I discovered the Pico-8 a few months ago, and have absolutely fallen in love with this project! I realize the intentions of the creator were to make a simple and comforting console for people to enjoy, but I can't help thinking that Lexaloffle doesn't really understand how important a Pico-16 would be to the gaming community as a whole.

Having the ability to create new games with slightly better capabilities would be absolutely game-changing (pun intended). I can just imagine how many designers would build amazing new games and even bring classic games back to life with a tasteful remaster. Unfortunately I don't think that would ever happen with a standard Pico-8, because the specs simply don't allow for this to happen. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the games that are available on the Pico-8 (as well as the limitations), but I can only imagine what a 16 bit version might look like! I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that a Pico 16 would make for the perfect fantasy console of all time!

the problem with slightly better capabilities is that it’s a slippery slope! there’s always going to be someone else coming and asking for just one little more thing. it never stops, and in the end you don’t have pico-8 or pico-16 but just a generic 2D engine. you can remake 16-bit games today with libsdl + sprites editor + map editor + chiptune tracker!

on the other hand if you only change it a little, then people are still unsatisfied and you don’t have a strong reason to have another console after all.

other people than zep have done other engines or fantasy consoles, there’s a long list of them, with a couple somewhat successful and many more not.

the zen of pico-8 is to see that the limitations are a big part of its success (+ overall design + bbs + community), not problems to be fixed. this is worth watching a few times:

that said… have you heard about picotron? it is a new console by zep with many differences from pico-8 including higher capabilities!

I do agree that it can be a slippery slope, but I don't think it's impossible to come to some kind of compromise. Some would even argue that the Pico-8 is a compromise itself, so a Pico-16 sounds more like a natural progression of the idea.

I've actually heard a lot of users (and YouTubers) who support the idea of a Pico-16, so I've put together a basic spec sheet that most people seem to agree on.

Ratio: 256x256 or 512x512
Sound: 8 channels
Size: 256 or 512k
Colors: 24, 32 or 48
Backwards Compatible
Possible Mode 7 support

I think most people would be satisfied with these specs, and I don't see how a potential Pico-16 would take away from the Pico-8 in any way. Both of these consoles would offer something unique in terms of experience, so they could easily exist side by side.

That being said, I hope this is something that the company will consider doing in the future, because I believe the possibilities could be endless.

• Oh, and I have seem the Picotron before, but I don't think that really fits into the category that I'm referring to. I'm thinking more like an upgraded Pico-8 for those who love the 16 bit era (not necessarily for 3D gaming).

Picotron isn't "for 3D gaming" by any means, and it's got pretty close specs to the very ones you suggested for a possible Pico-16. Perhaps you were thinking of Voxatron instead of Picotron?

I did mistake it for the Voxatron, but I still don't think that the Picotron is what people are looking for. I don't know much about it, but it doesn't appear to be a fantasy console, but rather a fantasy workstation. Speaking for myself, that's not really what I'm looking for. I'd much prefer a genuine successor to the Pico-8 console.

It's pretty unlikely that something like this happens as a Lexaloffle product. I guess this idea is distinct from both PICO-8 and Picotron, but the gap between those two products isn't that wide, which I think would make this effort hard to justify for a one-person operation. Also, Picotron was in development for years before release, so even if work started right now you could be waiting a while.

If you want this to happen, your best bets are probably:

1. Figure out a small, tightly-scoped set of Picotron feature requests that would let you get the experience you want on that platform. The larger the number and scope of your requested changes, the less likely they are to happen.
2. Build it yourself, or work with another community to build it. If you really care about specific specs and aesthetics, this might be the way to go.

the «workstation» aspect of picotron is that we can make windows, little desktop widgests, animated wallpapers, have programs send data between them, and other nice things

but! none of this is mandatory. we can still just use the built-in editors and make a full-screen game, with the default resolution and palette. internally it’s called pico-64, but you could argue it’s closer to a pico-32 (≈ sega saturn)