Nintendo DS

[sugarspun58]

Hi all,

 

Just thinking, i'm gonna buy one of these gizmos for myself for xmas, just wondering if anyone has thought of coding a DS version of BBO? I'm sure it would work great with the Wi-Fi connection it can handle and the touch screen

 

Just a thought :)

[barmar]

The only "someone" who could do this would be Fred, since he's said on numerous occasions that he's not interested in allowing anyone else to try to port BBO to other systems. He also hasn't documented the network protocol that it uses, so the code is the spec. And from what I've read here when folks have requested ports to other operating systems, it doesn't sound like BBO is written in a very portable manner. So this would probably involve a total rewrite from scratch, a major undertaking. Since Fred is also planning a major rewrite of the Windows version (I assume he was talking about something more significant than the GUI changes that are in the recent betas), I can't imagine him having the time to do a Nintendo version as well.

[sugarspun58]

Oh well, just a thought...... (Would be great to have a team match while sitting in MacDonalds :huh: )

[barmar]

My guess is that if we're ever going to see it on something portable, it will probably be a Pocket PC -- something that runs a variation of Windows. Anything else would probably be at least a 6-month project.

[sugarspun58]

Hi all,

 

I've been investigating this idea (I said it as a joke initially) and there are apparently a lot of 'homebrew' programmers out there writing software for the DS, ranging from games to email clients and browsers (even Linux has been ported to the console!!!)

 

So in theory this is totally possible (another proof is that i have 42 all time classic games on the DS and you can play contract bridge on it over the internet with other players..... but it is not very well set out)

 

I reckon if Fred is kind enough to either hand over his code to one of these homebrewers or just to give the details of the network protocols used in the software (someone can then reverse engineer the software)

 

Just a thought :)

[fred]

BBO is, among other things, a business.

 

In principle I have nothing against porting BBO to another operating system, provided that my partners and I think it makes good business sense to do so.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[sugarspun58]

Hi Fred,

 

I love what you have done for the game of bridge. If it was not for your software, I would still be playing 'bad' bridge on sites like pogo or MSN. I now play regularly on-line in tournaments, league team matches and it has given me the confidence to go to the local bridge club. Thanks a million.

 

On the point of porting the software, I see two ways to go. You could let others port the software, similar to an Open Source project. You would still make money from the pay tourneys and also money bridge. Plus it would attract more users to the system.

 

The other way would to be to produce the software and charge a fee (either one off or subscription) for use on other OS. I would happily pay for the software if I could play remotely on a portable system, ie Pocket PC, PSP, DS or any other portable device. (Not sure if I would pay a subscription tho....)

 

Anyhow, this is just a thread for discussing such ideas, please don't think I'm trying to 'force' the issue. It would be interesting to see what can and cannot be done :)

[keylime]

I'd happily pay a license fee to get it to work on my Palm T|X.

[hrothgar]

I have a friend who owns a software company in the games space. A couple years back I was doing some consulting for him and we were actively considering whether it might make sense to port the BBO client to some different platforms. Here's a few conclusions that we reached.

 

Porting the BBO client to portable device (cellphone, PDA, even a mobile PC) really didn't seem to make much sense. Our prime cocern wasn't the code base or the portability, rather it was usage patterns. People use mobile devices to kill time while their waiting to do something better. For example, I might play a game on my cell phone while I'm waiting for the subway to arrive. Bridge didn't seem like a good match for this usage pattern. The game isn't really designed for folks jumping into a table for half a board, then jumping out again when the subway car pulls in.

 

I did think that there might be an opportunity to port Bridge Master deals. Bridge Master deals are small, self contained puzzles. You can pull one up, spend a couple miutes trying to solve it, then put it away again. We dropped this idea when it became clear that there isn't enough screen real estate to explain the hands to people. I also thought that it might make sense to develop a "Bridge Trainer" in which cards would flash by. At various points in time, you'd be quizzed and asked "How Many Spades does East have left". We eventually decided that the market for a Blackjack trainer was larger.

 

As for the Nintendo DS and devices like that... I'd argue that there isn't much of an overlap between Nintendo DS users and the BBO community. The deographics just don't match. Furthermore, the Nintendo doesn't have a good keyboard available. The BBO experience is very dependent on the ability to type written messages.

[fred]

Most likely this will be my last post in this thread. As I said above, our decisions in this area will be based primarily on what is good for our business. I don't want to get into a public discussion concerning what might be good or bad for our business and why or why not.

 

Here is a summary of our current thoughts:

 

- anything involving "open source" - a non-starter. It is not going to happen.

- a native Mac version - it could happen but I doubt it will anytime soon.

- a native Linux version - not at all likely in the foreseeable future.

- a version that can be run on various handheld devices - I expect this will happen and I would not be surprised if we started an initiative like this within the next year or so, but currently we have no plans in this area (and no desire to make such plans in the immediate future).

- a version that can run on game consoles - we haven't given this much thought, but I agree with Hrothgar that this is probably not the most sensible market for us to get involved in right now.

 

That being said, we (like all businessmen) are basically whores. There exists some amount of money that would be sufficient to convince us to do any of these things.

 

Our next major project will involve the creation of an entirely new way to use BBO which is not described in any of the points above. Sorry but I am not willing to go into the details at this time.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[sugarspun58]

Hi all,

 

Thanks for the input, been really interesting.... I agree with the points being made.

 

I have purely selfish motives, and just wondered what you guys thought :)

 

(I have also emailed Sun Bingo to see if their game would work in the DS Browser!!! LOL - I would like to point out this was on behalf of my sister and not me!!!)

 

Fred - would $50 persuade you to write a portable version????? hehehehe

 

Joking aside, thanks for your opinions.

 

I played 'Hearts' on-line via the held held console and was great. Anyone here on the forums use a DS? The 42 classic games cart is brilliant..... but the Bridge game is poor on it (you cannot see the bidding history, its not laid out very well and the only scoring system you can play is Chicago)

 

btw I think DS has a good input keyboard style, you can open the keyboard and use it on the bottom screen with the touch screen and type into the top screen. Ok its a bit slower than a normal keyboard, but works well with other wifi games.

 

I look forward to seeing the 'new' way of using BBO.

 

Thanks for your time, I really appreciate it.

 

Tony

[sugarspun58]

Porting the BBO client to portable device (cellphone, PDA, even a mobile PC) really didn't seem to make much sense. Our prime cocern wasn't the code base or the portability, rather it was usage patterns. People use mobile devices to kill time while their waiting to do something better. For example, I might play a game on my cell phone while I'm waiting for the subway to arrive. Bridge didn't seem like a good match for this usage pattern. The game isn't really designed for folks jumping into a table for half a board, then jumping out again when the subway car pulls in.

Hi hrothgar...

 

I can understand your concerns about the usage of the software on such a device, but I think this would not be a problem if you had to register using the BBO software on PC first. Most of us who use BBO would understand that you should not login and play one hand then bugger off again..... but this is not a issue with the device being used but the end user themselves......It happens at the moment all the time with the current set-up anyhow (I hate playing in the Main Room!!!)

 

You could also have the 'system' point out such users are using a portable device as well, this would give others the choice of letting play or not.

 

:)

[JoostJa]

> [Fred] A new way to use BBO.

 

My guess is that they are turning it into a webapplication. Great!

 

That way they also don't have to port anything anymore since any device with a web-browser would be sufficient.

 

Look at the kind of browser-based applications that Google makes these days.

 

You can do lots of fun things with javascript in a browser. Combine this with so-called AJAX technology, basically meaning you import data from servers without refreshing the whole thing all the time, and you are on your way to a browser-based-BBO.

 

It will still be a lot of work though, I would not be able to do it alone. My guess is they would need about 5 man-years. Hey, maybe Google is interested.