Codingstyle Interviews PS2 Linux Developers

Linux Freak writes "May 22 marks the official release of Sony's PS2 Linux kit in North America and Europe! To give you something to do while waiting for your package to arrive in the mail, Codingstyle has conducted an interview with several people in the PS2 development community, including two people from Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. (SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Ltd. (SCEE), as well as official kit and PS2DEV hobbyists."

Comments

Interesting

[RTFA Man]

While this interview primarily focused on development using the PS2 Linux kit, the official kit isn't the only way that hobbyists can involve themselves with the PS2.

Another method involves coding directly for the PS2 itself. This is known as PS2DEV. PS2DEV has become the keyword on the Internet to identify the home brew development community.

These are people that use open source, GPL & free software to develop programs for their vanilla PS2. PS2DEV is concerned with building the community and tools to make it easier for anyone to get started programming their PS2.

Re:Interesting

[Slynkie]

Seems like that's not exactly true, there are legal (NON-hardware) workarounds to do raw PS2 development...

At least, that's what this FAQ seems to indicate.

Still Cannot Create Your Own Games

[Ho Kooshy Fly]

This kit is all well and nice, but since Sony's copy protection exists for their custom DVDs it is all but impossible to play created games in normal systems. Obviously Sony wants to make money from the kits but what they really want is to make money for their games. Undoubtedly, they must feel that they lose more money from no copy protection than from more developers. Whether or not this is the case (it is probably is true), maybe a method for reading special DVD's for non corporate content should have been thought of. Oh well. Ho Kooshy Fly

Here's a mirror

[Mr. Spock]

I've put up a mirror on playstation2-linux.com. You may also want to check out the official site which is, of course, http://playstation2-linux.com

Re:Homebrew, MAME, etc..

[smart.id]

There are ports of MAME and other arcade emulators for the Dreamcast. Dreamcast can also read CD-Rs, and Dreamcast is $150 dollars cheaper than a PS2, and you don't need to pay more money for a hard drive or a Linux kit.

There are also lots of ways to code for the Dreamcast. (Windows CE, KOS)

Dreamcast also has VGA output in its own display output, therefore no other device is required to convert from NTSC/PAL to VGA. For more information: dcemulation.com

Re:not to be an asshole but...

[inkfox]

What would be the advantage of writing PS2 Linux game vs. a DirectX or OpenGL PC game as far as your hiring decision is concerned?

The benefits would be your having experience with the quirks of the hardware, and experience programming within a limited environment. Most applicants who have only had PC experience assume infinite resources and scads of pre-written libraries. Console code needs to be fairly lean, generally needs to bang on the hardware directly to get the best results, and generally doesn't rely on heaps of pre-written libraries.

Looking at your code, I can also determine whether you really understand the implications of the code you're writing. It's one thing when code is meant to be general-purpose, relying on the OS to translate everything into the most efficient formats. It's another when I can assume you should have had every opportunity to pick the right data formats and algorithms that work most efficiently on the given hardware.

On top of all that, the fact that you were interested enough to get a kit such as this one and make a game on your own speaks volumes about your dedication to game programming, and it takes dedicated people to make good games.