Hardware Stop Skeletons from Fighting documentary on the Zeebo

[CyberWolfBia]

There it is! The video I was waiting for... Derek and Grace made an excellent job researching and detailing everything about the Zeebo's concept, its launch, and the inevitable demise; All with (in my opinion) with a lot of respect when touching about the Brazilian market;



That's also a very good point of reference for english-speaking side of the internet about how harsh is our reality here in Brazil when comes to imports, technology in general and yes, how unaccessible are video games.

I may be a tiny little bit biased because I got a Zeebo myself not long ago (and nothing to do with the shout-out at the end ); But man, SSFF is probably one my favorite channels right now; They'll be covering lots more about the Zeebo soon, but I recommend the rest of the content as well;

 

[ermitron2]

Ah the Zeebo. I remember one of my friends had one just because he wanted to open it and see how it worked. Since MS started manufacturing the xbox in México you could get an arcade version even cheaper than the price of the zeebo, so it was doomed from the start.

At the end of it's life they tried to sell it as console/pc with free internet and games and even had a game with the Huevocartoon characters.

 

[Dcubed]

Very sad story overall. They definitely had some good ideas and intentions behind the Zeebo, but it was marred by awful execution and Qualcomm's apathy. There certainly was a market for such a device in developing countries like Brazil and India, but that potential was squandered by lousy hardware & OS software, terrible pricing and a lack of development support from Qualcomm.

It's probably too late for any sort of similar device now though. The mobile/F2P market has pretty much consumed everything, and there's just no room for anything else now.

Looking forward to the upcoming Punching Weight episode, love SSFF's stuff!

 

[CyberWolfBia]

It's ironic how I became so fascinated with the Zeebo, despite my hate for digital-only games and systems; It's so quirky and still has value owning one if you have a way to jailbreak it and get some of exclusive gems like Double Dragon and Action Hero 3D;

And in general is just neat to see the convertion of previously mobile games to an actual home console setup in the era; Resident Evil 4 is obviously a good example of being superior on the Zeebo for having actual buttons there.

Also, I'd like to add that, beyond the grey market and piracy, Brazilian gamers (especially in the 90's to early 2000's) were very used to rent games.. it was a God sent for someone like me that owned like... one SNES cartridge (Super Mario World) throughout the whole time I had the system as a kid;

It's probably too late for any sort of similar device now though. The mobile/F2P market has pretty much consumed everything, and there's just no room for anything else now.

I was just discussing this with a group of friends; --Someone said that "something like this today would be huge", and I'm pretty sure everyone already comfortable playing their F2P games on phones won't be willing to spend money on a system that can offer what they already have access to.

The idea of a "Zeebo 2" powered by Android, as Derek mentions at the end of the video, is pretty much still at Tec-Toy's mind. They recently got the license to sell the Legends Core from ATGames here in Brazil, but still mentioned they want to have an actual new system again sometime in the future

----- by the way, if you go on the comment section of the video, you'll spot some of people there were envolved developing for the system sharing their stories; including someone that pretty much confirmed that the Zeebo follow-up was a sure thing internally.

 

[El Buga]

I remember hearing an incredible lot about it in TV ads, but at the time (2009/2010) I was unemployed and broke, so I could never afford one.

 

[GamerJM]

Congrats on the shoutout at the end OP! I was wondering if they contacted you for that when I saw it.

It's interesting stuff, nonetheless. One of the only things SSFF has covered that I didn't really have any kind of a backstory on before watching.

 

[Tailzo]

Fascinating, I’ll watch it later. I love these kinda videos.

 

[CyberWolfBia]

Congrats on the shoutout at the end OP! I was wondering if they contacted you for that when I saw it.

It's interesting stuff, nonetheless. One of the only things SSFF has covered that I didn't really have any kind of a backstory on before watching.

I had little exchange of emails with Grace around September of last year! She was very kind!

 

[undefined]

Great video! Shoutouts to pão de queijo

About the console market, in some ways feels like console gaming got less accessible, as piracy I think is less viable since the PS4/XOne/Wii U era, and the current minimum wage is like U$200 per month but consoles arrive with the price nearly double the original value.

It's still a big country and a big market though, and some publishers now offer fully localized voice acting (not Nintendo as of now, they officially returned to the market only a few years ago and only Mario Party Superstars have localized text, but the upcoming sport games will have too. There's no physical games yet, they're only available through the grey market so it's more expensive than the digital versions)

Nowadays feels like the mobile competitive free-to-play games are by far bigger, with stuff like Free Fire and CoD mobile. The console market definitely grew though

 

[Platy]

Probably the best video on the zeebo i ever saw, and this include brazilian sources.

It misses some of the more technical stuff like getting deep into how and why it went underpowered, but it is amazing in other ways to compensate

 

[Hero of Legend]

Amazing vid! Pity they didn't cover the bit about Sonic and lent me my own shoutout about it...

 

[MondoMega]

I remember you talking about getting in contact with Derek last year; happy to see the video finally out there, and it was a great watch!

 

[Reinhard Schneider]

This was a fascinating watch. Not into the hyper energic SSFF style, but he's always very informative, and this wasn't the exception.

Zeebo has always been kind of fascinating for me from a curiosity standpoint. A full fledged mobile console designed for emergent markets. It had the potential to become the console equivalent to the Raspberry pi? But then it was mismanaged to hell and back.

Kudos for teaching about the situation in the brazillian videogame market. On paper, Zeebo made A LOT of sense.

 

[Dcubed]

Amazing vid! Pity they didn't cover the bit about Sonic and lent me my own shoutout about it...

He's making an upcoming video about the individual games themselves, so he'll likely mention it then.

 

[CyberWolfBia]

Amazing vid! Pity they didn't cover the bit about Sonic and lent me my own shoutout about it...

Despite the initial confusion, me and @Platy got to talk with ex-Tec-Toy devs and we got confirmation that was always meant to be the Dreamcast game; They backed off once they realized it wasn't feasible;

One dev was able to confirm privately to Platy there was some testing but draw distance was a nightmare in a game as fast as Sonic; -- Despite of the pedigree of usually mobile games on the system, SEGA really thought they could give a couple of Dreamcast games to the Zeebo ;P

 

[Hero of Legend]

Despite the initial confusion, me and @Platy got to talk with ex-Tec-Toy devs and we got confirmation that was always meant to be the Dreamcast game; They backed off once they realized it wasn't feasible;

One dev was able to confirm privately to Platy there was some testing but draw distance was a nightmare in a game as fast as Sonic; -- Despite of the pedigree of usually mobile games on the system, SEGA really thought they could give a couple of Dreamcast games to the Zeebo ;P

I know, you and I discussed that last year!

 

[CyberWolfBia]

I know, you and I discussed that last year!

I'm sorry, I'm just woke up lol

Either way, I'm sure Derek and everyone involved in the researching for the video would stumble on your article on Sonic Stadium and the old forum post; The information is still very sparse and you're the first one to show up in the results when looking for Sonic Adventure on the Zeebo

I'm really curious to see his video on the games ~

This was a fascinating watch. Not into the hyper energic SSFF style, but he's always very informative, and this wasn't the exception.

Zeebo has always been kind of fascinating for me from a curiosity standpoint. A full fledged mobile console designed for emergent markets. It had the potential to become the console equivalent to the Raspberry pi? But then it was mismanaged to hell and back.

Kudos for teaching about the situation in the brazillian videogame market. On paper, Zeebo made A LOT of sense.

By the way, I say our situation improved a little bit when mobile game became more viable as a valid alternative (as @undefined mentioned above), and we can still get services like GamePass for dirt cheap and Steam sales happen all the time;

What didn't change, of course, it's the prices of actual hardware and physical games;

 

[Deleted member 2484]

Derek seems like a really lovely guy. I always enjoy SSFF.

I wish he had gone into the history and politics, though. I know that, as he said, it's beyond the remit of the show, but I love me some full context!

 

[CyberWolfBia]

Sorry for the bump! But I didn't think a new thread was needed, but here it is.. Derek completed a whole detailed catalogue of every single Zeebo game





Again, this is truly a very good resource of information on the Zeebo for the english speaking internet. There's plenty of stuff that simply isn't covered on Wikis and such, so I appreciate his effort.

And to link up the other thread, Zeebo emulation is already a thing and it's progressing! And there's also an underground community working on Homebrew injections like with Tomb Raider, DOOM and other games made for the BREW OS.

 

[CyberWolfBia]

As usual, SSFF videos keep up giving! Not the first time, but former TecToy and Zeebo Inc. devs come forth to talk about their experience on the console in the comment section, but I thought it would be worth preserving this one (this might interest @Hero of Legend too!)

This is just more confirmation straight from a Zeebo dev that Sonic Adventure (and Crazy Taxi) was a straight Dreamcast port; I got in touch with people in the past for clarification and my friend Platy helped me out on this; But since some of the conversations were privated we couldn't share all and it was natural that some skepticism would remain. But here we are with something more concrete:

Here's Gustavo's LinkedIn profile listing his time on TecToy and Zeebo Inc.

Again, Sonic Adventure DX wasn't even ported to Steam, 360 and PS3 by that point, and considering the internal expectations for the hardware were to something akin to the PS2, Dreamcast ports were probably seriously discussed. SEGA would pull their support entirely from the Zeebo coming with the final specs, and not mobile port or some Genesis or Master System emulators happened at the end of the day;

-- Platy was able to confirm back then that Sonic Adventure's cancellation was mostly due draw distance and rendering, since the characters were moving too fast for the Zeebo to proccess. And we had a conversation a brief conversation with Suzana Bueno about that matter too.