games it run, but that emulator tab could still been used in the new table). Sega Dreamcast is a 128bit too, so it may been moved to the 128bit+ consoles (even it out of market, but it may been easier to find all 128bit consoles in the own list?)

I have not did a another table in the new page, but it coming soom (if you not made that first). Of course both articles should link toghether?

This was my idea!

--Spacefractal 07:25, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

There are not so many handheld consoles, so here I just marked newer consoles with bold (yep Advance is still on market), and let the 128+ consoles article talk for itself (Im have just renamed it from the frontpage).

What do you mean?

--Spacefractal 07:42, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

I have added the new list all 128bit game consoles (includning Revolutions and PS3). Did I miss some? Sega Dreamast are on the both list, because it really old now (but many users use it as a base, like other newer consoles), but it still a 128 bit console. But should I maybe remove from the classic list? If so I do not doing that my self.

--Spacefractal 17:31, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

I honestly don't like the distinction 128 bit consoles. It may mean something to you and me, but the average users doesn't care/know wether the console's porcessor is 128, 64 or whatever bitsize. They all share a common demoninator and that is: they're all consoles! So I still have the opinion that all consoles should be on one page. It doesn't matter if there is currently an emulator for them or not. The current consoles are cab related because thay can be used inside a console. We need to get a stance what this page is about: It started as the "console emulation" page. Now the page is called "classic consoles". Why is that? Because it is rather a list of consoles than a list of emulators. The reason why initially PS2 et al weren't listed is because they couldn't be emulated at the moment. Now the page is renamed to "classic consoles" and they can't be listed because they're not classic. If I rename the page to "List of consoles" they can be included. So why the urge to leave them out of this list? I say we get all consoles on this page, rename the 128 bit page to "Console based cabinets" and list those consoles there. Felsir 01:49, 4 April 2006 (EDT)