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TuxBox: Rising from Indrema's ashes
NoSony writes: "Kind of funny that LinuxToday gets a lot of the best NewsForge stories before Slashdot, considering I thought you guys had the same owners, but you ought to check out this one about TuxBox, which is a new project trying to do what Indrema failed to do - make a true open source console gaming system. I sure hope they succeed." Well, good luck.
Yeah, whenever someone fails at something, we should just give up on that thing forever. People don't seem to understand this.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Linux games pretty well lack the development effort thrown into Windows games, and my (lame) business sense tells me that it's because there just aren't enough Linux boxes out there.
Now, bear with me here, but wouldn't the same logic hold through if a Linux console ever made it to the shelves? The game support would be close to nonexistent, compared with even the few games available for PS2 at its release. Nobody would buy it, and nobody would develop for it because of the missing audience.
Sega, a company with a lot more than a foothold in the console business, is smart enough to get out before Microsoft and Nintendo both jump back in with full force. Sega had huge resources (well, not compared to Microsoft, but certainly compared to any open source console project) and couldn't make it work. Any new open source console could only dream (no pun intended) of the market penetration that Dreamcast got, but it still wasn't enough to ensure success. Why would it work for someone else without funding?
What am I missing here? Why would anyone think yet another console would succeed? Even worse, why do we get excited at the thought of it?
Pretend for just a minute that Sega was going to open-source the Dreamcast platform tomorrow. Would you start working on developing games for it? Are you more qualified than the leading developers? Do you think you could save it? Do you think anyone could? Then why start a whole new project from scratch without funding?
What's your damage, Heather?
All the GPL'd game code in the world isn't going to mean squat if you can't get artists and musicians. If AAA-game quality people can be convinced that working without payment is a Good Thing, then right on. Personally, I don't see it happening. I can imagine the conversation now.
Wannabe Game Developer: So you see, you should spend months creating content for my l33t game. It'll have lens flares and stuff.
Artist: Okay, lets talk rates.
Wannabe Game Developer: Oh, it's open source. You don't get paid, but people can take your art and use it in their games. Cool, eh?
Artist: Riiight...
"This computer is TUXBOX Level 1 compatible" If you see a sticker like that, you know that any TUXBOX Level 1 game will just run on that computer.
Here is a possible spec for TUXBOX:
128 MB of RAM or more
CPU chip of 600 MHz or over
Sound Blaster Live (any version: Value, Platinum, whatever)
any video card from a (very short) TUXBOX-compatible list
CD-ROM drive or DVD drive
Then a TUXBOX CD will load a Linux kernel, X, and anything else needed for the game. Then it will run the game. So, you can boot from the game, or boot from a generic TUXBOX boot floppy, and just play.
They should then make a TUXBOX CD disk that has about 30 games. This disk would boot to a loader that lets you choose which game. You should be able to play multiple games without rebooting. Any save game info can be saved on a floppy disk.
And, if you are already running Linux, you know you can just pop in any TUXBOX CD and play, without having to reboot.
If this were to happen, lots of small computer shops would burn TUXBOX CDs and give them away with the computers they sell. The computers would not even need to have Linux installed.
If the TUXBOX spec got some momentum going, they would have a small but nice revenue stream certifying computers as TUXBOX compatible. At that point, maybe someone would actually fund a company to make consoles.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Sure, Free linux games are fairly primitive right now, but the advantage of the GPL is that we never have to reinvent the wheel. Now that we have TuxRacer, anybody can go ahead and use the engine for a new racing game. If B&W gets open sourced, we'll have another great engine.
Okay, this is a long shot, but just because Free games haven't worked so far doesn't mean there couldn't be some potential advantages.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Probably not - the whole set of things needed to make this system run, and run by Fall (!) is probably an impossible task.
But... they have the potential to truly create something new and interesting - I thought the part about "He sees developing a freeware game for TuxBox as good resume fodder for those who want to work in the industry; developers will pay just a small certification fee as insurance that the games work properly with TuxBox." an interesting idea. I mean, how many wanna-be developers can get their hands on development kits for a Playstation 2, just to kick it around and see if they can get it to work? But if this Tux Box is truly open, anyone can tinker around and figure it out. It might - just might - lead to an interesting wave of independant console developers. Imagine having your cheap-ass game out for the Tux Box (you meaning your garage game making friends) that sells for around $10 - the "fame factor" alone might make it workwhile. And you wouldn't have the whole DirectX/weird graphic card drivers crap to worry about.
If nothing else, it could be an exercise in how Open Source development can actually make a better product, and I wish them the best. Heck, if it does everything they hope it will (without the MPAA and RIAA breathing down their necks...) I might even buy one.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The problem with these consoles is that they never really think much past making it open source.
Sure, it's great and all that it's running on linux, but why ELSE would I wanna buy your machine over someone else's?