Developing for the Playstation 2?

Kentai asks: "Im thinking of building my final year CS project around developing a piece of software for the Playstation 2 and I am wondering what various pitfalls I should expect. Bringing our own software to the living room on nice hardware seems like a whole new computer medium that would be fun to exploit. Problems I am expecting so far include: issues like obtaining a compiler (pretty important), the whole Playstation 2 CDR issue and legal issues. What compilers can one use to develop PS2 software, and how much does each solution cost? Also, has anyone had any luck or placed any hope on a Java VM for this platform?"

Comments

From own college experience

[FortKnox]

From my own senior design projects, let me discourage you from designing a game. We (3 of us) designed a PC game that used DirectX7, used 2D graphics, sound, and was online only (no AI). After working and designing it all year, we could only get people on the screen fighting one another. The amount of work we put in was the most out of any of the projects.

I don't want to discourage you too much, but designing a game with graphics and everything is a huge task. Most people have no idea what they are getting themselves into when they do it, and it can pay dearly on the other classes you will be taking (I dunno about you, but the last year of college was the hardest classes, all requiring multiple programs to be done all year long). If you want to design a game, may I suggest something similar to a MUD or MOO? You can put more features into it, and people can have fun playing it. But getting a game working (with graphics) on a PS2 will require a ton of time, and a large team of people.

Re:From own college experience

[Rogerborg]

• I don't want to discourage you too much, but designing a game with graphics and everything is a huge task

Listen to this man. I spent a few happy years hacking Netrek, but when I actually tried to do a Master's thesis on an AI 'bot for it, I found that I had time to write the software, or to do the thesis, but not both. And that was on a small, well defined subset of a very mature 2D game, with no display component to worry about!

Further to that, I didn't learn my lesson and spent a frantic couple of years as a commercial games developer. It was a vertical learning curve, and the pressure and expectations were immense. I just wasn't good enough, and got out. Since then, I have coasted through a couple of corporate code monkey, using no more than half of the potential that I was expected to show every day as a games developer.

So hear this clearly: writing games is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a producer, an armchair expert, or a psycho uber geek. ;)

PS2 Coding

[white]

PS2 coding is *very very tough* if you want to get something that's fast. To get the best performance out of the PS2, you have to synchronise a lot of different hardware - it took us 18 months to get a decent engine written, and we're a team of experienced game coders. You have to understand that hardware backwards, and be aware of the various hardware pitfalls that exist.

It's a very, very, very difficult beast to code without using middleware, and that's expensive stuff.

He's right.

[EnglishTim]

It'll take you ages. Especially if you want to do it on a PS2 (even if you had access to professional tools). Especially if you've got no previous games programming experience.

If you're going to do a game...

a) Write it on a PC - much easier to debug etc..
b) Use as much middleware as you can - if possible, use someone else's engine.

I wrote a game last year called Hunt for the Red Baron in 9 months. I was the only progammer and I had an Artist and a part-time games designer working with me. We used Renderware and a load of our own libraries, and without them I'd never have had time to do it, and I'd already got several years of games programming experience behind me. Believe me, all that boring stuff to load in bitmaps, handle input, etc etc takes ages. Go for a existing engine if you can.

The other option is just to write an engine for your project and forget the game side of things, and just end up with a demo.

cheers,

Tim

Is this about game development?

[BluePenguin]

Wait a minute... is this even about games? He said "Im thinking of building my final year CS project around developing a piece of software for the Playstation 2 ... Bringing our own software to the living room on nice hardware seems like a whole new computer medium that would be fun to exploit." I'm wondering if the project in mind really is a game or something else? I'm not a PS2 guy, but if it (like the DreamCast) has a keyboard / modem (or NIC), couldn't you do things with it besides games?

Just a thought...
After all, isn't it just bits in the end?