I think all new games for MSX should come on carts with some wiched custom chips or at least military-grade protected PICs or CPLDs, with lots of bonus material and in very expensive and rich case/box. They should start at 500 euro for regular edition and go over 1000 for limited. Total print should be about 100 units max, and only 10 should be limited edition.

I'm sure something like this will attract a lot of attention and will be getting more and more valuable over the years

And if you are curious what the rest of users should do, well, first of all, poor people will die anyway, since they don't have money, so they don't need any msx games. And the rest of people, who can affort to spend 500 euro on game but don't want to, are greedy and their souls will burn in hell for ethernity, so no big deal here as well!

Good news : I've received an answer from Matra and as I'm very happy with this answer, I've just payed with PayPal not only for the 4 Matra games, but also for Bomb Jack !

I think fair prices are:

* small/puzzle-game on 1 disk, average quality: 5 euro
* small/puzzle-game on 1 disk, good quality: 7.50 euro
* small/puzzle-game on 1 disk, outstandingly groundshaking quality: 10 euro
* arcade-game on 1 disk, average quality: 10 euro
* arcade-game on 1 disk, good quality: 15 euro
* arcade-game on 1 disk, outstandingly groundshaking quality: 20 euro
* RPG-game on 1 disk, average quality: 15 euro
* RPG-game on 1 disk, good quality: 20 euro
* RPG-game on 1 disk, outstandingly groundshaking quality: 25 euro

and for all games: let's add 2.50 for each additional disk..

Just an indication from my humble storageroom of opinions

Some 10..15 years ago these prices were at least twice as much!

On behalf of Bitwise:
We sincerely hope to receive the first batch of games before the MSX fair in Oss, January 2005. We also hope that we'll be able to sell them there. As the negotiations just have started, please be a little patient ^_^.

Yours, [D-Tail] / Bitwise

Imanok wrote:

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About the game, it's almost a perfect conversion of the arcade... except than the arcade is endless and the MSX2 version has 80 stages and an original ending.

That's very nice, but still tells me zip. I don't know "the arcade", I don't have
MAME installed and I'm not planning to install MAME, just to find out whether BombJack is worth buying or not. So, I still have no idea whether I would be willing to pay 15 buckazoids for that game. I think I'll wait for Bitwise to show the game on a fair near me, and then make my decision.

Just my 2 ct...

And I think all future MSX software projects should be vapourware: nice and cheap

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That's very nice, but still tells me zip. I don't know "the arcade"

It is a very well known arcade (at least, here in Spain).

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, I don't have MAME installed and I'm not planning to install MAME, just to find out whether BombJack is worth buying or not.

That's your decision.

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So, I still have no idea whether I would be willing to pay 15 buckazoids for that game. I think I'll wait for Bitwise to show the game on a fair near me, and then make my decision.

It's logical...or wait for a review on a magazine... nothing bad with that. We are not discussing aboug buying a game you don't know anything about, but if it's fair to pay for a game made by users.

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And I think all future MSX software projects should be vapourware: nice and cheap

And disappointing...

No need to install MAME to have a peek. You can see a flash demo of the game there www.flashplayer.com/games/bombjack.html

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Alas, the developers of Bomb Jack MSX2 don't visit MRC, so they won't read this, as

The developers of Bomb Jack MSX2 do visit MRC almost every day as you can see...

Well, I hope we'll receive the MRC Review copy we ordered soon then ^_^

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As Jorito said, for a "plain conversion" (well we don't know that for sure for now)

Well ... We can say the game is a perfect conversion as it is a perfect BJ clone.

Anyway, it's a game made 100% from scratch. It is not a port or something similar (such as Coleco or SG1000 conversions). The aim was to make the MSX2 Bombjack that never existed for our beloved system just like it were made by the original makers of Tehkan.

Because of this, the developers of BJMSX2 have tried to reproduce all the original features of the arcade BJ (playbility, feeling, musics, main title, etc.) Even the package is heavily based on the original flyer of the arcade machine.

I remember someone in the Barcelona user meeting saying "Wow! It's MAME for MSX!"


I prefer to use the word 'remake' instead 'conversion'.

I used the word "port"

I think everybody's using a different definition of remake If the game is a perfect conversion of the original (no differences, not even new features) I would call it a port / conversion. It can still be a remake, but remake usually implies that something has been improved.

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I think everybody's using a different definition of remake If the game is a perfect conversion of the original (no differences, not even new features) I would call it a port / conversion. It can still be a remake, but remake usually implies that something has been improved.

I think a 'port' is an adaptation from an architecture/OS to a different one based on the source code or even the object code. For example, the different versions of fMSX are 'ports' because they are all based on the same code. The only changes introduced are those hardware/OS related.

BJ has been made from scratch. It is not an adaptation nor a port.

Furthermore, the BJMSX2 has some improvements, so it may be called 'remake' (according your terminology).

I agree Arjan. I would call it a conversion.
Some time ago I was asked by Elite for making a conversion of Bomb Jack for mobile phones. It was supposed to be made from scratch in j2me (or WGE), but I would not call it a remake for mobile phones
Anyway, I think it is better to go back to the topic.