Konami Live Online Game Controller

[prototector]

Hi.

Does anyone have or had the plug-n-play USB gamepad that Konami released in 2006? This site has an entry on it: http://www.rfgeneration.c...fo.php?ID=U-016-H-00280-A

You basically plug the controller in, the included executable connects to the Konami Live! website, where you would choose one of the 5 (later 6) games to play.

I'm very much hoping someone out there used this controller back when the servers were still operational, been scouring forums to get help with this. Trying to get more information on how it worked (such as how the games were run on users' computers), to say the least.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

bombatomba has a controller - feel free to PM him. He's active on the site.

[Izret101]

If i knew where mine was i'd sell it to you.
It is still sealed and kicking around here somewhere...

I never used mine obviously but if memory serves the games were just streamed.

[prototector]

Thanks a lot for the replies, guys

@Izret101 Actually I have a copy of this controller, and was fortunate enough to have played it quite a bit. The real issue is, since the games were stored on an online server, as you'd expect, the server was shut down sometime in 2013. My main concern is that the ports of the arcade games offered may be lost for good. So the  controller may be completely useless as a result; it's still being sold, usually still sealed, online on eBay, Amazon and the like.

I find the ports interesting as they're essentially the predecessors to the XBox Live ports, featuring the same graphical enhancements. Plus they were the XBox-free means of playing the ports (and a cheaper option overall, too).

When you choose a game to play, the Konami Live site creates an installation for that game on your computer, creating associated files, including an executable under the game's title. You'd think these executables contain the entire game data, especially when looking at the file sizes of most of the games' exe files (at least 2 MB). Yet Contra, which should be the biggest game of the featured 6 size-wise, has the smallest executable. More than that, running the executables today you'll most likely get a closed-in message stating that your temporary key has expired. Again, since the Konami Live server shut down, it's impossible to legitimately renew this key.

Many users of this product have said on various forums in past years that the games are downloaded (or installed) onto your computer. They most likely were referring to these installation folders.

One person, in an Amazon product review, said the games are downloaded to a temporary folder; however, the install files created are anything but temporary. So could he have been referring to another directory that temporarily stored the actual game data, or was he mistakenly referring to the same install files? Who knows.

So I guess what I'm getting out of all this is what I'd really like to know is:

How exactly were the games deployed to users? Stream/remote execution, or were they actually downloaded (temporary or not) to the users' computers? And what could the installed exe file for each game actually have?

@Shadow Kisuragi I will contact bombatomba; hope he's used this controller and may remember anything about it.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Based on best practices for software engineering, it was likely stored on your PC and validated via a DRM key off Konami's servers, as it would make very little sense to "stream" it in 2006 for such a simple, cheap controller. As for the EXE, it's just a code execution wrapper, so if it were small it means all the art assets were deployed separate from the EXE, as were most libraries.

The games themselves were likely the same versions as the Xbox Live Arcade games, so you can probably just compare the contents of the XBLA ports to see if they match up. It likely used the same concept of a "trial" for the DRM.

EDIT: Just from looking at footage, I can confirm it's just a port of the Xbox Live Arcade version, with the same button mappings.

[prototector]

Gah, I see. That would be really unfortunate, then, as most likely not all of the game files were stored in the same folder (ie, the installation one). The only thing that could possibly hold game-related data are the executables. So if each does not contain the entire respective game, it's probable that the games are long lost (which I'm strongly hoping isn't the case), as I'm not sure where they would have been stored on a user PC. If it was indeed a temporary folder, that may have been purged as early as the game session ending.

What I don't get is why all the other games, much smaller and simpler, have exe's at least twice the file size as Contra. Could they hold the entire games, while Contra is the exception where most assets were stored separately, and if so, why... who knows. Kind of makes you wonder what the larger file size serves for those other games when they all have the same "Live" features and nothing's exclusive to any of them. It is like every aspect of this product was just questionable.

As a result of the above, I unfortunately cannot really do any comparison of content. Plus, I don't have an XBox 360. The DRM key system is something created by a company called QiGo, which Konami employed for some of their other USB plug-n-play devices. The actual site that the controller would connect to was originally www.konamilive.com; that eventually redirected sometime in early/mid-2013 to konamiqg.oberon-media.com (qg being QiGo I would guess; oberon-media was the actual maintainer of the server, as it turned out).

Technically, the XBLA versions are actually ports of the games on this unit, since this was released before any of the ports!

[Shadow Kisuragi]

That redirect fails and redirects to iplay.com, which is owned by iWin, FWIW. Checked in the archive.org site, but it looks like you couldn't even access the konamilive website besides the front page without the controller. It was active up through September 2013.

Digital Eclipse developed the XBLA versions of all of these titles, and you can theoretically put the Classics X360 disc into a PC and read the contents to see if it matches up...

[prototector]

Unfortunately, yeah, that is the case with their website. After Oberon-Media was acquired by iWin in June of 2013, the Konami server was abandoned shortly thereafter and they changed the site domain to fully reflect Oberon's gaming division, i-play. I wonder how much of the material was archived and saved.

[prototector]

Small update: While requesting help on AssemblerGames, someone brought up the Net Jet plug-n-play, which was also powered by QiGo and Oberon Media. So it had the same premise of content provision, just a different physical setup and gimmick. I came across this very interesting and informative article on the product: http://www.thunderboltgam...tiger-electronics-net-jet

If the Net Jet is anything to go by, it seems that the actual game files were indeed stored on the server and were streamed to the user's computer, run via whatever is included on the device. That would really suck, then, as the only possible way to play these games again is if the companies restore the service. The chances of that ever happening....

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Well, that would make much more sense based on the price-point - there's no processing power in the controller itself. Considering it was powered by the same group, it likely used the same engine for the keys, but the keys were built-in to the Konami controller instead of offering a cartridge to accept a key. Sorry then...it looks like you're looking at an incomplete package there.

Most companies archive off their software for legal reasons, let alone commercial reasons, so it may be possible that Konami has the source for it stashed away somewhere... but, you'd be unlikely to get at it because Konami is trying their best to shoot themselves in the foot and destroy their company, and they have terrible customer support let alone partner support for other studios. The only likely way you'd ever possibly get at it would be to pay Konami for licensing a port of it.

You can see if the source itself is on the Oberon Media server somewhere, and just gated off by removal of the webpage/links, but that's the best I've got for a suggestion.

[prototector]

Well, that would make much more sense based on the price-point - there's no processing power in the controller itself. Considering it was powered by the same group, it likely used the same engine for the keys, but the keys were built-in to the Konami controller instead of offering a cartridge to accept a key. Sorry then...it looks like you're looking at an incomplete package there.

Most companies archive off their software for legal reasons, let alone commercial reasons, so it may be possible that Konami has the source for it stashed away somewhere... but, you'd be unlikely to get at it because Konami is trying their best to shoot themselves in the foot and destroy their company, and they have terrible customer support let alone partner support for other studios. The only likely way you'd ever possibly get at it would be to pay Konami for licensing a port of it.

You can see if the source itself is on the Oberon Media server somewhere, and just gated off by removal of the webpage/links, but that's the best I've got for a suggestion.

I couldn't have said it better myself. The customer support knew absolutely nothing about the product when I asked and just gave me a bunch of false information. They were most probably not willing to look up any information and just wanted to quickly dismiss my message as it didn't pertain to any non-gaming content or content from at most 2 months ago.

I think I'd have better luck with iplay/iwin, even though that's pretty grim, too. Now, my regret is that I never properly documented the Contra port from this gamepad.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Well, don't give up. If history is any indication, it may take you quite a bit of time, but there's always someone, somewhere that can get you what you need. You may want to contact the same group that was finally able to track down the Daffy Duck and the Great Paint Caper unreleased game for the Commodore 64, that was originally heard about after it was posted here by FatherJack:
http://www.retrocollect.c...recovered-a-released.html

[prototector]

Absolutely. If there's one thing I won't be doing, that's giving up on this. Need to stay positive I appreciate your replies and input.

Also, WOW at that Daffy Duck C64 game release! I've been wondering if that title would ever see the light of day, can't believe I missed that. Time to go digging for some information. Hopefully they find a build of Super C for C64 in the future...

[prototector]

Small update. Sadly, it seems that the Konami games really could have been archived with the right tools. I got in contact with someone who's shared a similar interest, but for the Net Jet. He also shares the exact same contrast in attitude between the content and content delivery. He managed to download and backup 150 mb worth of games associated with the Net Jet. So at the very least, the Net Jet stuff has been preserved.

My only hope now is to somehow get the current Oberon people to bring the Konami server back up. Haven't given up on this...

[Izret101]

I use to have a bunch of Net Jet stuff too....

Speaking of defunct digital exclusive stuff anyone interested in the piles of Swypeout stuff i have