From what I've seen there seems to be at least one emulation front-end/plugin for each of the most popular XBMC skins... so there is a good chance of having some great stuff released this year.

I always said that media centers were really missing a trick by ignoring games. Emulation is a good start. Videos and Video Game content... its what TV's are made for.

I see mention of a standalone app. Is this the goal of this site or will it be open in other aspects? I personally see a site like this (if data is consistant) being a steppingstone just like imdb.com and thetvdb.com has become.

I use XBMC "religiously" and know alot of scripters there are looking for a one-stop-shop for scraping game related information. Will this site deliver such a service?

Cheers

Standalone application is just a fun way to interact with the core website.

The 'symbiotic relationship' that TMDb has with various media centers such as XBMC is exactly what is going down for this games database.
That is why Niemann has been working closely with a select portion of developers to get the API as slick as possible.
That has been achieved so we are now focusing on wrapping up the front-end of the site.

Any update to the progress?

Not a whole lot, things are still cruising along. The only major public event has been the release of the first app based on the Archive. The app is called 'Mother Brain' and is an emulation add-on for Plex. You can find more information about it here.

There are a couple of other apps that are using the Archive, but most use Archive as a backup database instead of the primary database. Mother Brain is the first to use Archive as the primary database.

I've spent a couple days optimizing the API after identifying a couple of bottle-necks. Hopefully our web interface will be coming soon, and then we can start building the Archive community.

Any update on the progress? I'm still very interested and excited for it!

Thanks

There's been steady development but our day jobs and checking some peripheral details about the site slowed things down recently.

There is going to be a big big push this coming month to get things as complete, or near complete as possible.

We will hopefully be putting a holding page up soon and directing people to the site... from there you can sign up for a newsletter of sorts to be better kept in the loop.

Must...resist...urge...to ask...about...progress.

Hang tight. It's getting there.

I figured it probably was. I just like to prod.

Booooooooring.
How is it going? Anything new? What needs to be done?

Right now my focus is getting the new MacScene together (fingers crossed for this weekend). The new MacScene even includes some Archive-based features which is kind of exciting.

To give you an idea about Archive as it is now a few stats:

20+ Media Centers and Emulator Frontends integrate Archive in some way
97 Game systems tracked
42,990 Individual Games in the database
83,937 Individual Game releases (different versions)
341,009 Images in the database

And probably my favorite stat:

364,664 Calls to the database so far by over 1,500 different developers and testers

So even though we don't have the website complete, the database is already doing a lot of good out there. We're working closely with a couple of projects to do some really impressive integrations with the database in the near future.

Thanks for the update

Niemann wrote:


Any information which these are?

The majority are in current development. I'm not sure they'd be happy with me advertising their upcoming features. If any of the developers or designers of those projects happen to stop by this thread, perhaps they'll share.

It looks like I'll be on track for the new MacScene launch this weekend (sort of weird that a MacScene version is actually coming out on schedule). This update is pretty big and lowers the general maintenance on the site by an order of magnitude. Then the only item to work on will be Archive. Once we have a timeline for a launch, I'll put it on here.

Not mine. Though I've not asked (or been asked)...

Want me to ask?

Feel free, but as you may have noticed all my projects are pretty much on ice at the moment. Doing a degree at night in addition to a full time job has a way of limiting your development time...

There's an upcoming frontpage article in the works, but wanted to share this on the forums as well:

archive.vg/

It has begun.

Blue key get?

Lot of people have been telling me they have been revisiting the page and purposely putting in an invalid email address just to see the button animation and popover sound!

I find that randomly awesome.

Hopefully they aren't signing in multiple different email addresses to hear the Zelda chest sound... but that is preferable to the Duck Hunt dog laughing at you so... eh.