First Step In DS Wifi Challenge Complete

josath writes "The DS Wifi Bounty Milestone 1 has been completed! (previously on /.) The hardware registers to use the wifi built into the Nintendo DS has been documented. This is a huge step, as this was done with absolutely no documentation on the hardware. Stephen Stair has received ~$1400 for this milestone, and is working towards getting the other half by creating a tcp/ip stack. Once a TCP/IP stack is implemented on top of the hardware layer, homebrew NDS developers can start using the wifi in their own apps/games! This comes before Nintendo has officially released any wifi-capable games."

Comments

Profit!!!

[n0dalus]

1. Buy Wifi chips from Company X
2. Save money by not paying for Company X's drivers
3. Wait for someone to reverse engineer Wifi chips
4. Develop games using free reverse engineered drivers
5. ???
6. Profit!!!

Re:A serious question

[Coeurderoy]

It's the business model stupid!

The gaming consoles are tools to sell games, their costs are subsidised and professional development kits are licenced to "authorized" developpers, this enables the game companies to control the market.
They do not want somebody to make a game that could potentially compete with theirs.

An amateur development kit generates a risk of loss of customer control for the editor, and this is insufferable for them.

Once upon a time I worked with a group that wanted (with the support of a very large UN funded NGO) to develop a literacy program for a cheap gaming machine.

After six month of trying to get to "the right person(s)" it was clear that there was "zero" interest in this, (in all companies).

Actually I personally strongly disagree with the "mod people", from my point of view it is similar to trying to be the slightly independent sidekick of the big bully at school.

If the effort done to enhance "closed" consoles would be put into creating "open platforms", we might have a much more diverse and creative ecosystem for kids (and other gamers) to play with.

Re:A serious question

[MadCow42]

What could Sony possibly gain from opening up the PSP hardware to homebrew apps? Sure, they may sell a few additional PSP's to the homebrew market, but they don't make any money on those anyways (likely they lose money).

They're much more likely to LOSE game revenue to freely available (or cracked) software than anything else.

Don't expect Sony to be happy or helpful with this. They have no reason to.

MadCow.