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Gamepro Talks About Indrema
Amigori writes "Gamepro has this article about the upcoming Indrema console. Its a basic article, but it does a decent job of explaining the system in an easy to read way." Talks about how they are expecting hackers to take apart the box (unlike the ZapStation: I asked about this at ALS and was told that they are doing stupid things like encrypting their file system, despite the fact that it is super cool and runs Linux and screams "Hack me Hack me!" and hackers would just love to rip that thing apart and make it better. The next generation of Linux devices is going to be interesting: the ones you can hack (Tivo and Indrema) and the ones you can't (may they see the light)
Plus any other cool things people figure out how to make it do. That's one of the upsides to the hackable part.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
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But if you can do all these great things you speak of, why haven't you?
I think that unlike novels, a lot of people don't have a good game inside them, but a derivative re-hash. I have a little list of games I'd like to written in my copious spare time, and they're mainly conversion/rewrite/revamps - networked, shiny Paradroid 90 for example, and the obligatory Elite-done-right. That said, I like Paradroid, so for me that'd be a good game. It'd probably piss off a lot of 'modern game' fans though.
Actually competing with the big boys at the technical biggest-fastest-prettiest-FPS-engine game is hard work, but coming up with an interesting game concept isn't easy either. Ones the perspiration and the other the inspiration that, err, that guy talked about (edison?).
And another thing...3DStudio Max? Did you buy that or did you steal it? Last I checked it was around $4000.
Doesn't appear to be out yet, but 3d Studio gMAX will be a free, game-design-oriented version of Max, aimed at the modding communities. Even without that, I believe an educational Max license is considerably less that $4000.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I want to buy one, and the other geeks in my office want to buy one. While this straw poll falls somewhat short of a statistically valid population (:-), I think it means that there is a market for the Indrema.
So, if supporting the community is your goal, I guess I'd advise that you stock it.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Gotta agree with this one. People who post here
A) Are willing to pay 50 bucks to help out a small company doing something cool with Linux.
B) Have 50 extra bucks to spend.
A vast, vast majority of consumers do not fall into both of the above categories. Also throw into the mix the fact that by the time Indrema ships in "late spring", both the X-Box and the GameCube will be firmly sitting in the minds of all gamers.
I own a PS2 and love it. My next major purchase will almost certainly be a GameCube. I love Linux on my PC. On my console system, I love professionally designed games.
-B
In 1937, the Lensmen observed "What Science Can Create, Science Can Duplicate".
Why not just do that with your PC now?
Your TiVo shouldn't crash. Usually a crashing TiVo is the first sign of a failing drive. Ours has gone for months without a problem, as has 3 or 4 other people's I know. My friend's TiVo would crash every so often...and then the drive just died.
runs Linux and screams "Hack me Hack me!"
I hope it has a volume control or something...
Just another coder...
"[...]no support at all for 3D graphics[...]"
While I agree with many of your other observations about Linux' shortcomings as a gaming OS, that one just plain isn't true. Support for 3D graphics under Linux, through the magic of OpenGL, is actually pretty good--and getting better.
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
When this comes out, I am going to buy one and burn a CD with as many emulators and games as I can stuff onto it. That would be worth having it alone I think, to be able to play everything super nintendo and below on it, maybe playstation, maybe nintendo 64.
Also, I bet companies like Loki want to see this happen, simultanious (spelling?) releases of games for both the console and the PC. And they already have alot of games that could be ported with little effort.
And the best part... open source game projects! oh hell yeah.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
That may be the irony of the Indrema if it ever makes it to market: its hackable nature may, in fact, turn it into anything *but* the hackable console that Indrema thinks it will become. It'll be hackable, yeah, but it won't be a gaming console: it'll be a webserver appliance or MP3 appliance or internet radio.
I mean, there's nothing worse than hacking something the way that corporations (TIVO, indrema) *want* you to hack it. It's much more fun to come up with something odd.
And it's especially fun to come up with something both odd and irksome to the companies that produced the hardware. LOL.
But one thing I've noticed with hacking (and mind you, my own "hacking" has been limited to TIVO and I-Opener) is that the desire to hack a particular appliance only has a limited half-life. I've got an iOpener gathering dust and no desire to go back into the case of my TIVO and do more voodoo with the serial port and PPP.
Indrema may suffer this lethargy once it reaches market and attains a critical mass (which may, admittedly, take a while): the hackability desire will wear off very, very quickly and everyone will be left with Indrema paperweights -- or Indrema consoles used, as mentioned above, as web servers or MP3 players or hard frisbees.
Regardless, my prediction is this: Indrema won't make it to the marketplace, period. Nor will ZapStation, BTW.
Me, I'd buy the ZapStation right now -- right this minute -- but I notice no press about it, nothing new and/or tantalizing on the ZapStation website, and no advance word leaking forth. I suspect it'll be like the TIVO -- warm and fuzzy and inspire a ZapStation army and a cult of fanaticists -- but it's taking way too long to get to market. It oughta be on sale right now -- right this minute -- and I oughta be able to go to the website, purchase it, and have it shipped 2 day FedEx. But, alas, I think it, too, will be vaporware. Sorta like that 3D card from Sweden that everyone talked about right as the GeForce was coming out -- a year and a half ago -- I forget the name.
Ah well. The web is a magical thing. Lots of space to talk about technology that will never make it past some smooth-talking CEO's PowerPoint presentation.
probalby the biggest argument against indrema and its open source approach to gaming is that individuals, regardles of how motivated, cannot compete with the high production cost of big studios. I believe this is argumant is failed and about to be put to rest.
I'm just a regular guy with a PII300, 128MB of ram and a TNT2 card. In spite of this i can have 3ds MAX run fairly well on my system, create complex 3d worlds and characters and choose and run any programming language i desire and come up with a cool 3d engine and a story. hell, i can give my system to Carmack for 2 months in a deserted island and you'll see what production value is..
my point is, you only need big studios for pre-rendered, motion captured scenes, and i can certainly live without that. a good game, good enough to compete with today's greatest, can still be a garage game, i guarantee you. motivated individuals can conceive and program entire worlds using good 3d software and programming skills, everything else is the story, gameplay and experience, and these can't be bought.
the days of commander keen, wolfenstein 3d and why not, wing commander I are not over yet...
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
1- i haven't done those great things because i'm just a good programmer, not a great programmer, much less a game programmer. this doesn't mean there aren't any great programmers out there who would make good games, just like there are great programmers out there that decided to write samba and apache.
2- the copy of 3ds max that i have was downloaded off of warez. i'm not ashamed to say it. i use it to satisfy my own personal artistic needs (stress relief they call it), and if i were to profit from it i would probably have to buy it (although reluctantly). in that case $4,000.00 would not be a high price to pay compared to what good 3d scenes go for nowadays.
3- didn't you read the article? guess you were busy flaming the world. developing for indrema would cost as much as developing for linux: $0 plus tax. you pay if you sell your games, you pay if you want the technical certification.
4- indrema is not something i already have: there are no good standard (or widely used) APIs for game development in linux. and if i wanted to make games for directX on the windows platform, i would be restricted to closed everything. indrema gives you standard hardware/software and promotes a game development community through their website and overall cool attitude where you can share textures, game engines, ideas, characters, etc. you can also collaborate with games that are being developped much like you can do today with open source and free software projects.
5- and as i write this post, i realize what indrema is already giving me. like i said i'm no game developer, but i can come up with pretty pictures and efficient 3d meshes of my own. that qualifies me to participate in any open source game out there! and you said indrema is something i already had? no way! wouldn't it be cool to have your monster design make it to quake 7? i'll leave it at that.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
"We will support the digital rights management system to the Nth degree."
Digital rights for corps but not for consumers, of course. Sorry John, you've just lost a customer.
So if Indrema either dies after it's launched, or doesn't quite make it that far, would it be possible that they would release specs, plans etc. for the hardware, allowing some enterprising person (or just some great hacker) to start putting them together themselves?
This would be a good solution to the problem of obsolete hardware that you can't get any more (how many of you have old NES games around, but your systems are broken?) Also, the Indrema seems like it might be a great way for budding console game programmers to hone their skills -- and a completely open system might even further that.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The problem with Indrema is that they aren't doing anything unique. The are putting PC components in a nifty box. Anybody can do this. Ok, so they are putting linux on it. Thats cool, but there isn't anything unique about that either. If they get it built, I'm sure the Linux hacker (is that bad word) will buy them, but with out a distribution channel they have no way of competing with XBoX and PS2. Don't forget that the XBoX and PS2 hardware will be and is heavily subsidized. E.g. its the Razor/Razorblade model. Sell the HW cheap, make money off the games. If a consumer has to pay $400 - $500 for an Indrema box then why buy an Indrema box instead of a PS/2 or XBoX? E.G. Whats the business model? How do people make money working with Indrema? If there is no answer to this, or the answer is cruddy, then Indrema is destined for listing on fuckedcompany.com
Jibe!
I have not read the article but the one thing that gamers are always concerned about when you start to hack a system or a game is cheating. The other thing they may be concerned about is that the thing that makes a console special is that the people writing the software only have to write to one set of hardware and they know what that hardware and the OS driving that hardware is. Now having looked at GamePro a couple of times I'm going to guess that they don't understand the whole OSS peer-review type system and are assuming that the games will be more or less closed source. This would mean that my you and me fixing the machine they then have to rewrite everything to take into account our changes forcing people to rebuy games etc etc. They are wrong but I can see how they would see this as taking away the one advantage a console has over a PC.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Out of all the developers for the Indremeda, especially the 'garage developer', how many will go ahead and make a linux PC port to their game? And if not, how soon does an open-source game get ported to a linux PC once it comes out? What is my advantage to getting an indremeda, when I already have a linux box??
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Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I do hope it truly is hackable. i think this is a wonderful idea especially for RPGers like myself who can write new plots, characters, monsters, dungeons..
Just like people hacked their char's in Diablo I??
Keep in mind, hacking a game has its ups (new plots, better monsters), and downs (invincible players). Imagine what 31337 B1FF would do to it...
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Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Further, consoles are the worst thing to hack. The whole ideal behind a console is that the hardware is in a fixed state, that all games can take advantage of the fact that all the users have the same hardware, and can tweak the game to take advantage of that hardware (as opposed to, for example, the many different hardware configurations a game like Unreal Tournament for the PC must handle). If you take apart the console and modify it, you are breaking the whole principle of making it a console in the first place.
Computers, Tivos, they all make sense to hack. Consoles, VCR's, Toasters, there really is no point.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Here's my real issue-
/. whiners say, "We wouldn't hack 'em if they just built it the way we wanted them to in the first place" But they couldn't start a business if they built the boxes the way some of you would want them. (and I'm guilty of this too, to an extent. Dangnit, I want ethernet in my TivO from the factory!)
We love to hack these boxen, be they net-pliance's, TiVOs, etc., and the companies either tolerate it (TiVO) or revolt (Net-Pliance/Digtal::Convergence).
We can't reliably predict which Indrema or ZapStation will do.
Just because they use our beloved Linux, it doesn't mean that they share our ideals and support our curiousity in making the box do new tricks.
In fact, in the article, ZapStation plans to secure their box so that it will be very difficult to hack. Indrema plans to use every measure of digital management systems to protect the DVD content, and content of the games, even though no such management system exists at this time.
We also know that many users will want to disable macrovision/digital management/other methods of copy-prevention, and make divx/mpeg4/(insert codec here) copies for *possible* legitimate playback on linux desktop systems. (I say possible because honestly, there is some chance that people will do it to make backups of content they already own, some for the satisfaction of their curiosity, and some will do it to violate copyright law.)
But when these boxen do become widely available and the first thing we do is hack them to pieces, we run them out of business.
Many of
I only wish that we resist the urge to break open the seals that ZapStation and Indrema choose to place in their boxen right away, that we support them by using them as they intend us to, and support them for using Linux.
Let's not hack them out of business like we did to Net-Pliance.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
I think a clever programmer will come up with a solution. One potential solution that I see is using memory cards like you get with the playstation and such. This could potentially even work with things like the playstation to work around the upgrade limitations of a ROM rather than a cartridge (which could potentially contain updateable chips.) I would think that there would be a way to store some small bugfixes on the little memory cards and have a place at bestbuy you could go plug in your memory card and have them update the bugfixes, then have the CDROM first check for that information before loading the game. I may not be describing it in the best way but I think you can get the picture. Of course, the disadvantage to this would be the same as computer software. We'd get console games that are extremely buggy and don't work well and the companies would rather release them early and make bugfixes later so they can make more money up front.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
None of the big name console manufacturere make more than a small percentage of the games for their platforms. What they do is charge the games' developers for the SDK[?], and/or charge them a royalty on games sold.
What Indrema will be doing, according to the article, is making the SDK available for free, charging developers for a "technical certification", and charging royalties on non-freeware games.
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The most valuable commodity I know of is information. - Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
they not only don't have titles yet, they haven't chosen a definite video card and no definite CPU...
.02
They have several "prototype models".. If they are going to be released in Spring 2001, they better get their asses in gear..
I may be wrong but it just seems to fishy to be real. They are either not going to make their deadline (which is almost a definite) or they aren't going to do it at all.
Just my worthless
I haven't seen this addressed in depth anywhere, but how does Indrema expect to make it? I'm all for choice and competition but the console market is pretty tight right now. Console makers survive today on game sales and licensing while actually losing money on sales of the systems themselves. Why would a developer want to develop on Indrema? Sega, Sony and the like attract developers by the user base they create. It's a well known fact the PS2 is difficult to develop for with it's 3 graphics processors (difficult to harness the full potential of them all simultaneously that is), but when you are almost guaranteed a user base of 1+ million in a few months you will make money with any Pokemon rip-off you create, no matter how poor the quality might be. I just don't see how Indrema expects to be heard over the shouts and fighting of Sega vs. Sony vs. Microsoft vs. Nintendo.
Nah, I tried that once... Evidently it's still illegal to booby-trap your consumer products. What the hell is that about?
The Linux connection is a red herring. Nobody, except a particular group of geeks, cares at all what is beneath the hood of a console, especially in terms of system software. Yeah, Linux is cool and all that, but it needs to take a seat in the far back of the theatre is this case, lest we all start defending really lame games simply because they run on the Indrema.
The "open" angle of the Indrema is something that is being overhyped. Open is good, yes, but consider how few decent games have been developed for Linux. Linux is the perfect platform for amateur game developers. All the tools--OpenGL, gcc, gdb, various libraries and toolkits--are free. You can get a GeForce 2 based graphics card for $129. You can get a very capable TNT or TNT2 based card for $50-$80. But we're seeing very, very little from indie game groups. Little enough that I wouldn't expect to see *any* independently developed pro-quality games for the Indrema.
Therefore, the game developers will be able to sleep at night because most of the user base will have the standard configuration, and the ones who don't will probably be doing optimization of their own. If the hackers fuck up their console enough that some games don't work, then it's their own damn fault and they shouldn't have played with something they couldn't fix.
But this Indrema system sounds quite adaptable, which will hamstring the game develepors attempts to tweak and optomise. Surely an unhackable system would be more sensible from the consumers point of view?
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
I suspect more than the titles are vaporware.
... I just don't have the time to support the site or the game, so, farewell, and thanks for all the memories, and here -- take this -- my code. Maybe someone can figure it out and do something with it.")
Indrema is supposed to be available in *late-spring* 2001?
And they're not yet touting their 3 "hottest" titles?
It doesn't make sense to me. They're touting all the linux goodness -- and that's fine, don't get me wrong -- but linux goodness by itself doesn't make the cheese log a cheese log.
It's the content that makes everything smacking good and cheesy, and if they're pushing simply linux -- and the ability to "make your own stuff with our SDK" -- well, that's all well and good, but who wants to wait 3 years for some lame half-finished Quake I wannabe? ("Here's my new game done by Gilbert Wannabe III; I haven't yet finished the rendering engine, but I'm releasing it as open source in the hopes that four or five other people across the globe might want to take a look at my spaghetti mess of code and, well, maybe finish out my game. I'm a wanna-be MOD author, but, ya know, college is getting in the way, and my grades are way down, and I
Those Indrema folks, they oughta wake up and smell the gouda.
So we thought about this convoluted anti-hacking strategy and that one. But you know what? Once you put your hardware on the market, it's in the hands of the enemy. No matter what you think up, some wise ass kid in Sweden will figure out how to break it in a week and a half. And once the solution to the problem hits the net, there may as well be no security whatsoever on the box for all the good your months and months of anti-hacking engineering efforts do.
Of course, your Dilbert-esque pointy haired bosses aren't going to be able to grasp that, so the anti-hacking measures will continue to be engineered. Personally, I think my idea of planting a thermite charge on the motherboard would have been the best deterrent they could have come up with. Too bad they didn't want to go for that. I guess Swedish wise ass kids' hands getting blown off when they open their boxes is just bad publicity...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
At Tux Games we have been debating if we should stock the Indrema and its games. Whilst we are a Linux based games company, the Inderma is a Linux based console for gamers.
What opinions do people have? Should we stock this for completeness of range and support for the community, or would would people prefer we remain purely a company selling games to use on basic mainstream Linux systems? If you have an opinion please drop an email to comments@tuxgames.com
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
I like the part that says "may they see the light." Here's a valid argument that someone could use when arguing about "unhackable" Linux devices: simply recall id Software's games Wolf3D and Doom. Wolf3D was released just like any other game at its time, but something strange happened shortly thereafter: folks started hacking the game and coming up with level editors and stuff. Instead of suing those folks like most game companies would have done at the time, the intelligent authors of the game used this to their advantage and made tons of money from this game. (Kids wanted to modify the game, so they had to get a copy of it.) When Doom and Doom II were released, I think they actually released specs that gave hackers some idea of how the game data was stored. Doom and Doom II were so successfully that for a time, most other games were judged relative to them. Furthermore, id released the source code for Wolf3D and, later, Doom. I highly respect them for that reason -- that is, because they realized that giving someone knowledge doesn't take it away from you. In fact, in most cases, it will help you.
-NGH