Developing for the XBox and Gamecube?

An Anonymous Coward asks this timely question: "My first impression when seeing the new consoles was: Hey, the GPUs in those things alone are more expensive than the whole thing! Thinking some cool demos/ports (SDL on the XBox???) might show, I started to search the net for developer info. The XBox appears that it could easily run any Win32/DirectX program, however the executables appear to have to be signed by Microsoft (many other devices that requite programs to be signed often accept developer keys, where either the programs are locked to one machine, or a warning is shown before they are executed. I wonder if this will occur)... The GameCube on the other hand, is described by many and on Nintendo's overview as being extremely easy to develop for. I start to drool when I see the legendary PPC/ATI combination, but have found no developer information at all. Anyone have experience with either of these? (Also,I assume other OSs could easily run on the XBox, but a loader must be written, and somehow signed first.)" Which of the later generation consoles (PS2 included) would be easiest for a hobbiest to start developing for?

Comments

Signing

[MindStalker]

Well obviously, as Misrosoft gets licensing money from anyone who develops games for the XBox. Only Microsoft signed apps would work. Of couse the boxes that MS sells to developers would be able to run developer apps, cause well, how would the developer be able to run them! :) Good luck gettins one :)

Hacking

[JMZero]

Avoiding hackers seems to pretty much be stated goal for all 3 of these platforms.

Their logic makes sense. On a platform like the PS one, piracy was rampant. Even if a game checked for the CD somehow, the game binary could be edited to skip the check. With signed binaries, this becomes 4 steps more difficult for the hacker, and saves the developer the work of doing counter-piracy themselves.

To get a sense of how persistent hackers are (and how they're dealt with), check out the article on Gamasutra about the anti-piracy work in Spyro for PS one.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20011017/dodd_ 01 .htm (login may be required, I don't remember)

Pray for PS2 Linux...

[djohnsto]

Note: I don't develop on any of these consoles, but I'm a fairly rabid gamer and develop 3D software for the PC...

If you want to develop 3D software for one of these consoles, pray that Sony releases the HD/Linux add-on for the PS2. The official development kits for all of these run several thousand dollars. The hardware required to develop on the consoles typically comes with additional functionality that the retail systems lack (PC connectivity is the obvious one!).

As for ease of porting, the Xbox uses a modified version of DX8, the PS2 gives you an assembly manual (although I hear the Linux they released has an OpenGL implementation), and the Gamecube is unknown to me (although I would guess an OpenGL-like proprietary library). My guess would be that software developed on the PS2 version of linux would NOT run on a regualar PS2. This is similar to the PS1 based Net-Yarozee (sp?).

All three console manufacturers make money by software licensing sales. Making it easy for any developer to write and sell software without paying any to them would definately not be in their best interest!

Playstation 1 was popular because it was hackable.

[james_moriarty]

It seems to me that when piracy is rampant, a system (or game) flourishes. Examples: Playstation 1 was easier to coax into playing burned games than its competitors, and it won the market. Quake II had almost no copy protection software and it was *very* popular.. even after better games (such as HalfLife) came out. Record CD sales have been observed despite "evilz of mp3z". And finally, IBM-compatible computer beat out the technically supperior Macs..

Dreamcast

[phaze3000]

As well as being the cheapest to purchase, the Dreamcast is the best next-gen console to program for. There's plenty of programming info out there, here's a few links.

http://mc.pp.se/dc/
http://dcdev.allusion.net/
http://www.boob.co.uk

The GameBoy Advance is also rather lovely to code for, although it does require special hardware to get started..

Re:Dreamcast

[ameoba]

The problem with coding for the DC is that, yes, you can buy a new machine for a hundred bucks, but if you want to run code on it you'll have to:

1) build a special serial link that'll run you something like $20-30 (slow)

2) burn a CD every time you want to test your code

3) shell out another $100-150 to buy the broadband adaptor (ie an ethernet card) from ebay.

Not to diss the DC as something to work on, as that was my original intention, but I had some cash-flow problems during the month where the BBAs actually sold at retail price. At least I have Soulcalibur, Shenmue and THPS2. +)

Re:My fear...

[Rick the Red]

Oh for gods sake, what is microsoft going to do if they establish market dominance?

The same thing Atari, Coleco, Sega, and Nintendo did when they established market dominance.