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)

Comments

Re:Games

[StoryMan]

I suspect more than the titles are vaporware.

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 ... 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.")

Those Indrema folks, they oughta wake up and smell the gouda.

Hacking Devices

[Greyfox]

Up until recently I worked at a Satellite TV company that was designing a set-top box which would run Linux. A major concern was that users might rip the hard drives out, download the HD Mpegs to their hard drives, and post those HD episodes of Dharma and Greg on the Internet. Or upgrade to non-company sanctioned hardware. It was explicitly said that they didn't want users to be able to do that.

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...

Community Question

[michaelsimms]

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

...

[rice_burners_suck]

Hi folks,

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