MAME Ported to (Chipped) Xbox

metallik writes: "A version of MAME for the Xbox game console has just been released. This release will only run on Xbox consoles equipped with a mod chip. MAME is the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, one of the more successful open source projects out there. It emulates over 3800 arcade machines, from Space Invaders to Mortal Kombat III, many of them perfectly. This is probably only the first of many such PC software projects to be ported to modded Xboxes. At $199 (plus modchip), the Xbox will soon be an extremely attractive set-top box (if not for the reasons Microsoft wanted it to be...)" A while ago, we posted about getting MAME to run on a developer-kit Xbox, but since mod chips are now available, this sounds like a more practical approach. Update: 06/23 18:40 GMT by T : Note: Thanks to Santeri Saarimaa for a note that the project is now hosted here instead.

Comments

Kinda sad, in a way

[Junks Jerzey]

I'm always sad to see that the excitement among hobbyist developers always seems to involve porting emulators for old arcade games. Yeah, I love those old games too, but I'd much rather see some kind of real grassroots game development movement emerge. The stuff posted to linuxgames.com is depressing for the most part. Here we have a powerful, free operating system and development tools, something thousands of times more powerful than what early game designers had in 1980, and yet all we can do is write emulators for those games.

not killing them - on the contrary

[Tom]

Even if it's true that M$ loses $150 on every xbox sold, they won't care much. They've calculated losses of a few billion over the first four or so years of xbox business, so they're definitely in it for the long run.

Now, what helps you most in the long run? Market share. What will hacking the xbox so that mame runs on it do? Hm, how about raise it's market share because a couple thousand /.'ers run out and buy one?

M$ lost money on windos piracy, too. They didn't give a damn until they had the monopoly, then they started cracking down on people with the BSA squad.

They won't attack the mod chips or the mame porters. Not just now and not for a while. Once there's an xbox in every house, then the gloves will come off.