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22 May, 2002 TransGaming is at it again. Stuff like this illustrates my main dislike of said company. TransGaming has a tendency to use blatantly false information to promote their company and it offends me. Here is their press release, with my corrections appended. TransGaming and Transitive Anounce [sic] Breakthrough in Cross-Platform Game Delivery Issued on Wednesday May 22, 2002 Los Angeles, Ca. TransGaming Technologies, in partnership with Transitive Technologies, unveil their game-porting technology that can allow Windows-based x86 games to be simultaneously released onto multiple platforms. These include the Sony PlayStation 2, Apple Mac OS, set-top boxes, PDAs and wireless devices. No it can't. It just can't. Now WineX can run on other processors, sure, but I can almost guarantee that Transitive's (admittedly impressive) technology doesn't translate WineX's X11 API calls into PS2-specific hardware interfacing. It doesn't shrink a game's graphics to 240x320 for use on a PDA, or chop 64MB off the memory requirements for a game so it can run on a settop box. What TransGaming says is now possible isn't possible without a "time-consuming overhaul of the source code." It's just not. Vikas Gupta, President and COO of TransGaming stated, "Our portability technology allows applications originally designed for PCs to run seamlessly and transparently on alternate platforms without the need for an expensive and time-consuming overhaul of the source code. What other companies can accomplish in two years of re-engineering, our technology can accomplish within two months." Gupta made this announcement to game developers and publishers at the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), here. E3 is the interactive entertainment event that annually attracts major interactive entertainment companies from around the world. Vikas is talking about Loki, Hyperion, and Tribsoft when he refers to "other companies." In a sense, these now-defunct companies were TransGaming's only corporate competition, and Vikas loves to claim the inferiority of their approach whenever he can. In reality, no Loki game took 2 years to "overhaul." This figure does not even closely represent reality. In fact, the "overhaul" of at least three of Loki's products took less than a week and a half. TransGaming has one product. They can't even begin to make a rational judgment on what a typical timeframe for finishing a game is using their process. People were waiting a long time for a few Loki products. These delays were almost without exception due to problems added by packaging games and interaction with other companies, not due to an inferior process. "We are delighted to collaborate with TransGaming to expand their product market," says John Graham, Transitive's President and CEO. "It is a clear example of how Transitive's translation and optimization product, Dynamite, allows developers to migrate content to other platforms, reducing their costs and giving consumers wider choice and access to content." TransGaming and Transitive have developed a technology that allows portability faster, cheaper, and better than anyone else. "Imagine being able to release an award-winning game on the PC, Mac, and PlayStation 2 simultaneously." Mr. Gupta remarked. "The solution leverages the large investment made in product development, marketing and content, while realizing deep market penetration for a fraction of the cost of developing for each platform independently. Now imagine taking games to set-top boxes, wireless and PDA devices." This is just more false propaganda. TransGaming's process is no cheaper and no faster than Loki's process, and Loki's end-products are vastly superior than TransGaming's, based on the general consensus of Linux gamers. Again, even with Transitive's help, WineX still won't run a PS2, a PDA, or a settop box without some serious code reworking. The press release goes on, but I don't have the stomach to point out any more logical or factual flaws. For the record, I use and am impressed with Wine. TransGaming has made unquestionably significant improvements to Wine, but I have chosen not to use WineX due to the empty propaganda spewn forth in every press release from TransGaming. I've spent the majority of my time as a Linux user dabbling with games, specifically native ports. I would like nothing more than to see a company succeed in putting out native games for Linux, but TransGaming's relentless attack of the native porting process and their false claims of superiority are not helping. You may not agree with my ideology, and that is fine. However, I strongly recommend that people not support TransGaming in their quest to destroy native Linux gaming.
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