Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

60 Day Gamecube Development Contest

Posted by Zonk on from the development-cubed dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The site Cubehacker.com, a GC development page, is hosting a 60 day development competition. The goal of this competition is to boost interest in developing homebrew applications and games for this powerful little console."

26 comments

  1. OK by Apreche · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd love to, but where do I get development tools? It's the same problem with the Nintendo DS. I would love to make so many things for it to maximize its potential, but the tools are unavailable. Nintendo, its one thing to make hardware with capabilities for new amazing innovation in gaming, its another thing to restrict that potential by limiting access to development tools. If you let anyone who wants to make Nintendo DS games, the system will flourish even more.

    --
    The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
    1. Re:OK by xanderwilson · · Score: 3, Informative

      First rule shows the way: All entries submitted must be built / compiled with the unofficial SDK/Devkits made available by the development community!

    2. Re:OK by Paladine97 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Please visit my site for Gamecube programming information. It includes information on gc-linux as well as general Gamecube programming. I also have links that describe how to build a cross-compiler.

    3. Re:OK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      "First rule shows the way" That's the nice way of saying, "Read the Fucking Article."

    4. Re:OK by Boglin · · Score: 4, Interesting
      There are economic and historical reasons why Nintendo will never do this. As is well documented, Nintendo's main source of income isn't hardware sales, but licenses to use the platform. It's completely true that Nintendo would have more developers and probably sell a lot more units due to all the cheap games available. It's also completely true that AT&T could become the number one cellular provider by not charging for service; it's just economic suicide.

      The other problem is a matter of history and personal bias, so it may not be as certain as the economic issues. The big video game crash that killed the Atari, Intellivision, et al. was partially brought about by the fact that anyone who wanted to make a game could do it - even if they had bad ideas. The market was flooded with thousands of crappy games and it was difficult to find the true gems amongst the garbage. When Nintendo released the NES, the wanted to avoid those same mistakes and put restriction on what could be released for their platform. While the most famous examples are the company's notorious censorship, they also had debugging requirements. They even put a limit that you couldn't release more than six games a year. The result was that Nintendo flourished where others had fallen. Now, you could argue that modern games require such vast resources that the shovelware of yore is no longer an issue. However, considering that licensing was one of the ideas that brought the company to the power it has today, they aren't going to abandon it until after the ship has already sunk.

    5. Re:OK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nintendo isn't sponsoring this event. They'd just as soon not have it happen.

      Your appeal to them is as useless as similar appeals to Sony and Microsoft, whose stances on unsupported development are exactly the same as Nintendo's. The one exception here was that Sony once upon a time sold an expensive linux kit for the old-style PS2 (which was incapable of producing production-level games software), which no longer works with any current model PS2. And even that linux kit was just an attempt to try to market the console as a computer in Europe, only to avoid paying extra taxes linked to imported video game consoles, not to drum up homebrew developer interest.

      And if you look hard enough for platforms that DO support homebrew development, you'll find the GP32, which is a go-nowhere device. Given these examples, what real incentive is there for any console manufacturer to wholeheartedly support homebrew dev? After all, homebrew software might expand hardware sales (typicaly only a loss-leader anyways), but it actually creates a segment of the market where software sales are diminished - which is suicide in this industry.

      I think you should learn to love the independent hacking community and the laws that keep their activities legal, not companies who would first see your activities end than support you in any way. I say this as someone who buys games and prefers Nintendo games and platforms.

    6. Re:OK by Jagasian · · Score: 1

      Sounds like official Nintendo propaganda. The game industry tanked because of good ol' supply and demand. They simply supplied too much, while the demand couldn't match. Furthermore, as the computing power of the systems improve, so do video game sales. The NES could simply do far better graphics and sound than the 2600, which also helped sell more games and game systems.

      If open development really was a problem, then why haven't we ever seen the same problem with PC games? There was never a PC game crash.

      In conclusion, your post is nothing more than official Nintendo propaganda rehashed.

    7. Re:OK by Boglin · · Score: 1
      First off, I never intended to claim that that was the truth of the situation: I just said that that was how Nintendo saw the world and that it would be a cold day in Hell before they embrace an open platform.

      Second, you mentioned that the industry tanked because of supply and demand. Well, when Nintendo put the restrictions on the platform, they choked off some of the supply. From Econ 101, when you decrease the supply and demand remains constant, the price goes up and the number of units sold goes down. However, during the crash, the price per unit sold wasn't enough to recoup the expenses from designing a good game. Cutting off the supply increased the price enough that it was more economically feasible to make good games.

      Finally, as much as my inner Linux advocate would love to claim otherwise, open systems haven't had the best luck on the console. The 3DO was pretty open and we all know how that went. The system currently used as paragon of openess is the Dreamcast, which pulled Sega out of the hardware business. In the modern consoles, the XBox is probably the most customizable of the bunch but it's still lagging behind the PS2. Furthermore, Microsoft is looking eliminate the functionality which made the XBox so open in the first place with the sequel, so it's not like Nintendo is the only company that restricts development.

      As for why we haven't seen a crash in the PC game market, there's two differences there. With the console market, you had a console that existed only for games. The PC has a myriad of uses, so when there's a dip in the PC gaming market, people are still buying PC's for when the market returns. Furthermore, I would argue that the PC games haven't had a crash like the consoles did simply because, to the best of my knowledge, PC games haven't been as popular as the console.

      Now, I still believe that Nintendo has a lot of price fixing bastards who screwed over a lot of American customers. I think that their policies on censorship were pretty ridiculous. I even think that they usually do lock their system down tighter than the need have (from what I've read, the developer requirements for the N64 were just ludicrous). However, I also feel that there are some merits to Nintendo's arguments such that they should not be viewed as simple propaganda. I also don't see significant evidence that opening up the platform would bring more benefit to the company than it would cost them in headache. Now, my knowledge of videogame history is imperfect, so if there's some stellar example of an open platform stealing the show or if I'm wrong about the statistics of console game salve versus PC games, please correct me. Just don't think that I'm spounting off some Nintendo party line without at least putting some thought into it.

    8. Re:OK by MilenCent · · Score: 1

      Sounds like official Nintendo propaganda.

      Oh for the love of....

      Okay, sure, Nintendo spread this hugely pervasive meme, completely unsupported by fact, that console games were completely and totally dead before the NES came along, and no one happened to notice this while it was happening.

      The fact that I could, and did, buy Atari 2600 games for less than a buck each at local drugstores during this time, and in fact built up a lot of my library at this time, a couple of years before the NES saw U.S. shores, was just pure coincidence.

      It would be wrong to say that Nintendo does not have propaganda (what would Nintendo Power be?), but at least their propaganda is obvious and almost marked as such (the big word "Nintendo" in Nintendo Power's title). But if anyone has propaganda it'd be Microsoft, which has managed to spin its similar-to-Nintendo, far-behind-Sony sales into something akin to a tie with them. If Nintendo had effective propaganda they'd be doing that too, and obviously, they have not.

      The game industry tanked because of good ol' supply and demand. They simply supplied too much, while the demand couldn't match.

      This is not true, as even the best games couldn't sell at this time. David Crane's Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, an amazing 2600 game with polyphonic music and brilliant design for its time (almost an NES-style adventure game itself), was released on the heels of the game crash, and yet it is much, much less famous than the original Pitfall. Move the crash back a year, and this would have been the game to change the industry forever, and not Super Mario Bros.

      If open development really was a problem, then why haven't we ever seen the same problem with PC games? There was never a PC game crash.

      Maybe that's because PCs were still being used almost exclusive for business purposes back then? Even home computer games (Apple, Atari, Commodore) never reached the same market share that the 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision did in their heyday.

  2. duh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    linuxcube.

  3. Hope the contest finishes by Craig+Maloney · · Score: 2, Funny

    I hope the contest finishes before the next "Gamecube is dead" story hits Slashdot... whoops, too late. :)

  4. Substantial hardware investment required by tepples · · Score: 1

    Many GameCube owners can't afford to purchase either (BBA + PSO + subscription to PSO) or (Action Replay + SD Memory Adapter + SD writer for PC).

    1. Re:Substantial hardware investment required by Paladine97 · · Score: 3, Informative

      You don't need a subscription to PSO. I bought it used and have never be on their servers once. It is a rather rare game so expect to pay $40 for it used. The BBA can be found for as low as $20 new, probably a lot cheaper used on eBay.

      SD Memory adapter can be constructed with the correct parts and a bit of hardware knowledge. Total parts shouldn't exceed $10. SD cards obviously range in price based on their size. Action Replay goes new for about $30 but again eBay could probably be used for a better deal.

      So in the end you're looking at about $50 or so as an additional investment. The cube is $99 so it's not too bad in the long run. For XBox hacking you need the $149 XBox + $50 mod chip so the price for homebrew is comparable.

    2. Re:Substantial hardware investment required by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I bought [PSO] used and have never be on their servers once.

      Do the PSO tools, the SD card tools, and the compiler tools work well under Microsoft Windows 2000 or Microsoft Windows XP? I don't want to have to spend money replacing my PC's video card, scanner, and the rest of the peripherals with ones that work well in some distribution of GNU/Linux for PC. Or by "GameCube Linux" did you mean running most of the tools on the GameCube itself and having it mount my PC's hard drive over Samba?

      SD Memory adapter can be constructed with the correct parts and a bit of hardware knowledge.

      I'm a software guy. I'd love to learn more about hardware, but I don't have that kind of money for tuition.

      so the price for homebrew is comparable.

      Two problems here:

      • GBA homebrew is still cheaper, as the PC based emulators (VBA, no$gba) are reasonably accurate and run at full speed even on an entry-level PC.
      • There's a GBA compo going on at the same time. I would have to quit my job and forgo its income in order to have time for both GBA and GCN homebrew.
    3. Re:Substantial hardware investment required by mr_jrt · · Score: 1

      Indeed. I was quite fortunate actually, I got my copy of PSO and BBA off of eBay for £11.50 and £30 respectively.

      Did some playing around with the existing tools, but not looked at actually coding anything yet. I'm tempted by the action replay + SD card route though purely for the fact the software would be able to boot quicker....(though still not automomously as the disc lid needs still to be triggered IIRC).

      The SD adaptor is a piece of piss to manufacture, really (though I haven't got around to buying a nice PIPO SD connector yet to mount in an old memory card :) No ICs needed, its just a direct connection of the mem card's connector traces to the SD connector's.

      --
      Boo.
    4. Re:Substantial hardware investment required by OneHungLo · · Score: 1

      Yes, PSOLoad and SDLoad are both Windows-friendly tools. Also, devkitPPC is available for Windows using MSYS. You can get the latest version of devkitPPC here. (I posted it there since we couldn't access the Sourceforge repo at the time of release.) If you need some documentation, there is a Wiki project going on here for libOGC. The wiki is small right now, but we're working hard to get all of the lib functions documented. Any help with documentation is appreciated.

      Also, about the SD-Adapter, you don't need a lot of hardware knowledge to make one. The SD to memory card adapter is a straight 1:1 connection, so all that is needed is to connect the SD-Card connector to the connections on a memory card board, and to cut the original memory card traces.

  5. OK-Freedom's everything. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other words. Freedom isn't everything it's cracked-up to be.

    However I believe this contest is looking for more than just games.

    I've been thinking of turning the PS2 into a workstation.

  6. If you're not good enough for the Cube by tepples · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The problem with a GameCube competition is that the standard of production quality on a system with 3D capability is often too high for a project produced by an individual. That's why there's the PDROMS competition designed for simpler systems such as the NES, Game Gear, Genesis, Game Boy Advance, etc., where an individual project could still compete.

  7. WorkStation? by tepples · · Score: 1

    I've been thinking of turning the PS2 into a workstation.

    It's a playstation, not a workstation. Did the plans in this 1999 story ever pan out?

  8. "Crash" by tepples · · Score: 3, Funny

    There was never a PC game crash.

    Bull. PC games crash, freeze, lock up, etc. much more often than console games do because unlike a console, which is a piece of fixed hardware, a "PC" is a collection of components that poses a much more nebulous target for quality assurance. The fact that a console and its Licensed titles will Just Work(tm) keeps the console makers in business.

    1. Re:"Crash" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also PC users can accept patches, and bad QA on a game ultimately sinks the game, while the PC market doesn't quite work that way. Console QA is the ultimate, half-broken unfinished PC games (multiplayer coming later, map editor coming later, more levels coming later, bugfix coming later) is the norm. Maybe that's a feature, I really hate the hassle of it though and have switched to consoles exclusively.

  9. Microsoft Game Programming Contest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft is having its own game programming contest. They've created the board, and you have to program the creatures for it and see who's survives the longest. There's all sorts of prizes including XBox's. Here's the link.