Examination of Indrema Linux console

James Hills writes: "Linux gaming is a hot topic today. However, many problems still plague the infant platform, such as standards and a central company to enforce those standards. Indrema, a recently formed San Francisco Bay Area-based company plans to change this with the release of the Indrema Entertainment System (IES) by next spring." We mentioned the Indrema System last March, but its nice to know some progress is being made ... it looks at least less vaporous now.

Comments

I only care for one opinion: Loki's

[torpor]

What Loki does and thinks and says and produces for the Indrema is the only real thing I care about. The Indrema is a nice machine, it looks great on specs and it caters to a lot of my beliefs in the OSS ethos, but none of that matters a damn.

If Loki partners with these guys and says "yeah, we'll make games for it, and we'll give the SDK to make games for it a shot as well", then I'll be incredibly excited, and will be lining up outside Fry's or wherever the day these things go on sale.

If not, then it's gonna be a bumpy ride, for sure.

Haiku

[575]

Linux console, sealed,
Wireless net game connection:
Quake 3 at the pool!

This a good thing...

[cvoid]

Because it won't neccessarily draw the general public's attention to Linux, but will serve as a step in helping to make Linux a more apparently viable platform for console gaming, and anything else for that matter. It's almost like promoting Linux in order to promote Linux if that makes sense. Get a game machine, a _good_ game machine, out into the market using Linux, let us geeks see how good it is, and let the snowball effect kick-in. Who knows. Maybe a few years from now, all the console boxes will be running Linux...

I worked for a company for a very long time that is responsibility for a very well known and uqiquitous browser plug-in that actually used the browser plug-in to accomplish kind of the same thing. Before the plug-in, lot's of people used titles developed with thier authoring app but never actually new about them. Now, since the plug-in, almost everyone has heard of them. They give the plug-in away for free, and use the built-in advertising (conceptually, they don't actually display ads!) to leverage thier authoring tools. The end-result being very good, at least from a finacial standpoint. :)

All very clever, but

[seizer]

The fact remains that playstation, nintendo, and I suppose sega (yeah right) dominate the scene. Microsoft will make a big entry too, RSN, due to their marketing budget being able to push the X-box pretty well - and let's admit it, the X-box could actually be rather good.

Consoles, particularly Nintendo, are targeted at people who do not want to piddle around with the petty details - tell them they need to upgrade their GPU and they will look at you with a blank moronic stare before resuming their game of frogger (or whatever, so I can't think of any cool console games :-)

Maybe it'll go somewhere. But I doubt it.

--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me

Main advantage of Linux for consoles:

[hypergeek]

The sheer number of creative coders for Linux is one of its greatest advantages. Make a standardized Linux console system, create a (SDL/GGI/whatever-based) standardized game API, and even coders who have never used Linux will be flocking to the platform, simply because of the ease of entry, and the ability to reach large numbers of people with their offerings.

Of course, quality control may be a problem. One reason Nintendo is so successful is that it earns its reputation for quality by testing, testing, and retesting all titles (even those by third parties) before allowing their release.

It would definitely be harder to do that for a more open system.

On the other hand, nothing beats putting in the cartridge, turning on the console, and seeing a stylized splash screen boldly proclaiming, "This game is distributed under the GNU General Public License. Press 'B, A, B, A, Up, Down, B, A, Left, Right, B, A, Start' for details."

Re:Not seeing the Linux / console connection

[dbarclay10]

The article actually mentioned more than just games, if you didn't notice. They talked about MP3s, 50 Gigs of storage, and, what I was interested in, "video recording" :) TiVO, anyone? :) Now, all that OS cruft you mentioned(multitasking, virtual memory, etc.) are there because it makes for a more robust and versatile system. For just a second, imagine Sony goes bust. Look at all those games out there. Boy, if you could get them to play on your just-developed console, you'd have a great market available. All those people who still want to play Playstation games, but some new ones too. But, damn, you built the box too specifically - you'll have to redesign, but you're low on funds, so you don't. Just after you box's release, a competitor comes out with a console that can run their own games, as well as all those Play Station games. They whoop your ass. Had you, instead of building extremely specialized hardware and software, built a robust, extensible, and versatile system, you would have had the upper hand(or at least been on even ground).

Get the point? There are so many different things that could happen, too. TV Cable companies now start bundling free cable-internet access with your regular TV. Free of charge(at least for now ;). You send up an update to all your consoles(transparently, using its build-in modem to dial-up a 1-800 number), and voila, a whole heck of a lot of happy customers. Happy customers mean generous, loyal customers. :)

All right? :)

Dave