Before reading this I didn’t realize how today gaming is different from 80’s and 90’s gaming , to the point Kazeta is a thing! I thought that mostly, CDs had replaced cartridges and loading games became slow, but apparently subscription plans, online chat and “micro transactions” are now accepted as standard gaming?!
Of course. Physical media is long out. What was the last time you saw a laptop with a DVD drive?
On PC especially, online is first. Games come with update managers, "launchers", and that's the absolute standard - publishers either roll their own, or submit to established ones like Steam.
Micro-transactions are accepted, but far from universal. People bemoan them for some reason, but I'd say that the vast majority of games don't have it.
Subscriptions normally come with games with a managed online gaming experience. How else are supposed to be funded, I wonder? I think it's normal to pay for a service, be that gaming, or a gym membership.
Happy to see they're actually putting the games onto the cartridges. Most projects like this just use pieces of plastic with an NFC/RFID tag containg the Steam game ID. For me, the fact that the data is actually right there in my hand is half the appeal.
Neat concept. I had to dig through a lot of the docs before I could get a good grasp of exactly how this works, though. It's an OS that mounts/searches all drives (such as an SD card reader) for the first available KZI file which is a format that describes how a specific game is run (the runtime, additional gamescope options, etc).
While the idea of essentially mimicking old school carts by having a dedicated SD card per game is intriguing, I'm not sure I personally see the appeal of something like this over a Steam Deck + EmuDeck installed - particularly since you'll probably need to build/buy a miniPC that is compatible with Kazeta.
Another concern would be controller compatibility, from what I can see only one controller is listed as being officially supported (8Bitdo Ultimate 2C Wireless Controller).
I've imitated something like this for my Steam Deck by just keeping a bunch of games on sdcard and switching them out when I want to play something else. Sure, it's technically a complete waste of time and I don't suggest you do or anybody else do it. But I have fun doing it and that's all that matters in this case that has no effect on anybody else.
I find it odd when people on Hacker News say "but why?" Because I can, dude, and it makes me happy.
It's nice if you have kids in a no-tv house and want to allow them to experience retro-gaming while being able to control what is played, and how. Scarcity has it virtues, too.
sd card contact wear is pretty radical on constant insert/removal.
second: one of the things that made cartridges great was that they were human-sized. as were CDs. An sd card inserted into a more handle-able/human 'cartridge' would be cool, maybe gameboy sized was about perfect imo.
fiddling with sd cards and slots isn't great.
an snes/genesis cartridge falls into the thing, you can't miss or do it backwards without reeally trying to. They give an affirmative 'clunk' when fully engaged.
(also the contact wear on those was horrendous too.. maybe the SD card IS authentic..)
Replicating something like a form factor of a Gameboy cart is a cool idea, you could probably get away with a I2C EEEPROM of a size large enough for a single rom.
Don't underestimate how nice and legitimately useful it is to organize real physical objects in real physical space as opposed to dragging icons around on a computer screen. Not just for some vague feel-good or nostalgia reasons but the user experience is really just significantly better for some 10s or low-100s of objects.
Though it may be impractical I can definitely see the appeal of something like this. I'm not a fan of the current gaming model. Games we buy should be something we can own, preserve and control. It would be enticing to have a physical collection of actual, working games and to be able to use them without internet connection, user accounts, EULAs, launchers, stores, etc.
My kids play the N64 more than the Wii because the Wii is quite frustrating to set up and maintain batteries and controller connections. The Switch is even more awful, but they’ll play it handheld. The PS5 is complex but generally straightforward. It helps that the controllers are big and we have a nice, clean charging dock for them. The Switch charging dock is finicky and annoying with the tiny controllers.
I think my immediate feedback is that the game cards could be a lot bigger. Anyone out there want to make a ridiculously beefy SD card adapter and corresponding slot? Or maybe even one that interfaces like a puck/block with some keying and locking.
But overall this is 100% on target for my 6 and 8 year olds. They want to play games, not operate a console.
We take them to a Retro Gaming night every few months and I’ve noticed that the X-in-1 consoles (even the brand names) are rarely touched, and all have laminated cards desperately attempting to tell kids how to get into a game. The console UX is paramount.
I've gifted my decade old development laptop (after a beefy RAM+SSD upgrade to the best modern version it supports) to my 7 y/o nephew and he seems satisfied. It cold boots Windows 10 in less than 30 seconds and he can play Minecraft, Roblox, BeamNG, watch Youtube etc. in the living room where he can be supervised, without hoarding the family TV with their console.
Sure, a lower friction device is preferable, but the ultimate thing is that it plays the games they and their friends play.
I am currently working on something like this for audio, basically just like a MP3 player with full size SD cards that plays automatically when you insert them (for kids). It's actually quite hard to find full size SD cards these days and when you do they are comparatively expensive (opposed to current micro SD cards).
Also I wanted to have low capacity like 128MB, so the concept "one album, one card" (as in the OP - "one game, one card") makes sense. These are even harder to get and more expensive (in terms of money per storage). Naively I thought that obsolete hardware should be cheap.
This sounds potentially interesting, but the website is so vague it's criminal.
I have absolutely no idea what the "console gaming experience of the 1990s" was. What console? What experience?
I've only owned 3 games consoles in my life.
An original XBox, a gift from a friend which I immediately hacked to be an XBox Media Centre and used daily for years but never played a game on again.
A PS2.
And now a Wii for my kid.
For any website or any publicity material it is always a mistake to rely on shared experience, because whatever your experience, there are billions of people out there who do not share it.
So don't rely on it. Say what your product is and does and how it does it.
This is very cool! My one gripe would be the one-card, one-game situation. I understand why it would be done, but I also remember growing up in the 90's and there was no point where I was happy that I had to switch out the games.
It's not terrible, but if the cards can store more, they should. It's just practical.
Other than that, though, this is something I've been dreaming of! Mostly just the "it plays games and those games are yours to play" angle of it, not so much the "no internet, no dlc" kind of stuff. Those seem less like features and more like eliminating avenues for future bad actors. Which, again, is understandable, I just wasn't particularly hoping for that.
I love the idea of this. Not so much for myself; I want a system with tons of games that I can play at my leisure. But for a child or someone less savvy who wants to break free of the modern miasma of gaming towards something simpler, this would be awesome. No BS, no license checks, no choosing a Proton runtime. Just plug in a game, turn on the system, and go.
Really interested to see where this goes and wish the team the absolute best!
28 comments
[ 19.2 ms ] story [ 68.7 ms ] threadOn PC especially, online is first. Games come with update managers, "launchers", and that's the absolute standard - publishers either roll their own, or submit to established ones like Steam.
Micro-transactions are accepted, but far from universal. People bemoan them for some reason, but I'd say that the vast majority of games don't have it.
Subscriptions normally come with games with a managed online gaming experience. How else are supposed to be funded, I wonder? I think it's normal to pay for a service, be that gaming, or a gym membership.
While the idea of essentially mimicking old school carts by having a dedicated SD card per game is intriguing, I'm not sure I personally see the appeal of something like this over a Steam Deck + EmuDeck installed - particularly since you'll probably need to build/buy a miniPC that is compatible with Kazeta.
Another concern would be controller compatibility, from what I can see only one controller is listed as being officially supported (8Bitdo Ultimate 2C Wireless Controller).
https://github.com/kazetaos/kazeta/wiki/Requirements
I find it odd when people on Hacker News say "but why?" Because I can, dude, and it makes me happy.
On that note, this project sounds awesome to me.
second: one of the things that made cartridges great was that they were human-sized. as were CDs. An sd card inserted into a more handle-able/human 'cartridge' would be cool, maybe gameboy sized was about perfect imo.
fiddling with sd cards and slots isn't great.
an snes/genesis cartridge falls into the thing, you can't miss or do it backwards without reeally trying to. They give an affirmative 'clunk' when fully engaged.
(also the contact wear on those was horrendous too.. maybe the SD card IS authentic..)
I think my immediate feedback is that the game cards could be a lot bigger. Anyone out there want to make a ridiculously beefy SD card adapter and corresponding slot? Or maybe even one that interfaces like a puck/block with some keying and locking.
But overall this is 100% on target for my 6 and 8 year olds. They want to play games, not operate a console.
We take them to a Retro Gaming night every few months and I’ve noticed that the X-in-1 consoles (even the brand names) are rarely touched, and all have laminated cards desperately attempting to tell kids how to get into a game. The console UX is paramount.
I've gifted my decade old development laptop (after a beefy RAM+SSD upgrade to the best modern version it supports) to my 7 y/o nephew and he seems satisfied. It cold boots Windows 10 in less than 30 seconds and he can play Minecraft, Roblox, BeamNG, watch Youtube etc. in the living room where he can be supervised, without hoarding the family TV with their console.
Sure, a lower friction device is preferable, but the ultimate thing is that it plays the games they and their friends play.
Those + some SD cards and a spare evening for setup makes this a really tempting £400 project.
"A Linux distribution focused on console gaming".
Whenever I see OS I get excited to see a new operating system but end up disappointed when it is yet another distro.
Also I wanted to have low capacity like 128MB, so the concept "one album, one card" (as in the OP - "one game, one card") makes sense. These are even harder to get and more expensive (in terms of money per storage). Naively I thought that obsolete hardware should be cheap.
I have absolutely no idea what the "console gaming experience of the 1990s" was. What console? What experience?
I've only owned 3 games consoles in my life.
An original XBox, a gift from a friend which I immediately hacked to be an XBox Media Centre and used daily for years but never played a game on again.
A PS2.
And now a Wii for my kid.
For any website or any publicity material it is always a mistake to rely on shared experience, because whatever your experience, there are billions of people out there who do not share it.
So don't rely on it. Say what your product is and does and how it does it.
This page does not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouya
It's not terrible, but if the cards can store more, they should. It's just practical.
Other than that, though, this is something I've been dreaming of! Mostly just the "it plays games and those games are yours to play" angle of it, not so much the "no internet, no dlc" kind of stuff. Those seem less like features and more like eliminating avenues for future bad actors. Which, again, is understandable, I just wasn't particularly hoping for that.
Really interested to see where this goes and wish the team the absolute best!