Well, in my opinion, backwards compatibility is a very important thing.
Being able to use the current PNDs would be awesome.
There would be NO fullspeed NDS Emulator (unless someone codes one for x86), and if you just have a random x86 OS on there, it wouldn't be anything special.
It would just be "another PC", in my opinion.
Yes, you'd have sooo many games, but you would have no idea how well they would run. You need to tweak the settings, configure inputs, etc. for most games.
That's exactly why I never hopped from C64 and Amiga to video game consoles.
I want to start a game and play. Not tweak settings, configure stuff, etc.
That's why I stopped playing games on the PC back then.
On the Pandora, I know when I download a PND, it will work.
Even if we use another ARM CPU - it would likely be several generations removed from the one used in the Pandora. Multiple cores, different I/O paths, different I/O hardware, different video capabilities and resolutions. Wouldn't we still need to rebuild most of the PND files to take that into account? I.e. would it really be 100% backwards compatible?
No fullspeed NDS emulator... I don't use NDS, though I think Exophase's work making that happen was amazing. I understand that this emulator addresses the Pandora at a hardware level to make it work. Would that necessarily translate directly to a current generation ARM platform? Regardless of the SoC used, the hardware will/should be capable of performing several multiples faster than the existing Pandora. Anything that was heavily configured for the current Pandora, though, would likely have to be updated/modified/changed to reflect whatever the new hardware is, right?
Would it really just be, "another PC"? Starting with the interests of a gaming community to get solid working controls, extending hardware to fit general computer users, having great headphone audio hardware, building it with Linux in mind - and shipping with Linux. The Pandora wasn't just a gaming handheld - it wasn't a business PC or a media player either. It was/is a magical combination of the three. If a Pandora successor follows those same principles, X86 or ARM shouldn't matter in how that community blending works.
Tweaking settings - and having that all pre-done in a PND for the end user. Nothing in the CPU architecture dictates that having the PND system would have to change. Having a pre-compiled, pre-tweaked PND version specific to our hardware of emulators and home brew games doesn't have to end.
There has been great work done with the existing Pandora to extend it to Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, Android, even Windows - there is clearly interest in alternative operating systems beyond Angstrom. With the advancements in hardware, do you really see a need to ship a future handheld with something other than a fully loaded mainstream OS release?
"I want to start a game and play. Not tweak settings, configure stuff, etc."
The PND system has been great for this - each program pre-set specifically for the hardware. I don't see any reason for that to change. In fact, I could see having PND files that are just the configuration settings for commercial games & engines - which we already have a parallel to with things like Quake - the PND includes the system compatibility settings and in current case an ARM executable, but the actual package files have to be copied in by the end user.
Picture a steam.pnd - initiates a download of the Steam setup and installation engine. Use Steam to download half-life/etc. Then a 2nd PND file halflife.pnd that you can use to launch half life with controls and video all configured for the console. The PND simply overrides the stock .cfg file and launches the game using the proper settings for the unit.
Yes, if the end user wants a program that doesn't have a PND yet, they will need to tweak settings and controls - and they'll have a reason to capture those settings and create a launcher PND to distribute their controls and settings to other users. In this case the PND won't include the source software - but would instead be a very fancy program launcher icon.
X86 has a lot of baggage associated with it. It may not be the right solution for the next generation of Pandora-esque device. I suspect, though, that a lot of the reasons stated not to use something like the new Z3770 are centered around issues that will exist, to some degree or another, no matter which SoC the new platform is based on.
This article does a nice job of comparing the Z3770 to other relatively recent SoC options.
http://us.hardware.info/reviews/4792/intel-atom-z3770-lbay-trailr-review-strong-competition-for-arm
I'm not saying that it's the SoC we have to use - just that it seems to meet all of the criteria as I understand them. Please explore it seriously as an option among many?
Thank you.