There aren't a lot of entries this year, isn't it? Only four so far, the worst number of entries since MSX Dev 2003 that had only three (and was cancelled for that reason) :.(
With only 2 months and a half before the deadline, maybe the interest of the people towards the MSX software is fading away...

Maybe the people need a bit of rest of all the contests?
If you take the MSXArt of this year for instance, you can see that there was a low of entries this year as well...

Yeah, MSXdev'08 is being too quiet already... I will make a little personal effort with a donation to expand a bit the prize to 300 euro. Prize increase could help into catch the attention of developers. Perhaps it is just contestants that do not want to announce projects that can be inconcluded but they are working on them secretly... anyway, imho all MSXDEV Team work will be well-paid if we MSXers can enjoy just one brand new production thanks to the contest

I don't think raising the prize money will influence the entry count much. I (and some others I've talked to, for that matter) have the feeling that the general MSX activity is going downhill since a while. Fairs get empty and boring, competitions are left with relatively few entries (even when there are big prizes!). In fact I was even surprised that MSXart'08 ended with a dull amount of 3 entries, I mean: how hard can it be to do a bit o' Photoshop'ing? Meanwhile, have there been any announcements for that passionmsx2 contest?

There may have been too many contests, as FiXato mentions. I don't even think the contests them self are to blame nor are specifications to blame (just in case someone goes comparing MSXdev'05 with later editions where specs have been increased), but simply the fact that there is a deadline to match. I don't think that people, in these days with various responsibilities, are in favor of making deadlines. From my own experience I can say that deadlines are always too soon, you always miscalculate the time you have, and in order to make it you're going to rush things, only to eventually realize you're still going to miss the deadline. Anyway, 'no deadline' means 'no contest'. In a way, a pity. I always liked those deadline nights during MRC's Snowfall, Underwater and Bounce, where you kept F5'ing the browser to see new entries being presented. These days, deadlines pass without us even knowing it.

These are the days of chitchat and socializing with the select group o' people you know. And perhaps talking about the old days or about whatever is more fun than producing something MSX-related? Perhaps the most striking example of this is the fact that there were more people at the Chinese diner @ Nijmegen '08 than that there were Bussum'08 visitors.

We are getting old...
No more time for games

Wait please for the last two weeks of MSXDEV 08... don't you remember last editions with lot of last days entries?

Hopefully that'd be the case. Perhaps some forestalled projects from earlier editions will b finished this time. One can only hope.

There is not more to do or discover on msx computers. Plus limiting the competition on plain msx1 does not help, for sure....

Yep, I also miss some more developments on MSX 2.

Quote:

There is not more to do or discover on msx computers. Plus limiting the competition on plain msx1 does not help, for sure....

Which MSX1 developer says that????

I guess we are just spoiled in the last years. And there are too many competitions.
If I am not mistaken there are some other projects coming.......

The expression 'discover' is a bit vague here of course. I think we know all the tricks 'n ins and outs of the MSX. People are mainly discovering their own skills.

I'm sure there are tricks yet to be discovered but I doubt they would be significant enough to make any bigger impact on any productions. On MSX1, there has been a quite significant improvement in use of technology and also to some extent music and gfx. But as someone mentioned a way back there isn't really many at all productions yet that combines high use of technology, art, and good game design, so certainly there is still room to make an MSX game that will be better than anything previously made (I have a feeling MOAM could be that killer game )

On MSX2 I think there is a lot to discover / optimize / make better and even more on Turbo-R. Problem here is time, to make something really utilize the hardware resources to its maximum requires both a lot of skills and time.

I'm playing around with asm atm; so who knows.. maybe I'll be able to whip up some simple game too...

The MSX configuration specs are very low (VRAM: 16 KB, 128Kb rom, etc), it's not very stimulating. The specs should be MSX2, no max RAM limit, etc.

People,

There are already other competition for higher specs. But yet no entries anounced.
So feel free to enter that one.

But remember that the MSXdev is the most succesful one. And that is not because developers do not want to work with low specs.
But then again I'm a screen2 junkie

@fixato: Please do.