Help Us Expand the LaunchBox Games Database!

[AstroBob]

I posted an update about this last week, and then realised I'd posted to the wrong thread 🤦 Sorry about that, reposting my message below:

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Hi Folks,

I wanted to provide a quick update on this thread.

Behind the scenes, we’ve been working on a new method for adding platforms to the database. Previously, this process was quite manual and rigid, requiring direct database edits. However, we’ve been investing in a more streamlined front-end interface that allows for quicker and easier additions.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been testing this new system, and we just implemented a new platform using it as a trial run.

That platform is the Bandai Super Vision 8000

🔗 Games Database Link

It would be great if anyone could test adding this new platform to your build, as well as contributing some information and games to the database. This will help confirm that the new system is working as expected. If everything checks out, we’ll be in a great position to start adding platforms much more quickly, eliminating the bottleneck that previously slowed our progress.

Please let me know if you have any feedback on the new system. Hopefully, we’re on track to start adding many of the long-standing requested platforms soon!

Cheers,

[spycat]

The new platform Bandai Super Vision 8000 is working fine for me.
LaunchBox found all 7 games, created Database ids and pulled metadata and images.
Hopefully the console's image will be added to the Database.
 

[kurzih]

I can also confirm for cases where there's already an existing Bandai Super Vision 8000 platform in their launchbox built, works great!
I just made a search for media/metadata and it gave all the entries their IDs and also when editing the platform it had automatically selected the correct platform for scraping. And all data and images I had manually put there a long time ago are still intact.

Looking forward for more platforms!

[Fabio2598]

I'll try and set this up on my launchbox setup tonight. Looking forward to see Java added to the database

Edit: No Idea how to get retroarch to run these, but the database part works just fine, all 7 games showed up and the system popped up instantly

Edited February 5 by Fabio2598

[AstroBob]

Thanks for the update folks, glad to hear the database part is working correctly. 

Yes, right now it won't auto-configure retroarch and such, but there's the possibility to add that in the future. That said, there are a ton of systems right now that we have in the database and not all have configurations for RetroArch, some require you set them up yourself. I believe the Bandai Vision 8000 needs to be run through MAME, though haven't tested this myself yet. 

Will let y'all know when more systems are ready! 😊

[MrDeKat]

On 2/5/2025 at 9:08 PM, Fabio2598 said:

I'll try and set this up on my launchbox setup tonight. Looking forward to see Java added to the database

Edit: No Idea how to get retroarch to run these, but the database part works just fine, all 7 games showed up and the system popped up instantly

In retroarch, it should work with MAME libreto, but I haven't been able to get it working yet.

 

In case it helps you, it works in MAME if you add this code:

sv8000 -cart

To made it work is very important to save the file "sv8000.zip" in the folder "roms" inside the folder where MAME is installed.

Edited February 6 by MrDeKat

[Warped Polygon]

This is awesome stuff!! More platforms natively supported is excellent.

Are there any plans to tidy up or overhaul existing platforms? There's quite a lot of junk and duplicate entries, along with titles that are combined that should be separate, and vice versa. As redump and no intro have changed some titles over the years the DB doesn't catch all games in newer sets, as they've not been updated with the new possible title. Updating the images to be unified would also be awesome.

Do you guys have a dedicated guy with OCD on the database? Nudge wink!

[C-Beats]

11 hours ago, Warped Polygon said:

Do you guys have a dedicated guy with OCD on the database? Nudge wink!

Nothing diagnosed, but @MysterNybble has made comments about my... zeal... for data. There is a lot I'd like to change/improve in the DB. A lot of accuracy improvements and new data points entirely.

[Warped Polygon]

5 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

Nothing diagnosed, but @MysterNybble has made comments about my... zeal... for data. There is a lot I'd like to change/improve in the DB. A lot of accuracy improvements and new data points entirely.

I too have a... penchant... for data.

All the underlying stuff works great. It's more the entries themselves that get a bit messy over time. Are they maintained by the community, and/or is it someone's job to "look after" the entries and platforms on the DB?

The DB is the backbone for sure, and the best importer out there by like a mile But, I feel it can be made "perfect" if everything was a bit more uniform and definitive with the entries and images.

[AstroBob]

Hi Folks. Apologies for the radio silence on this thread — a few recent releases on our end have slowed things down a bit. That said, I want to reassure everyone that we haven’t forgotten about the platform requests that have been submitted.

The good news is that our initial round of testing with the new backend system for adding platforms has gone well, and things are looking promising. We’re planning to start expanding support to more systems in the near future.

In the meantime, to tide you over — and in anticipation of a little something happening on June 5th — we’ve gone ahead and added the Nintendo Switch 2 to the database. It’s still pretty barebones for now, of course, but we expect things to start filling out quickly once the 5th rolls around. For the moment, it’s mainly there for tracking purposes — especially for those who like to catalog their collections beyond just what's playable through LaunchBox.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as more platforms get added. Thanks again for your patience and suggestions.