To answer one of your questions, I am here because I am interested to read about the real progress that is being made with the Natami, I look forward to seeing it released one day, and I do appreciate people like yourself are hard at work making sure it happens, thank you for your part in that.

I'm not trying to act like the thought police, but rather trying to help people be realistic.

I remember the massive Natami thread on AW.net that Gunnar started after he saw the C-One based prototype for the first time, and there was a mixture of excitement and derision. I spent a large amount of time in that thread trying to keep people who liked the idea optimistic about the project, not just by asking the naysayers to cut the project some slack, but also by steering people away from making ridiculous claims that were fuelling the derision. I know this was appreciated because I was offered a place on the team by Gunnar, that I politely declined as I didn't have the technical knowhow to help fully.

The arcade market is different now than it once was, sadly much more conservative than it once was. The NeoGeo hardware had impressive longevity, boosted by the classic games found on the hardware, but it's achievements would be even harder to replicate today. I'm a big fan of arcade gaming so I think it would be cool to see a Natami-powered arcade game, but a brand new arcade smash would be even harder to replicate than releasing a new console, I can't think of a single example of a popular new arcade series released in the last 5 years.

Just out of interest, what level of graphics would you say would be enough to compete? Yes, graphics isn't the be-all and end-all, but there's a reason SNK moved on from NeoGeo hardware. As far as I know, boards like Sammy Atomiswave are entry-level arcade boards these days, which is similar in hardware to a Dreamcast:
EXTERNAL LINK  Do you seriously expect Natami to compete when it's released, bearing in mind the Tami chip isn't going to be finished right away and the hardware costs are higher? I like Natami, but I like it for what it is.

Why do I bother saying all this? I think its easy for ideas in this forum to be thrown around without much thought of practicality. Yes, the dev team (including yourself) are hard at work making stuff happen, why not let our ideas flow from that work rather than imposing our high demands?

But this is a opinion, because the X7 would have a thick layer of hardware abstraction.
and running a game on the Natami would practically run on the bare metal of the machine.

That is why i have this opinion, I Think this team could make it happen.

As for a Arcade version unless someone would make the actual board for it i don't think it would happen.

(Though I was thinking of arcade-type games, there really aren't many actual arcades around.  There is however still a market for stand-up machines.  There is a single Ms. Pac Man in town that I can think of three locations it has been installed in.  Currently it is sitting in a sandwich shop beside an X-Box running arcade ROMs illegally via MAME.  I guess the guys that own the place have a lot of idle time.)
 
  Anyone remember Sega's portable multi-game systems that were tested briefly for use on planes?
 
  (Have been following this thread with much interest, but would prefer to listen to those who are more informed on these matters...)       
 
 
 

All the cabinets from Pac-man till time crisis are in storage and the owner sells them.

Much of the older hardware is beginning to fail, just like a amiga.
And much of the original components are no longer available.
That is why i personally think since the Natami goes for Amiga compatebility, and a lot of cool games came out on the Amiga. (1+1)

And then the return to the realm of 68K CPU's would improve the situation significantly.

And then if the Tami would be able to beat a PS2 in GFX or would be upto par with a better graphics machine (insert drool) these are all plus points.

Anyhow I am currently the fool they ask to maintain and fix the machines, its time for something new that can support the old. (read 68050)

I prefer an indirect aproach geared at least at first toward a more niche market.  I lov arcade games an Amiga and will be making arcade games using the Game developnig software that Gunnar is making.  The great benifit of this developing "kit" is that the games can be exported for most popular systems, so theres no risk of investment in making games that are limited to Natami owners.

BUT, once I and others have made more than one really high quality arcade game and Natami hardware is a reality, it would be relatively easy to explore creating an arcade cabinet wit ha natami board and thee games.

IF the games become popular on the huge platforms like PC nd Xbox, AND we make it known that the only way to get the deluxe (feature added version) of these games is to either purchase a Natami OR find one of thenatami arcade cabinets, it could start to generate interest in Natami becoming not only a reborn and enhanced Amiga, but also, the spiritual sucessor to Neo Geo.

I have also pledged to release all of the (deluxe feature addd) games that I will create for free to all Natami owners. (hopefully even bundled in.

This wont hurt my wallet as due to the game creating software that Gunnar and Natami team are working on, I'll still b able to sell the versions of my games on all of the BIG markets.

Once there are awesome AND popular games running on Natami Arcade systems(even only in very few locations), AND the game authoring tool kit is known by many inghe indy game making industry as a very easy and powerful set of tools to make. (AND we donate several excellent game engines to build off of, like SHMUP, side scroller, fighter, etc...)  Maybe then we can start to get some mainstream and even japanese atention for the hardware itself... but NOT just the hardware based purely on its own horsepower.

I used to be one of those people who checked Aminet every other day in hopes of finding a new game or demo.  When I finally gave up on the Amiga as my primary system, I started looking into indie development and homebrew.  It's amazing how many nice little games have been made for PocketPCs, and other "dead" systems like the Dreamcast and even the Jaguar.  But that's nothing compared to the hundreds of games made for the Amiga over the years.

I'm not trying to distract the Natami team or argue for features that aren't consistent with the overall plan for Natami.  What I am trying to do is present less obvious uses/markets for Natami.  There are probably only a few thousand people left in the world who would give up their Linux/Win/Mac to go back to the Amiga, no matter how advanced said Amiga might be.  If everyone who ever owned an Amiga bought one, that would certainly be good from a sales perspective.  But it wouldn't necessarily guarantee that application and game development would resume as before.

By now, anyone who still cares about the Amiga has probably heard about the Natami and the x1000.  If Natami is to thrive in any way, it will require an influx of new users who have never touched an Amiga before (ie. people who were born during the 32-bit era). 

People do tend to make homebrew for systems that were once considered viable and then, for whatever reason, were discontinued.  This is mainly because consoles tend to employ numerous mechanism to lock out 2nd party development.  Systems that don't discourage homebrew, such as the GP32 handheld, have managed to attract a nice community of users.  Those are the same people I really see taking to the Natami.  It's reasonably powerful, doesn't restrict the user to writing to various APIs or libraries, and won't have the content approval or licensing schemes of a console.  (Attracting these people is part of the reason I'd prefer a wedge design rather than a tower.  I think Natami would do better if presented as a gadget and not as an alternative computing platform) 
 
I don't think that 3D performance is really an issue, as the cost of developing modern 3D titles is one of the factors frequently cited for the demise of arcade titles, so I'd expect most Natami arcade games would be 2D based anyway.  (Though personally I prefer 3D to 2D for most things)

I'm in the states...  Are Megatouch machines just a US thing? 

http://images.google.com/images?q=megatouch&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

But I'm sure our Natami comunity will grow into constant original game developement with the best versions of the games being specific to Natami.  This will bve an excellent step in the arcade cabinet direction.