Indrema Corporation[1],also known asIndrema Entertainment Systems,was a consumer electronics company famous for the Indrema L600 Entertainment System, a game console intended for independent game developers.
 Company logo. | |
| Indrema Entertainment Systems | |
| Industry | Consumer electronics Video games |
| Founded | January 2000[1] |
| Defunct | April 6, 2001 |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Officially founded in 2000 byJohn Gildred,Indrema's goal was to create avideo game consolebased on commonPChardware and theLinuxoperating system. The console would have been the onlyopen sourceconsole on the market, as well as the only modern console to allowfree softwareto be written for it. An early developer unit was featured runningQuakein the Indrema booth at LinuxWorld earlier in 2000.
The console was expected to be released by the holiday season of 2000, which was later delayed into Summer 2001 or later. Those subscribed to Indrema's mailing list received a "top ten" list in the style ofDavid Lettermanin anticipation of the launch announcement, making fun of its competition.[2]
After being unable to raise enough capital to mass-produce the console, Indrema shut down on April 6, 2001.[3]In his last Indrema chat session, Gildred revealed that the company needed more than $10,000,000 in capital in order to continue and gave the following advice to the next video game startup: "finish product before talking about it."
L600
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TheL600,also known as the Indrema Entertainment System,[1]was to be a Linux-based game console/computerand was in the process of being developed by Indrema until they ceased operations in April 2001. Besides game play, it was also to be aCD player,DVD player,web browser,andTiVo-like video recorder.[4]It also would have been anMP3storage device.[4]
Had the console been released, it would have cost US$299[5]and would have had 30 games available at launch. It would have had 64MB of system RAM and 96MB of total memory.[4]Its storage was a 10GB hard drive (which could be upgraded to 50GB) and its games would be onDVD-9discs andCD-R.[6][4]It would have hadHDTVsupport at resolutions up to 1080i.[4]Indrema would have let regular end-users develop their games via their development kit, unlike other companies, which charge more than $10,000 USD for their kits. It would allow the user to upgrade theirgraphics processing unitvia the "GPU Slide Bay", and had anx86-based processor running at 600 MHz, which was later upgraded to a 750 MHzAMDDuronprocessor,[6]and itsGeForce 3GPU[6]would have been able to process 120-180 million polygons per second.[4]
There was little hope for the L600, however, as its speculated release date of Summer 2001 or later was after the launch of Sega'sDreamcastand Sony'sPlayStation 2,and very near or after the release of Microsoft'sXboxand Nintendo'sGameCube.The Dreamcast and GameCube had launched at considerably lower prices, and PlayStation 2 and Xbox at the same speculated US$299 despite having bigger budgets and less advanced hardware than the L600 was supposed to have, leading to doubts. It was just one of many independently developed systems that would be unable to take consumer attention and spending from more established, previously mentioned companies already in the market.
See also
editExternal links
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- Indrema Informer- includes technical specifications and a list of links to Indrema-related news articles.
- Next Generation (magazine)Lifecycle 2 Vol 3 #4
References
edit- ^abcd"INDREMA FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - Version 1.2".Indrema.com.2 November 2000. Archived fromthe originalon 2 November 2000.Retrieved11 December2023.
- ^"Top Ten Reasons To Save Your $$$ and Buy an Indrema - Indrema Offers Alternative to Hard-to-Find PlayStation 2".Indrema.com.Archived fromthe originalon December 10, 2000.RetrievedDecember 18,2023.
- ^"Game Company Closes Its Doors".TWICE.30 April 2001.Retrieved30 April2021.
- ^abcdef"Howstuffworks.com's" How Indrema Game Consoles Will Work "".23 January 2001. Archived fromthe originalon 2001-01-23.Retrieved30 April2021.
- ^Hills, James (17 June 2001)."Linux Gaming with the Indrema Console".GameSpy.Archived fromthe originalon 2001-06-17.Retrieved30 April2021.
- ^abcKendrick, Bill (15 May 2011)."www.newbreedsoftware.com/bill/indrema/specs/l600.txt".Indrema Informer.Archivedfrom the original on 2011-05-15.Retrieved11 December2023.