Submitted by Magnussoft has posted a news item to let customers know that the first games
have been ported for ZETA 1.21. These are pretty important releases for Zeta’s software base.
First Games to Hit the Scene for ZETA 1.21
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Just like writing software for Macs means your target audience is smaller, it’s also an audience more apt to buy your software. Both lack of choice, lack of availability of pirated software, and the idea that piracy damages software availability in a direct way, help boost sales.
Zeta however, is an awfully small market..I’d be interested in up-to-date numbers if anyone has them.
edit for typos.
Edited 2006-08-12 20:10
yellow tab claims they have sold more copies of zeta than be did with all buyable releases combined. that means atleast 1million copies.
10^6 * 90€ != solvency problems.
Sadly Zeta/Haiku aren’t perceived as a platform right now: BFS could ‘give’ del.icio.us [integrate it and be a star!] and Apple TimeMachine [= HFS+ metadata + Backup API -> BFS + Backup API] in 1996. Q) Why integration or imitation isn’t happening yet? A) Too few people to write gimmicks (for).
I hope Magnussoft will be able to leverage the collaboration with Haiku on the critical parts of the system and use it’s game development experience to give the trendy style that Zeta needs to become a really visible option…
What Zeta actually need is more re-occuring revenue by merging with the company doing those games ports – they need to provide the whole kit; have an operating system, but also provide the tools for people to actually utilise the features on it.
>10^6 * 90€ != solvency problems
It is when PalmSource/ACCESS demand extremely high license costs to sell Zeta. I heard that yT were making peanuts on each copy of Zeta that was sold. They were barely breaking even.
The thing that must be remebered is, to produce Zeta you must pay developers. Developers would be earning something between $40,000 and $80,000 per anum. Add on support costs, licensing to GoBe, and all the other various costs such as marketing, promotional trips, Japanese re-seller ripping you off, Bernd writing off a company car, etc, etc and I’ll bet yT only really saw pennies of _real_ profit from each copy they sold.
#1 – Writing 1 million in exponential notation is retarded.
#2 – Assuming we believe their claims that they have sold over 1 million copies of Zeta and 90 euros a pop, I’m curious WTF is wrong with this company. If they *really* had 90 million euros (less expenses), they would be playing an entirely different ballgame. Right now they act like a company that might have a million in assets, not even cash. I’ve not been very impressed with the leadserhip behind this company either, so maybe that’s where this mystical 90 million went. It sure as heck didn’t find it’s way into product design/development, and certainly not into some fancy marketing.
In summary, either the poster discussing the licensing costs is correct, or yT is full of crap. I suspect it’s a combination of both.
I mean, seriously, a company worth 90 million who wouldn’t even say yay/nay if they had the source to BeOS? You’ve got to be kidding me.
“I mean, seriously, a company worth 90 million who wouldn’t even say yay/nay if they had the source to BeOS? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
YellowTab were NEVER worth 90 Million, if you’d bothered to read some of the above comments, you’d see why.. Zeta, after costs, licence fees etc barely delivered a cent.
Building and supplying operating systems is not a cheep thing to do.
Maybe you didn’t pay attention to my post, or even read my last two points.
Firstly, I quoted a poster above me..
Secondly, yT made very little money out of Zeta, if my sources are to be believed. The overhead of running the company and paying the royalties to Palmsource/Access KILLED all of the profit.
Yes they had the source. Having the source is what ultimately killed them. They ended up paying through the nose.
I think one can assume/speculate the following: (purely conjecture)
<speculation>
yT originally had access to source code from an illegal source. Fact. It is out there. The whole big wrangling and smoke and mirrors were originally to hide this fact. As some point they managed to license the code they had/more recent code from PalmSource. When they did this a whole heap of NDA’s and confidentiallity agreements came in to force. They then couldn’t tell anyone. I suspect PalmSource invested some money in yT (the mystery investor) but then demanded high royalties for licensing the code. ACCESS probably demanded for the agreement to be re-negotiated. This will be when yT went insolvent.
</speculation>
INAL. This is all speculation, but stranger things have happened 😉 Don’t quote this as being factual.. I just “invented it”. But I believe it isn’t too far from the truth.
memsom, I don’t know much about yellowtab, but you could really be a novel writer. 🙂
> I don’t know much about yellowtab, but you could really be a novel writer. 🙂
heh.. I was “reading between the lines” so to speak 😉
The article actually says that the games are going to be ported. Not that they have been ported.
So what is the latest estimate for a 1.21 release?
NET+ SEES THIS LINK AS SOME KINDA ZIP FILE,SEEMS FUNNY THAT A COMPANY DEALING IN A BEOS PRODUCT CAN’T EVEN HAVE A SITE THAT THEIR NATIVE BROWSER UNDERSTANDS
Why shouldn’t Magnussoft make a Zeta live CD/DVD with the game embeded in it? just like a console game. This way it would get a much wide possivel range of customer, and could possibly show of some parts of Zeta.
Just pop the CD/DVD and play..
Its a good start, but the company who has ported it needs to look further, and start porting other things to BeOS; for example, Windows Media Player formats/codecs so that people can play them on BeOS; sell them for a tocken fee of around $20 or so.
Another good one would be approaching companies like MYOB, Quicken, Adobe, Corel to see if they’re willing to licence the source code in return for royalties paid for each unit shipped.
For an operating system to succeed, there need to be applications AND games that appeal to atleast the average ‘power user’; once the ‘power user’ is happy, he’ll tell those ‘lower down the food chain’, and they’ll convert over.
Its a good start, but the company who has ported it needs to look further, and start porting other things to BeOS; for example, Windows Media Player formats/codecs so that people can play them on BeOS; sell them for a tocken fee of around $20 or so.
> I *think* ZETA already has ffmpeg with support for WMP formats.
Airline Tycoon is lots of fun – I am happy with that choice!
Being a strategy player myself, I would welcome Heroes of Might and Magic 5.
And do you guys remember those games ported to BeOS? There was Civ CTP, there were the Solitaire Collection or what’s-his-face, and there was a shooter which I forgot the name. What else? I just wonder if those ports could be resurrected and resold, once Zeta attains more gamer audience.
I have a few questions. Where would zeta be bought? And would I want to get 1.2? or do you have to buy 1.21 seperately?
And w00t for the games